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"It's a term they use, I believe, sir! But it's plain enough that if mis'ess hadn't 'a' been better off than me, she wouldn't ha' been able to secure my services as you calls it." "That is certainly plain enough," returned Mr. Greatorex. "But suppose nobody had been able to secure your services, what would have become of you?" "By that time the people'd have rose to assert their rights."
He struggled visibly for expression. "Yo' moosn' saay I doan' like yo'. Fer it's nat the truth." "I'm glad it isn't," she said. He walked with her down the bridle path to the gate. He was dumb after his apocalypse. They parted at the gate. With long, slow, thoughtful strides Greatorex returned along the bridle path to his house. Alice went gaily down the hill to Garth. It was the hill of Paradise.
The bed, with its white mound, was so much too big for the four walls that held it, the white plaster of the ceiling bulging above it stooped so low, that the body of John Greatorex lay as if already closed up in its tomb. Jim Greatorex, his son, sat on a wooden chair at the head of the bed. His young, handsome face was loose and flushed as if he had been drinking.
For the sadness of the desolate land, of the naked hillsides, of the moor marshes with their ghostly mists; the brooding of the watchful, solitary house, the horror of haunted twilights, of nightfall and of midnights now and then when Greatorex was abroad looking after his cattle and she lay alone under the white ceiling that sagged above her bed and heard the weak wind picking at the pane; her fear of Maggie and of what Maggie had been to Greatorex and might be again; her fear of the savage, violent and repulsive elements in the man who was her god; her fear of her own repulsion; the tremor of her recoiling nerves; premonitions of her alien blood, the vague melancholy of her secret motherhood; they were all mingled together and hidden from her in the vast gloom of her one fear.
And Greatorex was entering it every day, for news of him to take to Alice at Upthorne. Gwenda had come back and would never go again, and it was she and not Mary who had proved herself devoted. And it was not his wisdom but Greatorex's scandalous passion for her that had saved Alice. As for leaving the parish because of the scandal, the Vicar would never leave it now.
His voice revealed him humble and profoundly agitated. Rowcliffe sighed, smiled, pulled himself together and turned with Greatorex into the stable. In the sodden straw of her stall, Daisy, the mare, lay, heaving and snorting after her agony. From time to time she turned her head toward her tense and swollen flank, seeking with eyes of anguish the mysterious source of pain.
<b>BROWNE, MATILDA.</b> Honorable mention at Chicago, 1893; Dodge prize at National Academy of Design, 1899; Hallgarten prize, 1901. Born in Newark, New Jersey. Pupil of Miss Kate Greatorex; of Carleton Wiggins, New York; of the Julian Academy, Paris; of H. S. Birbing in Holland, and of Jules Dupré on the coast of France.
It had begun at Christmas and again at Easter, when it was understood that Greatorex, who was nervous about his voice, should turn up for practice ten minutes before the rest of the choir to try over his part in an anthem or cantata, so that, as Alice said, he might do himself justice. Since Easter the ten minutes had grown to fifteen or even twenty.
But Greatorex had begun singing again, and the sheer beauty of the voice held Rowcliffe there to listen. "'Lead Kindly Light amidst th' encircling gloo-oom, Lead Thou me o-on. Keep Thou my feet I do not aa-aassk too-oo see-ee-ee Ther di-is-ta-aant scene, woon step enoo-oof for mee-eea." Greatorex was singing like an angel.
"But it's just what we want for our choir a big barytone voice. Do you think he'd sing for us, Mrs. Gale?" Alice said it light-heartedly, for she did not know what she was asking. She knew nothing of the story of Jim Greatorex and his big voice. It had been carefully kept from her. "I doan knaw," said Mrs. Gale. "Jim, look yo, 'e useter sing in t' Choorch choir." "Why ever did he leave it?" Mrs.
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