rowdean

II Hester Thinks it "A Great Pity"

III Summoned to Windsor

IV Checkmate to Borrowdean

V A Brazen Proceeding

A LOST LEADER

BOOK I

CHAPTER I

RECONSTRUCTION

The two men stood upon the top of a bank bordering the rough road which
led to the sea. They were listening to the lark, which had risen
fluttering from their feet a moment or so ago, and was circling now above
their heads. Mannering, with a quiet smile, pointed upwards.

"There, my friend!" he exclaimed. "You can listen now to arguments more
eloquent than any which I could ever frame. That little creature is
singing the true, uncorrupted song of life. He sings of the sunshine, the
buoyant air; the pure and simple joy of existence is beating in his
little heart. The things which lie behind the hills will never sadden
him. His kingdom is here, and he is content."

Borrowdean's smile was a little cynical. He was essentially of that order
of men who are dwellers in cities, and even the sting of the salt breeze
blowing across the marshes--marshes riven everywhere with long arms of
the sea--could bring no colour to his pale cheeks.

"Your little bird--a lark, I think you called it," he remarked, "may be a
very eloquent prophet for the whole kingdom of his species, but the song
of life for a bird and that for a man are surely different things!"

"Not so very different after all," Mannering answered, still watching the
bird. "The longer one lives, the more clearly one recognizes the absolute
universality of life."

Borrowdean shrugged his shoulders, with a little gesture of impatience.
He had left London at a moment when he could ill be spared, and had not
travelled to this out-of-the-way corner of the kingdom to exchange
purposeless platitudes with a man whose present attitude towards life at
any rate he heartily despised. He seated himself upon a half-broken rail,
and lit a cigarette.

"Mannering," he said, "I did not come here to simper cheap philosophies
with you like a couple of schoolgirls. I have a real live errand. I want
to speak to you of great things."

Mannering moved a little uneasily. He had a very shrewd idea as to the
nature of that errand.

"Of great things," he repeated slowly. "Are you in earnest, Borrowdean?"

"Why not?"

"Because," Mannering continued, "I have left the world of great things,
as you and I used to regard them, very far behind. I am glad to see you
here, of course, but I ca