Latest / Historical Adventure Audiobooks / 🟡 Brushwood Boy (Full Audiobook) | Rudyard Kipling

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🟡 Brushwood Boy (Full Audiobook) | Rudyard Kipling · Historical Adventure Audiobooks

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: THE BRUSHWOOD BOY Girls and boys, come out to play.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: The moon is shining bright as day. Leave your supper
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: and leave your sleep, and come with your playfellows out
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: in the street, up the ladder and down the wall.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: A child of three sat up in his crib and
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: screamed at the top of his voice. His fists clenched
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: and his eyes full of terror. At first no one heard,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: for his nursery was in the west wing, and the
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: nurse was talking to the gardener among the laurels. Then
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: the housekeeper passed that way, and hurried to soothe him.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: He was her special pet, and she disapproved of the nurse.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: What is it, then? What is it, then? There's nothing
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: to frighten him. Georgie, dear. It was a policeman. He
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: was on the down. I saw him. He came in.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Jane said he would.' Policemen don't come into houses, dearie.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Turn over and take my hand.'' I saw him on
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: the down. He came here. Where's your hand up?' The
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: housekeeper waited till the sobs changed to the regular breathing
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: of sleep before she stole out.' Jane, what nonsense have
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: you been telling Master Georgie about policemen?' I haven't told
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: him anything. You have. He's been dreaming about them. We
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: met Tisdall on Dowhead when we were in the donkey
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: cart this morning. Perhaps that's what put it into his head. Oh,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: you aren't going to frighten the child into fits with
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: your silly tales, and the master know nothing about it,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: if ever I catch you again, etc.? A child of
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: six was telling himself stories as he lay in bed.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: It was a new power, and he kept it a secret.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: A month before, it had occurred to him to carry
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: on a nursery tale left unfinished by his mother, and
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: he was delighted to find the tale, as it came
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: out of his own head just as surprising as though
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: he were listening to it all new from the beginning.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: There was a prince in that tale, and he killed dragons,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: but only for one night. Ever afterwards, Georgie dubbed himself Prince, Pasha,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Giant Killer, and all the rest. You see, he could
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: not tell anyone for fear of being laughed at. And
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: his tales faded gradually into dreamland, where adventures were so
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: many that he could not recall the half of them.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: They all began in the same way, Horn. As Georgie
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: explained to the shadows of the nightlight, there was the
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: same starting-off place, a pile of brushwood stacked somewhere near
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: a beach, and round this pile Georgie found himself running
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: races with little boys and girls. These ended. Ships ran
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: high up the dry land and opened into cardboard boxes.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: or gilt and green iron railings that surrounded beautiful gardens,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: turned all soft, and could be walked through and overthrown
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: so long as he remembered it was only a dream.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: He could never hold that knowledge for more than a
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: few seconds, ere things became real, and instead of pushing
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: down houses full of grown-up people, a just revenge, He
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: sat miserably upon gigantic doorsteps, trying to sing the multiplication
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: table up to four times six. The princess of his
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: tales was a person of wonderful beauty. She came from
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: the old illustrated edition of Grimm, now out of print.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: and as she always applauded Georgie's valour among the dragons
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: and buffaloes, he gave her the two finest names he
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: had ever heard in his life, Annie and Louise, pronounced
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Annie and Louise. When the dreams swamped the stories, she
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: would change into one of the little girls round the
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: brushwood pile, still keeping her title and crown. She saw
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: Georgie drown once in a dream sea by the beach.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: It was the day after he had been taken to
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: bathe in a real sea by his nurse. And he
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: said as he sank, Poor Annie and Louise, she'll be
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: sorry for me now. But Annie and Louise, walking slowly
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: on the beach, called, Ha! Ha! said the duck, laughing. which,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: to a waking mind, might not seem to bear on
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: the situation. It consoled Georgie at once, and must have
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: been some kind of spell, for it raised the bottom
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: of the deep, and he waded out with a twelve-inch
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: flower-pot on each foot. As he was strictly forbidden to
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: meddle with flower-pots in real life, he felt triumphantly wicked.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: The movements of grown-ups, whom Georgie tolerated, but did not
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: pretend to understand, removed his world, when he was seven
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: years old, to a place called Oxford-on-a-Visit. Here were huge buildings,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: surrounded by vast prairies, with streets of infinite length, and,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: above all, something called the Buttery, which Georgie was dying
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: to see, because he knew it must be greasy, and
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: therefore delightful. He perceived how correct were his judgments when
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: his nurse led him through a stone arch into the
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: presence of an enormously fat man, who asked him if
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: he would like some bread and cheese. Georgie was used
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: to eat all round the clock, so he took what
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Buttery gave him, and would have taken some brown liquid
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: called Auditale, but that his nurse led him away to
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: an afternoon performance of a thing called Pepper's Ghost. This
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: was intensely thrilling. People's heads came off and flew all
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: round the stage, and skeletons danced bone by bone, while Mr.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Pepper himself, beyond question man of the worst, waved his
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: arms and flapped a long gown, and in a deep
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: bass voice, Georgie had never heard a man sing before,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: told of his sorrows unspeakable. Some grown-up or other tried
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: to explain that the illusion was made with mirrors, and
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: that there was no need to be frightened. Georgie did
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: not know what illusions were, but he did know that
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: a mirror was the looking-glass with the ivory handle on
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: his mother's dressing-table. Therefore the grown-up was just saying things,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: after the distressing custom of grown-ups, and Georgie cast about
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: for amusement between scenes. Next to him sat a little girl,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: dressed all in black, her hair combed off her forehead
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: exactly like the girl in the book called Alice in Wonderland,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: which had been given him on his last birthday. The
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: little girl looked at Georgie, and Georgie looked at her.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: There seemed to be no need of any further introductions.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: I've got a cut on my thumb, said he. It
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: was the first work of his first real knife, a
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: savage triangular hack, and he esteemed it a most valuable possession.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, she lisped. Let me look, please. There's
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: a diacom plaster on, but it's all raw under, Georgie answered, complying.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Doesn't it hurt? Her grey eyes... were full of pity
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: and interest. Awfully! Perhaps it will give me lockjaw. It
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: looked very horrid. I'm so sorry. She put her forefinger
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: to his hand and held her head sideways for a
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: better view. Here the nurse turned and shook him severely.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: You mustn't talk to strange little girls, Master Georgie. She
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: isn't strange. She's very nice. I like her. and I've
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: showed her my new cut. The idea you change places
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: with me! She moved him over and shut out the
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: little girl from his view, while the grown-up behind renewed
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: the futile explanations. I'm not afraid, truly, said the boy,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: wriggling in despair. But why don't you go to sleep
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: in the afternoon, same as Provost of Oriol? Georgie had
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: been introduced to a grown-up of that name who slept
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: in his presence without apology Georgie understood that he was
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: the most important grown-up in Oxford. Hence, he strove to
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: gild his rebuke with flatteries. This grown-up did not seem
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: to like it, but he collapsed, and Georgie lay back
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: in his seat, silent and enraptured. Mr. Pepper was singing again.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: and the deep ringing voice, the red fire, and the
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: misty waving gown all seemed to be mixed up with
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: the little girl who had been so kind about his cut.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: When the performance was ended, she nodded to Georgie, and
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Georgie nodded in return. He spoke no more than was
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: necessary till bedtime, but meditated on new colours and sounds
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: and lights and music and things as far as he
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: understood them. the deep-mouthed agony of Mr. Pepper mingling with
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: the little girl's lisp. That night he made a new tale,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: from which he shamelessly removed the Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: your hair, princess, gold crown, grim edition and all, and
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: put a new Annie and Louise in her place. So
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: it was perfectly right and natural that when he came
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: to the brushwood pile he should find her waiting for him,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Her hair combed off her forehead more like Alice in
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Wonderland than ever. And the races and adventures began. Section
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: 2 of THE BRUSHWOOD BOY by Rudyard Kipling This LibriVox
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Recording by Liam Neely
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Ten years at an English public school do not encourage dreaming.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Georgie won his growth and chest measurement, and a few
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: other things which did not appear in the bills under
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: a system of cricket, football, and paper chases from four
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: to five days a week. which provided for three lawful
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: cuts of ground ash if any boy absented himself from
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: these entertainments. He became a rumple-collared, dusty-hatted fag of the
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: lower third, and, light half-back, at little side football, was
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: pushed and prodded through the slack backwaters of the lower fourth,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: where the raffle of a school generally accumulates, won his
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: second fifteen cap at football, enjoyed the dignity of a
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: study with two companions in it, and began to look
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: forward to office as a sub-prefect. At last he blossomed
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: into full glory as head of the school, ex-officio captain
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: of the games, head of his house, where he and
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: his lieutenants preserved discipline and decency among seventy boys from
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: twelve to seventeen, general arbiter, in the quarrels that spring
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: up among the touchy sixth, and intimate friend and ally
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: of the head himself. When he stepped forth in the
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: black jersey, white knickers, and black stockings of the first fifteen,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: the new match-ball under his arm, and his old and
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: frayed cap at the back of his head, the small
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: fry of the lower forms, stood apart and worshipped, and
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: the new caps of the team disappeared. talk to him ostentatiously,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: that the world might see. And so, in summer, when
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: he came back to the pavilion, after a slow but
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: eminently safe game, it mattered not whether he had made
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: nothing or, as once happened, a hundred and three. The
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: school shouted just the same, and womenfolk, who had come
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: to look at the match, looked at Cotter, Cotter Major.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: That's Cotter! Above all, He was responsible for that thing
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: called the tone of the school, and few realize with
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: what passionate devotion a certain type of boy throws himself
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: into his work. Home was a faraway country full of
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: ponies and fishing and shooting and men-visitors who interfered with
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: one's plans. But school was the real world, where things
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: of vital importance happened, and crises arose everywhere. that must
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: be dealt with promptly and quietly. Not for nothing was
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: it written, Let the consuls look to it, that the
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: Republic takes no harm. And Georgie was glad to be
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: back in authority when the holidays ended. Behind him, but
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: not too near, was the wise and temperate head, now
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: suggesting the wisdom of the serpent, now counselling the mildness
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: of the dove. leading him on to see, more by
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: half hints than by any direct word, how boys and
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: men are all of a piece, and how he who
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: can handle the one will assuredly in time control the other.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: For the rest, the school was not encouraged to dwell
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: on its emotions, but rather to keep in hard condition
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: to avoid false quantities, and to enter the army direct
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: without help of the expensive London crammer, under whose roof
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: young blood learns too much. Cotter, Major, went the way
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: of hundreds before him. The head gave him six months'
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: final polish, taught him what kind of answers best please
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: a certain kind of examiners, and handed him over to
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: the properly constituted authorities, who passed him into Sandhurst. Here
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: he had the sense to see that he was in
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: the lower third once more, and behaved with respect toward
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: his seniors until they in turn respected him. And he
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: was promoted to the rank of corporal, and sat in
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: authority over mixed people's with all the vices of men
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: and boys combined. His reward was another string of athletic cups,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: a good-conduct sword, and, at last, Her Majesty's commission as
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: a subaltern in a first-class line regiment. He did not
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: know that he bore with him from school and college
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: a character worth much fine gold, but was pleased to
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: find his mess so kindly. He had plenty of money
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: of his own. His training had set the public school
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: mask upon his face, and had taught him how many
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: were the things no fellow can do. By virtue of
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: the same training, he kept his paws open and his
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: mouth shut. The regular working of the empire shifted his
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: world to India. where he tasted utter loneliness in a
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: subaltern's quarters, one room and one bullet-trunk, and, with his mess,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: learned the new life from the beginning. But there were
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: horses in the land, ponies at reasonable price. There was polo,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: for such as could afford it. There were the disreputable
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: remnants of a pack of hounds. and Cotter worried his
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: way along without too much despair. It dawned on him
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: that a regiment in India was nearer the chance of
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: active service than he had conceived, and that a man
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: might as well study his profession. A major of the
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: new school backed this idea with enthusiasm, and he and
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Cotter accumulated a library of of military works, and read
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: and argued and disputed far into the nights. But the
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: adjutant said the old thing. Get to know your men, young'un,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: and they'll follow you anywhere. That's all you want, know
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: your men. Cotter thought he knew them fairly well at
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: cricket and the regimental sports, but he never realized the
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: true inwardness of them until he was sent off with
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: a detachment of twenty to sit down in a mud
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: fort near a rushing river which was spanned by a
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: bridge of boats. When the floods came, they went forth
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: and hunted strayed pontoons along the banks. Otherwise there was
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: nothing to do, and the men got drunk, gambled, and quarreled.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: There were sickly crews. for a junior subaltern is by
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: custom saddled with the worst men. Cotter endured their rioting
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: as long as he could, and then sent down country
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: for a dozen pairs of boxing gloves. I wouldn't blame
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: you for fighting, said he, if you only knew how
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: to use your hands. But you don't. Take these things,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: and I'll show you. The men appreciated his efforts. Now,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: instead of blaspheming and swearing at a comrade, and threatening
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: to shoot him, they could take him apart, and soothe
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: themselves to exhaustion. As one explained, whom Cotter found with
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: a shut eye and a diamond-shaped mouth, spitting blood through
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: an embouchure, We tried it with the gloves, sir, for
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: twenty minutes, and that done us no good, sir. Then
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: we took off the gloves and tried it that way
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: for another twenty minutes, same as you showed us, sir,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: and that done us a world of good. It wasn't fighting, sir,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: there was a bet on. Cotter dared not laugh, but
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: he invited his men to other sports, such as racing
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: across country in shirt and trousers after a trail of
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: torn paper, and to single-stick in the evenings, till the
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: native population, who had a lust for sport in every form,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: wished to know whether the white men understood wrestling. They
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: sent in an ambassador, who took soldiers by the neck
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: and threw them about the dust. And the entire command
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: were all for the new game. They spent money on
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: learning new falls and holes, which was better than buying
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: other doubtful commodities, and the peasantry grinned five deep round
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: the tournaments. That detachment, who had gone up in bullock carts,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: returned to headquarters at an average rate of thirty miles
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: a day, fair heel and toe, no sick, no prisoners,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: and no court-martials pending. They scattered themselves among their friends,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: singing the praises of their lieutenant, and looking for causes
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: of offence.' How did you do it, young un?' the
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: adjutant asked.' Oh, I sweated the beef off him, and
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: then I sweated some muscle on to him. It was
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: rather a lark.' If that's your way of looking at it,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: we can give you all the larks you want. Young
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Davis isn't feeling quite fit, and he's next for detachment duty.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Care to go for him? Sure he wouldn't mind. I
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: don't want to shove myself forward, you know. You needn't
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: bother on Davis's account. We'll give you the sweepings of
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: the call, and you can see what you can make
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: of them. All right, said Cotter. It's better fun than
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: loafing about cantonments. Rummy thing, said the adjutant, after Cotter
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: had returned to his wilderness with twenty other devils worse
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: than the first. If Cotter only knew it, half the
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: women in the station would give their eyes, confound them,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: to have the young'un in tow. That accounts for Mrs.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Ellery saying, I was working my nice new boy too hard,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: said a wing-commander. Oh, yes, and why doesn't he come
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: to the bandstand in the evenings? And can't I get
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: him to make up a four at tennis with the
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Hammond girls? the adjutant snorted. Look at young Davis making
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: an ass of himself over mutton dressed as lamb, old
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: enough to be his mother. No one can accuse young
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Cotter of running after women, white or black, the major
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: replied thoughtfully. But then, that's the kind that generally goes
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: the worst mucker in the end. Not Cotter. I've only
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: run across one of his muster before, a fellow called
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Ingles in South Africa. He was just the same hard-trained
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: athletic sports build of animal, always kept himself in the
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: pink of condition. Didn't do him much good, though. Shot
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: at Wesselstrom the week before Majuba. Wonder how the young'un
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: will lick his detachment into shape. Cotter turned up six
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: weeks later, on foot with his pupils. He never told
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: his experiences, but the men spoke enthusiastically, and fragments of
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: it leaked back to the colonel through sergeants Batman and
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: the like. There was great jealousy between the first and
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: second detachments, but the men united in adoring Cotter, and
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: their way of showing it was by sparing him all
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: the trouble that men know how to make for an
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: unloved officer. He sought popularity as little as he had
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: sought it at school, and therefore it came to him.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: He favoured no one, not even when the company's sloven
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: pulled the company cricket-match out of the fire with an
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: unexpected forty-three at the last moment. There was very little
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: getting round him, for he seemed to know by instinct
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: exactly when and where to head off a malingerer. But
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: he did not forget— that the difference between a dazed
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: and sulky junior of the upper school and a bewildered
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: brow-beaten lump of a private fresh from the depot was
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: very small indeed. The sergeants, seeing these things, told him
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: secrets generally hid from young officers. His words were quoted
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: as barrack authority on bets, in canteen, and at tea.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: And the veriest shrew of the corps, bursting with charges
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: against other women who had used the cooking ranges out
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: of turn, forbore to speak when Cotter, as the regulations ordained,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: asked of a morning if there were any complaints.' I' m
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: full of complaints,' said Mrs. Corporal Morrison,' and I'd kill
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: O'Halloran's fat sow of a wife any day.' But you
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: know how it is. He puts his head just inside
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: the door and looks down his blessed nose so bashful,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: and he whispers, Any complaints? You can't complain after that.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: I want to kiss him. One day I think I will. Hey-ho,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: she'll be a lucky woman that gets young innocence. See
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: him now, girls. Do you blame me? Cotter was cantering
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: across to Polo. and he looked a very satisfactory figure
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: of a man, as he gave easily to the first
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: excited bucks of his pony, and slipped over a low
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: mud wall to the practice ground. There were more than Mrs.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Corporal Morrison who felt as she did, but Cotter was
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: busy for eleven hours of the day. He did not
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: care to have his tennis spoiled by petticoats in the court.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: And after one long afternoon at a garden party, he
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: explained to his major that this sort of thing was
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: futile cripple, and the major laughed. Theirs was not a
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: married mess, except for the colonel's wife, and Cotter stood
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: in awe of the good lady. She said, My regiment,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: and the world knows what that means. Nonetheless— when they
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: wanted her to give away prizes after a shooting match,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: and she refused because one of the prize-winners was married
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: to a girl who had made a jest of her
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: behind her broad back. The mess-ordered caught her to tackle
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: her in his best-calling kit. This he did simply and laboriously,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: and she gave way altogether. She only wanted to know
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: the facts of the case, he explained. I just told her.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: and she saw it once. Yes, said the adjutant. I
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: expect that's what she did. Come into the fusileus dance to-night, Galahad? No, thanks.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: I've got a fight on with the Major. The virtuous
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: apprentice sat up till midnight in the Major's quarters with
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: a stop-watch and a pair of compasses, shifting little painted
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: lead blocks about a four-inch map. Then he turned in
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: and slept the sleep of innocence, which is full of
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: healthy dreams. One peculiarity of his dreams he noticed at
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: the beginning of his second hot weather. Two or three
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: times a month they duplicated or ran in series. He
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: would find himself sliding into dreamland by the same road.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: a road that ran along a beach near a pile
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: of brushwood. To the right lay the sea, sometimes at
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: full tide, sometimes withdrawn to the very horizon, but he
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: knew it for the same sea. By that road he
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: would travel over a swell of rising ground covered with
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: short withered grass into valleys of wonder and unreason, Beyond
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: the ridge, which was crowned with some sort of street lamp,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: anything was possible, but up to the lamp it seemed
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: to him that he knew the road as well as
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: he knew the parade ground. He learned to look forward
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: to the place, for once there he was sure of
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: a good night's rest, and Indian hot weather can be
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: rather trying. First shadowy, under closing eyelids, would come the
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: outline of the brushwood pile. Next, the white sand of
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: the beach road, almost overhanging the black changeful sea. Then
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: the turn inland and uphill to the single light. When
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: he was unrestful for any reason, he would tell himself
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: how he was sure to get there, sure to get there,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: if he shut his eyes and surrendered to the drift
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: of things. But one night, after foolishly hard hours per day,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: the thermometer was ninety-four in his quarters at ten o'clock,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: sleep stood away from him altogether, though he did his
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: best to find the well-known road, the point where true
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: sleep began. At last he saw the brushwood piles, and
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: hurried along to the ridge, for behind him he felt
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: was the wide-awake sultry world. He reached the lamp in safety,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: tingling with drowsiness, when a policeman, a common country policeman,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: sprang up before him and touched him on the shoulder,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: ere he could dive into the dim valley below. He
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: was filled with terror, the hopeless terror of dreams, for
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: the policeman said, in the awful, distinct voice of dream people.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: I am Policeman Day, coming back from the City of Sleep.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: You come with me. Georgie knew it was true, that
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: just beyond him, in the valley, lay the lights of
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: the City of Sleep, where he would have been sheltered.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: and that this policeman thing had full power and authority
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: to head him back to miserable wakefulness. He found himself
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: looking at the moonlight on the wall, dripping with fright,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: and he never overcame that horror, though he met the
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: policeman several times that hot weather, and his coming was
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: the forerunner of a bad night. But other dreams, perfectly
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: absurd ones, filled him with an incommunicable delight. All those
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: that he remembered began by the brushwood pile. For instance,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: he found a small clockwork steamer. He had noticed it
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: many nights before, lying by the sea road, and stepped
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: into it, whereupon it moved with surpassing swiftness over an
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: absolutely level sea. This was glorious. for he felt he
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: was exploring great matters, and it stopped by a lily
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: carved in stone, which most naturally floated on the water.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Seeing the lily was labelled Hong Kong, Georgie said, Of course,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: this is precisely what I expected Hong Kong would be like.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: How magnificent! Thousands of miles further on, it halted at
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: yet another stone lily, labelled Java. And this again delighted
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: him hugely, because he knew that now he was at
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: the world's end. But the little boat ran on and
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: on till it lay in a deep freshwater lock, the
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: sides of which were carven marble green with moss. Lily
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: pads lay on the water, and reeds arched above. Someone
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: moved among the reeds, someone whom Georgie knew he had
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: travelled to this world's end to reach. Therefore everything was
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: entirely well with him. He was unspeakably happy, and vaulted
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: over the ship's side to find this person. When his
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: feet touched that still water, it changed, with the rustle
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: of unrolling maps, to nothing less than a sixth quarter
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: of the globe, beyond the most remote imagining of man.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: A place where islands were coloured yellow and blue, their
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: lettering strung across their faces. They gave on unknown seas.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: and Georgie's urgent desire was to return swiftly across this
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: floating atlas to known bearings. He told himself repeatedly that
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: it was no good to hurry, but still he hurried desperately,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: and the island slipped and slid under his feet. The
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: straits yawned and widened, till he found himself utterly lost
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: in the world's fourth dimension, with no hope of return.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: yet only a little distance away he could see the
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: old world, with the rivers and mountain chains marked according
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: to the Sandhurst rules of back-making. Then that person for
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: whom he had come to the Lily Lock— that was its
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: name— ran up across unexplored territories and showed him the way.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: They fled hand in hand. till they reached a road
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: that spanned ravines, and ran along the edge of precipices,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: and was tunnelled through mountains. This goes to our brushwood pile,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: said his companion, and all his trouble was at an end.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: He took a pony. because he understood that this was
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: the thirty-mile ride, and he must ride swiftly, and race
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: through the clattering tunnels and round the curves, always downhill,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: till he heard the sea to his left, and saw
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: it raging under a full moon against sandy cliffs. It
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: was heavy going, but he recognized the nature of the country.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: the dark purple downs inland, and the bents that whistled
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: in the wind. The road was eaten away in places,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: and the sea lashed at him black, foamless tongues of
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: smooth and glossy rollers. But he was sure that there
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: was less danger from the sea than from them, whoever
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: they were, inland to his right. He knew, too, that
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: he would be safe if he could reach the down
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: with the lamp on it. This came as he expected.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: He saw the one light a mile ahead along the beach, dismounted,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: turned to the right, walked quietly over to the brushwood pile,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: found the little steamer had returned to the beach whence
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: he had unmoored it, and must have fallen asleep, for
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: he could remember no more. I'm getting the hang of
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: the geography of that place, he said to himself. As
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: he shaved next morning, I must have made some sort
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: of circle. Let's see, the Thirty Mile Ride— how the deuce
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: did I know it was called the Thirty Mile Ride— joins
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: the sea road beyond the first down where the lamp is,
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: and that atlas country lies at the back of the
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Thirty Mile Ride. somewhere out to the right beyond the
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: hills and tunnels. Rummy things, dreams. Wonder what makes mine
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: fit into each other so. He continued on his solid
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: way through the recurring duties of the seasons. The regiment
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: was shifted to another station, and he enjoyed road-marching for
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: two months, with a good deal of mixed shooting thrown in.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: and when they reached their new cantonments, he became a
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: member of the local tent club, and chased the mighty
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: boar on horseback with a short stabbing spear. There he
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: met the master of punch, beside whom the tarpon was
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: a herring, and he who lands him can say that
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: he is a fisherman. This was as new and as
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: fascinating as the big game-shooting that fell to his portion,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: when he had himself photographed for his mother's benefit sitting
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: on the flank of his first tiger. Then the adjutant
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: was promoted, and Cotter rejoiced with him, for he admired
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: the adjutant greatly, and marvelled who might be big enough
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: to fill his place, so that he nearly collapsed when
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: the mantle fell on his own shoulders, and the colonel
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: said a few sweet things that made him blush. An
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: adjutant's position does not differ materially from that of head
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: of the school, and Cotter stood in the same relation
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: to the colonel as he had to his old head
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: in England. Only tempers wear out in hot weather, and
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: things were said and done that tried him sorely, and
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: he made glorious blunders from which the regimental sergeant-major pulled
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: him with a loyal soul and a shut mouth. Slovens
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: and incompetence raged against him. The weak-minded strove to lure
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: him from the ways of justice. The small-minded, yea, men,
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: whom Cotter believed, would never do things no fellow can do.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Imputed motives mean and circuitous to actions that he had
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: not spent a thought upon. And he tasted injustice, and
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: it made him very sick. but his consolation came on
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: parade when he looked down the full companies and reflected
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: how few were in hospitals or cells, and wondered when
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: the time would come to try the machine of his
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: love and labour. But they needed and expected the whole
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: of a man's working day, and maybe three or four
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: hours of the night. Curiously enough, he never dreamed about
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: the regiment, as he was popularly supposed to. The mind,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: set free from the day's doings, generally ceased working altogether, or,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: if it moved at all, carried him along the old
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: beach road to the Downs, the lampposts, and once in
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: a while to Terrible Policeman Day. The second time that
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: he returned to the world's lost continent, this was a
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: dream that repeated itself again and again with variations on
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: the same ground, he knew that if he only sat
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: still the person from the lily lock would help him,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: and he was not disappointed. Sometimes he was trapped in
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: mines of vast depth, hollowed out of the heart of
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: the world, where men in torment chanted echoing songs, and
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: he heard this person coming along through the galleries, and
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: everything was made safe and delightful. They met again in
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: low-roofed Indian railway carriages that halted in a garden surrounded
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: by gilt and green railings, where a mob of stony
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: white people, all unfriendly, sat at breakfast tables covered with roses,
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: and separated Georgie from his companion, while underground voices sang
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: deep-voiced songs. Georgie was filled with enormous despair till they
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: two met again. They foregathered. in the middle of an
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: endless hot tropic night, and crept into a huge house
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: that stood, he knew, somewhere north of the railway station,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: where the people ate among the roses. It was surrounded
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: with gardens, all moist and dripping, and in one room,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: reached through leagues of whitewashed passages, a sick thing lay
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: in bed. Now the least noise, Georgie knew, would unchain
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: some waiting horror, and his companion knew it too. But
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: when their eyes met across the bed, Georgie was disgusted
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: to see that she was a child, a little girl,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: in strapped shoes, with her black hair combed back from
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: her forehead. What disgraceful folly, he thought! Now she could
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: do nothing whatever if its head came off. Then The
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: thing coughed, and the ceiling shattered down in plaster on
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: the mosquito netting, and they rushed in from all quarters.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: He dragged the child through the stifling garden, voices chanting
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: behind them, and they rode the thirty-mile ride under whip
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: and spur along the sandy beach by the booming sea
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: until they came to the downs, the lamppost, and the
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: brushwood pile, which was safety. Very often dreams would break
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: up about them in this fashion, and they would be
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: separated to endure awful adventures alone. But the most amusing
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: times were when he and she had a clear understanding
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: that it was all make-believe, and walked through mile-wide roaring
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: rivers without even taking off their shoes, or set light
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: to populous cities to see how they would burn. and
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: were rude as any children to the vague shadows met
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: in their rambles. Later in the night they were sure
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: to suffer for this, either at the hands of the
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: railway people eating among the roses, or in the tropic
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: uplands at the far end of the thirty-mile ride. Together
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: this did not much affright them, but often Georgie would
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: hear her shrill cry of, Boy, boy! half a world away,
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: and hurry to her rescue before they maltreated her. He
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: and she explored the dark purple downs as far inland
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: from the brushwood pile as they dared, but that was
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: always a dangerous matter. The interior was filled with them,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: and they went about singing in the hollows, and Georgie
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: and she felt safer on or near the seaboard. So
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: thoroughly had he come to know the place of his
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: dreams that, even waking, he accepted it as a real
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: country and made a rough sketch of it. He kept
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: his own counsel, of course, but the permanence of the
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: land puzzled him. His ordinary dreams were as formless and
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: as fleeting as any healthy dreams could be, but once
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: at the brushwood pile he moved within known limits and
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: could see where he was going. There were months at
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: a time when nothing notable crossed his sleep. Then the
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: dreams would come in a batch of five or six,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: and next morning the map he kept in his writing-case
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: would be written up to date, for Georgie was a
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: most methodical person. There was indeed a danger, his seniors
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: said so, of his developing into a regular antifuss of
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: an adjutant. and when an officer once takes too old maidism,
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: there is more hope for the virgin of seventy than
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: for him. But fate sent the change that was needed,
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: in the shape of a little winter campaign on the border, which,
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: after the manner of little campaigns, flashed out into a
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: very ugly war, and Cotter's regiment was chosen among the first. Now,
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: said a major, This'll shake the cobwebs out of us all,
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: especially you, Galahad, and we can see what your hen-with-one-chick
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: attitude has done for the regiment. Cotter nearly wept with
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: joy as the campaign went forward. They were fit physically
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: beyond the other troops, they were good children in camp,
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: wet or dry, fed or unfed, and they followed their
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: officers with the quick suppleness and trained obedience of a
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: first-class soldier. Football 15. They were cut off from their
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: apology for a base, and cheerfully cut their way back
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: to it again. They crowned and cleaned out the hills
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: full of the enemy, with the precision of well-broken dogs
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: of chase, and in the hour of retreat, when hampered
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: with the sick and wounded of the column, they were
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: persecuted down eleven miles of waterless valley. They, serving as rear-guard,
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: covered themselves with great glory in the eyes of fellow professionals.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: Any regiment can advance, but few know how to retreat
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: with a sting in the tail. Then they turned to
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: made roads, most often under fire, and dismantled some inconvenient
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: mud redoubts. They were the last corps to be withdrawn
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: when the rubbish of the campaign was all swept up.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: And after a month in standing camp, which drives morale severely,
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: they departed to their own place in column of fours, singing.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: He's going to do without them, don't want them any more.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: He's going to do without them as he's often done before.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: He's going to be a martyr on an oddly novel plan,
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: and all the boys and girls will say, Oh, what
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: a nice young man, man, man! Oh, what a nice
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: young man! There came out a gazette, in which Carter
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: found that he had been behaving with courage and coolness
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: and discretion in all his capacities, that he had assisted
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: the wounded under fire, had blown in a gate also
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: under fire. Net result, his captaincy, and a brevet majority,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: coupled with the distinguished service order. As to his wounded,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: he explained that they were both heavy men, whom he
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: could lift more easily than anyone else. Otherwise, of course,
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: I should have sent out one of my men. And,
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: of course, about that gate business, we were safe the
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: minute we were well under the walls. But this did
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: not prevent his men from cheering him furiously whenever they
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: saw him. or the mess from giving him a dinner
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: on the eve of his departure to England. A year's
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: leave was among the things he had snaffled out of
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: the campaign, to use his own words. The doctor, who
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: had taken quite as much as was good for him,
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: quoted poetry about a good blade carving the casks of men,
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: and so on. and everybody told Cotter that he was
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: an excellent person. But when he rose to make his
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: maiden speech, they shouted so that he was understood to say,
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: It isn't any use trying to speak to you chaps
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: rotting me like this. Let's have some pool. Slash Liam.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: Section 3 of The Brushwood Boy by Rudyard Kipling This
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Liam
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: Neely It is not unpleasant to spend eight and twenty
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: days in an easy-going steamer on warm waters in the
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: company of a woman who lets you see that your
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: head and shoulders superior to the rest of the world,
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: even though that woman may be and often is ten
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: counted years your senior. P & O boats are not
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: lighted with the disgustful particularity of Atlantic liners. There is
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: more phosphorescence at the bows. and greater silence and darkness
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: by the hand-steering gear aft. Awful things might have happened
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: to Georgie, but for the little fact that he had
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: never studied the first principles of the game he was
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: expected to play. So, when Mrs. Zuleika at Aden told
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: him how motherly an interest she felt in his welfare, medals, brevet,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: and all, Georgie took her at the foot of the letter,
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: and promptly talked of his own mother, three hundred miles
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: nearer each day, of his home, and so forth, all
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: the way up the Red Sea. It was much easier
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: than he supposed to converse with the woman for an
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: hour at a time. Then Mrs. Zuleika, turning from parental affection,
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: spoke of love in the abstract— as a thing not
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: unworthy of study, and in discreet twilights after dinner demanded confidences.
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: Georgie would have been delighted to supply them, but he
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: had none, and did not know it was his duty
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: to manufacture them. Mrs. Zuleika expressed surprise and unbelief, and
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: asked those questions which deep asks of She learned all
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: that was necessary to conviction, and, being very much a woman, resumed.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: Georgie never knew that she had abandoned the motherly attitude.
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: Do you know, she said, somewhere in the Mediterranean, I
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: think you're the very dearest boy I've ever met in
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: my life, and I'd like you to remember me a little.
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: You will when you're older, but I want you to
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: remember me now, You'll make some girl very happy. Oh,
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: I hope so, said Georgie gravely, but there's heaps of
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: time for marrying and all that sort of thing, ain't there?
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: That depends. Here are your beanbags for the ladies' competition.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: I think I'm growing too old to care for these tamashas.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: They were getting up sports, and Georgie was on the committee.
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: He never noticed how perfectly the bags were sewn. but
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: another woman did and smiled once. He liked Mrs. Zuleika greatly.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: She was a bit old, of course, but uncommonly nice.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: There was no nonsense about her. A few nights after
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: they passed Gibraltar, his dream returned to him. She who
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: waited by the brushwood pile was no longer a little girl,
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: but a woman with black hair that grew to a
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: widow's peak, combed back from her forehead. He knew her
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: for the child in black, the companion of the last
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: six years, and, as it had been in the time
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: of the meetings on the lost continent, he was filled
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: with delight unspeakable. They, for some dreamland reason, were friendly,
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: or had gone away that night, and the two fitted together.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: over all their country from the brushwood pile up the
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: thirty-mile ride till they saw the house of the sick thing,
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: a pinpoint in the distance to the left, stamped through
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: the railway waiting-room where the roses lay on the spread breakfast-tables,
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: and returned by the ford and the city they had
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: once burned for sport to the great swells of the
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: downs under the lampposts. Wherever they moved, a strong singing
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: followed them underground, but this night there was no panic.
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: All the land was empty except for themselves, and at
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: the last they were sitting by the lamppost, hand in hand.
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: She turned and kissed him. He woke with a start,
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: staring at the waving curtain of the cabin door. He
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: could almost have sworn that the kiss was real. Next morning,
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: The ship was rolling in a biscay sea, and people
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: were not happy. But as Georgie came to breakfast, shaven, tubbed,
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: and smelling of soap, several turned to look at him
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: because of the light in his eyes and the splendor
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: of his countenance. Well, you look beastly fit, snapped a neighbor.
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: Anyone left you a legacy in the middle of the bay?
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: Georgie reached for the curry with a seraphic grin. I
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: suppose it's the getting so near home and all that.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: I do feel rather festive this morning. Rolls a bit,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: doesn't she? Mrs. Zuleika stayed in her cabin till the
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: end of the voyage, when she left without bidding him farewell,
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: and wept passionately on the dock-head for pure joy of
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: meeting her children, who, she had often said, were so
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: like their father. End of section 3. Recording by Liam Neely.
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: Section 4 of The Brushwood Boy by Rudyard Kipling. This
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Liam Neely.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: Georgie headed for his own country. wild with delight of
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: his first long furlough after the lean seasons. Nothing was
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: changed in that orderly life, from the coachman who met
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: him at the station to the white peacock that stormed
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: at the carriage from the stone wall above the shaven lawns.
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: The house took toll of him with due regard to precedence.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: First the mother, then the father, then the housekeeper, who
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: wept and praised God, then the butler, and so on
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: down to the underkeeper, who had been dog-boy in Georgie's youth,
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: and called him Master Georgie, and was reproved by the
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: groom who had taught Georgie to ride. Not a thing changed,
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: he sighed contentedly. When the three of them sat down
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: to dinner, in the late sunlight, while the rabbits crept
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: out upon the lawn below the cedars, and the big
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: trout in the ponds by the home paddock rose for
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: their evening meal. Our changes are all over, dear, cooed
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: the mother, and now I'm getting used to your size
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: and your tan. You're very brown, Georgie. I see you
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: haven't changed in the least. You're exactly like the painter.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: The father beamed on this man after his own heart.
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: Youngest major in the army, and should have had the V.C., sir.
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: And the butler listened with his professional mask off when
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: Master Georgie spoke of war as its wage today, and
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: his father cross-questioned. They went out on the terrace to
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: smoke among the roses, and the shadow of the old
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: house lay long across the wonderful English foliage, which is
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: the only living green in the world. Perfect by Jove,
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: it's perfect! Georgie was looking at the round-bosomed woods beyond
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: the home paddock, where the white pheasant boxes were ranged.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: and the golden air was full of a hundred sacred
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: scents and sounds. Georgie felt his father's arm tighten in his.
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: It's not half bad. B'hodi mihi kras tibi, isn't it?
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: I suppose you'll be turning up some fine day with
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: a girl under your arm, if you haven't one now, eh?
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: You can make your mind easy, sir. I haven't one.
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: Not in all these years, said the mother. I haven't time, mummy.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: They keep a man pretty busy these days in the service,
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: and most of our mess are unmarried, too. But you
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: must have met hundreds in society at balls and so on.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: I'm like the tenth, mummy. I don't dance. Don't dance?
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: What have you been doing with yourself, then? Backing other
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: men's bills, said the father? Oh yes, I've done a
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: little of that too. But you see, as things are now,
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: a man has all his work cut out for him.
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: to keep abreast of his profession, and my days were
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: always too full to let me lark about half the night. Hmm, suspiciously.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: It's never too late to learn. We ought to give
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: some kind of house-warming for the people about now you've
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: come back. unless you want to go straight up to town, dear. No,
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: I don't want anything better than this. Let's just sit
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: still and enjoy ourselves. I suppose there will be something
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: for me to write if I look for it. Seeing
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: I've been kept down to the old brown pair for
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: the last six weeks because all the others were being
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: got ready for Master Georgie, I should say there might be,
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: the father chuckled. They're reminding me in a hundred ways
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: that I must take second place now. Brutes. The pater
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean it, dear. But everyone has been trying to
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: make your homecoming a success. And you do like it,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: don't you? Perfect, perfect. There's no place like England when
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: you've done your work. That's the proper way to look
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: at it, my son. And so... up and down the
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: flagged walk till their shadows grew long in the moonlight,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: and the mother went indoors and played such songs as
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: a small boy once clamoured for, and the squat silver
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: candlesticks were brought in, and Georgie climbed into the two
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: rooms in the west wing that had been his nursery
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: and his playroom in the beginning. Then who should come
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: to tuck him in for the night but his mother?
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: and she sat down on the bed and they talked
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: for a long hour, as mother and son should, if
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: there's to be any future for the empire. With a
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: simple woman's deep guile, she asked questions and suggested answers
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: that should have waked some sign in the face on
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: the pillow, and there was neither quiver of eyelid nor
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: quickening of breath, neither evasion nor delay in reply. So
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: she blessed him and kissed him on the mouth, which
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: is not always a mother's property, and said something to
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: her husband later, at which he laughed profane and incredulous laughs.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: All the establishment waited on Georgie next morning, from the
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: tallest six-year-old, with a mouth like a kid's glove, Master Georgie,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: to the under-keeper, STROLLING CARELESSLY ALONG THE HORIZON, GEORGIE'S PET
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: ROD IN HIS HAND, AND THERE'S A FOUR-POUNDER RISING BELOW
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: THE LASHER. YOU DON'T HAVE HIM IN INDIA, MUST MAJOR GEORGIE.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: IT WAS ALL BEAUTIFUL BEYOND TELLING, EVEN THOUGH THE MOTHER
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: INSISTED ON TAKING HIM OUT IN THE LANDAR. THE LEATHER
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: HAD THE HOT SUNDAY SMELL OF HIS YOUTH. and showing
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: him off to her friends at all the houses for
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: six miles round, and the pater bore him up to
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: town and a lunch at the club, where he introduced
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: him quite carelessly to not less than thirty ancient warriors
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: whose sons were not the youngest majors in the army,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: and had not the DSO. After that it was Georgie's turn.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: and remembering his friends, he filled up the house with
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: that kind of officer who live in cheap lodgings in
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: Southsea or Montpellier Square, Brompton. All good men, but not
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: well off. The mother perceived that they needed girls to
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: play with, and there was no scarcity of girls. The
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: house hummed like a dovecot in spring. They tore up
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: the place for amateur theatricals, They disappeared in the gardens
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: when they ought to have been rehearsing. They swept off
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: every available horse and vehicle, especially the governor's cart and
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: the fat pony. They fell into the trout ponds, they
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: picnicked and they tennised, and they sat on gates in
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: the twilight two by two, and Georgie found that he
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: was not in the least necessary to their entertainment. My words,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: said he, when he saw the last of their dear backs.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: They told me they've enjoyed themselves, but they haven't done
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: half the things they said they would. I know they've
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: enjoyed themselves immensely, said the mother. You're a public benefactor, dear.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: Now we can be quiet again, can't we? Oh, quite.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: I've a very dear friend of mine that I want
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: you to know. She couldn't come with the house so
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: full because she's an invalid, and she was away when
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: you first came. She's a Mrs. Lacey. Lacey, I don't
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: remember the name about here. No, they came after you
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: went to India, from Oxford. Her husband died there, and
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: she lost some money, I believe. They bought the furs
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: on Bassett Road. She's a very sweet woman, and we're
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: very fond of them both. She's a widow, didn't you say?
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: She has a daughter. Surely I said so, dear. Does
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: she fall into trout ponds and gas and giggle and, oh,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: Major Cotter, and all that sort of thing? No, indeed,
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: she's a very quiet girl and very musical. She always
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: came over here with her music books, composing, you know,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: and she generally works all day, so you won't. Talking
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: about Miriam, said the pater coming up, The mother edged
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: toward him within elbow reach. There was no finesse about
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: Georgie's father. Oh, Miriam's a dear girl. Plays beautifully, rides beautifully, too.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: She's a regular pet of the household. Used to call me.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: The elbow went home. And, ignorant but obedient always, the
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: pater shut himself off. What used she to call you, sir?
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: All sorts of pet names. I'm very fond of Miriam.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: Sounds Jewish, Miriam. Jew? You'll be calling yourself a Jew next.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: She's one of the Herefordshire Laces. When her aunt dies,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: again the elbow. Oh, you won't see anything of her, Georgie.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: She's busy with her music or her mother all day. Besides,
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: you're going up to town tomorrow, aren't you? I thought
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: you said something about an institute meeting the mother spoke.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: Go up to town now? What nonsense! Once more the
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: pater was shut off. I had some idea of it,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: but I'm not quite sure, said the son of the house.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: Why did the mother try to get him away because
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: a musical girl and her invalid parent were expected? He
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: did not approve of unknown females calling his father pet names.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: He would observe these pushing persons who had been only
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: seven years in the county. all of which the delighted
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: mother read in his countenance, herself keeping an air of
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: sweet disinterestedness. They'll be here this evening for dinner. I'm
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: sending the carriage over for them, and they won't stay
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: more than a week. Perhaps I shall go up to town,
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know yet. Georgie moved away irresolutely. There was
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: a lecture at the United Services Institute on supply of
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: ammunition in the field. and the one man whose theories
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: most irritated Major Cotter would deliver it. A heated discussion
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: was sure to follow, and perhaps he might find himself
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: moved to speak. He took his rod that afternoon, and
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: went down to thrash it about among the trout.' Good sport, dear,'
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: said the mother from the terrace.' Fraid it won't be, Mummy.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: All those men from town, and the girls particularly, I
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: have put every trout off his feed for weeks. There
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: isn't one of them that cares for fishing, really. Fancy
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: stamping and shouting on the bank, and telling every fish
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: for half a mile exactly what you're going to do,
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: and then chucking a brute of a fly at him.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: By Jove, it would scare me if I was a trout.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: But things were not as bad as he had expected.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: The black gnat was on the water, and the water
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: was strictly preserved. A three-quarter pounder at his second cast
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: set him for the campaign, and he worked downstream, crouching
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: behind the reed and meadow-suite, creeping between a hornbeam hedge
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: and a foot-wide strip of bank, where he could see
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: the trout, but where they could not distinguish him from
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: the background. lying almost on his stomach, to switch the
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: blue upright sideways through the checkered shadows of a gravelly
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: ripple under overarching trees. But he had known every inch
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: of the water since he was four feet high. The
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: aged and astute, between sunk roots, with the large and
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: fat that lay in the frothy scum below some strong
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: rush of water, sucking as lazily as cock. came to
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: trouble in their turn at the hand that imitated so
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: delicately the flicker and wimple of an egg-dropping fly. Consequently,
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: Georgie found himself five miles from home, when he ought
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: to have been dressing for dinner. The housekeeper had taken
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: good care that her boy should not go empty, and
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: before he changed to the white moth, he sat down
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: to excellent claret, with sandwiches of potted egg, and things
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: that adoring women make and men never notice. Then back
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: to surprise the otter, grubbing for fresh-water mussels, the rabbits
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: on the edge of the beech-woods foraging in the clover,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: and the policeman like white owls stooping to the little
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: field mice. Till the moon was strong, and he took
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: his rod apart, and went home through well-remembered gaps in
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: the hedges, he fetched a compass round the house, for
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: though he might have broken every law of the establishment
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: every hour, the law of his boyhood was unbreakable. After
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: fishing you went in by the south garden back door,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: cleaned up in the outer scullery, and did not present
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: yourself to your elders and your betters till you had
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: washed and changed. Half-past ten, by Jove! Well, we'll make
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: the sport an excuse. They wouldn't want to see me
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: the first evening, at any rate. Gone to bed, probably.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: He skirted by the open French windows of the drawing-room. No,
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: they haven't. They look very comfy in there. He could
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: see his father in his own particular chair, the mother
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: in hers, and the back of a girl at the
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: piano by the big potpourri jar. The gardens looked half
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: divine in the moonlight, and he turned down through the
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: roses to finish his pipe. A prelude ended, and there
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: floated out a voice of the kind that, in his childhood,
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: he used to call Creamy. a full true contralto, and
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: this was the song that he heard, every syllable of it.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: Over the edge of the purple down, where the single
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: lamplight leans, know ye the road to the merciful town
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: that is hard by the sea of dreams, where the
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: poor may lay their wrongs away, and the sick may
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: forget to weep. But we piteous, O piteous, we wakeful
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: are piteous, We must go back with policeman day, Back
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: from the city of sleep. Weary they turn from the
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: scroll and crown, Fetter and prayer and plough, They that
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: go up to the merciful town, For her gates are
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: closing now. It is their right in the baths of night,
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: Body and soul to steep, But we piteous are piteous,
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: we wakeful are piteous. We must go back with policeman day,
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: back from the city of sleep. Over the edge of
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: the purple down, ere the tender dreams begin. Look, we
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: may look at the merciful town, but we may not
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: enter in. Out casts all from her guarded wall, back
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: to our watch we creep. We pity us, our pity us,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: we wakeful, O pity us, we that go back with
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: policeman day, back from the city of sleep. At the
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: last echo he was aware that his mouth was dry,
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: and unknown pulses were beating in the roof of it.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: The housekeeper, who would have it that he must have
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: fallen in and caught a chill, was waiting to catch
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: him on the stairs. and since he neither saw nor
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: answered her, carried a wild tale abroad that brought his
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: mother knocking at the door. Anything happened, dear? Harper said
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: she thought you weren't— No, it's nothing. I'm all right, Mummy.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: Please don't bother. He did not recognize his own voice,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: but that was a small matter beside what he was considering. Obviously,
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: most obviously, the whole coincidence was crazy lunacy. He proved
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: it to the satisfaction of Major George Cotter, who is
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: going up to town tomorrow to hear a lecture on
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: supply of ammunition in the field, and having so proved it,
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: the soul and brain and heart and body of Georgie
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: cried joyously, That's the Lily Lock girl, the lost continent girl,
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: the thirty-mile ride girl, the brushwood girl. I know her.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: He waked stiff and cramped in his chair to consider
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: the situation by sunlight, when it did not appear normal.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: But a man must eat, and he went to breakfast,
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: his heart between his teeth, holding himself severely in hand.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: Late as usual, said his mother. My boy— Miss Lacey.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: A tall girl in black raised her eyes to his,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: and Georgie's life-training deserted him. Just as soon as he
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: realized that she did not know, he stared coolly and critically.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: There was the abundant black hair, growing in a widow's peak,
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: turned back from the forehead with that peculiar ripple over
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: the right ear. There with the grey eyes set a
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: little close together, the short upper lip, resolute chin, and
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: the known poise of the head. There was also the small,
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: well-cut mouth that had kissed him. Georgie, dear, said the
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: mother amazedly, for Miriam was flushing under the stair. I
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: beg your pardon, he gulped. I don't know whether the
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: mother has told you, but I'm rather an idiot at times,
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: especially before I've had my breakfast. It's a family failing.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: He turned to explore the hot water dishes on the sideboard,
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: rejoicing that she did not know. She did not know.
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: His conversation for the rest of the meal was mildly insane,
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: though the mother thought she had never seen her boy
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: look half so handsome. How could any girl, least of
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: all one of Miriam's discernment, forbear to fall down and worship?
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: But deeply Miriam was displeased. She had never been stared
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: at in that fashion before, and promptly retired to her
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: shell when Georgie announced that he had changed his mind
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: about going to town, and would stay to play with
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: Miss Lacey if she had nothing better to do. Oh,
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: but don't let me throw you out. I'm at work.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: I've things to do all the morning. What possessed Georgie
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: to behave so oddly? The mother sighed to herself. Miriam's
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: a bundle of feelings like her mother. You compose, don't you?
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: Must be a fine thing to be able to do that. Pig, oh, pig,
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: thought Miriam. I think I heard you singing when I
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: came in last night after fishing. All about a sea
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: of dreams, wasn't it? Miriam shuddered to the core of
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: the soul that afflicted her. Awful pretty song! How do
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: you think of such things? You only composed the music, dear,
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: didn't you? The words, too, I'm sure of it, said Georgie,
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: with a sparkling eye. No, she did not know. Yes,
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: I wrote the words, too. Miriam spoke slowly, for she
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: knew she'd listen when she was nervous.' Now how could
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: you tell,' said the mother, as delighted as though the
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: youngest major in the army were ten years old, showing
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: off before company.' I was sure of it somehow. Oh,
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: there are heaps of things about me, mummy, that you
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: don't understand. Looks as if we're going to be a
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: hot day for England.' Would you care for a ride
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: this afternoon, Miss Lacey? We can start out after tea,
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: if you'd like it. Miriam could not in decency refuse,
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: but any woman might see she was not filled with delight.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: That will be very nice if you take the Basset Road.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: It will save me sending Martin down to the village,
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: said the mother, filling in gaps. Like all good managers...
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: The mother had one weakness, a mania for little strategies
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: that should economize horses and vehicles. Her menfolk complained that
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: she turned them into common carriers, and there was a
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: legend in the family that she had once said to
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: the pater on the morning of a meet, If you
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: should kill near Basset, dear, and it isn't too late,
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: would you mind just popping over and matching me this?
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: I knew that was coming. You NEVER MISS A CHANCE, MOTHER.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: IF IT'S A FISH OR A TRUNK, I WON'T, GEORGIE LAUGHED.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: IT'S ONLY A DUCK. THEY CAN DO IT UP VERY
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: NEATLY AT MALLETS, SAID THE MOTHER SIMPLY. YOU WON'T MIND,
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: WILL YOU? WE'LL HAVE A SCRATCH DINNER AT NINE BECAUSE
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: IT'S SO HOT. The long summer day dragged itself out
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: for centuries, but at last there was tea on the lawn,
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: and Miriam appeared. She was in the saddle before he
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: could offer to help, with the clean spring of the
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: child who mounted the pony for the thirty-mile ride. The
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: day held mercilessly. though Georgie got down thrice to look
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: for imaginary stones in Rufus's foot. One cannot say even
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: simple things in broad light, and this that Georgie meditated
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: was not simple. So he spoke seldom, and Miriam was
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: divided between relief and scorn. It annoyed her that the
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: great hulking thing should know she had written the words
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: of the song overnight. for though a maiden may sing
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: her most secret fancies aloud, she does not care to
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: have them trampled over by the male Philistine. They rode
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: into the little red-brick street of Basset, and Georgie made
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: untold fuss over the disposition of that duck. It must
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: go in just such a package, and be fastened to
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: the saddle in just such a manner, though eight o'clock
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: had struck, and they were miles from dinner. We must
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: be quick, said Mariam, bored and angry. There's no great hurry,
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: but we can cut over Dalhet down and let him
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: out on the grass. That will save us half an hour.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: The horses capered on the short, sweet-smelling turf, and the
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: delaying shadows gathered in the valley as they cantered over
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: the great dun down that overhangs Basset and the western coaching-road.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: Insensibly the pace quickened without thought of mole-hills. Rufus, gentleman
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: that he was, waiting on Miriam's dandy till they should
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: have cleared the rise. Then down the two-mile slope they
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: raced together, the wind whistling in their ears to the
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: steady throb of eight hooves and the light click of
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: the shifting bits. Oh, that was glorious, Miriam cried, reining in.
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: Dandy and I are old friends, but I don't think
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: we've ever gone better together. No? But you've gone quicker
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: once or twice. Really? When? Georgie moistened his lips. Don't
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: you remember the thirty-mile ride? With me. When they were
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: after us on the beach road, with the sea to
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: the left going toward the lamppost on the downs. The
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: girl gasped. What do you mean? She said hysterically. The
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: thirty-mile ride, and all the rest of it. You mean?
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: I didn't sing anything about the thirty-mile ride. I know
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: I didn't. I've never told a living soul. You told
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: about Policeman Day, and the lamp at the top of
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: the Downs and the City of Sleep. It all joins in,
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: you know. It's the same country. AND IT WAS EASY
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: ENOUGH TO SEE WHERE YOU HAD BEEN. GOOD GOD! IT
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: JOINS ON, OF COURSE IT DOES, BUT I HAVE BEEN,
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: YOU HAVE BEEN. OH, LET'S WALK, PLEASE, OR I SHALL
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: FALL OFF. GERGY RANGED ALONGSIDE, AND LAID A HAND THAT
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: SHOOK BELOW HER BRIDAL HAND, PULLING DANTY TO A WALK.
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: MYRIAM WAS SOBBING, AS HE HAD SEEN A MAN SOB
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: UNDER THE TOUCH OF A BULLET. It's all right, it's
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: all right, he whispered feebly, only it's true, you know. True?
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: Am I mad? Nautilus, I'm mad as well. Do try
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: to think a minute quietly. How could anyone conceivably know
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: anything about the thirty-mile ride having anything to do with you,
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: unless he'd been there? But where, but where, tell me, there?
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: wherever it may be in our country, I suppose. Do
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: you remember the first time you rode it, the thirty-mile ride,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: I mean? You must. It was all dreams, all dreams. Yes,
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: but tell, please, because I know. Let me think. We
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: were on no account to make any noise, on no
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: account to make any noise. She was staring between Dandy's ears.
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: with eyes that did not see and a suffocating heart.
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: Because it was dying in the big house, Georgie went on,
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: reigning in again. There was a garden with green and
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: gilt railings, all hot. Do you remember? I ought to.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: I was sitting on the other side of the bed
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: before it coughed and they came in. You! The deep
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: voice was unnaturally full and strong. and the girl's wide-opened
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: eyes burned in the dusk as she stared him through
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: and through. You're the boy, my brushwood boy, and I've
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: known you all my life. She fell forward on Dandy's neck.
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: Georgie forced himself out of the weakness that was overmastering
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: his limbs and slid an arm round her waist. The
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: head dropped on his shoulder, and he found himself with
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: parched lips, saying things that up till then he believed
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: existed only in printed works of fiction. Mercifully, the horses
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: were quiet. She made no attempt to draw herself away
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: when she recovered, but lay still, whispering,' Of course you're
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: the boy, and I didn't know. I didn't know. I
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: knew last night, and when I saw you at breakfast.' Oh,
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: that was why I wondered at the time. You would,
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: of course. I couldn't speak before this. Keep your head
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: where it is, dear. It's all right now. It's all
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: right now. Isn't it? But how was it I didn't know,
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: after all these years and years? I remember, oh, what
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: lots of things I remember. Tell me some. I look
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: after the horses. I remember waiting for you when the
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: steamer came in, do you? At the Lily Lock, beyond
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: Hong Kong and Java. Do you call it that, too?
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: You told me it was, when I was lost on
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: the continent. That was you that showed me the way
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: through the mountains. When the island slid, it must have
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: been because you're the only one I remember. All the
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: others were them. Awful brutes they were, too. I remember
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: showing you the thirty-mile ride the first time. You ride
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: just as you used to then. You are you. That's odd.
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: I thought that of you this afternoon. Isn't it wonderful?
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: What does it all mean? Why should you and I,
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: of the millions of people in the world, have this
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: thing between us? What does it mean? I'm frightened. This,
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: said Georgie. The horses quickened their pace. They thought they
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: had heard an order. Perhaps when we die we may
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: find out more, but it means this now. There was
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: no answer. What could she say? As the world went,
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: they had known each other rather less than eight and
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: a half hours, but the matter was one that did
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: not concern the world. There was a very long silence.
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: when the breath in their nostrils drew cold and sharp,
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: as it might have been a fume of ether.' That' s
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: the second,' Georgie whispered.' You remember, don't you?' It' s not, furiously,
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: it's not.' On the downs the other night, months ago,'
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: you were just as you are now,' and we went
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: over the country for miles and miles.' It was all empty, too.
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: They had all gone away. Nobody frightened us. I wonder why, boy. Oh,
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: if you remember that, you must remember the rest, confess.
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: I remember lots of things, but I know I didn't.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: I never have, till just now. You did, dear. I
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: know I didn't, because... Oh, it's no use keeping anything back,
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: because I truthfully meant to. And truthfully did. No, meant to.
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: but someone else came by. There wasn't anyone else. There
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: never has been. There was. There always is. It was
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: another woman out there on the sea. I saw her.
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: It was the 26th of May. I've got it written down. somewhere. Oh,
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: you've kept a record of your dreams, too. That's odd
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: about the other woman, because I happened to be on
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: the sea just then. I was right. How do I
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: know what you've done when you were awake? But I
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: thought it was only you. You never were more wrong
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: in your life. What a little temper you've got. Listen
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: to me a minute, dear. And Georgie, though he knew
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: it not, committed black perjury. It isn't the kind of
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: thing one says to anyone, because they laugh. But on
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: my word and honour, darling, I've never been kissed by
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: a living soul outside my own people in all my life.
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: Don't laugh, dear. I wouldn't tell anyone but you, but
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: it's the solemn truth. I knew. You are you. Oh,
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: I knew you'd come one day, but I didn't know
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: you were you in the least till you spoke. Then
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: give me another. And you never cared or looked anywhere? Why,
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: all the world round must have loved you from the
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: very minute they saw you, boy. They kept it to
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: themselves if they did. No, I never cared. And we
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: shall be late for dinner, horribly late. How can I
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: look at you in the light before your mother and mine?
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: We'll play your Miss Lacey till the proper time comes.
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: What's the shortest limit for people to get engaged? Suppose
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: we have got to go through all the fuss of
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: an engagement, haven't we? Oh, I don't want to talk
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: about that. It's so commonplace. I've thought of something that
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: you don't know. I'm sure of it. What's my name? Mary, no,
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: it isn't by Jove. Wait half a second. It'll come
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: back to me. You can't. Why, those old tales before
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: I went to school— I've never thought of him from
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: that day to this. Are you the original, only Annie
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: and Louise? It was what you always called me, ever
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: since the beginning. Oh, we've turned into the avenue, and
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: we must be an hour late. What does it matter?
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: The chain goes as far back as those days. It must,
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: of course, it must. I've got to ride round with
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: this pestilent old bird, confound him. Ha, ha, said the duck, laughing.
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: Do you remember that? Yes, I do. Flower pots on
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: my feet and all. We've been together all this while,
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: and I've got to say good-bye to you till dinner.
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: Sure I'll see you at dinner-time? Sure you won't sneak
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: up to your room, darling, and leave me all the evening?' Goodbye, dear, goodbye. Goodbye, boy, goodbye.
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: Bind the arch. Don't let Rufus bolt into his stables. Goodbye. Yes,
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: I'll come down to dinner, but what shall I do
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: when I see you in the light?