The Man Within Read Online Free PDF Page A

sharp for abstractions. But unexpressed in conscious thought, he had felt of this house as of a cottage in a fairy-story. He had stumbled on it in a wood when blurred with sleep. It had given him shelter and a sense of mystery; it had not belonged to the world which he had known, the constant irritation and strain of the sea nor to the fear of the last few days. But Mrs Butler had come from the town that morning. In crannies of her ears still lurked the sounds from which he had fled, the waves, fishwives’ voices, rattle of carts, ‘Mackerel, fresh mackerel,’ gossip in the market, ‘Three of them escaped.’
    Mrs Butler had left the door open and through it he could see clearly in sunlight that which, when he came, had been obscured by weariness and night. He had thought of this cottage as alone in the middle of a wood. Now he could see that it stood at the edge of a mere coppice. Above the trees like a blister was the down over which he had come. ‘What’s that?’ he said at a sound, unable to keep all sign of fear from his voice.
    ‘Why, it’s only a cart,’ the girl answered.
    ‘A cart?’ he cried and walked to a window. It was true. This cottage hidden, as he had thought, in a forest lay within a hundred yards of the high road. It was useless to tell himself that a high road was his safest place, that Carlyon, probably by now with a price upon his head, must equally fear the open. He was superstitious on the subject of Carlyon. He could not imagine Carlyon in hiding.
    ‘A sailor?’ said Mrs Butler, her eyes fixed on the floor. ‘There’s sailors and sailors. There’s some as don’t like these gaugers , but I say as ’ow they be only doin’ their duty. They be paid for it same as me on this floor. And they get the worst of it most every time. Look at Tuesday.’
    ‘What time’s this funeral?’ Andrews asked, turning his back on Mrs Butler with abrupt brutality. He was very conscious that behind his back she had raised an astonished head and was eyeing him with shrewd consideration. The girl he found had moved to the door and he followed her with a sense of relief, glad to leave behind, though only for a little, Mrs Butler’s curiosity and her pretty, damp voice. ‘What time’s this funeral?’ he repeated.
    ‘They’ll be fetching him,’ she said, ‘at eleven,’ and her simple sentence cleared away the last illusion of isolation. Time was here in the cottage. Clocks ticked and hands went round as everywhere else in the world. He had a sense of time rushing past him, rushing like a Gadarene swine to destruction. Time squeaked at him as it passed at an increasing pace down a steep slope. Poets had told him over and over again that life was short. Now for the first time he knew it as a vital fact. He longed for peace and beauty, and the minutes were flying by, and he was still a fugitive, with mind muddled, obscured by fear of death.
    ‘Shall we be alone?’ he asked, his voice a mixture of longing and apprehension.
    ‘Alone,’ she repeated in a low voice, so that her voice might not reach through the splashing of a damp cloth to Mrs Butler’s ears. ‘No, we shan’t be alone. You don’t know these country people. I hate them,’ she added with unexpected intensity. ‘This is a show to them. They’ll flock to it, but I shan’t feed them. They’ll expect to be fed. They haven’t been near me since he died, and I’d have welcomed anyone for a bit of company in the evening. They never came when he was alive.’
    ‘What do you mean?’ he raised his voice in unthinking fear. ‘A crowd of them?’ He took hold of her wrist. ‘If you’ve planned this,’ he said.
    ‘Need you be a fool as well as a coward?’ she answered in an off-hand tired fashion. ‘Why should I plan anything? I’m not sufficiently interested in you.’ She released her hand and moved out of doors. ‘I don’t know why I’ve helped you as much as I have,’ she added with a small shrug.
    He followed, still