J
TTTE SUNT) AT - OREGONIAN, PORTLAND, JANUARY 22, 1922
If You Could Have
Whatever You
Most Wish for,
What Would You
Ask?
6i
B
UT then of course, sir, Mrs.
Tolley will always havo her
rent ready."
It Was Mrs. Stook who spoke; after
wards, when things had happened and
passed, leaving- nothing on which he
could really place his hand, Maynard
liked to think that those words "'had
struck him with a peculiar signifi
cance." But in actual fact they passed
largely unnoticed, more debris on the
freshet of Mrs. Stook's speech as she
stood In the doorway In the half
furtive manner befitting one who
merely lingers for a pleasant word
over her lodger's dinner.
That word had already lasted long,
but Maynard did not repeat his pre
vious error of asking her to sit down.
That, as t was now aware, would
have somehow savored of impropri
ety. Then again,' in the manner of
the tourist on the hunt for impres
sions, he was regarding her more as
a type than as an individual. Stand
ing there with apron enfolded arms,
and that outpouring of soft Devon
accents, she seemed as purely literary
a property as those purple china dogs
on the mantel.
One dlamond-paned oasement was
flung back, and across the potted
ceraniums in tho window seat the
June air struck with an indescrib
able wild sweetness. Above the scar
let blossoms came glimpses of the dis
tant Tours, purple and bistre under
tho mellowing light; the vast up
heaved waste of Dartmoor, all granite
and heather, implacably the same
throughout tho ages.
"Ho the Tolleys don't own their
fa-in?" he askod.
"You might think so, for I've been
told that In America it is common to
own," Mrs. Stock agreed. "But up
her to Dartymoor nobody owns, sir;
It's all duchy property hereabouts,
tho duoliy of Cornwall, which is
criivfn proporty, though it is little
enough the king knows of what goes
on. Mr. Bragdon, over to Tavistock,
he's the agent, and with him it's rent,
rent, up to tho Duchy inn at Princes
town each quarter day, or out
you go."
So, front the coign of the respect
ably open door, Mrs. Btook rippled on.
and in parallel accompaniment ran
Maynard's thoughts. Dartmoor, all
about him, a land in Itself, lifted a
thousand feet above the softer vales
of the Devon coast. A brooding sort
of place, high and apart in its seem
ing openness thnt was still so strange
ly hidden. To Maynard that hidden
ncss, which he sensed all about him,
came as a mental food, slightly hun
gered as he was by the sterilities of
his western college. It was curious
that the facts of life should be so the
same wherever one went. Th'.s im
memorial country, beneath its sur
face picturesqueness, linked by rent
and toll with the dollar problems of
his own Rockledge. Through the win
dow hi could see the Hanger-Down
farm of wh'ch they spoke, three miles
away, crouching under the Jagged lee
of t'rockern Tor. Kemamberinsr its
boulder-strewn slopes, he wondered
how the woman there, bleak as her
own fields, could wring a living from
that sparse so'l.
As though In answer to the un
spoken question, Mrs. Stook. having
wrapped horself about a fresh relay
of breath, went on.
"It Is this quarter day as will be
the test for Hanger-Down, sir, see
ing the luck ror Mrs. Tolley had
with her pigs this spring, and hard
It must come to her at best. Quito
well-to-do they was once; there's
been Tolleys on the Moor for hun
dreds of years; but her husband was
lost, horse and all. In Fox Tor mire
one night, a-hurrying homo when she
was expecting Ellas. Since then it's
been scrimp and scrape up to Hanger
Down, and now it is the pigs. 20
pound worth of 'em, a-dying on iter
in an hour, through eating toadstools,
they say. And she loft with only
that Ellas, as is more of a hindrance
than a help, poor Innocent."
Unknown to herself, probably from
her sheer relish in it, Mrs.TStook had
the art of the born racontcuse; an in
communicable way of making her
hearer seo all these things from which
site really spoke but did not actually
say. Maynard found himself catch
ing flashes back of her words, rigs
he had never before ' realized that
pigH could also be tragedy. But he
could see them now. spread across
the foreground In a riot of fst death;
and against them Ellas' anK figure
gangling up tho lane, bin face, under
lis thatch of hair, half sensitive, half
silly, wholly wistful.
"All, yes Elias," Maynard mur
mured. "I have noticed him."
"You probably would, sir." Mrs.
Stook firmly agreed. "Not that there's
a mite of harm In him, but a bit
niazedllko. There's some as say It was
the shock of his father's death afore
he was born, while there's others "
Mrs. Stook paused for a backward
glance of caution over her shoulder,
and her tone sank to a more thrilling
contralto.
"There's others say as he sot pixy
led when a child. Not that I hold with
such things myself, sir, but I see
to it aa my own children is safe with
in door after sunset, for the Moor is
a whisht place come dark, come dew."
Her speech was at high tido now,
and she rode triumphantly on its
crest. Seeing It might spread Itself
over the lower levels of Dartmoor
superstitions. Maynard sought to guide
It back to those channel where it
would turn the wheels of his own
desire.
"You said that tomorrow is quarter
day "
"Tomorrow as ever Is, sir. Come
t o'clock Mr. Bragdon will be up to
the Duchy inn. and It Is 5 that Mrs.
Tolley must pay un. A stinger it Is
to him each time she does it, for
they's many as 'd give flO a year
more for Hanger-Down if she- lost
her lease on it. How Mrs. Tolley does
It la tho wonder of the Moor, 'you
might aay, and I've heard Mr. Brag
don myself a-bawling at her: 'So
Mrs. Toiloy has her rent again, hey?
Bound to be so. Mrs. Tolley, or you'll
send Ellas up to the Wood again to
findout why hey?"
With that Impartible magic behind
her words. Mrs. Stook was once mors
painting those inner pictures on May
nard's brain. The Duchy inn, grimly
foursquare, with its air of turning a
hunched shoulder to the perpetual
blasts. It would probably he raining,
with a heavy odor of steam from the
shaggy coated ponies in the farm
carts outside. Groups of men. stiffly
conscious of their unaccustomed,
ceremonial best; women, clad In sober
black; the faces of all alike marked
with that moorland seal of cheer en
durance. And within, at Caesar's table, the
agent himself, a portly - SO, florid,
chronically choleric, plainly impressed
that to be the administrator of a
crown duchy was also to be appolnt
tee of the very gods.
"You said that tomorrow would be
the test for Mrs. Tolley?" Maynard
ventured, his mind still on his own
peculiar angle of the affair.
"Aye, eir, so I said, and I says it
again," Mrs. Stook nodded, with a
certain darkling. "What with they
pigs a-dying, if what he said be true,
it's tomorrow as will prove it."
"Prove what?" asked Maynard.
At the directness of that question
Mrs. Stook's speech dried up. A mo
ment before It had been like the Dart
Itself In full spate, but now it was as
though some subjective cavern had
opened, swallowing it to depths where
he could not pursue.
It was a phenomenon which he had
already encountered in these Dart
moor people; one which he connected
somehow with the land itself, spread
out In a seemingly frank openness of
earth and sky through which one
tramped blithely, only to find one
self, with surprisingly suddenness,
face to face with an Impasse. And
Mrs. Stook's change of manner was
an impregnable as the Tors them
selves. "If you've finished with the meat,
sir, I'll make bold to remove it.
They's apple tart and clotted cream
to follow."
Not until the deep tart was before
him, with a bowl of cream so thick
that the spoon stood upright in it, did
she speak "again. Then Maynard, un
der tho push of tho thought continu
ally uppermost in his mind, sought
to entice her back from her Sanctu
ary of silence.
"I think I'll walk up to Wistman's
wood this evening," he remarked cas
ually, but tho glance that Mrs. Stook
threw him held almost alarm.
"You be going up to the wood, sir?"
"It must be wonderful up there by
moonlight," he offered.
"I'd be keeping away from there
after dark, all unused to the moor as
you' be. sir."
"But there will be almost full
moon," Maynard objected.
"It's the m.st; once that comes up
even the moormen theyselves go
astray." ,
Maynard looked out at the evening,
crystalllnely golden In the mellowing
light, every Tor sharp against a
cloudless sky; but Mrs. Stook nodded
again in superior sapiency,.
"It comes all of a sudden like."
"If I get lost I'll shout for Ellas
Tolley to come after me," Maynard
smiled. 'The wood is almost within
hearing distance of the farm."
A shadow of suspicion crept over
.Mrs. Stook, and her answer came with
some grimness of portent.
"Aye, if any should know this
wood, it's surely him."
Secretly charmed by ths subtlety
with which he was approaching his
real objective, Maynard went on:
"I might stop and speak to Mrs.
Tolley again about the chair."
That was the word which had been
lying unuttered In his mind all the
time, waiting its chances to spring
forth in some such elaborate care
lessness, much as a lover will wait
opportunity to utter the nams of his
mistress. Now that it was spoken
it almost seemed to him to take an
actual substance, as though the mere
words were the thing itself; but Mrs.
Stook accepted It with a faint super
iority.
Sho'U never part with the chair,
sir. The Tolley chair be knowed all abysses of generosity. "The Bfn- understand such tnings, Dut the cnatr
about, even so far as London, they do brook Chair" swiftly Maynard has been in the Tolley family for
cay. She's been offered pounds and planned a nationwide advertisement hundreds of years. It is all that is
pounds, but never will she sell." of it by articles in the leading art left to us now, and sines ho is ths
But the present circumstances " magazines. Illustrated with photo- last of us all I must keep It for my
Delicate as his suggestion had been graphs, including one of the gallery's son."
it weighed too heavily on the balance benefactresses. Knowing Mrs. Ira, he As she spoke Ellas came down the
between Mrs. Stook's speech and el- mentally halved whatever he might jane towards them, his advent her
lencc. Onco again she effected her pay for it. making up the balance aided by the thin pipe of a whistle,
miracle of subjective withdrawal, from his own slim pocket. and-even at that distance his flap
She was even withdrawing physical- But between him and that solution ping, half-dancing .valk proclaimed
ly this time, her last words complet- of his difficulties lay this mysterious him as one set apart from usual hu
lnir the circle in which all their dia- and irritating certainty of the Tolley manity. A dim understanding dawned
logue had really run.
'Mr. Tolley'll always
have her
rent, sir."
Left alone, Maynard resigned him
self to 4t mood. He seemed to see,
with a melancholy clearness, how like
to life had been the circle of their
talk: always on the verge of revela
tion? then ending. Just about where
It had begun, with nothing accom
plished or made plain. Though
scarcely mentioned, the Tolley chair
was the real core of that circumfer-
ence of talk. He had desiredlt ths
Instant he first saw it, startllngly
splendid against the meager back
ground of Hanger-Down farm, almost
thronelike, black wjth Indubitable
age. its carving and proportions a
perfect specimen of domestic Eliza-
bethan.
Willfully he pictured it as dominat-
ing he too wide, too new, too empty
spaces of that Benbrook memorial
gallery. of which he was the curator.
Enviously he saw himself bringing it
back, in a sort of artistic banditry, as
the crowning loot of this his first
vacatlon tour. Swtftlyhe visualized
ths little ceremony of lts"nnveinng,
with himself, gracefully in the back-
ground, but still standing out a little,
He had never yet been quite able to
do that, and there was so much that
depended on his standing out 9
per cent of t being E'.sle Lathrop.
Six years, and Elele, in those prudent
collegiate finances, seemed as far off
as ever, and even her brave confl-
dence, he suspected, sometimes wore
a. little thin. Small wonder, he
thought, as he caught a sidewlse
glimpse of himself past 30, with the
beginnings ol the curator's stoop and
the slightly peering manner of one
perpetually Involved in the half tones
of a pseudo artistic circle.
That chair might mean so" much to
himself and Elsie. Dellciously he re
hearsed again that possible presen-
tatlon. Fall, the hazy Indian summer
V ML TZgymiM-
la a moment tae man appeared, poising on a rock Just at the limit of the
circling firelight, a sliskt figure screened in shifftlns; -vapor. "I am lost In
tbe fog, Maynard called.
of the middle west, with the sweh of
feet among fallen leaves. The bare
gallery, the president, faculty, and
students of the college. Elsie, de-
murely radiant at his little triumph;
and, prominently placed, the real cen-
tsr of " a11 and tho target for all Its
niaaen arrows, iurs. .ira jeenorooK
herself. ' "
Mrs. Ira she loomed before him, a
shape of vision only but uncomfort-
ably potent in his affairs. Stout, 60,
sentimental; the aggressfVe widow of
a self-made man whom, even before
his death, she had left mentally far
behind, as is the American custom.
Tremendously impressed with the so-
cial prominence of art, she bowed with a poise unimpaired. As it was,
before its authorities, while curiously their ghosts seemed to rls behind
alert lest, after all. It might prove to her, implacable as the unseen pur
be "not quite the thing"; and yet, suers of a Greek tragedy.
withal, she was of an uncomfortable-
shrewdness. Bustling, tyrannical, and
always Just-about-to-be fairy god-
mother of the gallery built by her
husband's will.'ehe lingered perpetu-
ally on the brink of further endow-
ment, without quite going over. And
it was on that endowment, with the
increase of salary to follow, that
Maynard and Elsie pinned their Irbpes.
But Mrs. 4ra, stabilized by her
shrewdness Hke a weathervane by its
rod, was emphatically ot the type
that requires to be "shown," and that
chair, undoubtedly a treasure, and aa
undoubtcdly a bargain, might be. the
very thing to precipitate her into the
rent.
i How curious and hidden were the
connections of life. Hanger-Down
farm, the Wood, and tHa too spacious
corridors of that Rockledge gallery,
Mrs. Tolley, Mrs. Ira, and a tragedy
of pigs . And always, in the center,
himself, with Elsie Lathrop as his
invisible companion and spur. One
carried ono's own world with one,
wherever one went, viewing all others
through its coloring prisms.
The long June twilight already lay
'0Ter th8 Moor as Maynard started out.
A golden radiance, faintly sad, as
though gloriously mourning the dead
sanctities of day. Under it the heather
clad slopes showed copper-colored,
shadowed with purple and overlaid
h . bloom of earlv summer. '
The moon already hung hugs and
yen0w above the sweep of Hessary as
j,e crossed under the trees of Dart
bridge and struck up the lane leading
to the wood. At Hanger-Down he
stopped, looking over the hedges of
piled granite to the meager fields be-
y0nd. Mrs. Tolley was there, stand-
jng severe and -black shawled amid
the rows of potatoes. Hoe in hand,
she faced him across the gate with a
'suggestion of one defending it. As
he looked at the landscape about them
Maynard could understand that; a
place vaguely Inimical to all human
endeavor; whatever . came from it
would almost of necessity be tinged
with calamity. Against It all the
woman showed with a dignity of
sheer endurance, like that of the
beetling, storm-scarred Tor above
her.
"It Is full late for a stranger to be
leaving the road," she warned as he
stopped.
"I had a fancy to see the wood by
moonlight." "
"The Wood?"
Involuntarily Mrs. Tolley glanced
to where It showed; a darker path on
the high slopes, and as Involuntarily
she drew her
shawl more closely
about her.
- "The Wood Is a dangerous place
after dark."
"I'll remember that," said Maynard
easily; then he summoned his most
persuasive smile, "I had another rea-
8on for coming this way; a hopa that
you might have changed your mind."
"If you mean the chair, it Is not for
sale," she answered.
'But surely after "
He hesitated; work-worn though
the woman was, there remained that
about her which made the mention of
pigs seem almost an affront; yet he
could Imagine her attending to them
"After your losses," he concluded.
-That struck home, but she faced It.
She would face anything, he thought;
what else could she do, with that
wide prison of the Moor all around
her, cutting off escape, its desolation
only accentuated by those desperate
fields. He could see her, year after
year, facing things across a narrow-
ng circle of competence that, like
tho Magic Skin, relentlessly receded
In upon her. Her face grew' mors
rigid as he spoke, but her determl-
nation held.
'The chair is not for sale," she re-
peated; then followeda glow of pride.
tl have heard that Americans do not
on Maynard; all that was left to tbe
woman was her son, all that was left
to her son. the chair. Had Ellas been
different she might have sold, but.
being as he was, her pride in him de-
manded that he have the ohalr as
sign and seal of what his forbears
bad once been.
Silently he left her, regretting that
in this way up the lane he must come
face to face with Ellas. Shamblingly
the fellow came, child's face on man's
shoulders, piping his way to that
elf'n whistle.
you going up aiongr ne asaea,
Maynard drew near. Then fol-
lo a half cunning of suggestion,-
"Maybe you'm agoing up to ths
Wood?"
Tb8 afterglow was fading, andover
the moor, already faintly silvered by
the moon, crept a melancholy purple,
Down the lane the figure of Mrs.
Tolley stood out against the linger-
ing lavenders of the sky. intently
watchful of her son.. Noting the look
on Ellas face, Maynard had an odd
feeling that back of the other's ques-
tion lurked something which he could
vaguely apprehend by ths term "a
crisis." but a crisis of what hs could
not imagine.
"TIs a fine night for' him," Ellas
went on, grinning again as though in
delight of a mutual mystery. "The
mlst'll be acomlng soon, and he likes
ths mist."
"Who likes the mist?" Maynard
Impatiently demanded and Ellas
grinned again In coy reproach of so
much reserve.
"As If you didn't know. For what
else would you be agoing up to ths
gashly Wood come dark? It's the
Giver, I mean, of course."
"The Giver?"
From down the lane came Mrs. Tol-
ley's voice, calling her son in harsh
entreaty, ' but Ellas took no heed.
Across his face, so unmarked by all
that would have made It that of a
man. there glowed a faint light as ot
one who, for an Instant, sights some
thing beyond the state of his ex
paradiaed. humanity.
"Yes fay," he nodded eagerly. "The
Giver, who else? If mo be you sees
him up In the wood after dark, he'll
give you what you asks of him. It
was all that away that Peter Gurney,
down to Marycleave, got the wench
for wife, come three years agone."
Some Moor legend. Maynard saw,
one of those rather smothering men-
tal creations which he had felt all
about him. With a tourist's avldnesa
for ths picturesque,
he listened as
Ellas went on.
"Caught up to the wood, Peter was,
by ths night and the mist, and when
he traipses past, come' morn, I
knowed he'd seen un. The wench was
promised! to another and the banns
all called down to Shaugh church,
but she up and off to Plymouth with
Peter that day and marries 'im afore
the magistrate. Like cat and dog
they bs now, and Peter doing his ten
days in Tavistock Jail for clouting
her with a stick, but 'e got r."
With singular . vividness Maynard
could Imagine that man of
whom
Ellas spoke. Uncouth, pallid with
the strangeness) of his vigil, striding
down tha,t lane in ths swirl of a
vapory dawn, alive with renewed
hops of a woman lost to him.
A suspicion prompted him to qaes
tion. carefully disguising ths amused
tolerance back of it.
"And. you, Ellas, have you seen him,
too?"
"How should I not?" Elias queried
back, with utmost simplicity. "Six
year agone it was, come St. John s
eve. Just so close as you he stood,
with the mist ablowing all about un.
'And what would you have, if so be
you could?' 'e asks me, laughing like.
But I knowed un and I says, so bold
as 'brass. That mother alius has her
rent,' says I. And Squire Bragdon
can .take on all hs likes, but her rent
mother has for what the Giver gives
you gets.'
Ones more Mrs. Tolley's call echoed
up the lane, and at its command the
light 'faded from Ellas' face, leaving
it only that of "aninnocent." Then,
as he turned to obey, came a last
flicker that sent him after Maynard.
who was already striding up the
slope.
"You'll know if you see un. Just
like me, he looks."
He clouded for an instant in a doubt
that endd in a weak flame of denial.
"That Peter Gurney told that the
Giver looks like him; but it's false. I
tell you. I've seen and I know, just
like me, that's how it is be looks."
He shambled off, piping his way
down to the solitary woman who
awaited him, a darker shadow on her
shadowy land. With a breath of re
lief, as of one bursting through en
tangling cobwebs, Maynard strode on
alone. " '
A rough way, but gradually he
nearedthe wood, the first time he had
seen It except by the light of full day.
A few upended acres of stunted oaks,
unbelievably aged, their boles half
buried in a slide of broken granite.
"Wistman's Wood," the Wood of the
Wise Men; last remnant of the. leg
endary fot-st which ones covered all
the moor; sole receptacle of the se
crets sf those Druids whose over
thrown cromlechs strew Its wastes.
Cautiously Maynard entered, picking
his way over the granite slabs, the
holes between them treacherously
masked by bracken and brambles. A
weird enough place even by high
noon, it showed eerie and sinister in
this play of moonlight and blaok.
ehade. It looked such a "wood as
might be grown for the fashioning of
Charon's bark or the dim galleys of
some terrestrial IH.
Gnarled trunks going deeply down
amidst ths boulders that lifted him
almost to the level of the sparse
branches, funereally wreathed In
mistletoe.
It was that play of half light which
was most dlsconoertlng, that diffi
culty in determining which was sub
stance and which mere glamour of
moon. There were moments when
the Wood seemed almost of a differ
ent dimension as apparently solid
shapes dissolved at his approach, and
what had promised open paths be
came high rock across his way. He
had pushed to the center of it now,
and in a half repulsion he turned to
pick his way back to the more or
dinary openness of the lopes.
Ths light was mellowing strangely;
a huge boulder, which had not been
there an Instant before, wavered to
wards him, enveloping him In a moist
darkness. Fluttering streamers
wreathed the branches, a faery
whiteness pervaded the whole place.
The moon seemed to flicker and go
out, like a blown lamp; a stone on
which he had been about to step rent
itself to rags, and he had scarce time
to save himself from a plur.ge into
one of the gaping Oubliettes masked
by the acrid tferns.
With a rueful laugh Maynard real
ized that these moor folk knew their
own country. Even as Elias Tolley,
or that Peter Gurney, he, too, was
now "caught In the Wood by the mist
and the night." It was an experience,
and with delight he discovered him
self still young enough for the thrill
of an experience to outweigh its dis
comforts. There was nothing to do but wait,
even though It be until the dawn.
Amongst those piled-up boulders the
least misstep might mean a broken
limb. A flat rock, overarched by
more leafy oak, promised refuge, and
he broke off dry branches and built
a fire. It blazed up, making of his
nook an arched bower amidst the
vapory chaos that poured all about It
He sat long, warming himself, oc
casionally smoking one of the treas
ured cigarettes that must last blm
until morning. Hour after hour slid
by; In the muffling mists the brawl
of the Dart, faj below, sunk to a
faint diapason; from the nearest
slope the sounds of some ponies graz
ing came with a sense of companion
ship. All else was a stillness so deep
thltt he almost caught the subtly
changing vibrations of the deepening
night. There was a fascination about
It all so strong that he doubted If it
was "entirely healthy" and conscien
tiously he strove to "keep a grip on
himself."
The sense of time was largely in
abeyance, so Maynard could never
quite determine how long it was be
fore that young stranger happened
on him. but the night had slid Into Its
most silent hour. The first lntima-
tion was from those ponies out on
the slope. A sudden ceasing of their
breathy munching, an Instant in
which he could picture them with
heads upreared, their nostrils dis
tended to catch the scent of whatever
it was that had disturbed, them. Then
a ring of hoofs on the night, an ache
of increased silence, through which
Maynard strained to catci a further
sound. Even when it came he half
doubted it. Footsteps, so deadened
by the mist that they were mor to
be felt than apprehended by the ears,
advancing down through the Wood.
springing from boulder to boulder
with a surprising sureness.
There was something almost un
canny in the direct certainty of that
approach, and he felt himself chilling
a little, then warming as he caught
an unmistakable humanness in that
presence. Whoever it might be it
was somebody who knew bis way and
Maynard raised his voice.
"Hello, there!"
He had not imagined that the man
was so close. The answering hail,
with a ring of slight amusement in
it, came from but a few yards away.
In a moment he appeared poising on
A rock Just at the limit of the circle
of firelight, a slight figure screened
In shifting vapor.
"I am lost in tho fog." Maynard
called, his own tons catching a reflex
of that amusement which had sound-
d in the other's.
"I saw your firs through the we
call It 'mist' up here, you know."
A young fellow, and from his voice
and demeanor a gentleman. It was
difficult to distinguish him as he
stood there, on the extreme edge of
visibility, but Maynard had an im
pression of a man several years his
Junior and of much his own outer
and inner make-up. A fellow at home
In cities, traveled, with probably an
academic background; yet his pas
sage through the Wood had argued
a remarkable familiarity with the
place. Even as he wondered May
nard's mind flashed a possible
answer; probably this was one of the
young men from that abode of
weather-beaten dignity known as
Tor Royal.
'Then 'mist' it shall be, by all
means," he laughed. "It seems to
make little difference to you, though.
You must know the place well to
tramp It on such a night."
"I-rO. yes, I know It." .
The stranger shed the subject light
ly1 and Maynard again took up his
tone.
"That is lucky for me; I will claim
your good offices for getting out of
here."
"That should not be difficult," the
other replied, then he paused, almost
with an effect of giving Maynard a
chance to change hl9 mind. "That is.
If you really want that."
"What did you imagine I wanted?"
Maynard retorted. "To stay here all
"night?"
"One never knows. People want so
many things."
In its tolerance, the slightly con
scious brodmlndedness of a young
. man still fresh from a university, it
was just such an answer, Maynard
amusedly thought, as he himself
might have given ten years before.
"Perhaps you thought thafl came
up here" to watch for the the 'Giver'
I believe. Is his official title?' he
ventured, and the answer came
quickly.
"You know the legend, Chen?"
"I heard -H an hour ago, from Ellas
Tolley."
v "Ah, yes poor Elias."
The reply came in a negligent half
pity, then the stranger dropped into
a more .reflective mood.
"And yet, after all, you know, the
Tolley rent is one of the miracles of
the Moor."
"A quarterly miracle, depended
upon to be on tap, like the blood of
Januatius," Maynard put it.
"But which never loses its. fresh
news."
"And tomorrow the supreme test,"
Maynard finished.
"For a stranger you seem well ac
quainted with the circumstances."
"I have a landlay," said Maynard,
drily. "What I can't understand is
that the neighbors don't help that
miracle a little."
"You might wonder that as a
stranger. But, forj.ll their inarticu
lateness, these poor folk have a keen
sense of the drama of a situation."
More and more, as the other spoke,
Maynard was receiving the Impres
sion of ona.of much of his own walk
of life. That they should meet here,
at such a time and under such circum
stances, was Just another f the sur
prises of this surprising Moor. A
place so famous, yet holding such re-
Verses of the little known; so traveled
by tourists from every part, and still
remaining one of the solitary parts
of the earth. One could never predict
into what unusual circumstances it
might not project one.
"When I heard you coming I half
hoped that you might prove to be this
mystic being yourself," Maynard
went on, with a touch of humor.
"I'm afraid I hardly measure up to
the supernatural," the young man
apologized.
"Hardly since Elias Tolley im
pressed upon me that this 'Giver'
lcoked exactly like him," Maynard
laughed.
"And Peter Gurney claimed that he
looked like him," the other smiled
back: then, almost unwillingly, came
the addition, "and, you know, he did
get the girl he wanted.
"When the witnesses disagree "
shrugged Maynard. "It Is a little dis
appointing, though. Tho- presiding
genius of a place like this should be
a real Druid sort of chap, in magnifi
cent nudity and a wreath of mistle
toe." "That would seem more appropri
ate" Standing there on his rock, per
petually half hidden by the shifting
veils of mist, the other seemed hardly
more than a voice, at times. After
wards Maynard thought that that was
probably why he had never bidden the
fellow approach the fire, but the idea
simply never occurred to him. Then
again, there was a charm about their
half Jesting, wholly unforeseen col-
loquy which would have been spoiled
by too much certainty.
"And yet it is strange that all who
claim to have seen h!m should so
agree on the same thing." the stran
ger continued, still lingering on the
edge of tbe light, as if he, too, fell
that same charm of eluslveness. ''Just
like themselves; they all agree on
that, at least. It almost leads one to
suspect that what they really saw
wasJust themselves." '
"You mean " Maynard asked.
"O, well a place like this."
Up the slope the ponies were quiet
sgaln and the only 'sound between
their sentences was that drip-drip of
the moisture distilling in the al
chemy of the oaks. An eerie place,
and it struck again Into Maynard's
veins with a slight chill. In all this
amorphousness himself and Jhe rock
on which he sat seemed the only
solidities; even ths other man might
have been but a wraith.
"It . certainly poultices one," he
agreed, delighted once more that they
should so comprehend each other. ,
"And after all, we know so little of
what may lie within us to be poul
ticed out," the other went on. "All
we know is that those two got what
they claim to havi asked."
"Asked of what?" demanded May
nard swiftly, and there was a silent
interval,, as if pondering, before the
other replied.
"Who knows? As you said It poul
tices one. ' Perhaps of an imagination
of some principle of fulfillment that
may lie within each of us. We think
that we know so much, but in reality
we do not even know how we fulfill
our most ordinary desires."
"Our desires," the stranger went on,
his voice coming somberly through a
fresh access of vapor; "those thorny
crowns of our youth; those pursuing
hounds of that heaven which is said
to lie within us all. And most of us
seem content with lapdogs."
"We take what wji can got," May
nard interjected, almost with a feel
ing of self-defense.
'Exactly," came the cool response.
"But this legend of the Giver or the
Fulfiller, one meets it in so many
lands, told in so many tongues; but
one never meets any mention of one
who asked It for anything really
worth having. The stories always
end in a tragedy of their own mea
gerness." They ask for what they want."
"For what they want! Elias Tolley.
Peter Gurney; offered whatsoever
they ask, even to freedom Itself and
the one demands his mother's rent,
the other a girl, for the beating of
whom he was sent to Jail la&t month."
There was a touch of scorn In the
tones that came through the mist, as
if the speaker were wearied of little
ness. From off among the oaks) the
hoot of an owl followed it like an
echo of derision. Maynard had an
uncomfortable Impression that that
scorn, that echoing Jeer from the
place itself, were somehow directed
at him.
They asked for what they believed
in," he argued, still vaguely on the
defensive. 'There are few surer tests
of a man's faith than to offer him
.whatever he may ask. After all
how do we know that we would do
any better ourselves?"
"Just for instance, now; what
would you ask for if you met this
mysterious stranger?" the other
laughed, and Maynard, to his surprise,
found the answer rushing to his Tips.
"For the Tolley chair."
- It had come out apparently with
out his own volition, and following It
came a laugh, at his own expense,
that startled him 'by its harshness.
"You see, we are all of little faith,"
he grated. "But then, that chair, to
me, would be the gateway to so much,
much more."
"Ah, yes to so much, much mors."
Maynard could not be sure if it
were really the other who spoke, or
if those words were Just the echo of
his own, thrown back to him by the
Increasing mist. Whichever it, had
been, there was withdrawal in them,
and finality as well, as though this
young stranger were completely
through with him, almost already
gone, in fact, without the formality
of a physiSal departure.
He sprang to his feet with a shout.
Here wait for me don t go and
leave me here."
So, strong had been the impression
' of crying to em.pty air that It was
with relief that he heard the answer
coming amusedly back.
"I'm still here, the mist hid me for
a moment, that was all. If you wait
a while longer it will clear and you
can find four way back as easily as
you came."
"But can't I go with you?" Maynard
asked, loath to be left alone.
"Wait a little wiiile and you will
find it all right. I go a way that
you could not follow. -Goodby."
"Au revolr," Maynard called, and
the laugh of farewell that rang back
told him that the other was already
on his way.
Those poultices of .night and cir
cumstance were playing strange "
tricks- on Maynard. For a moment as
he stood there, listening to those
footsteps retreating in tho same sur
prising sureness with which they had
come, he had a Bcnsatlon of being
suddenly enormous. Enormous almost
to infinitude, he seemed, and those
irrevocably retreating footsteps
m'ght have been going down into un
suspected depths within himself.
But such things would not do, and
he huddled ove tho fire, striving
again for that "grip on himself" as
he wondered what collegiate Rock
ledge would say if it knew the things
that Its official guardian of the arts
was capable of feeling. As he
warmed his cold hands there came a
comforting sense of ordinariness, to
gether with a touch ot anger at this
cool young denizen of the moor, who
left a stranger in such a predica
ment. A rather theatric young man, with
his entrances, his exits, and his meta
physics. The most hopeful thing
about him had been his prophecy of
clearing weather.
Whoever he might be. the fellow
was at least acquainted with the im
ports of those fickle skies. It was
but a dew mist, after all; a blanket
which the moor pulled over itself
against the first chill of night. As
earth and air equalized their tempera
ture there came rents in that lumin
ous opaqueness all about. Glimpses
of more distant oaks, interminable
aisles shot through with the mystery
of the moon. Like down dropping
veils the mist wreathed from the
branches, sinking away Into the lioles
between the rocks. Stamping out the
remnants of his firo, Maynard started
back on his unsafe way.
It was with relief that he at last
left the heather, feeMng his feet once
more upon the rarw eonfines of
(Godclutiod oa Iuge T.i
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