Laeg

“ He remembered how he had felt when he had parted from Lalage, the fever and the agony of it, the sense of utter desolation and hopelessness. And from that he came to think of Lalage herself. She had never turned on him because he drank. Far otherwise. The knowledge had made her more tender, more watchful over his comfort, more anxious to shield him from worries which might drive him into the power of his enemy. ”

“ My mind kept wandering from the lunging figures on the edge of the cliff to a vision of Lalage in a dark green dress speeding along the road on her bicycle.
I laid down the novel and set myself the pleasant task of constructing imaginary interviews between Lalage and the Archdeacon. As a rule I enjoy the meanderings of my own imagination, and in this particular case I had provided it with material to work on much more likely to be entertaining than the gambols of the expert swordsman or the scorn of the lady above him. But my imagination failed me. It pictured Lalage well enough. ”

“ There is a short cut which leads from my house to the church, and therefore, of course, to the rectory, which stands, as rectories often do, close to the church. The path—it can only be used by those who walk—leads past the garden and through a wood to the high road. It was on this path, a quarter of a mile or so from the road, that I met Canon Beresford, about ten days after my interview with Lalage in the pigsty. Certain wood pigeons of low morality had been attacking our gooseberry bushes. ”

“ It seems to me, looking back on it now, that we sat there, Lalage on the edge of the water tank, I in my hammock chair, and flung illusive phrases and half finished sentences at each other, getting hot by turns, and sometimes both together. At last Lalage left me, quite as abruptly as she had come. I did not know what to make of the situation. There had been nothing but conversation between us. I always understood that under certain circumstances there is more than conversation, sometimes a great deal more. I picked up “Sword Play,” which lay on the ground beside me. ”

“ My mother told me so this afternoon. I suppose the Archdeacon trotted them all out one by one?”
“No. I told you he took it like a lamb. Why won’t you try to understand?”
“Anyhow,” I said, “his demeanour was most encouraging to you. I suppose you suggested Miss Battersby to him at once?”
“No, I didn’t. I couldn’t.”
Lalage hesitated again. She was not speaking with her usual fluency. I tried to help her out.
“Something in the glare of his eyes stopped you,” I said. “I have always heard that the human eye possesses remarkable power.” ”

“ So, I think, did the Canon. Lalage smiled at us, but more in pity than in balm.
“I call this rather a scoop for me,” said Lalage.
“I’m glad of that,” I said, “for I’ve brought a bottle of French plums from my mother and a box of Turkish Delight which I bought out of my own money.”
“Thanks,” said Lalage. “But it wasn’t the chocolates I was thinking of. The scoop I mean is going to school. It’s a jolly sight better than rotting about here with a beastly governess.”
“You can’t expect any governess to enjoy being robbed of her glycerine and cucumber,” I said. ”

“ The laces of Flanders are not so submissive as that, being too vain and ambitious for renunciation of the world and life in a convent, and their angry opposition starts a little tempest of debate, fierce resolution alternating with despair. A black lace in hopeless mood hires herself out with a game merchant, for nets to catch snipe and woodcock. An old gold lace, in grandmotherly style, tries to comfort the younger ones, by reminding them of the vanity of the world. ”

“ Compared to Hilda, who has one-and-sixpence, earned in the sweat of her brow, Lalage must seem a millionaire.
“Do you know the kind of person who you hate and yet can’t help loving although you are afraid of her? That is the sort the old Pet is. As I was going into school to-day she was standing at the door. The beast promptly spotted the fact that I had no hair ribbon, and remarked in awe-inspiring tones, ‘Lalage, where is your hair ribbon?’ ‘Forgot it,’ said I, and took a lecture with a polite grin. The old Pet may be a beast, but is not an ass. ”

“ Lace is, in fact, so indelibly associated with the chalets perched high on mountain tops, with little cottages in the valleys of the Appenines and Pyrenees, with sequestered convents in provincial France, with the raiment of men and women whose names loom large in the history of the world, and the futile as well as the successful efforts of inventors to relieve tired eyes and weary fingers, that, no matter how one attempts to treat the subject, it must be colored now and again with the hues of many peoples of many periods. ”

“ I said, “a gentle, quiet, peaceable sort of wife, who sits beside the fire and knits, purring gently. When he has finished that quotation he’ll blow his nose and give me the piece out of Epictetus about the ‘price of tranquillity.’ He’ll mean by that, that sorry as he is to lose Lalage, the future will hold some compensating joys. He won’t be obliged to dart off at a moment’s notice to Wick, or Brazil, or Borneo. The Canon is, after all, a thoroughly selfish man. ”

“ To the naturalist who walks abroad at early dawn, there are few sights more pleasing than the soaring of a lark. As the first ray of sunshine dispels the glistening dew-drop and gently falls to earth, the lark, warmed by its soft touch, mounts high in air, and joyfully proclaims to all the advent of a new day. ”

“ I said, “that I’m to——?”
“Certainly,” said Lalage.
“To write a book?” I said desperately.
“That’s the reason,” said Lalage, “why I refurnished your study and bought that perfectly sweet Dutch marquetry bureau and hung up the picture of Milton dictating ‘Paradise Lost’ to his two daughters.”
I have hated that picture since the day it first appeared in in my study. I only agreed to letting it in because I knew the alternative was Titherington’s hospital nurse. The Dutch bureau, if it is Dutch, is most uncomfortable to write at. There was no use, however, wrangling about details. ”

“ Lacey saw a tall, thin man clad in black; a man who stooped slightly as he walked, yet whose figure suggested wiry strength and a resilience of sinew not yet corroded by age. The man probably would prove to be a house servant, though he seemed almost too serious and earnest for such a place. The yard across which he passed was drifted with half an inch of light snow, yet Lacey discerned that the newspapers had told the truth. It was paved entirely with brick. ”

“ I would be good and great—When will the day come when I shall be content to be good, and yet not great, like this same simple Leigh, toiling on by my side to do his duty, with no more thought for the morrow than the birds of God? ”

“ Our Tactics, by the Editor.
“She won’t insult you,” said Lalage. “She simply crawls to any grown-up. You should hear her talking to father and pretending that she thinks fishing nice.”
“She’s perfectly right to do that. After all, Lalage, your father is a canon and a certain measure of respect is due to his recreations as well as to his serious work. Besides——”
“It’s never right to crawl to any one.”
“Besides,” I said, “what you call crawling may in reality be sympathy. I’m sure Miss Battersby has a sympathetic disposition. ”

“ It must have been about three weeks after the pacification of the Archdeacon by my mother that a crisis occurred in my affairs. I am not a person of any importance, although I shall be, I fear, some day; and my affairs up to the present are not particularly interesting even to myself. I record the crisis because it explains the fact that I lost touch with Lalage for nearly four years and know little or nothing about her development during that time. I wish I knew more. Some day, when I have a little leisure, I mean to have a long talk with Miss Pettigrew. ”

“ It was evident to me that I must further justify myself.
“So I’m not doing the Archdeacon any wrong,” I went on, “in putting into his mouth words and sentiments which he would certainly approve. I happen to have forestalled him in giving them expression, but he would readily endorse them. You know yourself that he’s great on subjects like the sacred home influence of a good woman.”
“I suppose,” said my mother after a pause, “that you want to hear the whole account of Lalage’s latest escapade?”
“Miss Battersby’s version of it,” I said. “I heard the Canon’s after luncheon.” ”

“ A little unseen lark, all by itself, can evoke for me the charm of the solitudes of Nyíka as with a magic wand.
How this comes to pass, I will tell the reader. We must make a long tour. Now we are in the north, in our native country, in the midst of the spring, amongst spreading fields of our German homeland. The song of the lark fills the air, and our heart expands to its music. We go out upon the open moor. We hear a trilling and quavering of another kind, with a strangely sweet touch of sadness in it, especially at night—the song of the woodlark. ”

“ Hide and seek with Lalage.
People hand me out advice:
“Hod, you’re doing too much drivel.
Write us something sweet and nice.
Stow the satire, chop the frivol.”
But we have the rent to pay,
Lalage; eh, Lalage?
[Pg 61] Ladies shy the saving sense
Write me patronizing letters;
And there are the writing gents,
Always out to knock their betters.
What cares Flaccus if he may
Lallygag with Lalage!
No, old top, the writing lay’s
Not a bed of sweet geranium.
Brickbats mingle with bouquets
Shied at my devoted cranium.
Does it peeve yours truly? Nay.
Nothing can—with Lalage. ”

“ He was a Laic and Resignate of about seventy-three years of age, who was born in Utrecht; but he had lived with us for about fifty-four years, and was employed in binding books. By nature he was very weakly, especially in the head, and he often received discipline for his negligences, being punished therefore: yet he did gladly serve for the Brothers at Mass, and at the last, in the time of the plague, he got his death through ministering to the sick, and died in the presence of Father George, and was laid with the other Laics in their burying-ground. ”

“ All in a lordly garden ground
Is weeding hemp a maid,
A Lark addresses her and asks,
Why sad, and why afraid?
‘O how can I then joyful be,
Thou pretty little lark?
My lover they have ta’en from me,
And shut in dungeon dark. ”

“ Lalage isn’t the sort of girl who is dependent for her happiness on the accident of outward circumstance. You know, Canon, that our surroundings are not the things which really matter most. The philosophic mind——”
I had unthinkingly given the Canon his opportunity. I could see a well-known quotation actually trembling on his lips. I stopped him ruthlessly.
“I know that ode,” I said. “It’s one I learned at school, but it doesn’t apply to Lalage. She isn’t in the least content with things as she finds them. That’s her great charm. She’s more like Milton’s Satan.” ”

“ I said, “that the Archdeacon isn’t the only man in the world who would like—any man would—in fact every man must, unless he’s married already, and in that case he’s extremely sorry he can’t. I certainly do.”
Lalage grew gradually more and more crimson in the face while I spoke. At my last words she started violently, and for an instant I thought she was going to fall into the tank. ”

“ But be it requested that he repair a sewing machine, a bicycle or a watch; sharpen a pair of scissors, put in a pane of glass, make over mattresses, shear a horse, a dog or a human, paint a sign, cover an umbrella, kill a pig or treat a sprain, Laigut never hesitates, Laigut is always found competent. Add to this his commerce in seeds and herbs, his talent for destroying snakes and trapping moles, the fact that he is municipal bell ringer and choir boy, and you will have but a feeble idea of the activities of this man whose field seems so unlimited. ”

“ A real lace collar lay softly over her enormous, billowing shoulders; real lace ruffles lay over her great, shapeless hands. Her face, the delicacy of whose features was veiled with flesh, flushed and paled. Not even flesh could subdue the sad brilliancy of her dark-blue eyes, fixed inward upon her own sad state, unregardful of the company. ”

“ Mid-watch at sea are the hours of confessional, of confidences. A little craft, winged with white, floats over the black waters that are fretted with evanescent fires like myriad gems sparkling and vanishing; and the ship groans and moans and creaks so that a fellow if he has imagination at all must talk a bit to take his mind off ghosts and things.
Raikes said he went to sea at twelve. ”

“ Breit may be a strip of woollen material, or a strip of land; so the meaning of a strip of flesh seems possible.
"I will beat thee from me," said he, "with the spear, till thy left or thy right eye bursts from thy head, and thou shalt never have healing from me, if thou leavest me not." "I shall in truth," she said, "be for thee as a white heifer with red ears, and I will go into a lake near to the ford in which thou art in combat against a man who is thine equal in feats, and one hundred white, red-eared cows shall be behind me and 'truth of men' shall on that day be tested ”

“ At last the witch in the kitchen, that lived on the floor among the ashes, rose up and said to Lauchlin, that if he would feed her, and keep her, she would bring to the queen, captive from Scotland, the three great servants of Fingal. "The sea is rough, and the men are strong," said Dhumohr, "that fight with Fingal in Morven, and you will lose that old grey hare, if she ventures." ”