Long now he had been accustomed to the greater sense of proportion in things mental and emotional which amounts to a greyer level of feeling; he had lived on those not unsweet flats for years. But only lately had the physical messages been flashing along to him down his nerves and muscles, and he resented them far more bitterly than anything mental or spiritual. His eyes—it might be they merely needed spectacles for close work; but he resented that almost as fiercely as the fear about them which sometimes assailed him when the pain was bad and his lids pricked and were sore—the waning capacity to stand long strain and fatigue, the waning power of physical reaction altogether…. Lately his cold bath had meant a half-hour's shivering for him instead of the instantaneous glow which showed perfect bodily response. He was a strong, healthy man who had led a healthy life, but all the same he was not the man he had been, and this night he acknowledged it. To this he had come, to this everyone must come; as a commonplace he supposed he had always known that, if he had been asked about it—even as a boy he would have agreed to that, but with the inward thought: "Not to me … it can't…." To Nicky too it would come, though Nicky would have laughed the idea to scorn as so far off as not to be worth troubling about. Yet how quickly it came … how terribly quickly! Life seemed to Ishmael to be a shining ribbon that was always being pulled through the fingers, inexorably fast, cling as they might.

Ishmael lifted his eyes and stared out over the darkening moor, and his attention was caught by a flicker upon the western horizon. The last line of light from the sun's setting still lingered there, so that at first it was not easy to disengage from it that flicker of brighter light which seemed vague as a candle flame in daytime. A few minutes made certainty, however, and Ishmael stared at the gathering flicker and wondered whether it were a serious fire or mere swaling. It gathered in a rose of flame that gradually lit the horizon and burnt so steadily that he knew no swaling could account for it, and, standing up, he took his bearings and decided that it must be either Farmer Angwin's buildings or ricks ablaze. Angwin was a shiftless fellow, gentle and meek, who was wont to bewail his ill-luck; here was another slice of it for him, poor man! Ishmael was too far from home to return quickly for a trap, and it would take time to put the horse in. Suddenly he decided he would make the run on foot across country, as he often had as a boy on seeing that ominous but thrilling glow gathering in the sky. He got to his feet, nimbly enough if not with suppleness; as he did so he felt a twinge in his thigh such as it had been subject to ever since a bad attack of rheumatism the winter before. He stood a moment watching the rising glow, then stretched himself. Unconsciously he was asking of limbs and muscles as to their fitness; as he drew in deep breaths of the soft air and let the tautened sinews relax again there was no alien note in the symphony of his being—all felt as sound and strong as ever; now he was standing the twinge did not bother him—he told himself that in every inch of him he was still the man he was. Yet he knew he no longer felt the twang of some divine-strung cord within that had been wont to thrill and inform the whole.

Quite suddenly, as he stood, there came to him the idea to try and see whether by physical abandon he could recapture the old frenzy, whether to the bidding of violent exercise and healthy exhaustion, to the joy of feeling covered with sweat and earth, a mere glowing animal who feels and does not think, something of what he had lost would come back to him if only for an hour.

CHAPTER III

BODIES OF FIRE

The dusk was deepening rapidly, that glow brightened every minute; Ishmael began to run. He ran on and on—it seemed to him effortlessly—and with a tingling glow rising in him that made him feel alive as he had not for long. On and on, straight as keeping that glow ahead could make his course, over the hedges, damp and clinging with dew, scattering its drops, breaking the clinging grass stems and the tangled weeds. At each wall he felt the old upleaping of power as he took it, hurling himself over cleanly in the darkness, delightfully regardless of what might be on the other side. Down marshy fields that sucked at his feet, through the pools that splashed up into his heated face, over the clumps of long grass that grew between the tiny rivulets and swayed beneath his step and would have given way with him had he not always leapt on in time with the sure-footedness of long custom. On up long dry slopes, where he ran slowly but easily, conscious of his own ease, though he could hear his deep-drawn breaths. Through patches of moorland where the bracken clung about him or the furze pricked his legs, as he was subconsciously aware without really noticing it. Once he came vaulting over a granite wall, to find himself almost on top of a blood-bull, with a ring in his nose and a curly fringe on his forehead that showed clearly in the rising moonlight. Ishmael could see, too, his wet glistening nose and dark eyes. The bull stayed still staring in astonishment, and Ishmael hit his flank gaily in passing and ran on, down a marshy bottom, over another wall and up the next slope. The glow was brighter now because he was so much nearer, but in reality it had subsided somewhat—its first fierce spurt had burnt itself out. Ishmael began to go less easily—his breath rasped a little; but his sensations were all pleasant—the pounding blood in his whole body ran sweetly, he tingled with a glow that was enjoyable beyond anything he could have imagined. He knew he must be in a deplorable condition; he could feel the sweat running down his forehead into his eyes and his shirt clinging to his body under his light coat. Up to the knees he was soaking wet, and splashed with mud higher still; his clothes were torn by the brambles, and so were his hands and face. He felt happy—happy, in spite of the news that had come to him. At that moment his run seemed to him to hold an epic quality—the physical aspect of things; the health and strength he felt coursing through him, the delightful exhaustion that he knew would follow so healthily and naturally, seemed the most important things in the world. Let all else go but this….

He slowed up to a walk as he came to Angwin's farm, passed through the dark yard, and through the gates into a field next the rickyard. It was full of folk crowded in from all the countryside. The engine from Penzance had come and was puffing and panting by the pond, sucking up water with stertorous breaths; at every gasp it rocked with its own intensity upon its wheels as it stood, sending out a pulsing shower of sparks over the muddy water.

Seven ricks had blazed that night, and still smouldered sullenly. The great grey hose played upon them; the water hissing upon the hot straw and hay, sending up clouds of steam, tinged to a fiery pallor against the moonlit night. The walls, not only of the rickyard, but of the surrounding fields were warm to the touch, for the dry furze growing along them had caught fire from the blowing sparks, so that at one time the fields had been outlined with fire. Now the furze had smouldered and died, but the smooth granite slabs were still hot to the hand, an unnatural warmth that seemed malign in those dewy fields.

Now the ricks burnt less and less fiercely; Ishmael gave a hand with the other helpers, but there was really nothing to be done. Luckily, as it was still warm weather, the livestock had all been out in the fields, so there had been no panic even when one end of the cowshed caught fire. That had been put out and the walls of the barns and out-buildings drenched again and again, and everyone was trying to comfort Johnny Angwin with pointing out how much worse it might have been.

Leaning over the low warm wall between the ricks and the next field, Ishmael recognised a couple of the artists who of late years had settled in those parts, and he caught their comments along with those of their neighbours.