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Updated: June 4, 2025
"I don't care a rap about you. I do care about my friend. You've got to stand by Cosgrave till he's over the worst." "I won't I won't!" "I'll make you. You took him up. You made him think you cared about him. You're responsible " "I'm not I won't be responsible; it's not my line. I've got myself to look after."
It was better than clapping. Somewhere at the back of his mind was the idea that he offered her a more gallant tribute, and that one day she would know that he had stuck up for Cosgrave for her sake, and, remote and godlike though she was, be just a little pleased. The comfort of it was a faint warm light showing through his darkness. It was all he had.
Supposing, at the end of everything, be failed? He didn't care so much. His very power of caring had been dissipated. His single purpose lost itself amidst incompatible dreams. He was being torn asunder and there was a limit to endurance. Cosgrave had failed. He couldn't concentrate. He was always looking for happiness. He had fallen in love and wasted himself and made a mess of his life.
"Life itself, my dear fellow, life itself!" Cosgrave scarcely answered his companion's comments. He withdrew suddenly into himself, and after that he shirked the subject, understandably enough, for if he had had illusions on her account they must have been effectively shattered. But also he ceased to lie all day on his bed and stare up at the mosquito-infested river of his nightmare.
Stonehouse could see the large, sprawling hand that covered it. He touched it, not knowing why nor yet that he was angry. Something that had been asleep in him for a long time stirred uneasily and stretched itself. "Ladies" his companion simpered "always the ladies, sir." Stonehouse laughed. An hour later he was waiting for Cosgrave in the Carlton lounge.
Oh I don't want to waste my time and yours making accusations or appealing to what doesn't exist. I only want to point out to your your business instinct that Cosgrave isn't worth burying. He's poor and he's unlucky. He won't bring you luck or anything else. Much better to let him go." "Let 'im go? But I want 'im to go! Yesterday I would not see 'im. I didn't want to see 'im."
By the end of the week a pile of grey-blue stones was heaped up on the crest of the hill. The walls of the fields had been broken down to make a carway. Late into the night when the donkey had been fed and tethered the neighbours would see Martin Cosgrave moving about the pile of grey-blue stones, sorting and picking, arranging in little groups to have ready to his hands.
Stonehouse took his first holiday for three years, and carried Cosgrave off with him to a rough shooting-box in the Highlands lent him by a grateful and sporting patient, and for a week they tramped the moors together and stalked deer and fished in the salmon river that ran in and out among the desolate hills.
A convenient uncle found him a berth as clerk to a trading firm in West Africa, and with a cheap Colonial outfit and 10 pounds in his pocket, Cosgrave set out for the particular swamp which was to be the scene of his future career. He went docilely, with limp handshakes and dull, pathetic eyes. If he betrayed any feeling at all, it was a sort of relief at getting away from everybody.
He had set out in the early morning for the nearest station to fetch their letters and fresh provisions, and at dusk a village youth reached Stonehouse with a note which had been scrawled in such haste that it was almost illegible. It was as though Cosgrave had yielded suddenly and utterly to a prolonged pressure. He had to go back to town. It was something urgent. Stonehouse was not to bother.
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