At dawn of the second day men were hunting the old stores, from its cellars to the attics below him. He heard them speaking under his feet and listened to two men who cursed him. They speculated whether he was too young to hang and hoped he might not be. Yet he could take pride in their failure to find him. There was, as he remembered, only one person in the world who knew of his eerie; but terror did not accompany this recollection. His exultation at the defeat of the searchers soon vanished, and he found himself indifferent to the thought that Estelle might remember.
He knew that his plans could not be fulfilled now: it was impossible for him to live a fortnight here. And then he began stealthily, fearfully, to doubt of life itself. It had changed in its aspect and invitation. Its promises were dead. It could hold nothing for him as he had been told by Levi Baggs. The emotions now threatening his mind were such that he believed no length of days would ever dim them; from what he suffered now, it seemed that time's self could promise no escape. Life would be hell and not worth living. At this point in his struggles his mind failed him and became disordered. It worked fitfully, and its processes were broken with blanks and breaks. Chaos marked his mental steps from this point; his feet were caught and he fell down and down, yet tried hard for a while to stay his fall. His consciousness began to decide, while his natural instincts struggled against the decision. Not one, but rival spirits tore him. Reason formed no part in the encounter; no arbiter arose between the conflicting forces, between a gathering will to die and escape further torment, and the brute will to live, that must belong to every young creature, happy or wretched.
The trial was long drawn out; but it had ended some hours before Estelle stood beside him.
She considered whether she should waken Abel and determined that she must do so, since to speak with him, if possible, she held her duty now. He was safe if he wished to be, for she would never tell his secret. So she bent down with her light—to find him dead. He had shot himself through the right temple after sunset time of the second day.
Estelle stood and looked at him for a little while, then climbed back to earth and went away through the darkness to tell his mother that she was right.
THE END
The Human Boy and the War
BY EDEN PHILLPOTTS
In this book of stories Mr. Phillpotts uses his genial gift of characterization to picture the effect of the European War on the impressionable minds of boys—English school-boys far away from anything but the mysterious echo of the strange terrors and blood-stirring heroisms of battle, who live close only to the martial invitation of a recruiting station. There are stories of a boy who runs away to go to the front, teachers who go—perhaps without running; the school's contest for a prize poem about the war, and snow battles, fiercely belligerent, mimicking the strategies of Flanders and the Champagne. They are deeply moving sketches revealing the heart and mind of English youth in war-time.
"The book is extraordinary in the skill with which it gets into that world of the boy so shut away from the adult world. It is entirely unlike anything else by Phillpotts, equal as it is to his other volumes in charm, character study, humor and interest. It is one of those books that every reader will want to recommend to his friends, and which he will only lend with the express proviso that it must be returned."—New York Times.