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the farm devolved on to him. He was only eighteen, but he was

quite capable of doing everything his father had done. And of

course, his mother remained as centre to the house.

The young man grew up very fresh and alert, with zest for

every moment of life. He worked and rode and drove to market, he

went out with companions and got tipsy occasionally and played

skittles and went to the little travelling theatres. Once, when

he was drunk at a public house, he went upstairs with a

prostitute who seduced him. He was then nineteen.

The thing was something of a shock to him. In the close

intimacy of the farm kitchen, the woman occupied the supreme

position. The men deferred to her in the house, on all household

points, on all points of morality and behaviour. The woman was

the symbol for that further life which comprised religion and

love and morality. The men placed in her hands their own

conscience, they said to her "Be my conscience-keeper, be the

angel at the doorway guarding my outgoing and my incoming." And

the woman fulfilled her trust, the men rested implicitly in her,

receiving her praise or her blame with pleasure or with anger,

rebelling and storming, but never for a moment really escaping

in their own souls from her prerogative. They depended on her

for their stability. Without her, they would have felt like

straws in the wind, to be blown hither and thither at random.

She was the anchor and the security, she was the restraining

hand of God, at times highly to be execrated.

Now when Tom Brangwen, at nineteen, a youth fresh like a

plant, rooted in his mother and his sister, found that he had

lain with a prostitute woman in a common public house, he was

very much startled. For him there was until that time only one

kind of woman--his mother and sister.

But now? He did not know what to feel. There was a slight

wonder, a pang of anger, of disappointment, a first taste of ash

and of cold fear lest this was all that would happen, lest his

relations with woman were going to be no more than this

nothingness; there was a slight sense of shame before the

prostitute, fear that she would despise him for his

inefficiency; there was a cold distaste for her, and a fear of

her; there was a moment of paralyzed horror when he felt he

might have taken a disease from her; and upon all this startled

tumult of emotion, was laid the steadying hand of common sense,

which said it did not matter very much, so long as he had no

disease. He soon recovered balance, and really it did not matter

so very much.

But it had shocked him, and put a mistrust into his heart,

and emphasized his fear of what was within himself. He was,

however, in a few days going about again in his own careless,

happy-go-lucky fashion, his blue eyes just as clear and honest

as ever, his face just as fresh, his appetite just as keen.

Or apparently so. He had, in fact, lost some of his buoyant

confidence, and doubt hindered his outgoing.

For some time after this, he was quieter, more conscious when

he drank, more backward from companionship. The disillusion of

his first carnal contact with woman, strengthened by his innate

desire to find in a woman the embodiment of all his

inarticulate, powerful religious impulses, put a bit in his

mouth. He had something to lose which he was afraid of losing,

which he was not sure even of possessing. This first affair did

not matter much: but the business of love was, at the bottom of

his soul, the most serious and terrifying of all to him.

He was tormented now with sex desire, his imagination

reverted always to lustful scenes. But what really prevented his

returning to a loose woman, over and above the natural

squeamishness, was the recollection of the paucity of the last

experience. It had been so nothing, so dribbling and functional,

that he was ashamed to expose himself to the risk of a

repetition of it.

He made a strong, instinctive fight to retain his native

cheerfulness unimpaired. He had naturally a plentiful stream of

life and humour, a sense of sufficiency and exuberance, giving

ease. But now it tended to cause tension. A strained light came

into his eyes, he had a slight knitting of the brows. His

boisterous humour gave place to lowering silences, and days

passed by in a sort of suspense.

He did not know there was any difference in him, exactly; for

the most part he was filled with slow anger and resentment. But

he knew he was always thinking of women, or a woman, day in, day

out, and that infuriated him. He could not get free: and he was

ashamed. He had one or two sweethearts, starting with them in

the hope of speedy development. But when he had a nice girl, he

found that he was incapable of pushing the desired development.

The very presence of the girl beside him made it impossible. He

could not think of her like that, he could not think of her

actual nakedness. She was a girl and he liked her, and dreaded

violently even the thought of uncovering her. He knew that, in

these last issues of nakedness, he did not exist to her nor she

to him. Again, if he had a loose girl, and things began to

develop, she offended him so deeply all the time, that he never

knew whether he was going to get away from her as quickly as

possible, or whether he were going to take her out of inflamed

necessity. Again he learnt his lesson: if he took her it was a

paucity which he was forced to despise. He did not despise

himself nor the girl. But he despised the net result in him of

the experience--he despised it deeply and bitterly.

Then, when he was twenty-three, his mother died, and he was

left at home with Effie. His mother's death was another blow out

of the dark. He could not understand it, he knew it was no good

his trying. One had to submit to these unforeseen blows that

come unawares and leave a bruise that remains and hurts whenever

it is touched. He began to be afraid of all that which was up

against him. He had loved his mother.

After this, Effie and he quarrelled fiercely. They meant a

very great deal to each other, but they were both under a

strange, unnatural tension. He stayed out of the house as much

as possible. He got a special corner for himself at the "Red

Lion" at Cossethay, and became a usual figure by the fire, a

fresh, fair young fellow with heavy limbs and head held back,

mostly silent, though alert and attentive, very hearty in his

greeting of everybody he knew, shy of strangers. He teased all

the women, who liked him extremely, and he was very attentive to

the talk of the men, very respectful.

To drink made him quickly flush very red in the face, and

brought out the look of self-consciousness and unsureness,

almost bewilderment, in his blue eyes. When he came home in this

state of tipsy confusion his sister hated him and abused him,

and he went off his head, like a mad bull with rage.

He had still another turn with a light-o'-love. One

Whitsuntide he went a jaunt with two other young fellows, on

horseback, to Matlock and thence to Bakewell. Matlock was at

that time just becoming a famous beauty-spot, visited from

Manchester and from the Staffordshire towns. In the hotel where

the young men took lunch, were two girls, and the parties struck

up a friendship.

The Miss who made up to Tom Brangwen, then twenty-four years

old, was a handsome, reckless girl neglected for an afternoon by

the man who had brought her out. She saw Brangwen and liked him,

as all women did, for his warmth and his generous nature, and

for the innate delicacy in him. But she saw he was one who would

have to be brought to the scratch. However, she was roused and

unsatisfied and made mischievous, so she dared anything. It

would be an easy interlude, restoring her pride.

She was a handsome girl with a bosom, and dark hair and blue

eyes, a girl full of easy laughter, flushed from the sun,

inclined to wipe her laughing face in a very natural and taking

manner.

Brangwen was in a state of wonder. He treated her with his

chaffing deference, roused, but very unsure of himself, afraid

to death of being too forward, ashamed lest he might be thought

backward, mad with desire yet restrained by instinctive regard

for women from making any definite approach, feeling all the

while that his attitude was ridiculous, and flushing deep with

confusion. She, however, became hard and daring as he became

confused, it amused her to see him come on.

"When must you get back?" she asked.

"I'm not particular," he said.

There the conversation again broke down.

Brangwen's companions were ready to go on.

"Art commin', Tom," they called, "or art for stoppin'?"

"Ay, I'm commin'," he replied, rising reluctantly, an angry

sense of futility and disappointment spreading over him.

He met the full, almost taunting look of the girl, and he

trembled with unusedness.

"Shall you come an' have a look at my mare," he said to her,

with his hearty kindliness that was now shaken with

trepidation.

"Oh, I should like to," she said, rising.

And she followed him, his rather sloping shoulders and his

cloth riding-gaiters, out of the room. The young men got their

own horses out of the stable.

"Can you ride?" Brangwen asked her.

"I should like to if I could--I have never tried," she

said.

"Come then, an' have a try," he said.

And he lifted her, he blushing, she laughing, into the

saddle.

"I s'll slip off--it's not a lady's saddle," she

cried.

"Hold yer tight," he said, and he led her out of the hotel

gate.

The girl sat very insecurely, clinging fast. He put a hand on

her waist, to support her. And he held her closely, he clasped

her as in an embrace, he was weak with desire as he strode

beside her.

The horse walked by the river.

"You want to sit straddle-leg," he said to her.

"I know I do," she said.

It was the time of very full skirts. She managed to get

astride the horse, quite decently, showing an intent concern for

covering her pretty leg.

"It's a lot's better this road," she said, looking down at

him.

"Ay, it is," he said, feeling the marrow melt in his bones

from the look in her eyes. "I dunno why they have that

side-saddle business, twistin' a woman in two."

"Should us leave you then--you seem to be fixed up

there?" called Brangwen's companions from the road.

He went red with anger.

"Ay--don't worry," he called back.

"How long are yer stoppin'?" they asked.

"Not after Christmas," he said.

And the girl gave a tinkling peal of laughter.

"All right--by-bye!" called his friends.

And they cantered off, leaving him very flushed, trying to be

quite normal with the girl. But presently he had gone back to

the hotel and given his horse into the charge of an ostler and

had gone off with the girl into the woods, not quite knowing

where he was or what he was doing. His heart thumped and he

thought it the most glorious adventure, and was mad with desire

for the girl.

Afterwards he glowed with pleasure. By Jove, but that was

something like! He [stayed the afternoon with the girl, and]

wanted to stay the night. She, however, told him this was impossible:

her own man would be back by dark, and she must be with him.

He, Brangwen, must not let on that there had been anything

between them.

She gave him an intimate smile, which made him feel confused

and gratified.

He could not tear himself away, though he had promised not to

interfere with the girl. He stayed on at the hotel over night.

He saw the other fellow at the evening meal: a small,

middle-aged man with iron-grey hair and a curious face, like a

monkey's, but interesting, in its way almost beautiful. Brangwen

guessed that he was a foreigner. He was in company with another,

an Englishman, dry and hard. The four sat at table, two men and

two women. Brangwen watched with all his eyes.

He saw how the foreigner treated the women with courteous

contempt, as if they were pleasing animals. Brangwen's girl had

put on a ladylike manner, but her voice betrayed her. She wanted

to win back her man. When dessert came on, however, the little

foreigner turned round from his table and calmly surveyed the

room, like one unoccupied. Brangwen marvelled over the cold,

animal intelligence of the face. The brown eyes were round,

showing all the brown pupil, like a monkey's, and just calmly

looking, perceiving the other person without referring to him at

all. They rested on Brangwen. The latter marvelled at the old

face turned round on him, looking at him without considering it

necessary to know him at all. The eyebrows of the round,

perceiving, but unconcerned eyes were rather high up, with

slight wrinkles above them, just as a monkey's had. It was an

old, ageless face.

The man was most amazingly a gentleman all the time, an

aristocrat. Brangwen stared fascinated. The girl was pushing her

crumbs about on the cloth, uneasily, flushed and angry.

As Brangwen sat motionless in the hall afterwards, too much

moved and lost to know what to do, the little stranger came up

to him with a beautiful smile and manner, offering a cigarette

and saying:

"Will you smoke?"

Brangwen never smoked cigarettes, yet he took the one

offered, fumbling painfully with thick fingers, blushing to the

roots of his hair. Then he looked with his warm blue eyes at the

almost sardonic, lidded eyes of the foreigner. The latter sat

down beside him, and they began to talk, chiefly of horses.

Brangwen loved the other man for his exquisite graciousness,

for his tact and reserve, and for his ageless, monkey-like

self-surety. They talked of horses, and of Derbyshire, and of

farming. The stranger warmed to the young fellow with real

warmth, and Brangwen was excited. He was transported at meeting