“‘Oh? All right.’
“I went to all manner of places, but never to England, and always in the autumn I returned to Ephesus to find MacPherson there unchanged, always glad to see me because of my help in his work, and in all those years he never once asked me where I had been to. I forget now myself where I went, except that I never once went anywhere near England, much as I wanted to go, because I knew the temptation would be too strong for me. This journey of mine became thus an annual institution. There was another annual institution of which MacPherson knew only the outer and less important part; this was the arrival of seeds from England, with Ruth’s little letter attached; I came to know all her phrases, which revolved with the years in a cycle: she hoped the seeds would do well with me; her garden had been dried up, or washed out, as the case might be, the previous summer—there is never a perfect summer for a gardener, just as there is never a perfect day for a fisherman; her children were well and sent their respects, varied by love; her husband was well too; she must stop as she had no more news, or, as the post was going. Occasionally she ended up, ‘In great haste,’ though what the haste could be in that leisurely life I failed to imagine.
“I came to look for this letter in my year as the devout man looks for a feast-day; it was, so to speak, my Easter. My little packet grew, that much-travelled little packet, which went with me on all my pilgrimages. I wondered whether she cherished my letters, over in England, as I cherished hers at Ephesus? In the meantime she was there, in the house I knew, living through these years in a calm monotony which was a consolation to me, because I could so well imagine it; I could call up a picture of her, in fact, at practically any moment of the day, for what variation could there be to her quotidian round of cooking, housework, washing, sewing? This was, I say, a pleasant reflection to me, though I was enraged to think that her care and labour should be expended upon another man and another man’s children. A placid existence, broken only by the calving of cows, the farrowing of swine, the gathering in of crops.... And I at Ephesus!
“MacPherson never spared me my share of the work, and a hard taskmaster he was, as hard to himself as to me. In the summer we breakfasted soon after the dawn had begun to creep into the sky, then with pick and mattock we trudged to the ruins, there to toil until the heat of the sun glaring upon the quantities of white marble which lay about drove us indoors until evening. MacPherson was always very grudging and resentful with regard to this enforced siesta. In fact he would not admit it as a siesta, but affected to consider it merely as a variation of work, and would remain below in our little sitting-room, turning over for the thousandth time his scraps and fragments of glass, pottery, and other rubbish, while I lay on my bed upstairs damning the mosquitoes and trying to go to sleep. No sooner had I dozed off than I would be aroused by MacPherson’s remorseless voice calling up to know if I was ready. Evening in the ruins I did not mind so much; a little breeze often sprang up from the sea, and I had the prospect of an hour’s gardening immediately in front of me. On the whole I was happy in those hours of toil. Living in my thoughts, and sparing just the bare requisite of consciousness to the needs of my tools, I became almost as taciturn as my companion. Yet I never came to look on Ephesus as a home; I was only a bird of passage—a passage lasting ten years, it is true, but still only a passage. I didn’t see how it was going to end, but my old friend Fate stepped in at last and settled that for me.
“It was July, and my annual restlessness had been creeping over me for some time; besides, it was getting unpleasantly hot at Ephesus, and I panted for the cold air of the mountains. So I said to MacPherson at breakfast,—
“‘I think the time for my yearly flitting has come round again; in fact, I think I’ll be off to-day.’
“I waited for the, ‘Oh? All right,’ but it didn’t come. Instead of that, he said after a little pause,—
“‘I wonder if you would put off going until to-morrow?’
“It was the first time I had ever heard him raise an objection to any suggestion of mine, and I was faintly surprised, but I said,—
“‘Of course I will. One day’s just as good as another. Got a special job for me?’