The Hill of Dreams | Page 8

so disgraceful that
she had to supply the want with a narrow ribbon of a sky-blue tint; and
she brushed him so long and so violently that he quite understood why
a horse sometimes bites and sometimes kicks the groom. He set out
between two and three in a gloomy frame of mind; he knew too well
what spending the afternoon with honest manly boys meant. He found
the reality more lurid than his anticipation. The boys were in the field,
and the first remark he heard when he got in sight of the group was:
"Hullo, Lucian, how much for the tie?" "Fine tie," another, a stranger,
observed. "You bagged it from the kitten, didn't you?"
Then they made up a game of cricket, and he was put in first. He was
l.b.w. in his second over, so they all said, and had to field for the rest of
the afternoon. Arthur Dixon, who was about his own age, forgetting all
the laws of hospitality, told him he was a beastly muff when he missed
a catch, rather a difficult catch. He missed several catches, and it
seemed as if he were always panting after balls, which, as Edward
Dixon said, any fool, even a baby, could have stopped. At last the game
broke up, solely from Lucian's lack of skill, as everybody declared.
Edward Dixon, who was thirteen, and had a swollen red face and a
projecting eye, wanted to fight him for spoiling the game, and the
others agreed that he funked the fight in a rather dirty manner. The
strange boy, who was called De Carti, and was understood to be faintly
related to Lord De Carti of M'Carthytown, said openly that the fellows
at his place wouldn't stand such a sneak for five minutes. So the
afternoon passed off very pleasantly indeed, till it was time to go into
the vicarage for weak tea, homemade cake, and unripe plums. He got
away at last. As he went out at the gate, he heard De Carti's final
observation:

"We like to dress well at our place. His governor must be beastly poor
to let him go about like that. D'y' see his trousers are all ragged at heel?
Is old Taylor a gentleman?"
It had been a very gentlemanly afternoon, but there was a certain relief
when the vicarage was far behind, and the evening smoke of the little
town, once the glorious capital of Siluria, hung haze-like over the
ragged roofs and mingled with the river mist. He looked down from the
height of the road on the huddled houses, saw the points of light start
out suddenly from the cottages on the hillside beyond, and gazed at the
long lovely valley fading in the twilight, till the darkness came and all
that remained was the somber ridge of the forest. The way was pleasant
through the solemn scented lane, with glimpses of dim country, the
vague mystery of night overshadowing the woods and meadows. A
warm wind blew gusts of odor from the meadowsweet by the brook,
now and then bee and beetle span homeward through the air, booming a
deep note as from a great organ far away, and from the verge of the
wood came the "who-oo, who-oo, who-oo" of the owls, a wild strange
sound that mingled with the whirr and rattle of the night-jar, deep in the
bracken. The moon swam up through the films of misty cloud, and
hung, a golden glorious lantern, in mid-air; and, set in the dusky hedge,
the little green fires of the glowworms appeared. He sauntered slowly
up the lane, drinking in the religion of the scene, and thinking the
country by night as mystic and wonderful as a dimly-lit cathedral. He
had quite forgotten the "manly young fellows" and their sports, and
only wished as the land began to shimmer and gleam in the moonlight
that he knew by some medium of words or color how to represent the
loveliness about his way.
"Had a pleasant evening, Lucian?" said his father when he came in.
"Yes, I had a nice walk home. Oh, in the afternoon we played cricket. I
didn't care for it much. There was a boy named De Carti there; he is
staying with the Dixons. Mrs. Dixon whispered to me when we were
going in to tea, 'He's a second cousin of Lord De Carti's,' and she
looked quite grave as if she were in church."
The parson grinned grimly and lit his old pipe.

"Baron De Carti's great-grandfather was a Dublin attorney," he
remarked. "Which his name was Jeremiah M'Carthy. His prejudiced
fellow-citizens called him the Unjust Steward, also the Bloody
Attorney, and I believe that 'to hell with M'Carthy' was quite a popular
cry about the time of the