Chancery Lane

“ But at that moment his joy was too great to harbor strange misgivings. How impossible for any one to understand his feelings then, except perhaps the comrades who had survived the same ordeal!
The vessel glided on. A fresh cool spring breeze with a scent of land fanned Lane's hot brow. It bore tidings from home. Almost he thought he smelled the blossoms in the orchard, and the damp newly plowed earth, and the smoke from the wood fire his mother used to bake over. A hundred clamoring thoughts strove for dominance over his mind—to enter and flash by and fade. ”

“ You can trust me, Pepper," returned Lane.
"Son, I'm a wise old guy. There's not much that goes on in Middleville I don't get on to. And I'll make your hair curl. But I'll confine myself to what comes closest home to you. I get you, Lane. You're game. You're through. You have come back from war to find a hell of a mess. Your own sister—your sweetheart—your friend's brother and your soldier pard's sister—on the primrose path! And you with your last breath trying to turn them back! I'll say it's a damn fine stunt. I'm an old gambler, Lane. ”

“ Lane loved the low hills, the deep, colorful woods in autumn. There he lost himself. He learned. Silence and solitude taught him. From there he had vision of the horde of men righting down the false impossible trails of the world. He felt the sweetness, the frailty, the dependence, the glory and the doom of women battling with life. He realized the hopeless traits of human nature. Like dead scales his egotism dropped from him. ”

“ I went on, "that I never let even Sandy know her bills."
He made no answer to this whatever, as though it were a matter beneath discussion.
"She will forget you for days at a time while she's rhyme-making," I went on. "She will be interested in other men until the day she dies—" his eye darkened at this—"and to sum it up, I don't know any woman more unsuited to you; but if she will have you, you've my consent," and I reached out my hand to him. "God bless you," I cried, and before our hands had parted Sandy came around the turn of the path. ”

“ And for the first and the last time Lane wept for himself, pitifully as a child lost and helpless, as a strong man facing irreparable loss, as a boy who had dreamed beautiful dreams, who had loved and given and trusted, who had suffered insupportable agonies of body and soul, who had fought like a lion for what he represented to himself, who had killed and killed—and whose reward was change, indifference, betrayal and death. ”

“ Lane had met the little schoolteacher, but did not remember her as she appeared now, for she was no longer plain, and there was life and color in her face. And as for embarrassment, not a trace of it was evident in her bearing. According to Mel, the mere sight of man, much less of one of such repute as Colonel Pepper, would once have been sufficient to reduce Miss Hill to a trembling shadow. ”

“ Under the pines and maples there was a cool sweet shade. Wild flowers bloomed. A fragrance of the woods came on the gentle breeze. The leaves rustled. The melancholy song of a hermit thrush pierced the stillness. A crow cawed from a high oak. The murmur of shallow water running over rocks came faintly to Lane's ears.
Lane surrendered utterly to the sheer primitive exultation of life. The supreme ecstasy of that hour could never have been experienced but for the long hopeless months which had preceded it. For a long time he lay there in a transport of the senses, without thinking. ”

“ Then, as it was his practice to walk for half-an-hour before luncheon, he abandoned his own pretence that he was away from London and strolled along Piccadilly into the Green Park before making for the Thespian Club in Grosvenor Place. At Devonshire House he caught himself pausing to glance down Berkeley Street....
At the club, Manders was lunching with a square-faced law lord and a doctor with humorous, shrewd eyes, who called upon Eric to join them.
"We never see anything of you nowadays," complained Dr. Gaisford. ”

“ Sometimes he would stop to get out and make one of his scouting detours, or he would follow a car to some distant roadhouse, or go to the outlying summer pavilions where popular dances were given. More than once, late at night, he was an unseen and unbidden guest at one of the gay bathing parties. Strange and startling incidents seemed to gravitate toward Lane. He might have been predestined for this accumulation of facts. How vain it seethed for wild young men and women to think they hid their tracks! ”

“ But for Basil, who was in Salonica, the party would be complete; and Eric felt a moment's compunction at having allowed himself to be so much caught up by the work and distractions of London. When the car stopped at the door of the Mill-House, he looked with affection at its squat, sleepy extent, punctuated with lifeless, dark windows and wrapped in age-long slumber; as the door opened, he saw{90} his mother silhouetted against the golden light of the hall.
"At last, Eric!" she cried.
"It's good to be home again, mother," he answered, jumping out of the car and embracing her. ”

“ The little one's heart was so touched by his sorrow and his age that she came back to Sandy and me with tears in her eyes, saying that if Huey couldn't go she would stay at home herself.
As he was too old and broken to travel with safety to himself, and as Nancy remained fixed as death, the Irish trip was not taken; by which, but for the whim of this old serving-man, we might have been from Scotland and avoided the bitter trouble which began at the Allisons' rout given in honor of the home-coming of Danvers and his bride. ”

“ Lane felt her gaze upon his face, and he struggled against all the weaknesses that beset him.
"Mother, doesn't Lorna help you with the house work?" he asked.
"She used to. But not any more."
"Do you let her go out at night to the movies—dances, and all that?"
Mrs. Lane made a gesture of helplessness. "Lorna goes out all the time. She's never here. She stays out until midnight—one o'clock—later. She's popular with the boys. I couldn't stop her even if I wanted to. Girls can't be stopped these days. I do all I can for her—make her dresses—slave for her—hoping she'll find a good husband. ”

“ Deny the duke the house, and what have ye done to a girl of spirit? Urged her into his arms, and nothing else——"
Sandy's talk was all on Nancy's side, however, which made the situation a bit easier for me.
"You see, it's thiswise with most women," said he. "Give them a husband to dandle them, and some children for them to dandle themselves, and a house to potter round, with some baubles to wear when they're young, and some money in the bank when they're old, and they go along with small agitation of mind until the grave. ”

“ Lancaster was reached on the second evening after he left Liverpool. He could not travel fast nor long together, for he was not yet completely strong. He secured a bed in a low part of the town, at a public-house, and on the morning of the third day presented himself at the prison door. After some formalities he was admitted, and taken by a warder along a corridor with whitewashed walls to the condemned cell where Caillaud lay. The warder looked through a grating, and said to Zachariah that a visitor was already there. ”

“ One lesson learned makes other lessons easy. I will take Mel and her mother far away from Middleville—where no one ever heard of us."
"Good! You can all touch happiness again.... And now, if you and Mrs. Iden will excuse me—I will go."
Lane bade the couple good night, and slowly, as might have a lame man, he made his way through the gloaming, out to the road, and down to the bridge, where as always he lingered to catch the mystic whispers of the river waters, meant only for his ear. Stronger to-night! ”

“ Lane dropped his oars. He saw men below wading knee-deep in the water. The boat rode the incline, down to the long swell and curled yellow billows below, where it was checked with violent shock. Lane felt himself propelled as if into darkness.
When Lane opened his eyes he recognized as through a veil the little parlor of the Idens. All about him seemed dim and far away. Faces and voices were there, indistinguishable. A dark cloud settled over his eyes. He dreamed but could not understand the dreams. The black veil came and went.
What was the meaning of the numbness of his body? ”

“ The trial took place at Lancaster. Zachariah was sorely tempted to go; but, in the first place, he had no money, and, in the second place, he feared arrest. Not that he would have cared two pins if he had been put into jail; but he could not abandon his wife. He was perfectly certain what the result would be, but nevertheless, on the day when the news was due, he could not rest. There was a mail coach which ran from Lancaster to Liverpool, starting from Lancaster in the afternoon and reaching Liverpool between eleven and twelve at night. ”

“ Lane half carried Gail. Lorna brushed aside a heavy curtain and opened a door. Lane pushed both girls into the black void and closed the door after them.
"Once more—open up!" bellowed the officer in the hall, accompanying his demand with a thump on the door. Lane made sure some one had found his axe. He did not care how much smashing the policemen did. All that concerned Lane then was how to avert discovery from the girls. It looked hopeless. Then, as there came sudden splintering blows on the door, Lane espied Swann's cigarettes and matches on the music box. Lane seldom smoked. ”

“ The western one turns northward, and then westward again, roofs itself over, squeezes itself till it becomes little less than a rectangular pipe, and finally discharges itself under an oil and colourman’s house in Fetter Lane. The eastern arm, strange to say, suddenly expands, and one side of it, for no earthly reason, is set back with an open space in front of it, partitioned by low palings. Immediately beyond, as if in a fit of sudden contrition for such extravagance, the passage or gutter contracts itself to its very narrowest and, diving under a printing-office shows itself in Shoe Lane. ”

“ The peeping of frogs roused in Lane sensations thrilling and strange. The quick sharp notes were suggestive of cool nights, of flooded streams and marshy places. How often Lane wandered in the dusk along the shore to listen to this chorus!
At that hour twilight stole down; the dark hills rose to the pale blue sky; there was a fair star and a wisp of purple cloud; and the shadowy waters gleamed. Breaking into the trill of the frogs came the song of a lonely whippoorwill. ”

“ Manders had never criticized it (one of the few things he hadn't tried to cut about) ; and it was dragging. In a moment people would be yawning and talking to one another; the pit would become noisy with its feet; already there was a rustle; if they would only look at the stage instead of trying to learn their programmes by heart! They should have done that before! And still the house was cold.... God in heaven! small blame to it!
Eric sat back with tightly shut mouth, then grew suddenly rigid. ”

“ He recalled, with the approval of an aristocrat in taste, the daintiness of her movements, the delicacy of her hands as they lay open on the fence, even her indifference to him, to him, who was in no wise accustomed to indifference in women.
At twilight he went to the Chestnut Ridge, but Katrine was not there, nor did she come. The following day he went again with a similar resulting. The third day he saw her about noon on the river-bank, and she waved her hand to him in a cavalier fashion, disappearing into a small copse of dogwood, not to reappear. ”

“ Eric walked up the familiar stairs, with the august butler, at whose nod or frown he had once trembled, turning at intervals to impart confidences from the advantageous height of an advance stair. ("We" had only come back the day before and were, on the whole, better for the change. He was afraid her ladyship would hardly be dressed yet.... If Mr. Lane did not mind waiting a moment.... There was the evening paper....) Eric settled himself with a comfortable sense of home-coming, his eyes on Barbara's bedroom door, wondering how she would greet him. ”

“ Sandy was in London at the time, but the same day on which I had the talk with Father Michel I sent for Hugh Pitcairn, asking him to dine with me and talk over the Problem of Nancy.
"It's like this, Hugh," said I, as we sat over some wine of his particular fancy, "God has been kind enough to send me a wonderful child, and I want to do what's right by her. I want her to have the reasonable education of a man and to keep her as far as possible from the influence of the usual unthinking female. I neither want her instructed in false modesty, lying, nor the deception of the male sex. ”

“ Mark Lane, once Mart Lane, is mentioned in the thirteenth century; in 1276, Robert le Chaloner had a house in Mark Lane in the ward of William de Hadestocke, i.e. Town Ward. And the Calendar of Wills mentions the lane a little later and has many references to it. In 1750 it contained “divers large houses for merchants, though some of them are old timber houses.” The street escaped the Fire. ”

“ That voice drew Lane's fixed gaze, and he saw a group in the far corner of the room. One man was standing, another was sitting beside a lounge, upon which lay a young woman amid a pile of pillows. She rose lazily, and as she slid off the lounge Lane saw her skirt come down and cover her bare knees. Her red hair, bobbed and curly, marked her for recognition. It was Helen. But Lane doubted if he would have at once recognized any other feature. The handsome insolence of her face was belied by a singularly eager and curious expression. ”