CHAPTER XXIX
THE GOAT AND BOY
It was the middle of October. Francis Taxater and Luke Andersen sat opposite one another over a beer-stained table in the parlour of the Goat and Boy. The afternoon was drawing to its close and the fire in the little grate threw a warm ruddy light through the darkening room.
Outside the rain was falling, heavily, persistently,—the sort of rain that by long-continued importunity finds its way through every sort of obstacle. For nearly a month this rain had lasted. It had come in with the equinox, and Heaven knew how long it was going to stay. It had so thoroughly drenched all the fields, woods, lanes, gardens and orchards of Nevilton, that a palpable atmosphere of charnel-house chilliness pervaded everything. Into this atmosphere the light sank at night like a thing drowned in deep water, and into this atmosphere the light rose at dawn like something rising from beneath the sea.
The sun itself, as a definite presence, had entirely disappeared. It might have fallen into fathomless space, for all the visible signs it gave of its existence. The daylight seemed a pallid entity, diffused through the lower regions of the air, unconnected with any visible fount of life or warmth.
The rain seemed to draw forth from the earth all the accumulated moisture of centuries of damp autumns, while between the water below the firmament and the water above the firmament,—between the persistent deluge from the sky and the dampness exuded from the earth,—the death-stricken multitudinous leaves of Nevilton drifted to their morgue in the cart-ruts and ditches.
The only object in the vicinity whose appearance seemed to suffer no change from this incursion of many waters was Leo’s Hill. Leo’s Hill looked as if it loved the rain, and the rain looked as if it loved Leo’s Hill. In no kind of manner were its familiar outlines affected, except perhaps in winning a certain added weight, by reason of the fact that its rival Mount had been stripped of its luxuriant foliage.
“So our dear Mr. Romer has got his Freight Bill through,” said Luke, sipping his glass of whiskey and smiling at Mr. Taxater. “He at any rate then won’t be worried by this rain.”
“I’m to dine with him tomorrow,” answered the papal champion, “so I shall have an opportunity of discovering what he’s actually gained by this.”
“I wish I’d had James cremated,” muttered Luke, staring at the fire-place, into which the rain fell down the narrow chimney.