merely proof that the
temptation was not strong enough? The whole thing appeared to him a
matter of mathematics or mechanics. Given a greater weight than it can
carry, the rope is bound to break. And then for those who have not felt
the strain to blame the rope, punish the rope! It seemed to Richard, as
he rode homeward, that human justice is too often a very comedy of
injustice. It all appeared to him so exceedingly foolish. And yet
society must be protected. Other pretty, weak, silly creatures must be
warned, by such rather brutal object lessons, not to bear bastards or
pawn their mistresses' spoons.

"'_Je ne sais pas ce que c'est que la vie eternelle, mais celle ci est
une mauvaise plaisanterie_,'" Dickie quoted to himself somewhat
bitterly.

He turned aside at Farley Row, following the narrow road that runs
behind the houses in the main street and the great, vacant stables and
outbuildings of the White Lion Inn. And here, as though the immediate
displeasures of this ill-starred day were insufficient, memory arose
and recalled other displeasures of long ago. Recalled old Jackie Deeds
lurching out of that same inn yard, empty pipe in mouth, greedy of
alms. Recalled the old postboy's ugly morsel of profanity--"God
Almighty had His jokes too." And, at that, the laughter of those
loafers upon the canal bridge saluted Richard's ears once more, as did
the loud, familiar phrases of Mr. Lemuel Image, the Westchurch brewer.

Before him the flat expanse of Clerke's Green opened out; and the turf
of it--beaded with dew which the frail sunshine of the early morning
had failed to burn up--was crossed by long tracks of darker green,
where flocks of geese had wandered over its misty surface. Here the
traveling menagerie and all the booths of the fair had been stationed.
Memory rigged up the tents once more, painted the vans in crude,
glaring colours, set drums beating and merry-go-rounds turning, pointed
a malicious finger at the sign-board of a certain show. How many times
Richard had passed this way in the intervening years, and remembered in
passing, yet thrown all hurt of remembrance from him directly and
lightly! To-day it gripped him. He put his horse into a sharp trot.

Skirting the edge of the green, he rode down a rutted cart lane--farm
buildings and well-filled rickyards on the left--and forded the
shallow, brown stream which separates the parish of Farley from that of
Sandyfield and the tithing of Brockhurst.

Ahe