LITMIR.BIZ

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from the rubbish-heap at the foot of the Rectory garden. A really excellent comb, with not more than a dozen teeth missing: a comb that had been well washed by months of rain. It was a rubbish-heap of further possibilities. Many things might have been thrown out by the careless servants of a rather absent-minded bachelor which would be useful now.

      She did what she could with this looted treasure. The Rector’s hair-brush assisted. But she had found no means of mending her tattered garments, and now that she was going in search of civilization she became increasingly conscious of their condition.

      She looked doubtfully at the old brown jacket. She felt that it would be a justifiable borrowing, but it did not attract her. She took it down, and was aware of a scent of stale tobacco which she disliked.

      She tried it on, and found that it came almost to her knees. Her hands did not emerge from the sleeves.

      There was a weight at one side. She discovered a pipe, a pouch of tobacco, a box of vestas about a third full, a stump of carpenter’s pencil.

      She emptied these out, except the matches, which were treasure not lightly to be cast aside.

      The size of the coat was awkward, but the capacious pockets pleased her. They might be useful for many things. She was not only hunting her fellow-men. Her food was almost exhausted. And some covering she must have.

      She looked at the fastenings of the vestry doors. She did not know who might come in her absence. She already felt a sense of personal possession and responsibility. There was one door which opened into the churchyard: a strong door, locked and bolted on the inside. Clearly the Rector came in through the church. The door into the chancel was also strongly made—a thick oak door, heavily hinged. There was a key in the lock on the inside.

      She carried in a quantity of the hassocks and pew-coverings, which had been the only bedding she had known for the past week, and the food-basket, nearly empty now, locked the door, hid the key, and started out to seek her kind.

      She was aware that she must make a queer figure in the ungainly coat, but she was not greatly troubled. She realized sufficiently that others must be facing primitive necessities, and overcoming them as best they could.

      In fact, she need not have troubled at all, for she was not destined to meet either man or woman till she returned in the evening, except one doubtful distant sight of a laden figure which made haste to disappear as she sighted it, perhaps a quarter of a mile away. Had she made her way eastward to Larkshill, or to Cowley Thorn, she would have had a very different experience, and there was a scatter of human life to south and west; but she went up through the Rectory grounds, where she almost trod on a sitting hen as she tried a short cut through the shrubbery—a hen that dashed off her nest and flew squawking across the drive, leaving Muriel to the sight of a dozen eggs, and to consider their possibilities for her empty larder. But her hand convicted them of the warmth of incubation. She decided that the hen had been sitting, not laying, when she disturbed her. They were useless now, but she considered that a hen with tiny chickens may be caught very easily. She would remember the spot.

      She went on by a field-path which went uphill in the direction she sought, and found an open gate into a larger field which had been ploughed but not planted. There was a cart-track by the hedge, and following this she came to another field in which oats were springing and a dozen sheep fed freely.

      Beyond that she came to an open heath, which she supposed to be part of Cannock Chase, though she was not sure, knowing little of the geography of the district. Here the sheep were many, of all breeds and ages. They had broken through gapped hedges and fallen gates, and congregated according to their ancient practice on high and open ground.

      Here Muriel turned and looked back. She could see for several miles, but there was no sign of ending land or of encroaching sea. South and east and west there must be a wide space of land which still endured above the water. She wondered whether there might yet be a further subsidence, but she was not greatly worried by the thought. After all that had happened the land yet seemed very solid, very firm. It is hard to distrust it.

      But looking north again she saw nothing but level heath, and feeding sheep, and the sky-line beyond. In the air a black-headed gull circled slowly. She could not doubt that she was near the sea.

      Yet it was farther than she had thought. She must have come two miles—perhaps more—and she was conscious of fatigue. She tired so easily now. Yet she realized, with a moment’s wonder, that she had had little of the old pains during the last week; had thought little of the doom under which she lived. Perhaps it was not wonderful that she should forget herself with such happenings round her.

      She would rest before she went farther. She lay on short, warm grass, and slept long in the sunlight.

      She waked refreshed, and with a feeling of healthful vigour such as she had seldom felt in recent years.

      She went on, singing:

      “Heaven above is fairer blue,

      Earth around is lovelier green,

      Something shines in every hue

      Christless eye have never seen.”

      It was a long time since she had thought of that hymn. She had heard it at a Convention for the Deepening of Spiritual Life which had been held in Birmingham over thirty years ago—before she had settled what her life would be—before Zululand had crossed her mind. But it was the clean, blue air and the pleasant sunlight which had brought it back.

      She went on a little way, and stopped abruptly. The land broke off beneath her feet—broke off as straightly as though a knife had severed it. She looked down a cliff-wall of red marl; thirty feet below the ocean purred lazily in the sunlight, its full tide about to turn.

      The sea was so quiet that a gull was sleeping on the gentle lift of the waves, its head beneath its wing.

      There was no sign of northern land, no sign of boat or sail. Only when she looked north-eastward was she in doubt whether the land curved outward or a separate island followed.

      Looking at the peaceful water, she might have forgotten the devastation that it had wrought, had she not seen a broken chair that floated almost beneath her feet. There was nothing else in sight to tell of all that the water covered.

      She had loved the sea. But she saw it now as the implacable enemy of her kind. They might surmount its division; they might boast that they had subdued it; and then it would lift its waves and overwhelm a continent, and stretch itself in the sun to doze like a fed lion.

      She saw the appalling cruelty of the waters. Her mind turned to the climax of the Apocalyptic vision—“and there shall be no more sea.” Words which had meant little in the ears of countless millions who had heard them since they were written—which must have wakened feelings of resentful protest in the minds of many. She had herself been conscious of regretting that condition of beatitude. Was its feline beauty to disappear forever?

      A man can learn to love the sea, as he loves a woman. He can love the wind also, but not quite in the same way. Air is not feminine, like water. The wind can be quiet and loving. It can be fierce and merciless as a wolf in its hunger. But not as a cat. It will not purr against your feet in the same way; it will not bite without barking.

      The sea does not seek its prey like a dog; it does not hunt as the wind hunts. It may crouch very still the while it waits for its victims. It can be quiet and swift in its treacheries. It can caress with smooth and deadly paws.

      It loves to lie in the sun’s warmth, purring lazily, and half asleep, till it has lured its victims to its reach, as a fly will settle within range of a lizard’s tongue.

      You may do well to love, but it is always folly to trust it. Even though it respond to your wooing with the surrenders which its lovers know, it will not be loyal. It will turn with cold and cruel teeth, even on those to whom it has bared its beauty. It has the heart of a harlot.

      Chapter Ten

      Muriel gazed at the ocean, which stretched northward to the horizon-limit, covering all the teeming life and wealth which had once been

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