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.