A. S. M. Hutchinson

“ Ay, and sacrifices, Hapgood. Immolations. Offering up of victims. No thought of those who cannot pay the prices. Pay the prices, or get them, or go under. That's the new God's creed.'
"I said to him, 'What's the remedy, Sabre?'
"He said to me, 'Hapgood, the remedy's the old remedy. The old God. But it's more than that. It's Light: more light. The old revelation was good for the old world, and suited to the old world, and told in terms of the old world's understanding. Mystical for ages steeped in the mystical; poetic for minds receptive of nothing beyond story and allegory and parable. ”

“ About his eyes and forehead Sabre apprehended something suggestive of the mystic, spiritually-occupied look that paintings of the Huguenots and the old Crusaders had; and looking at him when he came to say good-by, and while he spoke solely and only of his mother, Sabre remembered that long-ago thought of Young Perch's aspect,—of his spirit being alighted in his body as a bird on a twig, not engrossed in his body; a thing death would need no more than to pluck off between finger and thumb. ”

“ But Lord Tybar was now looking away behind him to where the adjoining meadow sloped far away and steeply to a copse. In the hollow only the tops of the trees could be seen. His eyes were screwed up in distant vision. He said, "Dash it, there's that old blighter Sooper. He's been avoiding me. Now I've got him. Nona, you won't mind getting back alone? I must speak to Sooper. I'm going to have his blood over that fodder business. Blood! My word! Good!"
He twisted the mare in a wonderfully quick and dexterous movement. "Good-by, Sabre. You don't mind, Nona?" ”

“ Oh, Sabre, Sabre!"
He dropped his right arm and swung it by his side; to and fro; over the fender—over the fire; over the hearth—over the flames.
"My Harold. Never to see his face again! My Harold."
He stopped his swinging arm, holding his hand above the flames. "He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him; for God is love." He opened his fingers, and the crumpled letter fell and was consumed. He pushed himself up from the mantlepiece and turned and went over to Twyning and stood over him again. He patted Twyning's heaving shoulders. "There, there, Twyning. Bad luck. Bad luck. ”

“ She was again the one to speak, and her tone was rather abrupt and high-pitched as if she, too, were conscious of a long silence and broke it deliberately, as one breaks, with an effort, constraint.
"And how's Mabel?"
"She's all right. She's ever so keen on this Garden Home business."
"She would be," said Nona.
"And so am I!" said Sabre. Something in her tone made him say it defiantly.
She laughed. "I'm sure you are, Marko. Well, good-by"; and as Derry and Toms began to turn with his customary sedateness of motion she made the remark, "I'm so glad you don't wear trouser clips, Marko. ”

“ He had carried away Sabre's thoughts as a jet from a hosepipe will spin a man out of a crowd; smashed into his preoccupation as a stone smashing through a window upon one deep in study; galloped across his mind as a cavalcade thundering through a village street,—and the effect of it, and the incongruity of it as, getting his bicycle from the office, he rode homewards, kept returning to Sabre's mind, as an arresting dream will constantly break across daylight thoughts.
Nona had said that Tybar knew she thought often of him. "He knows I think of you." ”

“ Sounds of some one descending the stairs at break-neck speed were heard, and the chorus shrilled, "Papa, take care! Papa, take care! Papa, take care!"
Mr. Fargus's grey little figure came terrifically down the last flight and up the hall, a cloud of female Farguses in his wake. He ran to Sabre with hands outstretched and grasped Sabre's hands and wrung them. "Sabre! Sabre! What's this? Really? Truly? War? We've declared war? Well, I say, thank God! Thank God! I was afraid. I was terribly afraid we'd stand out. But thank God, England is England still.... And will be, Sabre; and will be!" ”

“ Her surprise seemed to him to be more at the thing he had asked than at its amazing unexpectedness and amazing irrelevancy. "Why, of course I do, Mr. Sabre."
"Why do you?"
She was utterly at a loss. "Well, of course I do."
He said rather sharply, "Yes, but why? Have you ever asked yourself why? Respecting, fearing, trusting, that's understandable. But love, love, you know what love is, don't you? What's love got to do with God?" ”

“ Here, in the effect upon him of beauty and of ideas communicated to his mind by his reading—first manifested to him by the Byron revelation—was the mark and label of his individuality: here was the linking up of the boy who as Puzzlehead Sabre would wrinkle up his nut and say, "Well, I can't quite see that, sir," with the man in whom the same habit persisted; he saw much more clearly and infinitely more intensely with his mind than with his eye. Beauty of place imagined was to him infinitely more vivid than beauty seen. ”

“ Sabre's objection was, "Of course no one would ever know. Suppose your idea's correct, who's to say what a man's purpose in life was, let alone whether he'd fulfilled it? How can you work towards a purpose if you don't know what it is?"
Then little old Mr. Fargus would grow intense. "Why, Sabre, that's just where you are with an acrostic or in chess. How can you work out the solution when you don't know what the solution is?" ”

“ The high excitement of the young men, their eager planning, the almost religious ecstasy of Otway at the consummation of his life's dream, moved Sabre, visioning what might await it all, in depths profound and painful in their intensity. His mind would not abandon them. He sat up that night after Mabel had gone to her room. How on earth could he go to bed, be hoggishly sleeping, while those chaps were marching out?
He could not. At two in the morning he went quietly from the house and got out his bicycle and rode down into Tidborough. ”

“ Perch dropped into a chair and said in a horribly weak voice, "I don't mind who comes into the house, now. I can't contend like I used to contend." Immense tears gathered in her eyes and began to run swiftly down her cheeks. "I'm not fit for anything now. I can't live without Freddie. I like the girl; but all this house where we've been so happy ... without Freddie ... I shall see his dear, bright face everywhere. Why must he go, Mr. Sabre? Why must he go? I don't understand this war at all." ”

“ Fortune, revolved to face the room, was exercising his watch chain on his whale-like front.
"Yes, it's a pity," Sabre said.
"I'm glad you agree. I knew you would. Indeed, yes, a pity; a very great pity. For myself, of course, I'm out of the question. Twyning here is getting on for forty and of course he's given his son to the war; moreover, there's the business to be thought of. I'm afraid I'm not quite able to do all I used to do. You—of course, you're married too, and there we are! It does, as you say, seem a great pity." ”

“ Sabre, why the hell aren't people here told that? Why are they stuck up with this rot about defending their shores when they can see for themselves that only the Navy can defend their shores? What are they going to do when the war comes? Are they going to lynch these bloody politicians who haven't told them they've got to fight for their lives? Are they going to turn around and say they never knew it so they'll be damned if they'll fight for their lives? Are they going to follow any of these politicians who will have betrayed them? ”

“ And always her letters breathed to Sabre his own passionate love of England, his own poignant sense of possession in her and by her, his own intolerable aching at the heart at his envisagement of her enormously beset. They reflected his own frightful oppression and they assuaged it, as his letters, she told him, assuaged hers, as burdens are assuaged by mingling of distress. "There is no good news," he told her, "and for me who can do nothing—and sometimes things are a little difficult with me here and I suppose that makes it worse—there seems to be no way out. ”

“ That bantering way they talk when they're together—when they're together. Tybar does, whoever he's with. Not Nona. Not with me. But with Tybar. She plays up to him when they're together. And he plays up to her. Everybody says how amusing they are. They're perfectly suited. They look so dashed handsome, the pair of them. And always that bantering talk. Nona chose deliberately between Tybar and me. I know she did. She loved me, till he came along. It's old. Ten years old. I can look at it. She chose deliberately. I can see her choosing: 'Tybar or Marko?—oh, dash it, Tybar.' And she chose right. ”

“ How old are you, Sabre?"
"Thirty-six."
Colonel Rattray said doubtfully, "It's a bit on the steep side for a commission."
"Well, I'd go in the ranks. I must get in. I absolutely must."
The soldier smiled pleasantly. "Oh, I wouldn't get thinking about the ranks, Sabre. There're heaps before you, you know. Still, I wouldn't stop any man getting into the Army if I could help him. I'll see what I can do. Certainly I will. Mind you, I'm doubtful. Are you fit?"
"I think I am. I'm supposed to have a bit of a heart. But it's absolute rot. It never affects me in the slightest degree. I can do anything." ”

“ Life, when it takes so giant a hand in its puppet show as to upturn a cauldron of world war upon the puppets, may be imagined biting its fingers in some chagrin at the little result in particular instances. As vegetation beneath snow, so individual development beneath universal calamity. Nature persists; individual life persists. The snow melts, the calamity passes; the green things spring again, the individual lives are but approached more nearly to their several destinations.
Sabre was called up in his Derby Class within eight weeks of his enrolment,—at the end of February, 1916. ”

“ Many modern and entirely worthy businesses are conducted under the strident banner of "Cash Only." Fortune, East and Sabre's did not know the word cash. One would as soon look for or expect a till, to say nothing of one of those terrific machines known as cash registers, in the vestry, the classroom or the study as one would look for a lectern or an adjustable school desk in a beer-house. ”

“ The blessed gift in the war was to be without imagination. The supreme trial, whether in endurance on the part of those who stayed at home, or in courage on the part of those who took the field, was upon those whose mentality invested every sight and every happening with the poignancy of attributes not present but imagined. For Sabre the war definitely began with that visit to the Mess on the eve of the Pinks' departure. ”

“ Miss Bypass gave the impression of bracing herself, as though against suspected attack. "Yes, and they were for my own reading, thank you. I suppose you thought they were for Mrs. Boom Bagshaw."
Certainly her manner was extraordinarily hostile. Sabre took no notice.
"No, I bet they were your own. You're a great reader, I know."
Her tone was almost bitter. "I suppose you think I read nothing but Dickens and that sort of thing."
"Well, you might do a good deal worse, you know. There's no one like Dickens, taking everything together." ”

“ They laughed together. Yes, like him! Tybar exactly! Sabre could see him writing the letter. Delighting in saying words that would hurt; delighting in his own whimsicality that would amuse. Splendid; airy, untouched by fear; untouched by thought; fearless, faithless, heedless, graceless. Fortune's darling; invested in her robe of mockery.
Nona's laughter ended in a little catch at her breath. He touched her arm. "Let's walk, Nona." ”

“ In this order they struggled up the stairs, High Jinks and Low Jinks backwards, and the smirks enlarged into panting giggles. Halfway up came a loud crack.
"What the devil's that?" said Sabre, sweating and gasping.
"I think it's the back of my dress, sir," said High Jinks.
"Good lord!" (Convulsive giggles.) "You know, Low, you're practically sitting on the dashed thing. You've twisted yourself round in some extraordinary way—"
Agonising giggles.
Mabel appeared in the hail beneath. "Raise it up, Rebecca. Raise it, Sarah. How can you expect to move, stooping like that?" ”