For Williams could never keep clear of the stables, and could never refrain from nagging when he got there. Deposed he might be, but not yet defeated even by old age, as grooms knew to their cost. The tap of his heavy oak stick in the yard was enough to send Jim and his underling flying to hide currycombs and brushes out of sight. Williams needed no glasses when it came to disorder.
“Be this place ’ere a stable or be it a pigsty, I wonder?” was now his habitual greeting.
His wife came bustling in from the kitchen: “Sit down, Miss Stephen,” and she dusted a chair.
Stephen sat down and glanced at the Bible where it lay, still open, on the table.
“Yes,” said Williams dourly, as though she had spoken, “I’m reduced to readin’ about ’eavenly ’orses. A nice endin’ that for a man like me, what’s been in the service of Sir Philip Gordon, what’s ’ad ’is legs across the best ’unters as ever was seen in this county or any! And I don’t believe in them lion-headed beasts breathin’ fire and brimstone, it’s all agin nature. Whoever it was wrote them Revelations, can’t never have been inside of a stable. I don’t believe in no ’eavenly ’orses neither—there won’t be no ’orses in ’eaven; and a good thing too, judgin’ by the description.”
“I’m surprised at you, Arth-thur, bein’ so disrespectful to The Book!” his wife reproached him gravely.
“Well, it ain’t no encyclopaedee to the stable, and that’s a sure thing,” grinned Williams.
Stephen looked from one to the other. They were old, very old, fast approaching completion. Quite soon their circle would be complete, and then Williams would be able to tackle Saint John on the points of those heavenly horses.
Mrs. Williams glanced apologetically at her: “Excuse ’im, Miss Stephen, ’e’s gettin’ rather childish. ’E won’t read no pretty parts of The Book; all ’e’ll read is them parts about chariots and such like. All what’s to do with ’orses ’e reads; and then ’e’s so unbelievin’—it’s aw‑ful!” But she looked at her mate with the eyes of a mother, very gentle and tolerant eyes.
And Stephen, seeing those two together, could picture them as they must once have been, in the halcyon days of their youthful vigour. For she thought that she glimpsed through the dust of the years, a faint flicker of the girl who had lingered in the lanes when the young man Williams and she had been courting. And looking at Williams as he stood before her twitching and bowed, she thought that she glimpsed a faint flicker of the youth, very stalwart and comely, who had bent his head downwards and sideways as he walked and whispered and kissed in the lanes. And because they were old yet undivided, her heart ached; not for them but rather for Stephen. Her youth seemed as dross when compared to their honourable age; because they were undivided.
She said: “Make him sit down, I don’t want him to stand.” And she got up and pushed her own chair towards him.
But old Mrs. Williams shook her white head slowly: “No, Miss Stephen, ’e wouldn’t sit down in your presence. Beggin’ your pardon, it would ’urt Arth-thur’s feelin’s to be made to sit down; it would make ’im feel as ’is days of service was really over.”
“I don’t need to sit down,” declared Williams.
So Stephen wished them both a good night, promising to come again very soon; and Williams hobbled out to the path which was now quite golden from border to border, for the door of the cottage was standing wide open and the glow from the lamp streamed over the path. Once more she found herself walking on lamplight, while Williams, bareheaded, stood and watched her departure. Then her feet were caught up and entangled in shadows again, as she made her way under the trees.
But presently came a familiar fragrance—logs burning on the wide, friendly hearths of Morton. Logs burning—quite soon the lakes would be frozen—“and the ice looks like slabs of gold in the sunset, when you and I come and stand here in the winter … and as we walk back we can smell the log fires long before we can see them, and we love that good smell because it means home, and our home is Morton … because it means home and our home is Morton. …”
Oh, intolerable fragrance of log fires burning!
XXIII
I
Angela did not return in a week, she had decided to remain another fortnight in Scotland. She was staying now with the Peacocks, it seemed, and would not get back until after her birthday. Stephen looked at the beautiful ring as it gleamed in its little white velvet box, and her disappointment and chagrin were childish.
But Violet Antrim, who had also been staying with the Peacocks, had arrived home full of importance. She walked in on Stephen one afternoon to announce her engagement to young Alec Peacock. She was so much engaged and so haughty about it that Stephen, whose nerves were already on edge, was very soon literally itching to slap her. Violet was now able to look down on Stephen from the height of her newly gained knowledge of men—knowing Alec she felt that she knew the whole species.
“It’s a terrible pity you dress as you do, my dear,” she remarked, with the manner of sixty, “a young girl’s so much more attractive when she’s soft-don’t you think you could soften your clothes just a little? I mean, you do want to get married, don’t you! No woman’s complete until she’s married. After all, no woman can really stand alone, she always needs a man to protect her.”
Stephen said: “I’m all right—getting on nicely, thank you!”
“Oh, no, but you can’t be!” Violet insisted. “I was talking to Alec and Roger about you, and Roger was saying it’s an awful mistake for women to get false ideas into their heads. He thinks
