CHAPTER I
BODY WORK

I

It was in early May that Mr. Wriford cast himself into the river. Declining Summer, sullied in her raiment by September's hand, slain by October's, found him still in Mr. Puddlebox's company. But a different Wriford from him whom that jolly gentleman had first met upon the road from Barnet. In body a harder man, what of the open life, the mad adventures, and of the casual work—all manual work—in farm and field that supplied their necessaries when these ran short. And harder man in soul. "You're a confirmed rascal, sir," addressed him the chairman of a Bench of country magistrates before whom—and not their first experience of such—he and Mr. Puddlebox once were haled, their offence that they had been found sleeping in the outbuildings of a rural parsonage.

The rector, a gentleman, appearing unwillingly to prosecute, pleaded for the prisoners. A trivial offence, he urged—a stormy night on which he would gladly have given them shelter had they asked for it, and he turned to the dock with: "Why did you not come and ask for it, my friend?"

"Why, there'd have been no fun in doing that!" said Mr. Wriford.

"Fun!" exclaimed the rector. "No, no fun perhaps. But a hearty welcome I—"

"Oh, keep your hearty welcomes to yourself!" cried Mr. Wriford.

And then the chairman: "You're a confirmed rascal, sir. A confirmed and stubborn rascal. When our good vicar—"

"Well, you're a self-important, over-fed, and very gross-looking pomposity," returned Mr. Wriford.

"Seven days," said the chairman, very swollen. "Take them away, constable."

"Curse me," said Mr. Puddlebox when, accommodated for the night in adjoining cells, they conversed over the partition that divided them. "Curse me, you're no better than a fool, loony, and I challenge any man to be a bigger. Here we are at these vile tasks for a week and would have got away scot free and a shilling from the parson but for your fool's tongue."

"Well, I had to say something to stir them up," explained Mr. Wriford. "I must be doing something all the time, or I get—

"Well, there's better things to do than this cursed foolishness," grumbled Mr. Puddlebox.

"It's new to me," said Mr. Wriford. "That's what I want."

That indeed was what he wanted in these months and ever sought with sudden bursts of fierceness or of irresponsible prankishness. He must be doing something all the time and doing something that brought reprisals, either in form of fatigue that followed hard work in their odd jobs—digging, carting stable refuse, hoeing a long patch of root crops, harvesting which gave the pair steady employment and left them at the turn of the year with a stock of shillings in hand, roadside work where labour had fallen short and a builder was behindhand with a contract for some cottages—or in form of punishment such as followed his truculence before the magistrate or was got by escapades of the nature of their early adventures.

Something that brought reprisals, something to be felt in his body. "Why, you don't understand, you see," Mr. Wriford would cry, responsive to remonstrance from Mr. Puddlebox. "All my life I've felt things here—here in my head," and he would strike his head hard and begin to speak loudly and very fiercely and quickly, so that often his words rolled themselves together or were several times repeated. "In my head, head, head—all mixed up and whirling there so I felt I must scream to let it all out: scream out senseless words and loud roars like uggranddlearrrrohohohgarragarragaddaurrr! Now my head's empty, empty, empty, and I can smash at it as if it didn't belong to me. Look here!"

"Ah, stop it, boy, stop it!" Mr. Puddlebox would cry, and catch at Mr. Wriford's fist that banged in illustration.

"Well, that's just to show you. Man alive, I've stood sometimes in my office with my head in such a whirling crash, and feeling so sick and frightened—that always went with it—that I've felt I must catch by the throat the next man who came in and kill him dead before he could speak to me. In my head, man, in my head—felt things all my life in my head: and in my heart;" and Mr. Wriford would strike himself fiercely upon his breast. "Felt things in my heart so I was always in a torment and always tying myself up tighter and tighter and tighter—not doing this because I thought it was unkind to this person; and doing that because I thought I ought to do it for that person—messing, messing, messing round and spoiling my life with rotten sentiment and rotten ideas of rotten duty. God, when I think of the welter of it all! Now, my boy, it's all over! My head's as empty as an empty bucket and so's my heart. I don't care a curse for anybody or anything. I'm beginning to do what I ought to have done years ago—enjoy myself. It's only my body now; I want to ache it and feel it and hurt it and keep it going all the time. If I don't, if I stop going and going and going, I begin to think; and if I begin to think I begin to go back again. Then up I jump, my boy, and let fly at somebody again, or dig or whatever the work is, as if the devil was in me and until my body is ready to break, and then I say to my body: 'Go on, you devil; go on. I'll keep you at it till you drop. You've been getting soft and rotten while my head was working and driving me. Now it's your turn. But you don't drive me, my boy; I drive you. Get at it!' That's the way of it, Puddlebox. I'm free now, and I'm enjoying myself, and I want to go on doing new things and doing them hard, always and all the time. Now then!"

Mr. Puddlebox: "Sure you're enjoying yourself, boy?"

"Why, of course I am. When it was all this cursed head and all worry I didn't belong to myself. Now it's all body, and I'm my own. I've missed something all my life. Now I'm finding it. I'm finding what it is to be happy—it's not to care. That's the secret of it."

Mr. Puddlebox would shake his head. "That's not the secret of it, boy."

"What is, then?"

"Why, what I've told you: not to think so much about yourself."

"Well, that's just what I'm doing. I'm not caring a curse what happens to me."

"Yes, and thinking about that all the time. That's just where you're spooked, boy."

"Spooked!" Mr. Wriford would cry with an easy laugh. "That's seeing myself like I used to. I've not seen myself for weeks—months."

"But you're not unspooked yet, boy," Mr. Puddlebox would return.

II

They were come west in their tramping—set in that quarter by the motor-car that had run them from that early adventure with the nightshirted and the corduroyed gentlemen. It had alighted them in Wiltshire, and they continued, while splendid summer in imperial days and pageant nights attended them, by easy and haphazard stages down into Dorset and thence through Somerset and Devon into Cornwall by the sea.

Many amazements in these counties and in these months—some of a train with those afforded by the liver-cutting wagoner and by the yellow-toothed farmer bent upon arson; some quieter, but to Mr. Wriford, if he permitted thought, not less amazing—as when he found himself working with his hands and in his sweat for manual wages; some in outrage of law and morals that had shocked the Mr. Wriford of the London days. He must be doing something, as he had told Mr. Puddlebox, and doing something all the time. What he did not tell was that these things—when they were wild, irresponsible, grotesque, wrong, immoral—-were done by conscious effort before they were entered upon. Mr. Wriford used to—had to—dare himself to do them. "Now, here you are!" Mr. Wriford would say to himself when by freakish thought some opportunity offered itself. "Here you are! Ah, you funk it! I knew you would. I thought so. You funk it!" And then, thus taunted, would come the sudden burst of fierceness or of irresponsible prankishness, and Mr. Wriford would rush at the thing fiercely, and fiercely begin it, and with increasing fierceness carry it to settlement—one way or the other.

Once, up from a roadside to a labourer who came sturdily by, "I'll fight you for tuppence!" cried Mr. Wriford, facing him. "Ba goom, I'll faight thee for nowt!" said the man and knocked him down, and when again he rushed, furious and bleeding, smashed him again, and laughing at the ease of it, trod on his way.

"Well, why to the devil did you do such a mad thing?" said Mr. Puddlebox, awakened from a doze and tending Mr. Wriford's hurts. "Where to the devil is the sense of such a thing?"

"I thought of it as he came along," said Mr. Wriford, "and I had to do it."

"Why, curse me," cried Mr. Puddlebox, "I mustn't even sleep for your madness, boy."

"Well, I've done it," Mr. Wriford returned, much hurt but fiercely glad. "I've done it, and I'm happy. If I hadn't—oh, you wouldn't understand. That's enough. Let it bleed. Let the damned thing bleed. I like to see it."

He used to like to sit and count his bruises. He used to like, after hard work on some employment, to sit and reckon which muscles ached him most and then to spring up and exercise them so they ached anew. He used to like to sit and count over and over again the money that their casual labours earned him. These—bruises, and aches and shillings—were the indisputable testimony to his freedom, to the fact that he at last was doing things, to the reprisals against which he set his body and full earned. He used to like to go long periods without food. He used to like, when rain fell and Mr. Puddlebox sought shelter, to stand out in the soak of it and feel its soak. These—fastings and discomforts—were manifests that his body was suffering things, and that he was its master and his own.

Through all these excesses—checking him in many, from many dissuading him, in their results supporting him—Mr. Puddlebox stuck to him. That soft, fat, kindly and protective hand came often between him and self-invited violence from strangers by Mr. Puddlebox—when Mr. Wriford was not looking—tapping his head and accompanying the sign with nods and frowns in further illustration, or by more active rescues from his escapades. Chiefly Mr. Puddlebox employed his unfailing good-humour as deterrent of Mr. Wriford's fierceness. He learnt to let the starvation, or the exposure to the elements, or the engagement in some wild escapade, go to a certain pitch, then to argue with Mr. Wriford until he made him angry, then by some jovial whimsicality to bring him against his will to involuntary laughter; then Mr. Wriford would be pliable, consent to eat, to take shelter, to cease his folly. Much further than this Mr. Puddlebox carried the affection he had conceived for Mr. Wriford—and all it cost him. Once when lamentably far gone in his cups, he was startled out of their effects by becoming aware that Mr. Wriford was producing from his pockets articles that glistened beneath the moon where it lit the open-air resting-place to which he had no recollection of having come.

He stared amazed at two watches, a small clock, spoons, and some silver trinkets; and soon by further amazement was completely sobered. "I've done it," said Mr. Wriford, and in his eyes could be seen the gleam, and in his voice heard the nervous exaltation, that always went with accomplishment of any of his fiercenesses. "I've done it! It was a devil of a thing—right into two bedrooms—but I've done it."

Mr. Puddlebox in immense horror: "Done what?"

"Broken in there," and Mr. Wriford jerked back his head in "there's" indication, and Mr. Puddlebox, to his new and frantic alarm, found that a large house stood within fifty paces of them, they in its garden.

"Why, you're—hup!"—cried Mr. Puddlebox—"Blink! Why, what to the devil do you mean—broken in there? What are we,—hup, blink!—doing here?"

"Why, we had a bet," said Mr. Wriford, looking over his prizes and clearly much pleased with himself. "I bet you as we came down the road that I'd break in here before you would. I took the front and you went to the back, but you've been asleep."

"Asleep!" cried Mr. Puddlebox. "I've been drunk. I was drunk." He got on his knees from where he sat and with a furious action fumbled in his coat-tails. From them his bottle of whisky, and Mr. Puddlebox furiously wrenched the cork and hurled the bottle from him. "To hell with it!" cried Mr. Puddlebox as it lay gurgling. "Hell take it. I'll not touch it again. Why, loony—why, you staring, hup! hell! mad loony, if you'd been caught you'd have gone to convict prison, boy. And my fault for this cursed drink. Give me those things. Give them to me and get out of here—get up the road."

"Let 'em alone!" said Mr. Wriford menacingly. "What d'you want with 'em?"

Mr. Puddlebox played the game learnt of experience. He concealed his agitation. He said with his jolly smile: "Why, mean that I will not be beat at anything by you or by any man. I will challenge you or any man at any game and will be beat by none. You've been in and got 'em, boy; now, curse me, I will equal you and beat you for that I will go in and put them back. Play fair, boy. Hand over."

"Well, there you are," said Mr. Wriford, disarmed and much tickled.

"Out you go then, boy," said Mr. Puddlebox, gathering up the trinkets. "Out into the road. You had none of me to interfere with you, and I must have none of you while I go my own way to this."

Mr. Puddlebox took Mr. Wriford to the gate of the grounds, then went back again in much trembling. An open window informed him of Mr. Wriford's place of entry. He leant through to a sofa that stood handy, there deposited the trinkets, and very softly shut the window down. When he rejoined Mr. Wriford, fear's perspiration was streaming from him. "I've had a squeak of it," said Mr. Puddlebox with simulated cheeriness. "Let's out of this, and I'll tell you."

He walked Mr. Wriford long, quickly and far. While he walked he fought again the battle that had been swift victory when he cast his bottle from him; and in future days fought it again and met new tortures in each fight.

"Aren't you going to get any whisky?" asked Mr. Wriford when on a day, pockets lined with harvest money, he noticed Mr. Puddlebox's abstinence.

"Whisky! Hell take such stinking stuff," cried Mr. Puddlebox and sucked in his cheeks—and groaned; then put a hand in his tail-pocket and felt a hard lump rolled in a cloth that lay where the whisky used to lie and said to himself: "Two bottles—two bottles."

It was Mr. Puddlebox's promise to himself, and his lustiest weapon in his battles with his desire, that, on some day that must come somehow, the day when he should be relieved of his charge of Mr. Wriford, he would buy himself two bottles of whisky and sit himself down and drink them. Into the hard lump rolled in the cloth, and composing it, there went daily when his earnings permitted it two coppers. When that sum reached eighty-four—two at three-and-six apiece—his two bottles would be ready for the mere asking.

Wherefore "Two bottles! Two bottles!" Mr. Puddlebox would assure himself when most fiercely his cravings assailed him, and against the pangs of his denial would combine luxurious thoughts of when they should thus be slaked and fears of what might happen to his loony if he now gave way to them.

Much those fears—or the affection whence they rose—cost him in these later days: swiftly their end approached. Much and more as summer passed and autumn came sombrely and chill: swiftly their end as sombre day succeeded sombre day, and they passed down into Cornwall and went along the sombre sea. Village to village, through nature in decay that grey sky shrouded, grey sea dirged: Mr. Puddlebox ever for tarrying when larger town was reached, Mr. Wriford ever for onward—onward, on.

CHAPTER II
CROSS WORK

Ever for onward, Mr. Wriford—onward, onward, on!

Where, in the bright days, Mr. Puddlebox had taken the lead and suggested their road and programme, now, in the sombre days, chill in the air, and in the wind a bluster, Mr. Wriford led. He chose the roughest paths. He most preferred the cliff tracks where wind and rain drove strongest, or down upon the shingle where walking was mostly climbing the great boulders that ran from cliff to sea. He walked with head up as though to show the weather how he scorned it. He walked very fast as though there was something he pursued.

Mr. Puddlebox did not like it at all. Much of Mr. Puddlebox's jolly humour was shaken out of him in these rough and arduous scrambles, and he grumbled loud and frequent. But very fond of his loony, Mr. Puddlebox, and increasingly anxious for him in this fiercer mood of his.

There are limits, though: and these came on an afternoon wild and wet when Mr. Wriford exchanged the cliff road for the shore and pressed his way at his relentless pace along a desolate stretch cut into frequent inlets by rocky barriers that must be toilsomely climbed, a dun sea roaring at them.

"Why, what to the devil is it you're chasing, boy?" Mr. Puddlebox's grumblings at last broke out, when yet another barrier surmounted revealed another and a steeper little beyond. "Here's a warm town we've left," cried Mr. Puddlebox, sinking upon a great stone, "and here's as wet, cold, and infernal a climbing as I challenge you or any man ever to have seen. Here's you been dragging and trailing and ripe for anything these three months and more, and now rushing and stopping for nothing so I challenge the devil himself to keep up with you."

"Well, don't keep up!" said Mr. Wriford fiercely. "Who wants you to?"

Mr. Puddlebox blinked at that; but he answered stoutly: "Well, curse me if I do, for one."

"Nor me for another," said Mr. Wriford and turned where he stood and pressed on across the shingle towards the next rocky arm.

Mr. Puddlebox sucked in his cheeks, felt at the hard lump in his pocket, then followed at a little run, and caught Mr. Wriford as Mr. Wriford climbed the further barrier of rocks.

"Hey, give us a hand, boy," cried Mr. Puddlebox cheerfully. "This is a steep one."

Mr. Wriford looked down. "What, are you coming on? I thought you'd stopped."

"You're unkind, boy," said Mr. Puddlebox.

Mr. Wriford, looking down, this time saw the blink that went with the words. He jumped back lower, coming with reckless bounds. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry. Look here, coming across this bit"—he pointed back to their earlier stopping-place—"I felt—I felt rotten to think you'd gone."

"Why, that's my loony!" cried Mr. Puddlebox, highly pleased. "Come down here, boy. Let's talk of this business."

"But I wouldn't look back," said Mr. Wriford, "or come back. I've done with that sort of thing."

"Why, so you have," said Mr. Puddlebox, rightly guessing to what Mr. Wriford referred. "You can come down now, though, for I'm asking you to, so there's no weakness in that. There's shelter here."

"I don't want shelter," said Mr. Wriford, and went a step higher and stood with head and back erect where gale and rain caught him more full.

Mr. Puddlebox summoned much impressiveness into his voice. "Boy," said Mr. Puddlebox, "this is a fool's game, and I never saw such even with you. Bring sense to it, boy. Tramping is well enough for fine days: winters for towns. There's money to be found in towns, boy; and if no money, workhouse is none so bad, and when we've tried it you've liked it and called it something new, which is what you want. Well, there's nothing new this way, boy. There's no work and there's no bed in the fields winter-time. Nothing new this way, boy."

A fiercer drive of wind spun Mr. Wriford where he stood exposed. He caught at a rock with his hands and laughed grimly, then stood erect again, and pressed himself against the rising gale.

"Ah, isn't there, though?" he cried. "Man, there's cold and rain and wind, and there's tramping on and on against it and feeling you don't care a damn for it."

"Well, curse me, but I do," returned Mr. Puddlebox. "It's just what I do mind, and there's no sense to it, boy. There's no sense to it."

"There is for me," Mr. Wriford cried. "It's what I want!" He turned from fronting the gale. Mr. Puddlebox saw him measuring with his eye the height where he stood from the ground, and called in swift alarm: "Don't jump! You'll break your legs. Don't—"

Mr. Wriford laughed aloud, jumped and came crashing to his hands and knees, got up and laughed again. "That's all right!" said he.

"Boy, that's all wrong," said Mr. Puddlebox very seriously. "That's all of a part with your rushing along as if it was the devil himself you chased; and what to the devil else it can be I challenge you to say or any man."

Mr. Wriford took up the words he had cried down from the top of the barrier. "It's what I want," he told Mr. Puddlebox. "Cold and not minding it, and fighting against the wind and not minding it, and getting wet and going on full speed however rough the road and not minding that. Cold and wind and rain and sticking to it and fighting it and beating it and liking it—ah!" and he threw up his arms, extending them, and filled his chest with a great breath, as though he embraced and drunk deep of the elements that he stuck to and fought and beat.

Mr. Puddlebox looked at him closely. "Sure you're liking it?" he asked, his tone the same as when he often inquired: "Sure you're happy, boy?"

"Sure! Why, of course I'm sure. Why, all the time I'm thrashing along, do you know what I'm saying? I'm saying: 'Beating you! Beating you! Beating you!' and at night I lie awake and think of it all waiting outside for me and how I shall beat it, beat it, beat it again when morning comes."

"Sit down," said Mr. Puddlebox. "I've something to say to you."

"No, I'll stand," said Mr. Wriford.

"Aren't you tired?"

"I'm fit to drop," said Mr. Wriford; and then with a hard face: "But sitting down is giving way to it. I'll not do that. No, by God, I'll beat it all the time."

Then Mr. Puddlebox broke out in exasperation and struck his stick upon the shingle to mark it. "Why, curse me if I ever heard such a thing or knew such a thing!" cried Mr. Puddlebox. "Beating it! I've told you a score time, and this time I give it to you hot, that when you go so, you're spooked, spooked to hell and never will be unspooked! 'Beating it, beating it, beating it!' you cry as you rush along! Why, it's then that it is beating you all the time, for it is of yourself that you are thinking. And that's what's wrong with you, thinking of yourself, and has always been. And there's no being happy that way and never will be. Think of some one else, boy. For God Almighty's sake think of some one else or you're beat and mad for sure!"

Mr. Wriford gave him back his fierceness. "Think of some one else! That's what I've done all my life. That's what locked me up and did for me. I've done with all that now, and I'm happy. Think of some one else! God!" cried he and snapped his fingers. "I don't care that for anybody. Whom should I think of?"

"Well, try a thought for me," cried Mr. Puddlebox, relenting nothing of his own heat. "I've watched you these four months. I've got you out of trouble. Curse me, I've fed you and handled you like a baby. But for me you'd like be lying dead somewhere."

"Well, who cares?" cried Mr. Wriford. "Not me, I don't."

"Ah, and you'd liker still be clapped in an asylum and locked there all your days; you'd mind that. But for me that's where you'd be and where you'll go, if I left you to-morrow."

Mr. Wriford cried with a black and angry face: "Well, if it's true, who asked you to hang on to me? Why have you done it? If it's true, mind you! For I've done my share. You've admitted that yourself. In the rows we've got into I've done my share, and in the work we've done I've done more than my share, once I've learnt the hang of it. Now then! That's true, isn't it? If you've done so jolly much, why have you? There's one for you. Why?"

His violent storming put a new mood to Mr. Puddlebox's face. Not the exasperation with which he had burst out and continued till now. That left him. Not the jolly grin with which commonly he regarded life in general and Mr. Wriford in particular. None of these. A new mood. The mood and hue Mr. Wriford had glimpsed when, looking down from the barrier as Mr. Puddlebox overtook him, and crying down to him: "I thought you'd stopped," he had seen Mr. Puddlebox blink and heard him say: "You're unkind, boy." Now he saw it again—and was again to see it before approaching night gave way to following morn.

Mr. Puddlebox blinked and went redly cloudy in the face. "Why?" said he. "Well, I'll tell you why, boy. Because I like you. I liked you, boy, when you came wretched up the Barnet road and thought there was one with you, following you. I liked you then for you were glad of my food and my help and caught at my hand as night fell and held it while you slept. Curse me, I liked you then, for, curse me, you were the first come my way in many years of sin that thought me stronger than himself and that I could be stronger to and could help. I liked you then, boy, and I've liked you more each sun and moon since. I've lost a precious lot in life through being what, curse me, I am. None ever to welcome me, none ever to be glad of me, none ever that minded if I rode by on my legs or went legs first in a coffin cart. Then came you that was loony, that was glad of me here and glad of me there, that asked me this and asked me that, that laughed with me and ate with me and slept with me, that because you was loony was weaker than me. So I liked you, boy; curse me, I loved you, boy. There's why for you."

This long speech, delivered with much blinking and redness of the face, was listened to by Mr. Wriford with the fierceness gone out of his eyes but with his face twisting and working as though what he heard put him in difficulty. In difficulty and with difficulty he then broke out. "God knows I'm grateful," Mr. Wriford said, his voice strained as his face. "But look at this—I don't want to be grateful. I don't want that kind of thing. I've been through all that. 'Thank you' for this; and 'Thank you' for that; and 'I beg your pardon;' and 'Oh, how kind of you.' Man, man!" cried Mr. Wriford, striking his hands to his face and tearing them away again as though scenes were before his eyes that he would wrench away. "Man, I've done that thirty years and been killed of it. I don't want ever to think that kind of stuff again. I want just to keep going on and having nothing touch me except what hurts me here in my body and not care a damn for it—which I don't. You're always asking me if I'm happy, and I know you think I'm not. But I am. Look how hard my hands are: that makes me happy just to think of that. And how I don't mind getting wet or cold: that makes me happy, so happy that I shout out with the gladness of it and get myself wetter. It's being a man. It's getting the better of myself. You're going to say it's not. But you don't understand. One man has to get the better of himself one way and one another. With me it's getting the better of being afraid of things. Well, I'm beating it. I'm beating it when I'm out here, tramping along. But when I'm sheltering it's beating me. When you tell me—" He stopped, and stooping to Mr. Puddlebox took his hands and squeezed them so that the water was squeezed to Mr. Puddlebox's eyes. "There!" cried Mr. Wriford. "Grateful! I'm more grateful to you. I'm fonder of you than any man I've ever met. But don't tell me you're fond of me. I don't want that from anybody. When you tell me that it puts me back to what I used to be. I'm grateful. Believe that; but don't make me talk about it."

"I never did want you to," said Mr. Puddlebox. "Look here, boy. Look how we begun on this talk. I told you to think of some one else, care for some one else, and you broke out 'whom were you to care for?' and I gave you, being cold and wet and mortal tired, I gave you 'For God Almighty's sake care for me' and then told you why you should. Well, let's get back to that. Care for me. Look here, boy. We were ten mile to the next village along this devil of a place when we left the town. I reckon we've come four, and here's evening upon us and six to go. Well, I can't go them, and that's the end and the beginning of it. I'm for going back where there's a bed to be had and while yet it is to be had, for they sleep early these parts. Wherefore when I say 'for God Almighty's sake care for me,' I mean stop this chasing this way and let's chase back the way we come. We'll forget what's gone between us," concluded Mr. Puddlebox, reverting to his jolly smiles and getting to his feet, "and I'll hate you and you'll hate me, since that pleases you most, and back we'll get and have a dish of potatoes inside of us and a warm bed outside. Wherefore I say:

"O ye food and warmth, bless ye the Lord: praise Him and magnify Him for ever."

Mr. Wriford laughed, and Mr. Puddlebox guessed him persuaded once again. But he set his face then and shook his head sharply, and Mr. Puddlebox saw him determined. "No," said Mr. Wriford. "No, I'm not going back. I'm never going back. If you want to know what I'm going to do, I'm going to stay the night out here."

Mr. Puddlebox cried: "Out here! Now what to the devil—"

"I'd settled it," Mr. Wriford interrupted him. "I'd settled it when I thought you'd gone back. There're little caves all along here—I saw one the other side of these rocks. I'm going to sleep in one. I'd made up my mind when you caught up with me. I'm going to do it."

Mr. Puddlebox stared at him, incapable of speech. Then cried: "Wet as you are?"

"Wet as I am," said Mr. Wriford and laughed.

"Cold as it is and going to be colder?"

"Cold as it is and the colder the better."

"You'll stay alone," cried Mr. Puddlebox. "Curse me if I'll stay with you."

"You needn't," said Mr. Wriford. "I'm not asking you to."

"But you think I'm going to," cried Mr. Puddlebox. "And you're wrong, for I'm not. I'm going straight back, and I'm going at once, the quicker to fetch you to your senses. I'm going, boy;" and in advertisement of his intention Mr. Puddlebox began resolutely to move away.

Mr. Wriford as resolutely turned to the barrier of rocks and began to climb.

"Come on, boy," called Mr. Puddlebox.

Mr. Wriford called back: "No. No, I'm going to stay. I'm going to see the night through."

"You'll know where to find me," cried Mr. Puddlebox. "I'll be where we lay last night."

Mr. Wriford's laugh came to him through the gathering gloom, and through the gloom he saw Mr. Wriford's form midway up the rocks. "And you'll know where to find me," Mr. Wriford called.

Mr. Puddlebox paused irresolutely and cursed roundly where he paused. Then turned and stamped away across the shingle. When he reached the rocky arm where first they had quarrelled he stopped again and again looked back. Mr. Wriford was not to be seen.

"That'll go near to kill him if he stays," said Mr. Puddlebox. "And, curse me, if I go back to him he will stay. I'll push on, and he'll follow me. That's the only way to it."

They had spent the previous night in an eating-house where "Beds for Single Men—4d." attracted wanderers. It was seven o'clock when Mr. Puddlebox's slow progression—halting at every few yards and looking back—at length returned him to it. He dried and warmed himself before the fire in the kitchen that was free to inmates of the house.

"Where's your mate?" asked the proprietor. "Thought you was making Port Rannock?"

"Too far," said Mr. Puddlebox; and to the earlier question: "He's behind me. I'll wait my supper till he comes."

He waited, though very hungry. Every time the door of the kitchen opened he turned eagerly in expectation that was every time denied. Towards nine he gave up the comfortable seat he had secured before the blaze and sat himself where he could watch the door. It never admitted Mr. Wriford.

"What's the night?" he asked a seafaring newcomer.

"Blowing up," the man told him. "Blowing up dirty."

Mr. Puddlebox went from the room and from the house, shivered as the night air struck him, and then down the cobbled street. Ten o'clock, borne gustily upon the wind, came to him from the church tower as he turned along the shore.

None saw him go: and he was not to return.

CHAPTER III
WATER THAT TAKES YOUR BREATH

Mr. Puddlebox's landsman's eye showed him no signs of that "blowing up dirty" of which he had been informed. A fresh breeze faced him as he walked and somewhat hindered his progress; but a strong moon rode high and lighted him; the sea, much advanced since he came that way, broke quietly along the shore. "Why, it's none so bad a night to be out," thought Mr. Puddlebox; and there began to change within him the mood in which he had left the lodging-house. Seated there he had imagined a rough night, wet and dark, and with each passing hour had the more reproached himself for his desertion of his loony. Now that he found night clear and still, well-lit and nothing overcold, he inclined towards considering himself a fool for his pains.

An hour on his road brought change of mood again. The very stillness, the very clearness that first had reassured him, now began to frighten him. He began to apprehend as it were a something sinister in the quietude. He began to dislike the persistent regularity of his footsteps grinding in the deep shingle and to dislike yet more the persistent regularity of the breaking waves. They rose about knee-high as he watched them, fell and pressed whitely up the beach, back slowly, as though reluctant and with deep protest of the stones, then massed knee-high and down and up again. Darkly on his right hand the steep cliffs towered.

The monotony of sound oppressed him. He began to have an eerie feeling as though he were being followed, and once or twice he looked back. No, very much alone. Then his footsteps, whose persistent regularity had wrought upon his senses, began to trouble him with their noisiness upon the shingle. He tried to walk less heavily and presently found himself picking his way, and that added to the eeriness, startling him when the loose stones yielded and he stumbled.

He approached that quarter where the shore began to be divided by the rocky barriers that ran from cliff to sea. Then he apprehended what, as he expressed it to himself, was the matter with the sea. It was very full. It looked very deep. What had seemed to him to be waves rolling up now appeared to him as a kind of overflowing, as though not spurned-out waves, but the whole volume of the water welled, swelled, to find more room. The breaking sound was now scarcely to be heard, and that intensified the stillness, and that frightened him more. He began to run....

Mr. Puddlebox stopped running for want of breath; but that physical admission of the mounting panic within him left him very frightened indeed. He went close to the cliffs. Darker there and very shut-up the way they towered so straight and so high. He came away from them, his senses worse wrought upon. Then he came to the first of the rocky barriers that ran like piers from the cliff to the sea, and then for the first time noticed how high the tide had risen. When he came here with Mr. Wriford they had done their climbing far from the cliff's base. Now the barrier was in great part submerged. He must climb it near to the cliff where climbing was steeper and more difficult. Well, there was sand between these barriers, that was one good thing. Walking would be easier and none of that cursed noise that his feet made on the shingle. With much difficulty he got up and looked down upon the other side....

There wasn't any sand. Water where sand had been—water that with that welling, swelling motion pressed about the shingle that banked beneath the cliff.

Mr. Puddlebox said aloud, in a whisper: "The tide!" It was the first time since he had started out that he had thought of it. He looked along the cliff. From where he stood, from where these rocky piers began, the cliff, as he saw, began to stand outwards in a long bluff. The further one went, the further the tide would.... He carried his eyes a little to sea. Beneath the moon were white, uneasy lines. That was where the sea swirled upon the barriers. He looked downwards and saw the placid water welling, swelling beneath his feet.

"The tide," said Mr. Puddlebox again, again in a whisper. He swallowed something that rose in his throat. He ran his tongue around his lips, for they were dry. He shivered, for the perspiration his long walk had induced now seemed to be running down his body in very cold drops. He looked straight above him and at once down to his feet again and moved his feet in steadying of his balance: a sense of giddiness came from looking up that towering height that towered so steeply as to appear hanging over him. He looked along the way he had come; and he stood so close to the cliff-face, and it bulked so enormously before him, that the bay he had traversed seemed, by contrast, to sweep back immensely far—immensely safe.

Mr. Puddlebox watched that safety with unmoving eyes as though he were fascinated by it. The longer he watched the more it seemed to draw him. He kept his eyes upon one distant spot, half way along the bay and high up the shore, and his hypnotic state presented him to himself sitting there—safe. Still with his eyes upon it he moved across the narrow pier in its direction and sat down, legs dangling towards the bay, in the first action of descending. He twisted about to pursue the action, for he was a timid and unhandy climber who would climb downwards facing his hold. As he came to his hands and knees he went forward on them and looked across the fifty yards of shingle-bank, the sea close up, that separated him from the next pier of rocks. He was a creature of fear as he knelt there—a very figure of very ugly fear, ungainly in his form that hung bulkily between his arms and legs, white and loosely fat in his face that peered timorously over the edge, cowardly and useless in his crouching, shrinking pose.

He said aloud, his eyes on the distant barrier: "I'm as safe there—for a peep—as I am here. I can get back. Even if I get wet I can get back."

He shuffled forward and this time put his legs over the other side and sat a while. Here the drop was not more than three feet beneath the soles of his boots as they dangled. He drew them up. "If he's safe, he's safe," said Mr. Puddlebox. "And if he's drowned, he's drowned. Where's the sense of—"

Something that floated in the water caught his eye. A little, round, greyish clump. About the size of a face. Floating close to the shore. Not a face. A clump of fishing-net corks that Mr. Puddlebox remembered to have seen dry upon the sand when first he arrived here. But very like, very dreadfully like a face, and the water rippling very dreadfully over it at each pulsing of the tide. Floated his loony's face somewhere like that? Struggled he somewhere near to shore as that? The ripples awash upon his mouth? His eyes staring? Mouth that had laughed with Mr. Puddlebox these several months? Eyes that often in appeal had sought his own, and that he loved to light from fear to peace, to trust, to confidence, to merriment? Floated he somewhere? Struggled he somewhere? Waited he somewhere for these hands which, when he sometimes caught, proved them at last of use to some one, stronger than some one else's in many years of sin?

Mr. Puddlebox slid to the shingle and ran along it; came to the further barrier and got upon it; stood there in fear. Beyond, and to the next pier, there was no more, between sea and cliff, than room to walk.

His lips had been very dry when, a short space before, looking towards where now he stood, he had run his tongue around them. They were moist then to what, licking them again, his tongue now felt. Cold the sweat then that trickled down his body: warm to what icy stream fear now exuded on his flesh. He had shivered then: now he not shivered but in all his frame shook so that his knees scarcely could support him. Then it was merely safety that he desired: now he realised fear. Then only safety occupied his mind: now cowardice within him, and he knew it. Love, strangely, strongly conceived in these months, called him on: fear, like a live thing on the rock before him, held him, pressed him back. He thought of rippling water awash upon that mouth, and looked along the narrow path before him, and licked his arid lips again: he saw himself with that deep water, that icy water, that thick water, welling, swelling, to his knees, to his waist, to his neck, sucking him adrift—ah! and he looked back whence he had come and ran his tongue again about his ugly, hanging mouth.

"I'm a coward," said Mr. Puddlebox aloud. "I can't come to you, boy," he said. "I've got to go back, boy," he said. "I can't stand the water, boy. I've always been terrified of deep water, boy. I'd come to you through fire, boy; by God, I would. Not through water. I'm a coward. I can't help it, boy. Water takes your breath. I can't do it, boy."

He waited as if he thought an answer would come. There was only an intense stillness. There was only the very tiniest lapping of the water as it welled and swelled: sometimes there was the faint rattle of a stone that the sucking water sucked from the little ridge of pebbles against the cliff.

Mr. Puddlebox looked down upon the water and spoke to it. The words he spoke might have been employed fiercely, but he spoke them scarcely above a whisper as though it were a confidence that he invited of the sea. "Why don't you break and roar?" said Mr. Puddlebox to the sea, bending down to it. "Why don't you break and roar in waves with foam? You'd be more like fire then. There'd be something in you then. It's the dead look of you. It's the thick look of you. Why don't you break and roar? It's the swelling up from under of you. It's the sucking of you. Why don't you break and roar?"

No answer to that. Only the aching stillness. Only the very tiniest, tiniest lapping of the water as it welled and swelled: sometimes the tiny rattle of a stone that from the ridge against the cliff the sucking water sucked.

In that silence Mr. Puddlebox continued to stare at the water. He stared at it; and at its silence, and as he stared, and as silent, motionless, he continued to stare, his face began to work as, in the presence of a sleeper, sudden stealthy resolve might come to one that watched. Then he began to act as though the water were in fact asleep. He looked all round, then he stepped swiftly down to the little ridge. The pebbles gave beneath him and carried his left foot into the water. He stood perfectly still, pressed against the cliff. "Why don't you break and roar?" whispered Mr. Puddlebox. No answer. No sound. He began to tread very cautiously towards the further pier, the palms of his hands against the cliff, and his face anxiously towards the sea, and all his action as though he moved in stealth and thought to give the sea the slip. As he neared the barrier, so neared the cliff the sea. When but twenty yards remained to be traversed the cliff began to thrust a buttress seaward, awash along its base. "Water takes your breath," Mr. Puddlebox had said. A dozen steps took him above his boots, and he began to catch at his breath as the chill struck him. He opened his mouth with the intent to make these sobbing inspirations less noisy than if drawn hissing through his teeth. He slid his feet as if to lift and splash them would risk awakening the sleeping tide. He was to his knees in it when he reached the rocks. Their surface was green in slimy weed: that meant the tide would cover them. He got up, and on his hands and knees upon the slime caught at his breath and peered beyond.

No beach was visible here: only water: perfectly still.

It was a very short way to the next barrier, and of the barrier very short what was to be seen. The buttress of the cliff pressed steadily out to what was no more than a little table of rock, scarcely thicker above the surface than the thickness of a table-top, then seemed to fall away. A trifle beyond the table there upstood a detached pile of rock, rather like a pulpit and standing about a pulpit's height above the water. That table—when it ran far out along the shore—was where Mr. Puddlebox, looking back, had last seen his loony stand. He remembered it, for he remembered the summit of the pulpit rock that peered above it.

The idea to shout occurred to him. That low table seemed to mark a corner. His loony might be beyond it. If he shouted— He did not dare to shout. Here, more than before, the intensity of the silence possessed him. He did not dare to break it. Here, with no beach visible, the water seemed profoundly dead in slumber.

"Why don't you break and roar?" said Mr. Puddlebox. "Why don't you—" he held his breath and crept forward. He lowered himself and caught his breath. His feet crunched upon the shingle bed, the water stood above his knees, and while the stones still moved where he had disturbed them he stood perfectly still. When they had settled he began to move, sideways, very slowly, his back against the cliff. Each sidelong step took him deeper; at each he more sharply caught his breath. It seemed to him as though the cliff were actually pressing him forward with huge hands. He pressed against it with all his force as though to hold it back. It thrust him, thrust him, thrust him. He was deep to his thighs. He was deep to his waist. "Water takes your breath," Mr. Puddlebox had said. At each deepening step more violently his breath seemed to be taken, more clutchingly had to be recalled. He was above his waist. He stumbled and gave a cry and recovered himself and began to go back; tried to control his dreadful breathing; came on again; then again retreated. Now his breathing that had been sobbing gasps became sheer sobs. He suddenly turned from his sidelong progress, went backwards in two splashing strides whence he had come—in three, in four, and then in a panic headlong rush, and as if he were pursued clambered frantically out again upon the slimy rocks.

As if he were pursued—and now, as if to sight the pursuit, looked sobbing back upon the water he had churned. There was scarcely a sign of his churning. Scarcely a mark of his track. Still as before the water lay there. Still, and thick, and silent, and asleep, and seemed to mock his fears.

"Blast you!" cried Mr. Puddlebox, responsive to the silent mock. "Blast you, why don't you break and roar?" He put a foot down to it and glared at the water. "Why in hell don't you break and roar?" cried Mr. Puddlebox, and flung himself in again, and splashed to the point at which he had turned and fled, and drew a deep breath and went forward above his waist....

The cliff thrust him out and he was deeper; thrust again, and he was above his waist. "Takes your breath"—he was catching at his breath in immense spasms. The shore dropped beneath his feet and he was to his armpits, the table of rock a long pace away. He was drawn from the cliff, and he screamed in dreadful fear. He tried to go back and floundered deeper. He was drowning, he knew. If he lost his footing—and he was losing it—he would go down, and if he went down he never would rise again. He called aloud on God and screamed aloud in wordless terror. The tide swung him against the cliff and drew him screaming and clutching along it. He stumbled and knew himself gone. His hands struck the table of rock. He clutched, found his feet, sprang frantically, and drew himself upon it. He lay there exhausted and moaning. When his abject mind was able to give words to his moans, "O my Christ, don't let me drown," he said. "Not after that, Christ, don't let me drown. O merciful Christ, not after that."

After a little he opened his eyes that had been shut in bewilderment of blind terror and in preparation of death and that he had not courage or thought to open. He opened his eyes. This is what he saw.

Beneath his chin, as he lay, the still, deep water. Close upon his right hand the cliff that towered upwards to the night. A narrow channel away from him stood the pulpit rock. The cliff ran sharply back from beside him, then thrust again towards the pulpit; stopped short of it and then pressed onwards out to sea. Its backward dip formed a tiny inlet over which, masking it from the open sea, the pulpit rock stood sentinel. The back of the inlet showed at its centre a small cave that had the appearance of a human mouth, open. At low water this mouth would have stood a tall man's height above the beach. A short ridge ran along its upper lip. In the dim light it showed there blackly like a little clump of moustache. From its under lip, forming a narrow slipway of beach up to it, there ran a rubble of stones as if the mouth had emitted them or as if its tongue depended into the sea. The corners of the mouth drooped, and here, as if they slobbered, the water trickled in and out responsive to the heaving of the tide.

Mr. Wriford lay upon this slip. He lay face downwards. His arms from his elbows were extended within the mouth of the cave. His boots were in the water. His legs, as Mr. Puddlebox thought, lay oddly twisted.

CHAPTER IV
WATER THAT SWELLS AND SUCKS

Who is so vile a coward that one weaker than himself, in worse distress, shall not arrest his cowardice? Who that has given love so lost in fear as not to love anew, amain, when out of peril his love is called? Who so base then not to lose in gladness what held his soul in dread?

First Mr. Puddlebox only stared. Water that takes your breath had taken his. Water that takes your breath rose in a thin film over the rock where on his face he lay, passed beneath his body, chilled him anew, and took his breath again. He watched it ooze from under him and spread before him: lip upwards where he faced it and ooze beneath his hands. Then gave his eyes again towards the cave.

Who is so vile a coward? Mr. Puddlebox's teeth chattered with his body's frozen chill: worse, worse, with terror of what he had escaped—God, when that sucking water sucked!—fast, faster with that worse horror he besought heaven "not after that" should overtake him. Who so vile, so base? Ah, then that piteous thing that lay before his eyes! in shape so odd, so ugly—broken? dead? Whom he had seen so wild, so eager? who child had been to him and treated as a child? Who first and only in all these years of sin had looked to him for aid, for counsel, strength? Who must have fought this filthy, cruel, silent, sucking water, and fighting it have called him, wanted him? Ah!

Who is so vile? "Loony," Mr. Puddlebox whispered. "Loony! Hey, boy!"

He only whispered. He did not dare a cry that should demand an answer—and demanding, no answer bring. "Hey, boy! Loony!" He tried to raise his voice. He dared not raise it. Anew and thicker now the water filmed the rock about him. Here was death: well, there was death—that piteous thing....

Then change! Then out of death life! Then gladness out of dread! Then joy's tumult as one beside a form beneath a sheet should see the dead loved move.

About the slipway, as he watched, he saw the swelling water, as if with sudden impulse, swell over Mr. Wriford's boots, run to his knees, and in response the prone figure move—the shoulders raise as if to drag the body: raise very feebly and very feebly drop as if the oddly twisted legs were chained.

Feebly—ah, but in sign of life! Revulsion from fear to gladness brought Mr. Puddlebox scrambling to his feet and upright upon them. To a loud cry there would be answer then! Loudly he challenged it. "Loony!" cried Mr. Puddlebox, his voice athrill. "Hey, boy, what's wrong? I'm coming to you, boy!"

It was a groan that answered him.

"Are you hurt, boy?"

There answered him: "Oh, for God's sake—oh, for God's sake!"

"Why, that's my loony!" cried Mr. Puddlebox in a very loud voice. "Hold on, boy! I'm coming to you!"

Excitedly, in excited gladness his terrors bound up, quickly as he could, catching at his breath as his fears caught him, stifling them in jolly shouts of: "Hold on for me, boy! Why, here I come, boy, this very minute!" he started to make his way, excitedly pursued it.

"Hold on for me, boy!" The cliff along the wall of the inlet against which he stood shelved downwards into the dark, still sea. "Here I come, boy!" He went on his face on the table rock and with his legs felt in the water beneath him and behind him. "Hold on for me, boy!" His feet found a ridge, and he lowered himself to it and began to feel his way along it, his hands against the cliff, above his waist the still, dark sea. "Here I come, boy! This very minute!"

So he cried: so he came—deeper, and now his perils rose to fight what brought him on. Deeper—the water took his breath. "Here I come, boy!" Stumbled—thought himself gone, knew as it were an icy hand thrust in his vitals from the depths, clutching his very heart. "I'm to you now, boy. Here—" Terror burst in a cry to his mouth. He changed it to "Whoa!" He was brought by the ridge on which he walked to a point opposite what of the slipway before the cave stood dry. The ridge ended abruptly. He had almost gone beyond it, almost slipped and gone, almost screamed.

"Whoa!" said Mr. Puddlebox. "Hold on for me, boy!" He took his hands from the cliff and faced about where Mr. Wriford lay. Shaken, he felt his way lower. God, again! Again his foothold terminated! Abruptly he could feel his way no more. Like a hand, like a hand at his throat, the water caught his breath. "Hold on for me, boy!" His voice was thick. "Hold on for me, boy!" Clear again, but he stood, stood, and where he stood the water swayed him. Here the cliff base seemed to drop. Here the depths waited him. Facing his feet he knew must be the wall of the slipway. No more than a long stride—ah, no more! If he launched himself and threw himself, his foot must strike it, his arms come upon its surface where that figure lay. Only a long stride. What, when he made it, if no foothold offered? What if he missed, clutched, fell? He looked across the narrow space. Only that spring's distance that figure lay, its face turned from him. He listened. The silence ached, tingled all about him. Suddenly it gave him from the figure the sound of breathing that came and went in moans.

Who is so vile a coward? Swiftly Mr. Puddlebox crouched, nerved, braced himself to spring. Ah, swifter thrust his mind, and bright as flame and fierce as flame, as a flame shouting, flamed flaming vision before his starting eyes. He saw himself leap. He saw himself clutch, falling—God, he could feel his finger-nails rasp and split!—fallen, gone: rising to gulp and scream, sinking to suffocate and gulp and writhe and rise and scream and gulp and sink and go. Like flame, like flame, the vision leapt—upstreaming from the water, shouting in his ears. Thrice he crouched to spring; thrice like flame the vision thundered: thrice passed as flame that bursts before the wind: thrice left him to the stillness, the sucking water, the sound of moaning breath. A fourth time, a last time: ah, now was gone the very will to bring himself to crouch!

He stood a moment, vacant, only trembling. His senses fluttered back to him, and gone, so they informed him, something that before their flight had occupied them. What? In his shaken state he was again a vacant space searching for it before he realised. Then he knew. There was no sound of breathing....

Trembling he listened for it, staring at the figure. Still; there was no sound. Suddenly he heard it. Dreadfully it came. Feebly, a moaning inspiration: stillness again—then a very little sigh, very gentle, very tiny, and the prone figure quivered, relaxed.

Dead? Again, as on the table rock, afraid to call aloud, "Loony!" Mr. Puddlebox whispered. "Hey, boy!"

No answer. Swelling about him came the creeping water, swayed him, swelled and swayed again: high to his chest, higher now and moving him—moving, sucking, drawing. Here was death: ah, well, wait a moment, for there was death—that piteous thing face downwards there. He spoke softly: "Hey, boy, are you gone?" The water rocked him. He cried brokenly, loudly: "Loony! Are you gone, boy?"

Again, again, life out of death, joy's tumult out of fear!

He saw Mr. Wriford draw down his arms, press on his elbows, raise, then turn towards him his face, most dreadfully grey, most dreadfully drawn in pain.

Who so vile, so base?

Swift, swift revulsion to gladness out of dread. "Why, that's my loony!" cried Mr. Puddlebox in a very loud voice.

Mr. Wriford said: "Have you come?"

"Why, here I am, boy!" He steadied his feet.

Very feebly, scarcely to be heard: "I don't see you."

"Why, there's no more than my nob to be seen, boy! I'm here to my nob in the water." His feet were firm. He braced himself. "I'm to you, boy, and I'm in the most plaguy place as I challenge any man ever to have been." He crouched. "I've to jump, boy, and how to the devil—"

He launched himself. His foot struck the slipway bank—no hold! Smooth rock, and his foot glanced down it! He had thought to spring upward from what purchase his foot might find. It found none. Clutching as he fell, he obtained no more than his arms upon the shingle of the slipway, his chin upon it, his elbows thrusting deep, his fingers clutching in the yielding stones.

"Loony!" Mr. Puddlebox cried. "Loony!"

He slipped further. He suddenly screamed: "Loony, I'm going! Christ, I'm going!"

His face, in line with Mr. Wriford's, two arm's-lengths from it, was dreadfully distorted, his lips wide, his teeth grinding. He choked between them: "Can you help me, boy?"

Mr. Wriford was trying to help him. Mr. Wriford was working towards him on his elbows, his face twisted in agony. As he came, "My legs are broken," he said. "I'll reach you. I'll reach you."

Eye to eye and dreadfully eyed they stared one upon the other. A foot's breadth between them now, and now their fingers almost touching.

"I'm done, boy! Christ, I'm done!" But with the very cry, and with his hand so near to Mr. Wriford's slipped again beyond it, Mr. Puddlebox had sudden change of voice, sudden gleam in the eyes that had stood out in horror. "Curse me, I'm not!" cried Mr. Puddlebox. "Curse me, I've bested it. I've found a hole for my foot. Ease up, boy. I'm to you. By God, I'm to you after all!"

Groan that was prayer of thanks came from Mr. Wriford. Fainting, his head dropped forward on his hands. There was tremendous commotion in the water as Mr. Puddlebox sprang up it from his foothold, thrashing it with his legs as, chest upon the shingle, he struggled tremendously. Then he drew himself out and on his knees, dripping, and bent over Mr. Wriford.

"I'm to you now, boy! You're all right now. Boy, you're all right now."

The swelling water swelled with new impulse up the shingle, washed him where he knelt, ran beneath Mr. Wriford's face, and trickled in the stones beyond it.

Mr. Puddlebox looked back upon it over his shoulder. He could not see the table rock where he had lain. Only the pulpit rock upstood, and deep and black the channel on either hand between it and the walls of their inlet. He looked within the cave mouth before him and could see its inner face. It was no more than a shallow hollowing by the sea. He looked upwards and saw the cliff towering into the night, overhanging as it mounted.

He passed his tongue about his lips.

CHAPTER V
WATER THAT BREAKS AND ROARS

I

In a very little while Mr. Puddlebox had dragged Mr. Wriford the three paces that gave them the mouth of the cave and had sat him upright there, his back against the cliff. Mr. Wriford had groaned while he was being moved, now he opened his eyes and looked at Mr. Puddlebox bending over him.

"Why, that's my loony!" cried Mr. Puddlebox very cheerfully. The flicker of a smile rewarded him and from the moment of that smile he concealed, until they parted, the terrors that consumed him. "Why, that's my loony!" cried he, and went on one knee, smiling confidently in Mr. Wriford's face. "What's happened to you, boy?"

Mr. Wriford said weakly: "I've broken my legs. I think both my legs are broken." He indicated the pulpit rock with a motion of his head. "I climbed up there. Then I thought I'd jump down. Very high and rocky underneath, but I thought of it, and so I did it. I didn't land properly. I twisted my legs."

He groaned and closed his eyes. "Well, well," said Mr. Puddlebox, holding his hands and patting them. "There, boy, there. You're all right now. I'm to you now, boy."

"I suppose I fainted," Mr. Wriford said. "I found it was night and the tide up to my feet. I began to drag myself. I dragged myself up and up, and the tide followed. Is it still coming?"

"You're all right now, boy," said Mr. Puddlebox. "Boy, you're all right now."

He felt a faint pressure from Mr. Wriford's hands that he held; he saw in Mr. Wriford's eyes the same message that the pressure communicated. He twisted sharply on his heels, turning with a fierce and threatening motion upon the water as one hemmed in by ever-bolder wolves might turn to drive them back.

From where he knelt the water was almost to be touched.

II

Mr. Puddlebox got to his feet and stooped and peered within the cave. The moon silvered a patch of its inner face. It gleamed wetly. He looked to its roof. Water dripped upon his upturned face. The cave would fill, when the tide was full. He caught his breath as he realised that, looked out upon the dark, still sea, and caught his breath again. He stepped out backwards till his feet were in the water and looked up the towering cliff. It made him sick and dizzy, and he staggered a splashing step, then looked again. To the line of the indentation that had seemed like a clump of moustache upon the cave's upper lip, the cliff on either hand showed dark. Above that line its slaty hue was lighter.

That was high-water mark.

He went a step forward and stood on tiptoe. The tips of his fingers could just reach the narrow indentation—just the tips of his fingers: and sick again he went and dizzy and came down to his heels and turned and stared upon the dark, still sea.

Then he went to Mr. Wriford again and crouched beside him: took his hands and patted them and smiled at him, but did not speak.

Mr. Wriford spoke. He said tonelessly: "Are we going to drown?"

"Drown?" cried Mr. Puddlebox in a very loud voice. "Why, boy, what to the devil has drowning got to do with it? Drown! I was just thinking, that's all. I was thinking of my supper—pork and onions, boy; and when to the devil I shall have had enough, once I get to it, I challenge you to say or any other man. Drown, boy! Why, these poor twisted legs of yours have got into your head to think of such a thing! You can't be thinking this bit of a splash is going to drown us? Why, listen to this, boy—" and with that Mr. Puddlebox turned to the sea and stretching an arm towards it trolled in a very deep voice:

"O ye sea of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise Him and magnify Him for ever!

"That's all that bit of a splash is going to do," said Mr. Puddlebox very cheerfully; "going to praise the Lord and going to damp our boots if we let it, which, curse me, we won't. All we've got to think about is where we're going to sit till the water goes back where, curse me, it should always be instead of shoving itself up here. One place is as good as another, boy, and there's plenty of them, but I know the best. Now I'm going to shift you back a bit, loony," Mr. Puddlebox continued, standing upright, "and then we're going to sit together a half-hour or so, and then I'm going to have my pork and onions, and you're going to be carried to bed."

Very tenderly Mr. Puddlebox drew Mr. Wriford back within the cave. "Now you watch me," said Mr. Puddlebox, "because for once in your life I'm the one that's going to do things while you look on. There's only a pair of good legs between us, boy, and that's ample for two of us, but, curse me, they're mine, and I'm going to do what I want with them."

While in jolly accents he spoke thus Mr. Puddlebox was dislodging from the floor of the cave large stones that lay embedded in the shingle and piling them beneath the indentation that showed upon the cave's upper lip. He sang as he worked. Sometimes "O ye sea" as he had trolled before; sometimes "O ye stones;" sometimes, as he tugged at a larger boulder—

"O ye fearful weights, bless ye the Lord: praise Him and magnify Him for ever!"

Always with each variation he turned a jolly face to Mr. Wriford; always he turned from Mr. Wriford towards the sea that now had reached the pedestal he was building a face that was grey, that twitched in fear.

"O ye whacking great stones, bless ye the Lord: praise Him and magnify Him for ever!"

Knee-high he built his pedestal, working furiously though striving to conceal his haste. Now he stood in water as he strengthened the pile. Now the water had swelled past it and swelled to Mr. Wriford's outstretched feet. Now Mr. Puddlebox climbed upon the mound of stones and brought his head above the narrow indentation above the cave. It showed itself to be a little ledge. He thrust an arm upon it and found it as broad as the length of his forearm, narrowing as it went back to end in a niche that ran a short way up the cliff. There was room for one to sit there, legs hanging down; perhaps for two—if two could gain it.

Mr. Puddlebox dropped back to the water and now dragged last stones that should make a step to his pile. Then he went to Mr. Wriford.

"Now, boy," said Mr. Puddlebox very cheerfully. "Now I've got the cosiest little seat for you, and now for you to get to it. You can't stand?"

"I can't," Mr. Wriford said.

"Try if I can prop you against the cliff."

He took Mr. Wriford beneath the arms and began to raise him. Mr. Wriford implored: "Don't hurt me!" and as he was raised from the ground screamed dreadfully. "Oh, God! Oh, God, don't, don't;" and when set down again lay feebly moaning: "Don't! Don't!"

There immediately began the most dreadful business.

"Boy," said Mr. Puddlebox, "I've got to hurt you. I'll be gentle as I can, my loony. Boy, you've got to bear it." He abandoned his pretence of their safety, and for his jolly humour that had supported it, permitted voice and speech that denied it and revealed the stress of their position. "Boy, the tide is making on us. It's to fill this cave, boy, before it turns. There's slow drowning waiting for us unless I lift you where I've found a place."

"Let me drown!" Mr. Wriford said. "Oh, let me drown."

The sea drove in and washed the cave on every side. Involuntarily Mr. Wriford cried out in fear and stretched his arms to Mr. Puddlebox, bending above him.

"Come, boy," said Mr. Puddlebox and took him again beneath the arms: again as he was moved he cried: "Don't! Don't!"

"Boy," cried Mr. Puddlebox fiercely, "will you watch me drown before your eyes?"

"Save yourself then. Save yourself."

"By God Almighty I will not. If you won't let me lift you you shall drown me."

Then determinedly he passed his hands beneath Mr. Wriford's arms; then resolutely shut his ears to dreadful cries of pain; then, then the dreadful business. "Boy, I've got to hurt you. I'll be gentle, my loony. Bear it, boy, oh, for Christ's sake bear it. Round my neck, boy. Hold tight. Bear it, boy; bear it."

He carried his arms round Mr. Wriford's back, downwards and beneath his thighs and locked them there. There were dreadful screams; but dreadfully the water swelled about them, and he held on; there were moans that rent him as they sounded; but he spoke: "Bear it, boy; bear it!" and with his burden waded forth.

He faced from the sea and towards the pedestal he had built.

"Loony!"

"Oh, for God's sake, set me down."

"Now I've to raise you."

He began to press upwards with his arms, raising his burden high on his chest.

"Wade out and drown me," Mr. Wriford cried. "If you've any mercy, for God's sake drown me!"

"You're to obey me, boy. By God, you shall obey me, or I'll hurt you worse. Catch in my hair. Hold yourself up by my hair. High as you can. Up, up!"

He staggered upon the steps he had constructed; he gained the pedestal he had made. He thought the strain had become insupportable to him and that he must fall with it. "Now when I lift you, boy, keep yourself up. I'll bring you to my head and then set you back." He called upon himself supremely—raised and failed, raised and failed again. "Now, boy, now!"

He got Mr. Wriford to the ledge and thrust him back; himself he clung to the ledge and almost senseless swayed between his hands and feet.

Presently he looked up. "You're safe now, boy."

Mr. Wriford watched him with eyes that scarcely seemed to see: he scarcely seemed to be conscious.

"I had to speak sharply to you, boy."

Mr. Wriford advanced a hand to him, and he took it and held it. "There was nothing in what I said, boy."

He felt the fingers move in his that covered them. "I had to cry out," Mr. Wriford said weakly. "I couldn't help it."

"You were brave, boy, brave. You're safe now. The water will come to you. But you're safe."

"Come up!" said Mr. Wriford. "Come up!"

"I've to rest a moment, boy," Mr. Puddlebox answered him.

He held that hand while he stood resting. He closed his fingers upon it when presently he spoke again. Now the sea had deepened all about, deep to his knees where he stood. As if the slipway before the cave while it stood dry had somehow abated its volume, it seemed to rise visibly and swiftly now that this last barrier was submerged. All about the walls of the inlet deeply and darkly it swelled, licking the walls and running up them in little wavelets, as beasts of prey, massed in a cage, massing and leaping against the bars.

"There's no great room for me beside you, boy," Mr. Puddlebox said and pressed the fingers that he held.

"Come up," said Mr. Wriford. "Quickly—quickly!"

Mr. Puddlebox looked at the narrow ledge and turned his head this way and that and looked again upon the sea.

III

Now, while he looked and while still he waited, the sea's appearance changed. A wind drove in from seaward and whipped its placid surface. Black it had been, save where the high moon silvered it; grey as it flickered and as it swelled about the cliff it seemed to go. It had welled and swelled; now, from either side the pulpit rock that guarded their inlet, it drove in in steeply heaving mass that flung within the cave and all along the cliff and that the cave and cliff flung back. It were as if one with a whip packed this full cage fuller yet, and as though those caged within it leapt here and there and snapped the air with flashing teeth.

"Now I'll try for it, boy," said Mr. Puddlebox. "These stones are shaking under me."

Mr. Wriford withdrew his hand and with his hands painfully raised himself a little to one side. The action removed his back from the crevice up the cliff face in which it had rested. A growth of hardy scrub clung here, and Mr. Puddlebox thrust forward his hand and pulled on it.

"Now I'll try for it, boy," he said again. He looked up into Mr. Wriford's face. "There's nothing to talk about twixt you and me, loony," he said. "We've had some rare days since you came down the road to me, boy. If this bush comes away in my hand and I slip and go, why there's an end to it, boy, and as well one way as another. Don't you be scared."

"I shall hold you," Mr. Wriford said. Intensity filled out and strengthened his weak voice. "I shall hold you. I'll never let you go."

There began some protest out of Mr. Puddlebox's mouth. It was not articulated when the rising sea mastered at last the stones beneath his feet; drove from him again his courage; returned him again his panic fear; and he cried out, and swiftly crouched and sprang. He achieved almost his waist to the level of the ledge. He swept up his other hand to the scrub in the crevice and fastened a double grip within it. It was hold or go, but the scrub held and his peril that he must hold or go gave him immense activity. He drew himself and forced himself. His knee nearer to Mr. Wriford came almost upon the ledge, and Mr. Wriford caught at the limb and gripped it as with claws. "Your other knee!" Mr. Wriford cried. "Higher! For God's sake a little higher!"

The further knee struck the ledge wide out where it no more than showed upon the cliff.

"Higher! Higher!"

Horribly from Mr. Puddlebox, as from one squeezed in the throat and in death straining a last word: "Hold me! Hold me, boy! Don't let me drown in that water!"

"Higher! Higher!"

"Don't let me drown—don't let me drown in that water!"

"Higher! An inch—an inch higher."

The inch was gained. "Now! Now!"

The knee dug into the very rock upon its inch of hold, Mr. Puddlebox clutched higher in the scrub, drew up his other leg, drew in his knees and knelt against the cliff.

Unstrung, and breathing in spasmodic clutches of his chest, he remained a space in that position, and Mr. Wriford collapsed and in new pain leant back where he sat. Presently, and very precariously, Mr. Puddlebox began to twist about and lowered himself to sit upon the ledge. The crevice where the ledge was broadest was between them. Mr. Puddlebox with his left hand held himself in his seat by the scrub that filled this niche, and when Mr. Wriford smiled weakly at him and weakly murmured, "Safe now," he replied: "There's very little room, boy," and looked anxiously upon the sea that now in angry waves was mounting to them. He looked from there to the dark line on either hand that marked the height of the tide's run. The line was level with his waist as he sat. He looked at Mr. Wriford and saw how narrow his perch, and down to the sea again. He said to himself: "That's four times I've been a dirty coward." He said in excuse: "Takes your breath," and caught his breath and looked upon the sea.

IV

Now was full evidence, and evidence increasing, of that "blowing up dirty" of which he had been informed, and which the stillness of the swelling water had seemed to falsify. "Why don't you break and roar?" Mr. Puddlebox had asked the sea. White and loud it broke along the cliff, snatching up to them, falling away as beasts that crouch to spring, then up and higher and snatching them again. The moon, as if her watch was up, withdrew in clouds and only sometimes peered. The wind, as if he now took charge, came strongly and strongly called the sea. The sea, as if the moon released it, broke from her stilly bonds and gave itself to vicious play. Strongly it rose. It reached their hanging feet. Stronger yet as night drew on, and now set towards the corner of the inlet nearer to Mr. Wriford's side and there, repulsed, washed up, and there, upspringing, washed in a widening motion towards their ledge.

They sat and waited, rarely with speech.

At long intervals Mr. Puddlebox would say: "Boy!"

No more than a moan would answer him.

"That's all right, boy."

V

Quite suddenly the water came. Without premonitory splash or leap of spray, quite suddenly, and strongly, deeply, that widening motion where the sea leapt in its corner came like a great hand sweeping high and washed the ledge from end to end—like a hand sweeping and, of its suddenness and volume, raised and swept and shook them where they sat.

At this its first coming, neither spoke of it. There was only a gasp from each as each was shaken. It did not seem to be returning.

After a space, "Boy!" said Mr. Puddlebox again.

"Well? ... well?"

"That's all right, boy."

He clung with his left hand to the scrub. He brought over his right and rested it upon Mr. Wriford's that held the ledge. "Is the pain bad, boy?"

"I'm past pain. I don't feel my legs at all."

"Cold, boy?"

"I don't feel anything. I keep dreaming. I think it's dreaming."

"That's all right, boy."

Again, and again suddenly, that sweeping movement swept them—stronger in force, greater in volume. It swept Mr. Wriford towards Mr. Puddlebox. It almost dislodged him. He was pressed back and down by Mr. Puddlebox's hand, and again the water came. They were scarcely recovered, and once again it struck and shook them.

Now they sat waiting for its onsets. Now the gasp and dreadful struggle while the motion swept and sucked was scarcely done when on and fierce and fiercer yet again it came and shook them.

Now what happened—long in the telling—happened very quickly.

"It's the end—it's the end," Mr. Wriford sobbed—his gasps no more than sobbing as each snatch came. "God, God, it's the end!"

"Hell to the end!" cried Mr. Puddlebox fiercely and fiercely holding him. "Loony, there's nothing here to end us! Boy, do you mind that coastguard we passed early back? He walks here soon after daybreak, he told us, when this bloody tide is down. He'll help me carry you down. Boy, with your back in this niche here you're safe though the sea washes ever so. I'm going to leave you to it. Wedge in, boy."

He began to sidle away.

Fiercely the sweeping movement struck them, stopping Mr. Wriford's protest, driving him to the ledge's centre, all but carrying Mr. Puddlebox whence he clung.

He thrust Mr. Wriford against the niche and roughly tore his hand from Mr. Wriford's grasp.

"What are you doing?" Mr. Wriford cried. "Giving me your place—no, no—!"

Fiercely was answered: "Hell to giving my place! Not me, curse me! I'm going for safety, boy." He indicated the pulpit rock whose surface dryly upstood before them. "Easy to get on there. I'm going to swim there."

"You can't swim! No—you shall not—no!"

Again the beat of rushing water. Scarcely seated where he had edged, Mr. Puddlebox was dragged away, clung, and was left upon the ledge's last extremity. As glad and radiant as ever it had been, the old jolly beam came to his face, to his mouth the old jolly words. "Swim! Why, boy, I'd swim that rotten far with my hands tied. Curse me, I'd never go if I couldn't. Swim! Why, curse me, I will swim you or any man, and I challenge any to the devil to best me at it. Wedge back, boy. Wedge back."

He turned away his jolly face, and to the waiting water turned a face drawn and horrible in fear.

Water that takes your breath!

He swung himself forward on his hands and dropped. He drowned instantly.

* * * * * * * *

There had been no pretence of swimming. There seemed to be no struggle. In one moment he had been balancing between his hands in seated posture on the ledge. In the next down and swallowed up and gone.

Eyes that looked to see him rise and swim stared, stared where he was gone and whence he came not: then saw his body rise—all lumped up, the back of its shoulders, not its head. Then watched it, all lumped up, slightly below the surface, bobbed tossing round the cliff within the inlet: out of sight in the further corner: now bumping along the further wall: now submerged and out of view. Now washed against the pulpit rock: now a long space bumping about it: now drawn beyond it: gone.