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Page 111
You will learn many things before you reach home, and amongst them how
to loosen the straps which gall your shoulders.
Big Ben Kelham walked slowly, with his eyes upon the faint track of
little feet which had moved in a circle, and not once did he look
behind, else would he have seen the smoke of the burning tents. He
moved slowly, not because he feared or because he did not want to run,
but because he knew, and wanted time in which to reason with himself,
to decide if he had the right to take the joy which was waiting for him.
He stood for a moment with his hands in his pockets, the strong,
silent, lovable man that he was, and shook himself just as a spaniel
does when it comes out of the water. He had been nigh to drowning in
the depths, and out of his pocket, to be lost for ever, had fallen the
jewel of youth; but somehow he had managed to scramble to the bank and
to pull himself out, and he made a step forward and swept the horizon
to see if his journey was at an end; then hesitated--remembering.
He stood quite still and looked at a slender figure wrapt about in a
mantle of gold which stood some distance off, with hands outstretched
toward him and with beckoning finger. And the wind, with a laugh,
lifted the veil from her face, and dropped it, and lifted it again, and
swept the mantle so that it clung to the slender, supple figure, then
spread it out behind like gleaming wings.
She put one finger to her mouth, and opened wide her eyes of knowledge
shaded with the fringe of tears, which come from pain, and just as much
from joy.
"Follow me," she whispered, and the south wind seized upon the golden
tones, and flung them to the west wind, and to the east, and to the
north wind, so that the message was carried right across the world:
"Follow me--I am Hope."
And he plunged his hands still further into his pockets and scrunched
up some keys and small change and a most cherished pipe, just out of
gratitude, and walked on.
He found her; in fact, he would have seen her ever so much sooner if
she had not been lying face down on the sands, with her head buried in
her arms. He did not hasten, knowing that the whole of his life
stretched before him in which to heal her hurt. She did not hear him
because he walked lightly, as those delightfully big men do; and he
stood over her, wondering how to rouse her without frightening her, and
frowned when a little sob shook her.
Then he smiled.
Strange is it how, in the very middle of the most dramatic situation, a
little thought will push open the lid of its own little brain-cell and
creep out to touch our risible nerve. It really ought to know better,
because empires and marriages and business contracts have been upset,
if not lost, on account of its freaky humour; and it twisted the
corners of the man's mouth into a distinct smile as he involuntarily
thought of the drizzling November afternoon when Damaris, in brogues,
tweed skirt and mackintosh, had announced her intention of going out to
join in some demonstration which had to do with the upholding of the
rights of her fellow-sisters, and had only been dissuaded therefrom by
the opportune arrival of tea and muffins.
Little Damaris! Just one of those women who creep right into the
hearts of men on account of their gentleness and apparent helplessness;
who are born to be put into a glass cupboard before which those who
love them spread themselves like door-mats; who rule with a rod pickled
in their apparent helplessness, which is stronger than a whip of steel,
and who are quite closely related to the barnacle and mollusc to which
the tide regularly brings tit-bits out of the ocean, whilst the more
mercurial eel has to go out and thresh about in the mud for what it
requires to keep it going in its fight for life.
Anyway, the eel has the advantage of getting about a bit!
Then the smiled faded, and he knelt, because he could not stand the
sound of that little sob any longer, and he put out his hand and
stroked her hair.
"Damaris, darling, it's I--Ben!"
She stiffened under the shock of the words, and flung her hands over
her head.
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