Ironwood

“ But the blue eyes of Michael Moon brightened and hardened with a light that Inglewood did not understand. Many centuries, and many villages and valleys, would have been happier if Inglewood or Inglewood's countrymen had ever understood that light, or guessed at the first blink that it was the battle star of Ireland.
"Nothing can ever alter it; it's in the wheels of the universe," went on Inglewood, in a low voice: "some men are weak and some strong, and the only thing we can do is to know that we are weak. ”

“ This minor joke, like every play of his spirit, gained a hundred times its own inherent effect by sifting through his personality. She smiled back to his smile at the boyish ripples about his mouth and eyes.
“You see, it means a lot when a girl sticks in a man’s mind that way,” he continued. “Why, I’ve carried you around right through my Senior year at college and my first year out. So of course, it must mean something.” 116
The open windows of Eleanor’s bower looked out upon a bay tree, a little thing awaiting its slaughter—for shade trees might not grow too near the windows in San Francisco. ”

“ Mr Irwine came in while we were talking about it, and he would have it as the Colonel must see nobody but thee to-morrow: he said—and he's in the right of it—as it'll be bad for him t' have his feelings stirred with seeing many people one after another. 'We must get you strong and hearty,' he said, 'that's the first thing to be done, Arthur, and then you shall have your own way. But I shall keep you under your old tutor's thumb till then.' Mr Irwine's Fine and joyful at having him home again."
Adam was silent a little while, and then said:
"It was very cutting when we first saw one another. ”

“ Meantime, Mr Irwine turned round his chair and said"
"Well, Joshua, anything the matter at Hayslope, that you've come over this damp morning? Sit down, sit down. Never mind the dogs; give them a friendly kick. Here, Pug, you rascal!"
It is very pleasant to see some men turn round; pleasant as a sudden rush of warm air in winter, or the flash of fire-light in the chill dusk. Mr Irwine was one of those men. ”

“ The name of Earlswood, significant to modern ears only of the great idiot asylum there, derives from them. Place-names down [Pg 173] in these levels ending in “wood” recall the dense forests that once overspread Holmesdale: Ewood, Norwood, Charlwood, Hartswood, Hookwood—vast glades of oak and beech, where the hogs roamed and the prototypes of Gyrth, the swineherd, tended them, in the consideration of the Norman lords of little more value than the pigs they herded. The scattered “leys”—Horley, Crawley, Kennersley, and the like—allude to the clearings or pastures amid the forest. ”

“ You suspect at once that the inhabitants of this room have inherited more blood than wealth, and would not be surprised to find that Mr Irwine had a finely-cut nostril and upper lip; but at present we can only see that he has a broad flat back and an abundance of powdered hair, all thrown backward and tied behind with a black ribbon—a bit of conservatism in costume which tells you that he is not a young man. ”

“ Hester answered simply.
The visitor found a seat in the prairie hay, and sinking down in the soft grass, she breathed the smell of [Pg 61] wild peppermint with delight. She noticed the hearth of parallel logs, with a big kerosene can, used as a washing boiler, hanging from a tripod at one end; the camp oven; the sawing frame; and the scented cedar shingles strewn about beside the framework of the house. All these things were familiar, for she was one of the pioneers.
"My!" she exclaimed. "This is nice! Makes me feel homesick."
"It must be a change from Allenwood," Hester answered with a smile. ”

“ Father Wiliston and Toboso went down the hill, silently, with furtive, lawless steps through the cluster of houses in the hollow, called Ironville, and followed then the road up the chattering hidden brook. The road came from the shadows of this gorge at last to meadows and wide glimmering skies, and joined the highway to Redfield. Presently they came to where a grassy side road slipped into the highway from the right, out of a land of bush and swamp and small forest trees of twenty or thirty years' growth. ”

“ But even without the crimson cloth, the effect must have been warm and cheering when Mr Irwine was in the desk, looking benignly round on that simple congregation—on the hardy old men, with bent knees and shoulders perhaps, but with vigour left for much hedge -clipping and thatching; on the tall stalwart frames and roughly-cut bronzed faces of the stone-cutters and carpenters; on the half-dozen well-to-do farmers, with their apple-cheeked families ”

“ It was Rosamund who spoke, restlessly tracing circles in the grass with the point of her white shoe.
“I think,” said Inglewood, “that Smith is not extraordinary at all. He’s comic just because he’s so startlingly commonplace. Don’t you know what it is to be all one family circle, with aunts and uncles, when a schoolboy comes home for the holidays? That bag there on the cab is only a schoolboy’s hamper. This tree here in the garden is only the sort of tree that any schoolboy would have climbed. ”

“ But people who have pleasant homes get in-door enjoyments that they would never think of but for the rain. If it had not been a wet morning, Mr Irwine would not have been in the dining-room playing at chess with his mother, and he loves both his mother and chess quite well enough to pass some cloudy hours very easily by their help. Let me take you into that dining-room, and show you the Rev. Adolphus Irwine, Rector of Broxton, Vicar of Hayslope, and Vicar of Blythe, a pluralist at whom the severest Church-reformer would have found it difficult to look sour. ”

“ Innocent Smith when they had a little house on the edge of Croydon. From the gardener's tale, with its many small allusions, Inglewood grew certain he had seen the place. It was one of those corners of town or country that one does not forget, for it looked like a frontier. The garden hung very high above the lane, and its end was steep and sharp, like a fortress. Beyond was a roll of real country, with a white path sprawling across it, and the roots, boles, and branches of great gray trees writhing and twisting against the sky. ”

“ The Inwood mansion he restored on its original foundations, rebuilding it of native marble behind the stately old Corinthian pillars around one of which the ivy is yet allowed to hang in graceful festoons.
Ackerman, who is the Superintendent of the mills, lives but a stone’s throw from Inwood, and every day Susie’s and Stella’s children play together on the great lawn that still lies hidden in the heart of the ancient woods. ”

“ When Bertram left, Mrs. Tiffany did not follow him to the door, as was her old-fashioned custom. He waited a moment, as though expecting something. His eyes were on Eleanor. She did not move. She only bade him a simple and easy good night over her shoulder.
The old couple sat for a long time before the fire. Eleanor was gone—not to bed, could they but have known it, but to sit by her window and breathe bay-fragrance and drink the foggy night air off the Gate. ”

“ One highly successful trilogy -- representing Inglewood recognizing Inglewood, Inglewood prostrating himself before Inglewood, and Inglewood severely beating Inglewood with a stick -- Innocent Smith wanted to have enlarged and put up in the hall, like a sort of fresco, with the inscription, --
"Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control -- These three alone will make a man a prig." -- Tennyson.
Nothing, again, could be more prosaic and impenetrable than the domestic energies of Miss Diana Duke. ”

“ Irwine.
“Oh, that must not be; and Poyser is such a good tenant that Donnithorne is likely to think twice, and digest his spleen rather than turn them out. But if he should give them notice at Lady Day, Arthur and I must move heaven and earth to mollify him. Such old parishioners as they are must not go.”
“Ah, there's no knowing what may happen before Lady day,” said Mrs. Irwine. “It struck me on Arthur's birthday that the old man was a little shaken: he's eighty-three, you know. It's really an unconscionable age. It's only women who have a right to live as long as that.” ”

“ Eleanor is always thinking up clever things to say,” Kate came in. Her voice was rather flat.
At the edge of the gutter where they stood, a Chinese shoemaker had set out on a lacquer tray his offering to the gods. Red candles 166 bordered it, surrounding little bowls of rice and sweetmeats, a slice of roast pig, a Chinese lily. As the banners approached, certain devout coolies found room on the sidewalk to prostrate themselves. Eleanor, absorbed now in a poetic appreciation of all this glory of color and spirit, felt a movement beside her. She looked down. ”

“ Billy, my lad!” said Uncle John, but this time he said it with a smile.
“He was wishing,” said Billy when they overtook the others, “that he could make an iron gate.”
“I’ll confess, here and now,” said Mr. Prescott, “that I myself have had aspirations of that sort.”
“Is iron-work coming in again?” asked Dr. Crandon. “It seems to me that, just lately, I have seen some very beautiful gates.”
“I think so,” answered Mr. Prescott. “There are a few men who seem to have caught the spirit of the old smiths, and to have seen the possibilities in wrought iron. The man who made that gate is one of them. ”

“ Though this startling scene hung but an instant in stillness, Inglewood had time to feel once more what he had felt when he saw the other lovers standing on the lawn -- the sensation of a certain cut and coloured clearness that belongs rather to the things of art than to the things of experience. ”

“ Kate Waddington caught the shade of irritation, uncommon with Eleanor, and noted it in memory. Mrs. Masters, an eager little woman who grasped at everything about her like a child, broke in:
“If you know them, and they’re really frequenters of the place, it would be fun to ask them over. Sydney used to dine here a great deal when he was young and poor, and he has such stories of the people he used to know then!”
Eleanor hesitated. Kate looked again toward Bertram, who was talking rapidly across his soup to Mark Heath, and:
“Do!” she murmured. ”

“ And he sent the bottle whizzing, a wheel of glass, far away beyond the garden into the road, where, in the profound evening silence, they could even hear it break and part upon the stones.
"Moon," said Arthur Inglewood, rather huskily, "you mustn't be so bitter about it. Everyone has to take the world as he finds it; of course one often finds it a bit dull --"
"That fellow doesn't," said Michael decisively; "I mean that fellow Smith. I have a fancy there's some method in his madness. It looks as if he could turn into a sort of wonderland any minute by taking one step out of the plain road. ”

“ Inwood. He's a curious sort of man—rather melancholy of temperament, I fancy.
"We play a languid sort of polo now and then, dawdle in canoes, and sit up too late at cards.
"A lot of men are coming for the shooting. Mr. Rivett's manager turned out several thousand pheasants and Hungarian partridges, it seems. The latter, they say, have vanished; the former seem disposed to wander into the front yard.
"Mrs. Lorrimore has departed with much of Judge Wicklow's salary. Her stouter and prettier friend, Mrs. Wemyss, despoiled almost everybody except Silvette and me. ”

“ Irwine was still seated, leaning back in his chair and stroking Juno's head, the servant came to the door and said, “If you please, sir, Joshua Rann wishes to speak with you, if you are at liberty.”
“Let him be shown in here,” said Mrs. Irwine, taking up her knitting. “I always like to hear what Mr. Rann has got to say. His shoes will be dirty, but see that he wipes them Carroll.”
In two minutes Mr. Rann appeared at the door with very deferential bows, which, however, were far from conciliating Pug, who gave a sharp bark and ran across the room to reconnoitre the stranger's legs ”

“ As they moved toward the house, Bertram opened upon Miss Gray at once.
“This is the second chance I’ve had alone at you,” he said.
“We are rather conspicuous,” she burst out.
“Oh, nobody’ll mind. A girl always thinks everybody is looking at her. Besides, I wouldn’t care if they were. I’ve wanted to tell you something, and I couldn’t with Heath trailing us. You’ve got awfully nice eyes.”
Eleanor seemed to see neither the necessity nor the convenience of an answer.
“But you have!” he persisted. “They’re better than pretty. They’re nice.”
Again Eleanor said nothing. ”

“ But he took it good-naturedly.
"Do you know what I see?" he questioned with a smile. "A time when Colonel Mowbray—and Colonel Mowbray's daughter," he added teasingly—"will look with pride upon the vast acres of Allenwood turned from waste grassland into productive fields of wheat and oats and flax; when the obsolete horse-plow will be scrapped as old iron and the now despised steam-plow will be a highly treasured possession of every settler; when——"
"Never!" Beatrice interrupted emphatically. ”

“ Being on a dead level, there is no convenient hill within its circle of ropes and chains whence the heads of the crowd may be overlooked. One of the pleasantest features of our new course is the river Irwell, winding round three sides of the arena. ”

“ My program, I decided, would be to thread the principal streets, talk with any non-natives I might encounter, and catch the eight o'clock coach for Arkham. The town, I could see, formed a significant and exaggerated example of communal decay; but being no sociologist I would limit my serious observations to the field of architecture.
Thus I began my systematic though half-bewildered tour of Innsmouth's narrow, shadow-blighted ways. Crossing the bridge and turning toward the roar of the lower falls, I passed close to the Marsh refinery, which seemed to be oddly free from the noise of industry. ”