It was not at first that George roused himself to the point of
asking why he was here and what--now that he was here--he proposed
to do. For two languorous days he loafed, sufficiently occupied
with his thoughts. He smoked long, peaceful pipes in the
stable-yard, watching the ostlers as they groomed the horses; he
played with the Inn puppy, bestowed respectful caresses on the Inn
cat. He walked down the quaint cobbled street to the harbour,
sauntered along the shore, and lay on his back on the little beach
at the other side of the lagoon, from where he could see the red
roofs of the village, while the imitation waves splashed busily on
the stones, trying to conceal with bustle and energy the fact that
the water even two hundred yards from the shore was only eighteen
inches deep. For it is the abiding hope of Belpher Creek that it
may be able to deceive the occasional visitor into mistaking it for
the open sea.
And presently the tide would ebb. The waste of waters became a sea
of mud, cheerfully covered as to much of its surface with green
grasses. The evening sun struck rainbow colours from the moist
softness. Birds sang in the thickets. And George, heaving himself
up, walked back to the friendly cosiness of the Marshmoreton Arms.
And the remarkable part of it was that everything seemed perfectly
natural and sensible to him, nor had he any particular feeling that
in falling in love with Lady Maud Marsh and pursuing her to Belpher
he had set himself anything in the nature of a hopeless task. Like
one kissed by a goddess in a dream, he walked on air; and, while
one is walking on air, it is easy to overlook the boulders in the
path.
Consider his position, you faint-hearted and self-pitying young men
who think you have a tough row to hoe just because, when you pay
your evening visit with the pound box of candy under your arm, you
see the handsome sophomore from Yale sitting beside her on the
porch, playing the ukulele. If ever the world has turned black to
you in such a situation and the moon gone in behind a cloud, think
of George Bevan and what he was up against. You are at least on the
spot. You can at least put up a fight. If there are ukuleles in the
world, there are also guitars, and tomorrow it may be you and not
he who sits on the moonlit porch; it may be he and not you who
arrives late. Who knows? Tomorrow he may not show up till you have
finished the Bedouin's Love Song and are annoying the local birds,
roosting in the trees, with Poor Butterfly.