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JOHN COWPER POVYS WOLF SOLENT A NOVEL 1929 SIMON AND SCHUSTER NEW YORK CONTENTS VOLUME ONE 1 The Face on the Waterloo Steps 1 2 Christ Ive had a happy life 99 18 3 A Dorset Chronicle 42 4 Gerda 62 5 The Blackbirds Song 115 6 Bar Sinister 161 7 Yellow Bracken 203 8 The Three Peewits 244 9 The Horse-Fair 264 10 Christie 327 11 The Tea-Party 376 12 The Slow-Worm of Lenty 392 13 Home for Bastards 411 14 Crooked Smoke 433 15 Rounded with a Sleep 480 VOLUME TWO 16 A Game of Bowls 491 17 This is Reality 537 18 The School-Treat 562 19 Wine 608 20 Mr. Malakite at Weymouth 679 21 Slate 709 22 The Quick or the Dead 774 23 Lenty Pond 817 24 Forget 863 25 Ripeness is All 917 THE FACE ON THE WATERLOO STEPS I 1 ROM WATERLOO STATION TO THE SMALL COUNTRY town of Ramsgard in Dorset is a journey of not more than three or four hours, but having by good luck found a compartment to himself, Wolf Solent was able to indulge in such an orgy of concentrated thought, that these three or four hours lengthened themselves out into something beyond all human measurement. A bluebottle fly buzzed up and down above his head, every now and then settling on one of the coloured adver tisements of seaside resorts Weymouth, Swanage, Lul worth, and Poole cleaning its front legs upon the masts of painted ships or upon the sands of impossibly ceru lean waters. Through the open window near which he sat, facing the engine, the sweet airs of an unusually relaxed March morning visited his nostrils, carrying fragrances of young green shoots, of wet muddy ditches, of hazel-copses full of damp moss, and of primroses on warm grassy hedge-banks. Solent was not an ill-favoured man but on the other hand he was not a prepossessing one. His short stubbly hair was of a bleached tow-colour. His forehead as well as his rather shapeless chin had a tendency to slope backward, a peculiarity which had the effect of throwing the weight of his character upon the curve of his hooked nose and upon the rough, thick eyebrows that overarched his deeply sunken grey eyes. 2 WOLF SOLENT He was tall and lean and as he stretched out his legs and clasped his hands in front of him and bowed his head over his bony wrists, it would have been difficult to tell whether the goblinish grimaces that occasionally wrinkled his physiognomy were fits of sardonic chuck ling or spasms of reckless desperation. His mood, whatever its elements may have been, was obviously connected with a crumpled letter which he more than once drew forth from his side-pocket, rapidly glanced over, and replaced, only to relapse into the same pose as before. The letter which thus affected him was written in a meticulously small hand and ran as follows MY DEAR SIR Will you be so kind as to arrive at Ramsgard on Thursday in time to meet my friend Mr. Darnley Otter about five oclock in the tea-room of the Lovelace Hotel He will be driving over to Kings Barton that afternoon and will convey you to his mothers house, where for the present you will have your room. If it is convenient I would regard it as a favour if you will come up and dine with me on the night of your arrival. I dine at eight oclock and we shall be able to talk things over. I must again express my pleasure at your so prompt accept ance of my poor oifer. Yours faithfully, JOHN URQUHART. He re-invoked the extraordinary incident which had led to his prompt acceptance of Mr. Urquharts poor offer. He was now thirty-five and for ten years he had labo riously taught History at a small institution in the city of London, living peacefully under the despotic affection of his mother, with whom, when he was only a child of THE FACE ON THE WATERLOO STEPS 3 ten, he had left Dorsetshire, and along with Dorsetshire all the agitating memories of his dead father...