CHAPTER XIV
Out of sight of the house, at the entrance of the walk leading to themoor, Sir Arthur was conscious again of transitory, but rather sharppains across the chest.
He sat down to rest, and they soon passed away. After a few minutes hepursued his walk, climbing towards the open stretches of heathery moor,which lay beyond the park, and a certain ghyll or hollow with a wildstream in it that cleft the moor high up--one of his favourite haunts.
He climbed through ferny paths, and amid stretches of heather justcoming to its purple prime, up towards the higher regions of the moorwhere the millstone grit cropped out in sharp edges, showing gaunt anddark against the afternoon sky. Here the beautiful stream that made awaterfall within the park came sliding down shelf after shelf ofyellowish rock, with pools of deep brown water at intervals, overhungwith mountain ash and birch.
After the warm day, all the evening scents were abroad, carried by agentle wind. Sir Arthur drank them in, with the sensuous pleasure whichhad been one of his gifts in life. The honey smell of the heather, thewoody smell of the bracken, the faint fragrance of wood-smoke waftedfrom a bonfire in the valley below--they all carried with them aninexpressible magic for the man wandering on the moor. So did themovements of birds--the rise of a couple of startled grouse, thehovering of two kestrels, a flight of wild duck in the distance. Eachand all reminded him of the halcyon times of life--adventures of hisboyhood, the sporting pleasures of his manhood. By George!--how he hadenjoyed them all!
Presently, to his left, on the edge of the heathery slope he caughtsight of one of the butts used in the great grouse-shoots of the moor.What a jolly party they had had last year in that week of wonderfulOctober weather! Two hundred brace on the home moor the first day, andalmost as many on the Fairdale moor the following day. Some of the menhad never shot better. One of the party was now Viceroy of India;another had been killed in one of the endless little frontier fightsthat are the price, month by month, which the British Empire pays forits existence. Douglas had come off particularly well. His shooting fromthat butt to the left had been magnificent. Sir Arthur remembered wellhow the old hands had praised it, warming the cockles of his own heart.
"I will have one more shoot," he said to himself with passion--"I will!"
Then, feeling suddenly tired, he sat down beside the slipping stream. Itwas fairly full, after some recent rain, and the music of it rang in hisears. Stretching out a hand he filled it full of silky grass and thyme,sniffing at it in delight. "How strange," he thought, "that I can stillenjoy these things. But I shall--till I die."
Below him, as he sat, lay the greater part of his estate stretching eastand west; bounded on the west by some of the high moors leading up tothe Pennine range, lost on the east in a blue and wooded distance. Hecould see the towers of three village churches, and the blurred greysand browns of the houses clustering round them--some near, some far.Stone farm-buildings, their white-washed gables glowing under the levelsun, caught his eye, one after the other--now hidden in wood, nowstanding out upon the fields or the moorland, with one sycamore or agroup of yews to shelter them. And here and there were larger houses;houses of the middle gentry, with their gardens and enclosures. Farms,villages, woods and moors, they were all his--nominally his, for a fewweeks or months longer. And there was scarcely one of them in the wholewide scene, with which he had not some sporting association; whether ofthe hunting field, or the big autumn shoots, or the jolly partridgedrives over the stubbles.
But it suddenly and sharply struck him how very few other associationshe possessed with these places spread below him in the declining Augustsunshine. He had not owned Flood more than fifteen years--enough howeverto lose it in! And he had succeeded a father who had been the belovedhead of the county, a just and liberal landlord, a man of scrupulouskindness and honour, for whom everybody had a friendly word. His ruinedson on the moorside thought with wonder and envy of his father's populararts, which yet were no arts. For himself he confessed,--aware as hewas, this afternoon, of the presence in his mind of a new and strangeinsight with regard to his own life and past, as though he were writinghis own obituary--that the people living in these farms and villages hadmeant little more to him than the troublesome conditions on which heenjoyed the pleasures of the Flood estates, the great income he drewfrom them, and the sport for which they were famous. He had his friendsamong the farmers of course, though they were few. There were men whohad cringed to him, and whom he had rewarded. And Laura had given awayplentifully in the villages. But his chief agent he knew had been a hardman and a careless one; and he had always loathed the trouble of lookingafter him. Again and again he had been appealed to, as against hisagent; and he had not even answered the letters. He had occasionallydone some public duties; he had allowed himself to be placed on theCounty Council, but had hardly ever attended meetings; he had taken thechair and made a speech occasionally, when it would have cost him moreeffort to refuse than to accept; and those portions of the estate whichadjoined the castle were in fairly good repair. But on the remoterfarms, and especially since his financial resources had begun to fail,he knew very well that there were cottages and farm-houses in ascandalous state, on which not a farthing had been spent for years.
No, it could not be said he had played a successful part as a landowner.He had meant no harm to anybody. He had been simply idle andpreoccupied; and that in a business where, under modern conditions,idleness is immoral. He was quite conscious that there were good men,frugal men, kind and God-fearing men, landlords like himself, though ona much smaller scale, in that tract of country under his feet, who feltbitterly towards him, who judged him severely, who would be thankful tosee the last of him, and to know that the land had passed into other andbetter hands. Fifty-two years of life lived in that northern Vale ofEden; and what was there to show for them?--in honest work done, inpeace of conscience, in friends? Now that the pictures were sold, therewould be just enough to pay everybody, with a very little over. Therewas some comfort in that. He would have ruined nobody but himself andDuggy. Poor Laura would be quite comfortable on her own money, and wouldgive him house-room no doubt--till the end.
The end? But he might live another twenty years. The thought wasintolerable. The apathy in which he had been lately living gave way. Herealised, with quickened breath, what this parting from his inheritanceand all the associations of his life would mean. He saw himself as atree, dragged violently out of its native earth--rootless and rotten.
Poor Duggy! Duggy was as proud and wilful as himself; with more personalambition however, and less of that easy, sensuous recklessness, thatgambler's spirit, which had led his father into such quagmires. Duggyhad shown up well these last weeks. He was not a boy to talk, but inacts he had been good.
And through the man's remorseful soul there throbbed the one deep,disinterested affection of his life--his love for his son. He had beenvery fond of Laura, but when it came to moments like this she meantlittle to him.
He gave himself up to this feeling of love. How strange that it shouldboth rend and soothe!--that it and it alone brought some comfort, somespermaceti for the inward bruise, amid all the bitterness connected withit. Duggy, in his arms, as a little toddling fellow, Duggy atschool--playing for Harrow at Lord's--Duggy at college--
But of that part of his son's life, as he realised with shame, he knewvery little. He had been too entirely absorbed, when it arrived, in thefrantic struggle, first for money, and then for solvency. Duggy hadbecome in some ways during the last two years a stranger to him--his ownfault! What had he done to help him through his college life--to"influence him for good," as people said? Nothing. He had beenenormously proud of his son's university distinctions; he had suppliedhim lavishly with money; he had concealed from him his own financialsituation till it was hopeless; he had given him the jolliest possiblevacation, and that was all that could be said.
The father groaned within himself. And yet again--how strangely!--didsome fraction of healing virtue flow from his very di
stress?--from hisremembrance, above all, of how Duggy had tried to help him?--duringthese few weeks since he knew?
Ah!--Tidswell Church coming out of the shadows! He remembered how onewinter he had been coming home late on horseback through dark lanes,when he met the parson of that church, old and threadbare andnarrow-chested, trudging on, head bent, against a spitting rain. Theowner of Flood had been smitten with a sudden compunction, anddismounting he had walked his horse beside the old man. The living ofTidswell was in his own gift. It amounted, he remembered, to some L140 ayear. The old man, whose name was Trevenen, had an old wife, to whom SirArthur thought Lady Laura had sometimes sent some cast-off clothes.
Mr. Trevenen had been baptising a prematurely born child in a highmoorland farm. The walk there and back had been steep and long, and histhin lantern-jawed face shone very white through the wintry dusk.
"You must be very tired," Sir Arthur had said, remembering uncomfortablythe dinner to which he was himself bent--the chef, the wines, the largehouse-party.
And Mr. Trevenen had looked up and smiled.
"Not very. I have been unusually cheered as I walked by thoughts of theDivine Love!"
The words had been so simply said; and a minute afterwards the oldpale-faced parson had disappeared into the dark.
What did the words mean? Had they really any meaning?
"The Divine Love." Arthur Falloden did not know then, and did not knownow. But he had often thought of the incident.
He leaned over, musing, to gather a bunch of hare-bells growing on theedge of the stream. As he did so, he was conscious again of a sharp painin the chest. In a few more seconds, he was stretched on the moorlandgrass, wrestling with a torturing anguish that was crushing his lifeout. It seemed to last an eternity. Then it relaxed, and he was able tobreathe and think again.
"What is it?"
Confused recollections of the death of his old grandfather, when hehimself was a child, rose in his mind. "He was out hunting--horriblepain--two hours. Is this the same? If it is--I shall die--here--alone."
He tried to move after a little, but found himself helpless. A briefintermission, and the pain rushed on him again, like a violent andruthless hand, grinding the very centres of life. When he recoveredconsciousness, it was with the double sense of blissful relief fromagony and of ebbing strength. What had happened to him? How long had hebeen there?
"Could you drink this?" said a voice behind him. He opened his eyes andsaw a young man, with a halo of red-gold hair, and a tremulous, pityingface, quite strange to him, bending over him.
There was some brandy at his lips. He drank with difficulty. What hadhappened to the light? How dark it was!
"Where am I?" he said, looking up blindly into the face above him.
"I found you here--on the moor--lying on the grass. Are you better?Shall I run down now--and fetch some one?"
"Don't go--"
The agony returned. When Sir Arthur spoke again, it was very feebly.
"I can't live--through--much more of that. I'm dying. Don't leave me.Where's my son? Where's my son--Douglas? Who are you?"
The glazing eyes tried to make out the features of the stranger. Theywere too dim to notice the sudden shiver that passed through them as henamed his son.
"I can't get at any one. I've been calling for a long time. My name isRadowitz. I'm staying at Penfold Rectory. If I could only carry you! Itried to lift you--but I couldn't. I've only one hand." He pointeddespairingly to the sling he was wearing.
"Tell my son--tell Douglas--"
But the faint voice ceased abruptly, and the eyes closed. Only there wasa slight movement of the lips, which Radowitz, bending his ear to themouth of the dying man, tried to interpret. He thought it said "pray,"but he could not be sure.
Radowitz looked round him in an anguish. No one on the purple side ofthe moor, no one on the grassy tracks leading downwards to the park;only the wide gold of the evening--the rising of a light wind--therustling of the fern--and the loud, laboured breathing below him.
He bent again over the helpless form, murmuring words in haste.
* * * * *
Meanwhile after Sir Arthur left the house, Douglas had been urgentlysummoned by his mother. He found her at tea with Trix in her ownsitting-room. Roger was away, staying with a school friend, to thegeneral relief of the household; Nelly, the girl of seventeen, was withrelations in Scotland, but Trix had become her mother's little shadowand constant companion. The child was very conscious of the weight onher parents' minds. Her high spirits had all dropped. She had a wistful,shrinking look, which suited ill with her round face and her childishlyparted lips over her small white teeth. The little face was made forlaughter; but in these days only Douglas could bring back her smiles,because mamma was so unhappy and cried so much; and that mamma shouldcry seemed to bring her whole world tumbling about the child's ears.Only Douglas, for sheer impatience with the general gloom of the house,would sometimes tease her or chase her; and then the child's laugh wouldring out--a ghostly echo from the days before Lady Laura "knew."
Poor Lady Laura! Up to the last moment before the crash, her husband hadkept everything from her. She was not a person of profound or sensitivefeeling; and yet it is probable that her resentment of her husband'slong secrecy, and the implications of it, counted for a great deal inher distress and misery.
The sale of the pictures, as shortly reported by Douglas, hadoverwhelmed her. As soon as her son appeared in her room, she poured outupon him a stream of lamentation and complaint, while Trix wasalternately playing with the kitten on her knee and drying furtive tearson a very grubby pocket-handkerchief.
Douglas was on the whole patient and explanatory, for he was reallysorry for his mother; but as soon as he could he escaped from her on theplea of urgent letters and estate accounts.
The August evening wore on, and it was nearing sunset when his mothercame hurriedly into the library.
"Douglas, where is your father?"
"He went out for a walk before tea. Hasn't he come in?"
"No. And it's more than two hours. I--I don't like it, Duggy. He hasn'tbeen a bit well lately--and so awfully depressed. Please go and look forhim, dear!"
Douglas suddenly perceived the terror in his mother's mind. It seemed tohim absurd. He knew his father better than she did; but he took his hatand went out obediently.
He had happened to notice his father going towards the moor, and he tookthe same path, running simply for exercise, measuring his young strengthagainst the steepness of the hill and filling his lungs with the sweetevening air, in a passionate physical reaction against the familydistress.
Five miles away, in this same evening glow, was Constance Bledlowwalking or sitting in her aunts' garden? Or was she nearer still--atPenfold Rectory, just beyond the moor he was climbing, the oldrectory-house where Sorell and Radowitz were staying? He had taken goodcare to give that side of the hills a wide berth since his return home.But a great deal of the long ridge was common ground, and in the privateand enclosed parts there were several rights of way crossing the moor,besides the one lonely road traversing it from end to end on which hehad met Constance Bledlow. If he had not been so tied at home, and sodetermined not to run any risks of a meeting, he might very well havecome across Sorell at least, if not Radowitz, on the high grounddominating the valleys on either side. Sorell was a great walker. Butprobably they were as anxious to avoid a casual meeting as he was.
The evening was rapidly darkening, and as he climbed he searched thehillside with his quick eyes for any sign of his father. Once or twicehe stopped to call:
"Father!"
The sound died away, echoing among the fields and hollows of the moor.But there was no answer. He climbed further. He was now near the streamwhich descended through the park, and its loud jubilant voice burst uponhim, filling the silence.
Then, above the plashing of the stream and the rising of the wind, heheard suddenly a cry:
"Help!"
&n
bsp; It came from a point above his head. A sudden horror came upon him. Hedashed on. In another minute a man's figure appeared, higher up, darkagainst the reddened sky. The man put one hand to his mouth, andshouted through it again--"Help!"
Douglas came up with him. In speechless amazement he saw that it wasOtto Radowitz, without a coat, bareheaded, pale and breathless.
"There's a man here, Falloden. I think it's your father. He's awfullyill. I believe he's dying. Come at once! I've been shouting for along time."
Douglas said nothing. He rushed on, following Radowitz, who took a shortcut bounding through the deep ling of the moor. Only a few yards tillDouglas perceived a man, with a grey, drawn face, who was lying fulllength on a stretch of grass beside the stream, his head and shoulderspropped against a low rock on which a folded coat had been placed asa pillow.
"Father!"
Sir Arthur opened his eyes. He was drawing deep, gasping breaths, thestrong life in him wrestling still. But the helplessness, the ineffablesurrender and defeat of man's last hour, was in his face.
Falloden knelt down.
"Father!--don't you know me? Well soon carry you home. It's Duggy!" Noanswer. Radowitz had gone a few yards away, and was also kneeling, hisface buried in his hands, his back turned to the father and son.
Douglas made another agonised appeal, and the grey face quivered. Awhisper passed the lips.
"It's best, Duggy--poor Duggy! Kiss me, old boy. Tell your mother--thatyoung man--prayed for me. She'll like to--know that. My love--"
The last words were spoken with a great effort; and the breaths thatfollowed grew slower and slower as the vital tide withdrew itself. Oncemore the eyes opened, and Douglas saw in them the old affectionate look.Then the lips shaped themselves again to words that made no sound; ashudder passed through the limbs--their last movement.
Douglas knelt on, looking closely into his father's face, listening forthe breath that came no more. He felt rather than saw that Radowitz hadmoved still further away.
Two or three deep sobs escaped him--involuntary, almost unconscious.Then he pulled himself together. His mother? Who was to tell her?
He went to call Radowitz, who came eagerly.
"My father is dead," said Falloden, deadly pale, but composed. "How longhave you been here?"
"About half an hour. When I arrived he was in agonies of pain. I gavehim brandy, and he revived a little. Then I wanted to go for help, buthe begged me not to leave him alone. So I could only shout and wave myhandkerchief. The pains came back and back--and every time he grewweaker. Oh, it was _angina_. I have seen it before--twice. If I had onlyhad some nitrite of amyl! But there was nothing--nothing I could do." Hepaused, and then added timidly, "I am a Catholic; I said some ofour prayers."
He looked gravely into Falloden's face. Falloden's eyes met his, andboth men remembered--momentarily--the scene in Marmion Quad.
"We must get him down," said Falloden abruptly. "And there is mymother."
"I would help you to carry him, of course; but--you see--I can't."
_Douglas knelt, looking into his father's face, andRadowitz moved farther away_]
His delicate skin flushed deeply. Falloden realised for the firsttime the sling across his shoulder and the helpless hand lying in it. Heturned away, searching with his eyes the shadows of the valley. At themoment, the spot where they stood was garishly illuminated by therapidly receding light, which had already left the lower ground. Thegrass at their feet, the rocks, the stream, the stretches of heatherwere steeped and drenched in the last rays of sun which shot upon themin a fierce concentration from the lower edge of a great cloud. But thelandmarks below were hard to make out--for a stranger's eyes.
"You see that cottage--where the smoke is?"
Radowitz assented.
"You will find a keeper there. Send him with three or four men."
"Yes--at once. Shall I take a message to the house?"
Radowitz spoke very gently. The red-gold of his hair, and his blue eyes,were all shining in the strange light. But he was again as pale asFalloden himself. Douglas drew out a pencil, and a letter from hispocket. He wrote some words on the envelope, and handed it to Radowitz.
"That's for my mother's maid. She will know what to do. She is an oldservant. I must stay here."
Radowitz rushed away, leaping and running down the steep side of thehill, his white shirt, crossed by the black sling, conspicuous all theway, till he was at last lost to sight in the wood leading to thekeeper's cottage.
Falloden went back to the dead man. He straightened his father's limbsand closed his eyes. Then he lay down beside him, throwing his armtenderly across the body. And the recollection came back to him of thathunting accident years ago--the weight of his father on hisshoulders--the bitter cold--the tears which not all his boyish scorn oftears could stop.
His poor mother! She must see Radowitz, for Radowitz alone could tellthe story of that last half hour. He must give evidence, too, atthe inquest.
_Radowitz_! Thoughts, ironic and perverse, ran swarming throughFalloden's brain, as though driven through it from outside. What anursery tale!--how simple!--how crude! Could not the gods have devised asubtler retribution?
Then these thoughts vanished again, like a cloud of gnats. The touch ofhis father's still warm body brought him back to the plain, tragic fact.He raised himself on his elbow to look again at the dead face.
The handsome head with its grizzled hair was resting on Radowitz's coat.Falloden could not bear it. He took off his own, and gently substitutedit for the other. And as he laid the head down, he kissed the hair andthe brow. He was alone with his father--more alone than he ever would beagain. There was not a human step or voice upon the moor. Night wascoming rapidly on. The stream rushed beside him. There were a few criesof birds--mostly owls from the woods below. The dead man's face besidehim was very solemn and quiet. And overhead, the angry sunset cloudswere fading into a dim and star-strewn heaven, above a world sinkingto its rest.
* * * * *
The moon was up before Radowitz came back to the little rectory on theother side of the moor. Sorell, from whose mind he was seldom absent,had begun to worry about him, was in fact on the point of setting out insearch of him. But about nine o'clock he heard the front gate open andjumping down from the low open window of the rectory drawing-room hewent to meet the truant.
Radowitz staggered towards him, and clung to his arm.
"My dear fellow," cried Sorell, aghast at the bay's appearance andmanner--"what have you been doing to yourself?"
"I went up the moor for a walk after tea--it was so gorgeous, the cloudsand the view. I got drawn on a bit--on the castle side. I wasn't reallythinking where I was going. Then I saw the park below me, and the house.And immediately afterwards, I heard a groaning sound, and there was aman lying on the ground. It was Sir Arthur Falloden--and he died--whileI was there." The boy's golden head dropped suddenly against Sorell. "Isay, can't I have some food, and go to bed?"
Sorell took him in and looked after him like a mother, helped by thekind apple-faced rector, who had heard the castle news from othersources also, and was greatly moved.
When Otto's exhaustion had been fed and he was lying in his bed withdrawn brows, and no intention or prospect of going to sleep, Sorell lethim tell his tale.
"When the bearers came, I went down with them to the castle, and I sawLady Laura"--said the boy, turning his head restlessly from side toside. "I say, it's awful--how women cry! Then they told me about theinquest--I shall have to go to-morrow--and on the way home I went tosee Lady Connie. I thought she ought to know."
Sorell started.
"And you found her?"
"Oh, yes. She was sitting in the garden."
There was a short silence. Then Otto flung up his left hand, caught agnat that was buzzing round his head, and laughed--a drearylittle sound.
"It's quite true--she's in love with him."
"With Douglas Falloden?"
Otto nodded.
"She was awfully cut up when I told her--just for him. She didn't cry ofcourse. Our generation doesn't seem to cry--like Lady Laura. But youcould see what she wanted."
"To go to him?"
"That's it. And of course she can't. My word, it is hard on women!They're hampered such a lot--by all their traditions. Why don't theykick 'em over?"
"I hope she will do nothing of the kind," said Sorell with energy. "Thetraditions may just save her."
Otto thought over it.
"You mean--save her from doing something for pity that she wouldn't doif she had time to think?"
Sorell assented.
"Why should that fellow be any more likely now to make her happy--"
"Because he's lost his money and his father? I don't know why he should.I dare say he'll begin bullying and slave-driving again--when he'sforgotten all this. But--"
"But what?"
"Well--you see--I didn't think he could possibly care about anything buthimself. I thought he was as hard as a millstone all through. Well, heisn't. That's so queer!"
The speaker's voice took a dreamy tone.
Sorell glanced in bitterness at the maimed hand lying on the bed. It wasstill bandaged, but he knew very well what sort of a shapeless, ruinedthing it would emerge, when the bandages were thrown aside. It wasstrange and fascinating--to a student of psychology--that Otto shouldhave been brought, so suddenly, so unforeseeably, into this pathetic andintimate relation with the man to whom, essentially, he owed hisdisaster. But what difference did it make in the quality of the Marmionoutrage, or to any sane judgment of Douglas Falloden?
"Go to sleep, old boy," he said at last. "You'll have a hard timeto-morrow."
"What, the inquest? Oh, I don't mind about that. If I could onlyunderstand that fellow!"
He threw his head back, staring at the ceiling.
Otto Radowitz, in spite of Sorell's admonitions, slept very little thatnight. His nights were apt to be feverish and disturbed. But on thisoccasion imagination and excitement made it impossible to stop the brainprocess, the ceaseless round of thought; and the hours of darkness wereintolerably long. Memory went back behind the meeting with the dying manon the hillside, to an earlier experience--an hour of madness, of"possession." His whole spiritual being was still bruised and martyredfrom it, like that sufferer of old whom the evil spirit "tore" indeparting. What had delivered him? The horror was still on him, stillhis master, when he became aware of that white face on the grass--
He drowsed off again. But in his half-dream, he seemed to be kneelingagain and reciting Latin words, words he had heard last when his motherwas approaching her end. He was more than half sceptical, so far as theupper mind was concerned; but the under-consciousness was steeped inideas derived from his early home and training, ideas of sacrifice,forgiveness, atonement, judgment--the common and immortal stock ofChristianity. He had been brought up in a house pervaded by thecrucifix, and by a mother who was ardently devout.
But why had God--if there was a God--brought this wonderful thing topass? Never had his heart been so full of hatred as in that hour oflonely wandering on the moor, before he perceived the huddled figurelying by the stream. And, all in a moment, he had become his enemy'sproxy--his representative--in the last and tenderest service that mancan render to man. He had played the part of son to Falloden's dyingfather--had prayed for him from the depths of his heart, tortured withpity. And when Falloden came, with what strange eyes they had looked ateach other!--as though all veils had dropped--all barriers had, for themoment, dropped away.
"Shall I hate him again to-morrow?" thought Radowitz. "Or shall I bemore sorry for him than for myself? Yes, that's what I felt!--somarvellously!"
So that when he went to Constance with his news, and under the emotionof it, saw the girl's heart unveiled--"I was not jealous," he thought."I just wanted to give her everything!"
Yet, as the night passed on, and that dreary moment of the firstawakening earth arrived, when all the griefs of mankind weigh heaviest,he was shaken anew by gusts of passion and despair; and this time forhimself. Suppose--for in spite of all Sorell's evasions andconcealments, he knew very well that Sorell was anxious about him, andthe doctors had said ugly things--suppose he got really ill?--suppose hedied, without having lived?
He thought of Constance in the moonlit garden, her sweetness, hergratefulness to him for coming, her small, white "flower-face," and thelook in her eyes.
"If I might--only once--have kissed her--have held her in my arms!" hethought, with anguish. And rolling on his face, he lay prone, fightinghis fight alone, till exhaustion conquered, and "he took the giftof sleep."