Olva

“ They came with the snow, and as the flakes blew more closely against his face and coat there seemed to press about him a multitude of persons.
He drove forward, but this sense of oppression increased with every step. The wood had been swallowed by the storm. Olva felt like a man who has long been struggling with some vice; insidiously the temptation has grown in force and power—his brain, once so active in the struggle, is now dimmed and dulled. ”

“ As Olva looked Lawrence in the eyes he knew that it would be well with him if, in his journey through the world, he met again so good a soul. Cardillac joined them and they all talked for a little. Then Olva said good-night.
He turned for a moment at the door and looked back. Some one at the other end of the room was singing "Egypt" to a cracked piano. A babel of laughter, of chatter, every now and again men tumbled against one another, like cubs in a cave, and rolled upon the floor. ”

“ The souls are caught for God.
Prayers followed, another hymn. Bunning with red eyes has contemplated his sins and is in a glow of excited repentance. It is over.
As Olva rose to leave the building he knew that this was not the path for which he was searching. Not here was that terrible Presence. . . . The men poured in a black crowd out into the night. As Olva stepped into the darkness he knew that the terror was only now beginning for him. Standing there now with no sorrow, remorse, repentance, nevertheless he knew that all night, alone in his room, he would be fighting with devils. ”

“ There was a rap on the door and Bunning gasped, stepped back against the wall, his face white, his knees trembling.
"Don't be such a fool," Olva said fiercely. "If you're like that every time any one knocks you may as well chuck it at once. Look sensible, man. Pull yourself together."
Lawrence entered, bringing log with him from the stairs. His big, thick-set body was so reassuring, so healthy in its sturdiness, so strange a contrast to the trembling figure against the wall that Olva felt an immense relief. ”

“ Olva finished tying his boots and stood up. Cardillac looked at him.
"My word, you seem fit."
"Yes, I'm splendid, thanks."
He felt splendid. Never before had he been so conscious of the right to be alive. His football clothes smelt of the earth and the air. He moved his arms and legs with wonderful freedom. His blood was pumping through his body as though death, disease, infirmity such things—-were of another planet.
For such a man as he there should only be air, love, motion, the begetting of children, the surprising splendour of a sudden death. Now already Craven was waiting for him. ”

“ Rupert Craven had been yesterday, a child precisely typical of the system in which he had been drilled; now he was something different. Olva knew that he was capable of depths of feeling because of his extraordinary devotion to his sister. Craven had often spoken of her to Olva—"So different from me, the most brilliant person in the world. Her music is really wonderful——people who know, I mean, all say so. But you see we're the same age—only two of us. We've always been everything to one another." ”

“ Ridge cleared away the lunch with much shaking of the head. Olva lay in his chair watching, with eyes that never closed nor stirred, the crackling golden fire. Beyond the window the world was of blue steel. He could fancy the still gleaming waters of the lake that stretched beyond the grass lawns; he could fancy the red brick of the buildings that clung like some frieze to the horizon. Along the stone courtyard rang the heavy football boots of men going to the Upper Fields. ”

“ That trembling ass, Bunning, singing now at the top of his voice, shaking with the fervour of it, let him know that he had brought a murderer to the sacred gathering—again Olva had to concentrate all his mind, his force, his power upon the conquest of his nerves. For a moment it seemed as though he would lose all control; he stood, his knees quivering beneath him—then strength came back to him.
After the hymn the address. There was tense, rapt silence. The little voice went on, soft, low, sweet, pleading, very clear. There must be many men who had not yet found God. ”

“ Olva knew that behind him in the storm the Pursuit was again upon him. That brief respite in the wood had not been long granted him. The snow choked him, blinded him, his body was desperately cold, his soul trembling with fear. On every side he was surrounded—the world had vanished, only the thin grey body of his dog, panting at his side, could be dimly seen.
God had not been in the wood, but God was in the storm. . . .
A last desperate resistance held him. He stayed where he was and shouted against the blinding snow.
"There is no God. . . . There is no God." ”

“ Olva took him by the shoulders, held him firmly and looked straight into the weak, quivering eyes that were behind the glasses like fish in a tank.
"Look here, Bunning. Pull yourself together. You must—you must. Do you understand? If you've never done it before you must do it now. ”

“ It had always been supposed that he was good friends with Carfax, as good friends as he allowed himself to be with any one. No one had known in which direction he would take his walk; he had come upon Carfax entirely by chance. It might quite naturally be supposed that some tramp had attempted robbery. To the world at large Olva could have had no possible motive. But, for the moment, these thoughts were dismissed. It seemed to him just now immaterial whether he lived or died. Life had not hitherto been so wonderful a discovery that the making of it had been entirely worth while. ”

“ Olva seemed to catch the words—"Why should it be I? Why should it be I?" Olva came over to him and placed his hand on his shoulder.
"Look here, old man, I don't know what's the matter with you, but it's plain enough that you've got this Carfax business on your nerves—drop it. It does no good—it's the worst thing in the world to brood about. Carfax is dead—if I could help you to find his murderer I would—but I can't."
Craven's whole body was trembling under Olva's hand. Olva moved back to his chair. ”

“ Even the brilliant Cardillac, thin, dark, handsome leader of fashion and society, admitted the charm.
Now, however, Olva, looking up, quietly said—
"I expect his aunt's kept him to dinner. He'll turn up."
But of course he wouldn't turn up. He was lying in the heart of that crushed, dripping fern with his leg doubled under him. It wasn't often that one killed a man with one blow; the signet ring that he wore on the little finger of his right hand—a Dune ring of great antiquity—must have had something to do with it. ”

“ I only wanted to tell you, Bunning, before I go that I shall never forget your telling Craven. You're lucky to have been able to do so fine a thing. We shall meet again later on—I'll see to that."
Bunning, his whole body strung to a desperate appeal, caught Olva's hand. "Take me with you, Dune. Take me with you. I'll be your servant—anything you like. I'll do anything if you'll let me come. I won't be a nuisance—I'll never talk if you don't want me to—I'll do everything you tell me—only let me come. You're the only person who's ever shown me what I might do. ”

“ Olva paused—Craven said nothing.
"Then suddenly, for no reason that I can understand, this changed. Do you remember that afternoon when you had tea with me here and I went to sleep? It was after that—you were never the same after that. And it has been growing worse. Now you avoid me altogether—you don't speak to me if you can help it. I'm not a man of many friends and I don't wish to lose one without knowing first what it is that I have done. ”

“ Olva's body seemed so tiny on that vast field—two Dublin three-quarters came for him. He appeared to run straight into the arms of both of them and then was through them. They started after him—one man was running across field to catch him. It was a race. Now there fell silence as the three men tore after the flying figure. Surely never, in the annals of Rugby football, had any one run as Olva ran then. Only now the Dublin back, and he, missing the apparent swerve to the right, clutched desperately at Olva's back, caught the buckle of his "shorts" and stood with the thing torn off in his hand. ”

“ They came, with their truncheons, in a line down the Common. Olva was flung into the heart of a heaving mass of legs and arms. He caught a glimpse of Bunning behind and he thought that he saw Craven a little to his right. He did not know—he did not care. His blood was up at last. He was shouting he knew not what, he was hitting out with his fists. Men's voices about him—"Let go, you beast." ”

“ That shows that you've noticed."
"But I'm not at all the sort of person to make a hero of," Olva said hurriedly. "I don't want you to feel like that about we. That's all sentimentality. You mustn't feel like that about anybody. You must stand on your own legs." ”

“ Now for the first time in the history of the whole affair Olva Dune may be said to have felt sheer physical terror, not terror of the mist, of the road, of the darkness, of the night, but terror of physical things—of the loss of light and air, of the denial of food, of physical death. ”

“ Olva sat down in the chair opposite him and lit his pipe.
"I want to tell somebody all about it. You weren't really, I suppose, the best person to tell. You're a hysterical sort of fellow and you're easily frightened, but you happened to come in just when I was rather worked up about it. At any rate you've got to face it now and you must pull yourself together as well as you can. . . . Move away from the fire, if you're hot."
Bunning shook his head.
Olva continued: "I'm going to try to put it quite plainly to you, the Carfax part of it I mean. ”

“ I've always had somebody to make a hero of. I would love to die for you, I would really. It's the only sort of thing that I can do, because I'm not clever. I know you think me very stupid."
"Yes, I do," said Olva, "and you mustn't talk like a schoolgirl. If we're friends and I let you come in here, you mustn't let your vest come over your cuffs and you must take those spots off your waistcoat, and brush your hair and clean your nails, and you must just be sensible and have a little humour. Why don't you play football?" ”

“ If only—" and his voice caught—"if only—no one suspects."
Olva gravely answered, "No one suspects."
"If I thought that any one—that there was any chance—that any one had an idea. . . ."
Craven's voice was echoing in Olva's ears. He answered again—
"No one has the slightest suspicion."
Bunning got up heavily from the chair—"I shall be better now. It's been so awful having a secret. I never could keep one. I always used to do wrong things at home and then tell them and then get punished. But I will try. ”

“ The man seemed dazed, he dragged his great legs slowly after him and planted them on the floor as though he wanted something that was secure, like a man who had begun desperately to slip down a crevasse. His back was bowed and his cheeks were flushed as though some one had been striking him, but his eyes told Olva everything. They were the eyes of a child who has been wakened out of sleep and sees Terror.
"What is it? Sit down. Pull yourself together."
"Oh! Dune! . . . My God, Dune!" The man's voice had the unreality of men walking in a cinematograph. "Craven's coming." ”

“ The news obviously tempted Lawrence. He moved his body slowly round.
"Well," he said slowly, then he turned to Olva. "You'll come?" he said.
"No, thanks," said Olva shortly. "Bunning's been ragged about enough. There's nothing the matter with the man."
Cardillac's voice was amused. "Well, Dune, I daresay we can get on without you," he said.
Lawrence said slowly, "Well, I don't know. P'raps it's mean on the man. I want a drink. I don't think I'm havin' any to-night, Cards."
Cardillac was sharper. "Oh, nonsense, Lawrence, come along. It doesn't do the man any harm." ”

“ You came into my life and made it all different, and now you're going out of it again and it will be worse than ever—-"
"I won't go out of it," said Olva. "I'll write if you'd like—and perhaps we'll meet. I'll be always your friend. And—look here—I'll tell Margaret—Miss Craven—about you, and she'll ask you to go and see her, and if you two are friends it'll be a kind of alliance between all of us, won't it?"
Bunning was happier—"Oh, but she'll think me such an ass!"
"Oh no, she won't, she's much too clever, And, Bunning, don't let yourself be driven by people. ”

“ In that good-natured face there was no suspicion, but Olva seemed to see there a curiosity, even an excitement.
"Yes," he said, "they have."
"Fellers," said Lawrence again, "aren't clever in this College. They get their firsts in Science—little measly pups from Board Schools who don't clean their teeth—and there are one or two men who can row a bit and play footer a bit and play cricket a bit—I grant you all that—but they aren't clever—not what I call clever."
Olva waited for the development of Lawrence's brain. ”

“ Now, at half-past nine, the company of twenty march singing down the K.P. and gather unto themselves others—a murmur is spreading through the byways. "Bonfire on the Common." "Bonfire on the Common." The streets begin to be black with undergraduates.
2
Olva was conscious as he passed with Lawrence through the now crowded streets that Bunning's hysteria had had an effect upon his nerves. He could not define it more directly than by saying that the Shadow that had, during these many weeks, appeared to be pursuing him, at a distance, now seemed to be actually with him. ”