The Rainbow

He wanted something to get hold of, to pull himself out. But

there was nothing. Steadfastly he looked at the young women, to

find a one he could marry. But not one of them did he want. And

he knew that the idea of a life among such people as the

foreigner was ridiculous.

Yet he dreamed of it, and stuck to his dreams, and would not

have the reality of Cossethay and Ilkeston. There he sat

stubbornly in his corner at the "Red Lion", smoking and musing

and occasionally lifting his beer-pot, and saying nothing, for

all the world like a gorping farm-labourer, as he said

himself.

Then a fever of restless anger came upon him. He wanted to go

away--right away. He dreamed of foreign parts. But somehow

he had no contact with them. And it was a very strong root which

held him to the Marsh, to his own house and land.

Then Effie got married, and he was left in the house with

only Tilly, the cross-eyed woman-servant who had been with them

for fifteen years. He felt things coming to a close. All the

time, he had held himself stubbornly resistant to the action of

the commonplace unreality which wanted to absorb him. But now he

had to do something.

He was by nature temperate. Being sensitive and emotional,

his nausea prevented him from drinking too much.

But, in futile anger, with the greatest of determination and

apparent good humour, he began to drink in order to get drunk.

"Damn it," he said to himself, "you must have it one road or

another--you can't hitch your horse to the shadow of a

gate-post--if you've got legs you've got to rise off your

backside some time or other."

So he rose and went down to Ilkeston, rather awkwardly took

his place among a gang of young bloods, stood drinks to the

company, and discovered he could carry it off quite well. He had

an idea that everybody in the room was a man after his own

heart, that everything was glorious, everything was perfect.

When somebody in alarm told him his coat pocket was on fire, he

could only beam from a red, blissful face and say

"Iss-all-ri-ight--iss-al'-ri-ight--it's a'

right--let it be, let it be----" and he laughed

with pleasure, and was rather indignant that the others should

think it unnatural for his coat pocket to burn:--it was the

happiest and most natural thing in the world--what?

He went home talking to himself and to the moon, that was

very high and small, stumbling at the flashes of moonlight from

the puddles at his feet, wondering What the Hanover! then

laughing confidently to the moon, assuring her this was first

class, this was.