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  [Illustration: “‘THERE!’ SAID OLIVE, PUFFING OUT A THIN CLOUD” Page
                                 379]




                              THE MASTER

                                A Novel

                                  BY

                              I. ZANGWILL

                  AUTHOR OF “THE KING OF SCHNORRERS”
                     “CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO” ETC.

                              ILLUSTRATED

                       [Illustration: colophon]

                          NEW YORK AND LONDON
                     HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

                Copyright, 1895, by HARPER & BROTHERS.

                        _All rights reserved._




CONTENTS


                                                                    PAGE

PROEM                                                                  1


Book I

CHAP.

I. SOLITUDE                                                            5

II. THE DEAD MAN MAKES HIS FIRST AND LAST APPEARANCE                  23

III. THE THOUGHTS OF YOUTH                                            33

IV. “MAN PROPOSES”                                                    45

V. PEGGY THE WATER-DRINKER                                            58

VI. DISILLUSIONS                                                      69

VII. THE APPRENTICE                                                   83

VIII. A WANDER-YEAR                                                   99

IX. ARTIST AND PURITAN                                               113

X. EXODUS                                                            123


Book II

I. IN LONDON                                                         132

II. GRAINGER’S                                                       145

III. THE ELDER BRANCH                                                161

IV. THE PICTURE-MAKERS                                               181

V. A SYMPOSIUM                                                       202

VI. THE OUTCAST                                                      218

VII. TOWARDS THE DEEPS                                               229

VIII. “GOLD MEDAL NIGHT”                                             245

IX. DEFEAT                                                           259

X. MATT RECEIVES SUNDRY HOSPITALITIES                                273

XI. A HOSTAGE TO FORTUNE                                             290


Book III

I. CONQUEROR OR CONQUERED?                                           308

II. “SUCCESS”                                                        325

III. “VAIN-LONGING”                                                  342

IV. FERMENT                                                          364

V. A CELEBRITY AT HOME                                               384

VI. A DEVONSHIRE IDYL                                                408

VII. THE IDYL CONCLUDES                                              438

VIII. ELEANOR WYNDWOOD                                               460

IX. RUTH HAILEY                                                      487

X. THE MASTER                                                        499




ILLUSTRATIONS


“‘THERE!’ SAID OLIVE, PUFFING OUT A THIN CLOUD”                  _Frontispiece_

“HE PLACED HIMSELF WITH HIS BACK TO THE DOOR”                   _Facing p._ 12

“‘I AM AFIRE WITH THIRST,’ SHE CRIED”                                    “  64

“‘LOR’ BLESS YOU, SIR,’ SAID SHE, ‘I’M NOT WORRYIN’ ABOUT THE RENT’”     “ 226

“‘GOOD-NIGHT,’ SHE SAID, SOFTLY”                                         “ 290

“MATT DINED WITH HERBERT AT A LITTLE TABLE”                              “ 338

“ALL WAS VERY STILL, SAVE FOR THE ETERNAL MONOTONE OF THE SEA”           “ 424

“SOMETHING IN THE SCENE THRILLED HIM WITH A SENSE OF RESTFUL KINSHIP”    “ 516




THE MASTER




PROEM


Despite its long stretch of winter, in which May might wed December in
no incompatible union, ’twas a happy soil, this Acadia, a country of
good air and great spaces; two-thirds of the size of Scotland, with a
population that could be packed away in a corner of Glasgow; a land of
green forests and rosy cheeks; a land of milk and molasses; a land of
little hills and great harbors, of rich valleys and lovely lakes, of
overflowing rivers and oversurging tides that, with all their menace,
did but fertilize the meadows with red silt and alluvial mud; a land
over which France and England might well bicker when first they met
oversea; a land which, if it never reached the restless energy of the
States, never retained the Old World atmosphere that long lingered over
New England villages; save here and there in some rare Acadian
settlement that dreamed out its life in peace and prayer among its
willow-trees and in the shadows of its orchards.

At Minudie, at Clare in Annapolis County, where the goodly apples grew,
lay such fragments of old France, simple communities shutting out the
world and time, marrying their own, tilling their good <DW18> land, and
picking up the shad that the retreating tide left on the exposed flats;
listening to the Angelus, and baring their heads as some Church
procession passed through the drowsy streets. They had escaped the Great
Expulsion, nor had joined in the exodus of “Evangeline,” and, sprinkled
about the country, were compatriots of theirs who had drifted back when
the times grew more sedate; but for the most part it was the Saxon that
profited by the labors of the pioneer Gaul, repairing the tumble-down
farms and the dilapidated <DW18>s, possessing himself of embanked marsh
lands, and replanting the plum-trees and the quinces his predecessor had
naturalized. For the revolt of the States against Britain sent thousands
of American loyalists flocking into this “New Scotland