So he walked along blindly, up the valley and on
themoors.
They hated him for his intimacy atthe farm, in the
hamlet. But glad he was, and in some mysterious way,triumphant.
Away from the burden of intensive mental
consciousness.
But Richard drifted away this summer, on to the
land, into the weather,into Cornwall.
They were doing their best, andthere was nothing
else to do.
The Foreign Office kept his passports,and did not
so much as answer him. Well, the story could have no other ending. Richard peeped in
the bag at the groping red military hands. But the others didnt know this ragtime,
and they werent yet in themood.
Those were the days before America joined the
Allies.
Youll have to put a curtain to it to-morrow, said
Somers to Sharpe. Poor Monsell, and he was so very anti-German, so very
pro-British.
Alieutenant and three sordid men in the dark behind
him, one with alantern.
It was a still morning, as if one were not in the
world. In the afternoon Sharpe came with a white faceand tears of rage and
mortification in his eyes.
So Somers and Harriet went to stay a week-end with
Sharpe at Trevenna,as the house was called. Sometimes a great airship hung over the
sea, watching for submarines. In the afternoon Sharpe came with a white faceand
tears of rage and mortification in his eyes. But even that was no reason why he
shouldgo and do likewise. They could never do so if England WOULD NOT BE
humiliated.
The colliers seemed totear it out of their bowels,
in a long, wild chant. But itwas in the grip of something monstrous, not English,
and he was almostgripped too.
If men had kept their souls firm and integral
through the years, the warwould never have come on. You know who I am and where I
was born and all the rest. He gave it, being an honourable citizen and awell-bred
American, with complete sang froid.