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That ceremony of "Crying the Neck" at Cloom had, it is true, been for Ishmael Ruan a notable happening, but it was for a certain pictorial brilliance that he retained it so clearly in after years, and not for any strategic importance, which at the time would not have impressed him.
She had always been very attached to him, spending upon him what of thwarted motherhood she alone knew, and he for his part had responded to her rather more than he did to most people. Ishmael was wired to, and in November of '99, a month after the declaration of war, Dan brought her down with a couple of hospital nurses and she was installed in the biggest and sunniest room at Cloom.
It would be splendid to have two lives and give one to each of the primary ways, to live once by the soil and once by the sea; but that is a thing that can happen to no man. He may wander till he is ageing and then "settle down," but that is a different affair. Ishmael was born of the soil; Cloom, not only by inheritance, but by his peculiar training, meant his life.
Then he crept from the room, and meeting the nurse his face assumed a blank and casual expression. But his heart guarded the glow that had been lit, which grew within him. He began to work at Cloom as never before, because this time he was not working for himself.
For the Parson, finding him intensely puzzled, had partially explained to him that morning. Questions of legitimacy, and any reflection on his mother, Boase had omitted for the time being, merely telling him that when he was grown up Cloom would be his because his father had willed it so.
Killigrew was not a cynic, even at that age; he was merely supremely utilitarian. "Off you go," he said, "and remember I shall be timing you. The doctor must be at Cloom as soon as we are." "He shall be," declared Archelaus, and meant it. He kept his word.
The thought of Nicky had seldom been far from him; always it was with the idea of Nicky in the forefront of his mind that he worked for Cloom. When he had first taken on the idea of Cloom as the central scheme of his life it had been for Cloom itself, or rather for the building up of an ideal Cloom which his father's conduct had shattered.
He felt sick of it all, sick of the striving at Cloom, of the quarrels with Archelaus, of Tom's cat-like attacks, of his mother's plaints, of the cruelties he felt spoiling the whole countryside like a leprosy. He cared for no one near him except Killigrew, because he alone stood for the things of an alien world.
There was a time when the Squires of Cloom were noted for their generosity and just dealing, when, so they say, every man on the estate had his side of pork ay, and half a sheep too in his kitchen, and a good coat to his back the year round, and wages to put in his stocking. Those times will come again when the glories of Cloom are restored, when it is once more a good gentleman's estate...."
At any moment, if he were not drawn outside himself and the affairs of Cloom, that sudden curious twist of vision which means glamour might occur for Ishmael as he looked at Phoebe. If there were no rich enough materials at hand to make a fuller life for the boy, then, thought the Parson, with logic, it must be brought to him. The difficulty was Ishmael himself.
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