Looking back to those days of old, ere the gate shut to behind
me, I can see now that to children with a proper equipment of
parents these things would have worn a different aspect. But to
those whose nearest were aunts and uncles, a special attitude of
mind may be allowed. They treated us, indeed, with kindness
enough as to the needs of the flesh, but after that with
indifference (an indifference, as I recognise, the result of a
certain stupidity), and there with the commonplace conviction
that your child is merely animal. At a very early age I remember
realising in a quite impersonal and kindly way the existence of
that stupidity, and its tremendous influence in the world; while
there grew up in me, as in the parallel case of Caliban upon
Setebos, a vague sense of a ruling power, wilful and freakish,
and prone to the practice of vagaries—‘just choosing
so’: as, for instance, the giving of authority over us
On the whole, the existence of these Olympians seemed to be
entirely void of interests, even as their movements were confined
To be sure, there was an exception in the curate, who would
receive unblenching the information that the meadow beyond the
orchard was a prairie studded with herds of buffalo, which it was
our delight, moccasined and tomahawked, to ride down with those
whoops that announce the scenting of blood. He neither laughed
nor sneered, as the Olympians would have done; but possessed of a
serious idiosyncrasy he would
These strange folk had visitors sometimes,—stiff and
colourless Olympians like themselves, equally without vital
interests and intelligent pursuits: emerging out of the clouds,
and passing away again to drag on aimless existence somewhere out
of our ken. Then brute force was pitilessly applied. We were
captured, washed, and forced into clean collars: silently
submitting, as was our wont, with more contempt than anger. Anon,
with unctuous hair and faces stiffened in a conventional grin, we
sat and listened to the usual platitudes. How could reasonable
people spend their precious time so? That was ever our wonder
It was incessant matter for amazement how these Olympians would
talk over our heads—during meals, for instance—of this or
the other social or political inanity, under the delusion that
these pale phantasm of reality were among the importances of
life. We
Well! The Olympians are all past and gone. Somehow the sun does
not seem to shine so brightly as it used: the trackless meadows
of old time have shrunk and dwindled away to a few poor acres. A
saddening doubt, a dull suspicion, creeps over me.
The masterful wind was up and out, shouting and chasing, the lord
of the morning. Poplars swayed and tossed with a roaring swish;
dead leaves sprang aloft, and whirled into space; and all the
clear-swept heaven seemed to thrill with sound like a great harp.
It was one of the first awakenings of the year. The earth
stretched herself, smiling in her sleep; and everything leapt and
pulsed to the stir of the giant's movement. With us it was a
whole holiday; the occasion a birthday—it matters, not whose.
Some one of us had had presents, and pretty conventional
speeches, and had glowed with that sense of heroism which is no
less sweet that nothing has been done to deserve it. But the
holiday was for all, the rapture of awakening Nature for all, the
various outdoor joys of puddles and sun and hedgebreaking for
all. Colt-like I ran through the
She panted up anon, and dropped the turf beside me. Neither had any desire for talk; the glow and the glory of existing on this perfect morning were satisfaction full and sufficient.
`Where's Harold?' I asked presently.
`Oh, he's just playin' muffin-man, as usual,'
`And Edward, where is he?' I questioned again.
`He's coming along by the road,' said Charlotte.
`He'll be crouching in the ditch when we get there, and he's going to be a grizzly bear and spring out on us, only you mustn't say I told you, 'cos it's to be a surprise.'
`All right,' I said magnanimously. `Come
Sure enough an undeniable bear sprang out on us as we dropped into the road; then ensued shrieks, growlings, revolver-shots, and unrecorded heroisms, till Edward condescended at last to roll over and die, bulking large and grim, an unmitigated grizzly. It was an understood thing, that whoever took upon himself to be a bear must eventually die, sooner or later, even if he were the eldest born; else, life would have been all strife and carnage, and the Age of Acorns have displaced our hard-won civilization. This little affair concluded with satisfaction to all parties concerned, we rambled along the road, picking up the defaulting Harold by the way, muffinless now and in his right and social mind.
`What would you do?' asked Charlotte presently,—the
book of the moment always dominating her thoughts until it was
sucked dry and cast aside,—`what would you do if you say
two lions in the road, one one each side, and you didn't know if
they was loose or if they was chained up?'
`Shouldn't do anything,' I observed after consideration; and really it would be difficult to arrive at a wiser conclusion.
`If it came to
`But if they was
`Ah, but how are you to know a good lion from a bad one?' said Edward. `The books don't tell you at all, and the lions ain't marked any different.'
`Why, there aren't any good lions,' said Harold, hastily.
`Oh yes, there are, heaps and heaps,' contradicted Edward. `Nearly all the lions in the story-books are good lions. There was Androcles' lion, and St. Jerome's lion, and —and —the Lion and the Unicorn—'
`He beat the Unicorn,' observed Harold, dubiously, `all round the
town.'
`That
`
Edward snorted contemptuously, then turned to Charlotte. `Look here,' he said; `let's play at lions, anyhow, and I'll run on to that corner and be a lion,—I'll be two lions, one on each side of the road,—and you'll come along, and you won't know whether I'm chained up or not, and that'll be the fun!'
`No, thank you,' said Charlotte, firmly; `you'll be chained up
till I'm quite close to you, and then you'll loose, and you'll
tear me in pieces, and make my frock all dirty, and p'raps you'll
hurt me as well,
`No, I won't; I swear I won't,' protested Edward. `I'll be quite
a new lion this time,—something you can't even imagine.' And
he raced off to his post. Charlotte hesitated; then she went
timidly on, at each step growing less Charlotte, the mummer of a
minute, and more the anxious Pilgrim of all time. The lion's
wrath
All the time the heavy wind was calling to me companionably from
where he swung and bellowed in the tree-tops. `Take me for guide
to-day,' he seemed to plead. `Other holidays you have tramped it
in the track of the stolid, unswerving sun; a belated truant, you
have dragged a weary foot homeward with only a pale,
expressionless moon for company. To-day why not I, the trickster,
the hypocrite? I , who whip round corners and bluster, relapse
and evade, then rally and pursue! I can lead you the best and
rarest dance of any; for I am the strong capricious one, the lord
of misrule, and I alone am irresponsible and unprincipled, and
obey no law.' And for me, I was ready enough to fall in with the
fellow's humour; was not this a whole holiday?
A whimsical comrade I found him, ere he had done with me. Was it
in jest, or with some serious purpose of his own, that he
brought me plump upon a pair of lovers, silent, face to face o'er
a discreet unwinking stile? As a rule this sort of thing struck
me as the most pitiful tomfoolery. Two calves rubbing noses
through a gate were natural and right and within the order of
things; but that human beings, with salient interests and active
pursuits beckoning them on from every side, could thus—! Well,
it was a thing to hurry past, shamed of face, and think on no
more. But this morning everything I met seemed to be accounted
for and set in tune by that same magical touch in the air; and it
was with a certain surprise that I found myself regarding these
fatuous ones with kindliness instead of contempt, as I rambled
by, unheeded of them. There was indeed some reconciling influence
abroad, which could bring the like antics into harmony with bud
and growth and the frolic air.
A puff on the right cheek from my wilful companion sent me off at
a fresh angle, and presently I came in sight of the village
church, sitting solitary within its circle of elms. From forth
the vestry window projected two small legs, gyrating, hungry for
foothold, with larceny—not to say sacrilege—in their every
wriggle: a godless sight for a supporter of the Establishment.
Though the rest was hidden, I knew the legs well enough; they
were usually attached to the body of Bill Saunders, the peerless
bad boy of the village. Bill's coveted booty, too, I could easily
guess at that; it came from the Vicar's store of biscuits, kept
(as I knew) in a cupboard along with his official trappings. For
a moment I hesitated; then I passed on my way. I protest I was
not on Bill's side; but then, neither was I on the Vicar's and
there was something in this immoral morning which seemed to say
that perhaps, after all, Bill had as much right to the biscuits
as the Vicar, and would certainly enjoy them better; and anyhow
it was a disputable point, and no business of mine. Nature, who
had accepted me for ally, cared little who had the world's
biscuits, and assuredly was not going to let any friend
He was tugging at me anew, my insistent guide; and I felt sure, as I rambled off in his wake, that he had more holiday matter to show me. And so, indeed, he had; and all of it was to the same lawless tune. Like a black pirate flag on the blue ocean of air, a hawk hung ominous; then, plummet-wise, dropped to the hedgerow, whence there rose, thin and shrill, a piteous voice of squealing. By the time I got there a whisk of feathers on the turf—like scattered playbills—was all that remained to tell of the tragedy just enacted. Yet Nature smiled and sang on, pitiless, gay, impartial. To her, who took no sides, there was every bit as much to be said for the hawk as for the chaffinch. Both were her children, and she would show no preferences.
Further on, a hedgehog lay dead athwart the path—nay, more
than dead; decadent, distinctly; a sorry sight for one that had
known the fellow in more bustling circumstances. Nature might at
least have paused to shed one tear over this rough-jacketed
little son of hers, for his wasted aims, his cancelled ambitions,
his whole career
My invisible companion was singing also, and seemed at times to
be chuckling softly to himself, doubtless at thought of the
strange new lessons he was teaching me; perhaps, too, at a
special bit of waggishness he had still in store. For when at
last he grew weary of such insignificant earthbound company, he
deserted me at a certain spot I knew; then dropped, subsided, and
slunk away into nothingness. I raised my eyes, and before me,
grim and lichened, stood the ancient whipping-post of the
village; its sides fretted with the initials of a generation that
scorned its mute lesson, but still clipped by the stout rusty
shackles that had tethered the wrists of such of that
generation's ancestors as had dared to mock at order and law. Had
I been an infant Sterne, here was
And outside our gate I found Charlotte, alone and crying. Edward, it seemed had persuaded her to hide, in the full expectation of being duly found and ecstatically pounced upon; then he had caught sight of the butcher's cart, and, forgetting his obligations, had rushed off for a ride. Harold, it further appeared, greatly coveting tadpoles, and top-heavy with the eagerness of possession, had fallen into the pond. This, in itself, was nothing; but on attempting to sneak in by the backdoor, he had rendered up his duckweed-bedabbled person into the hands of an aunt, and had been promptly sent off to bed; and this, on a holiday, was very much. The moral of the whipping-post was working itself out; and I was not in the least surprised when, on reaching home, I was seized upon and accused of doing something I had never even though of. And my frame of mind was such, that I could only wish most heartily that I had done it.
In our small lives that day was eventful when another uncle was
to come down from town, and submit his character and
qualifications (albeit unconsciously) to our careful criticism.
Previous uncles had been weighed in the balance,
and—alas!—found grievously wanting. There was Uncle
Thomas—a failure from the first. Not that his disposition was
malevolent, nor were his habits such as to unfit him for decent
society; but his rooted conviction seemed to be that the reason
of a child's existence was to serve as a butt for senseless adult
jokes,—or what, from the accompanying guffaws of laughter,
appeared to be intended for jokes. Now, we were anxious that he
should have a perfectly fair trial; so in the tool-house, between
breakfast and lessons, we discussed and examined all his
witticisms, bone by one, calmly, critically, dispassionately. It
was no good; we could no discover any salt in them.
And as only a genuine gift of humour could have saved Uncle Thomas,—for he pretended to naught besides,—he was reluctantly writ down a hopeless impostor.
Uncle George—the youngest—was distinctly more promising. He
accompanied us cheerily round the establishment,—suffered
himself to be introduced to each of the cows, held out the right
hand of fellowship to the pig, and even hinted that a pair of
pink-eyed Himalayan rabbits might arrive—unexpectedly—from
town some day. We were just considering whether in this fertile
soil an apparently accidental remark on the solid qualities of
guinea-pigs or ferrets might haply blossom and bring forth fruit,
when our governess appeared on the scene. Uncle George's manner
at once underwent a complete and contemptible change. His
interest in rational topics seemed, `like a fountain's sickening
pulse,' to flag and ebb away; and though Miss Smedley's
ostensible purpose was to take Selina for her usual walk, I can
vouch for it that Selina spent her morning ratting, along with
the keeper boy and me; while, if Miss Smedley walked with any
one, it would appear to have been with Uncle George.
But despicable as his conduct had been, he underwent no hasty
condemnation. The defection was discussed in all its bearings,
but it seemed sadly clear at last that this uncle must possess
some innate badness of character and fondness for low company.
We who from daily experience knew Miss Smedley like a
book—were we not only too well aware that she had neither
accomplishments nor charms, no characteristic, in fact, but an
inbred viciousness of temper and disposition? True, she knew the
dates of the English kings by heart; but how could that profit
Uncle George, who, having passed into the army, had ascended
beyond the need of useful information? Our bows and arrows, on
the other hand, had been freely placed at his disposal; and a
soldier should not have hesitated in his choice a moment.
No: Uncle George had fallen from grace, and was unanimously
damned. And the non-arrival of the Himalayan rabbits was only
another nail in his coffin. Uncles, therefore, were just then a
heavy and lifeless market, and there was little inclination to
deal. Still it was agreed that Uncle William, who had just
returned from India, should have as fair a trial as the others;
more especially
Selina had kicked my shins—like the girl she is!—during a
scuffle in the passage, and I was still rubbing them with one
hand when I found that the uncle-on-approbation was half-heartedly
shaking the other. A florid, elderly man, and
unmistakably nervous, he dropped our grimy paws in succession,
and, turning very red, with an awkward simulation of heartiness,
`Well, h'are y' all? ' he said. `Glad to see me, eh?' As we could
hardly , in justice, be expected to have formed an opinion on him
at that early stage, we could but look at each other in silence;
which scarce served to relieve the tension of the situation.
Indeed, the cloud never really lifted during his stay. In talking
it over later, some some one put forward the suggestion that he
must at some time or other have committed a stupendous crime; but
I could not bring myself to believe that the man, though
evidently unhappy, was really guilty of anything; and I caught
him once or twice looking at us with evident kindliness, though
seeing himself observed, he blushed and turned away his head.
When at last the atmosphere was clear of this depressing influence, we met despondently in the potato-cellar—all of us, that is, but Harold, who had been told off to accompany his relative to the station; and the feeling was unanimous, that, as an uncle, William could not be allowed to pass. Selina roundly declared him a beast, pointing out that he had not even got us a half-holiday; and, indeed, there seemed little to do but to pass sentence. We were about to put it, when Harold appeared on the scene; his red face, round eyes, and mysterious demeanour, hinting at awful portents. Speechless he stood a space: then, slowly drawing his hand from the pocket of his knickerbockers,, he displayed on a dirty palm one—two-—three—four half-crowns! We could but gaze—tranced, breathless, mute; never had any of us seen in the aggregate, so much bullion before,. Then Harold told his tale.
`I took the old fellow to the station,' he said, `and as we went
along I told him all about the station-master's family, and how I
had seen the porter kissing our housemaid, and what a nice fellow
he was, with no airs,, or affectation about him, and anything I
A solemn hush fell on the assembly, broken first by the small Charlotte. `I didn't know.' she observed dreamily, `that there were such good men anywhere in the world. I hope he'll die to-night, for then he'll go straight to heaven!' But the repentant Selina bewailed herself with tears and sobs, refusing to be comforted; for that in her haste she had called this white-souled relative a beast.
`I'll tell you what we'll do,' said Edward, the master-mind,
rising—as he always did— to the situation: `We'll christen
the piebald pig after him—the one that hasn't got a name
`I—I christened that pig this morning,' Harold guiltily
confessed; `I christened it after the curate. I'm very
sorry—but he came and bowled to me last night, after you
others had all been sent to bed early—and somehow I felt I
`Oh, but that doesn't count,' said Edward hastily; `because we weren't all there. We'll take that christening off, and call it Uncle William. And you can save up the curate for the next litter!'
And the motion being agreed to without a division, the House went into Committee of Supply.
`Let's pretend,' suggested Harold, `that we're Cavaliers and
Roundheads; and
`O bother,' I replied drowsily, `we pretended that yesterday; and
it's not my turn to be Roundhead, anyhow.' The fact is, I was
lazy, and the call to arms fell on indifferent ears. We three
younger ones were stretched at length in the orchard. The sun was
hot, the season merry June, and never (I thought) had there been
such wealth and riot of buttercups throughout the lush grass.
Green-and-gold was the dominant key that day. Instead of active
`pretence' with its shouts and perspiration, how much better
—I held—to lie at ease and pretend to one's self, in green
and golden fancies, slipping the husk and passing, a careless
lounger, through a sleepy imaginary world all gold and green! But
the persistent Harold was not to be fobbed off.
`Well, then,' he began afresh, `let's pretend we're Knights of
the Round Table; and (with a rush)
`I won't play unless I'm Lancelot,' I said. I didn't mean it really, but the game of Knights always began with this particular contest.
`O
Then I yielded gracefully. `Are right,' I said. `I'll be Tristram.'
`O, but you can't,' cried Harold again. `Charlotte has always been Tristram. She won't play unless she's allowed to be Tristram! Be somebody else this time.'
Charlotte said nothing, but breathed hard, looking straight before her. The peerless hunter and harper was her special hero of romance, and rather than see the part in less appreciative hands, she would even have returned sadly to the stuffy schoolroom.
`I don't care,' I said: `I'll be anything. I'll be Sir Kay. Come on!'
Then once more in this country's story the
`What is it?' inquired Tristram, sitting up and shaking out her curls; while Lancelot forsook the clanging lists and trotted nimbly to the hedge.
I stood spell-bound for a moment longer, and then, with a cry of `Soldiers!' I was off to the hedge, Charlotte picking herself up and scurrying after.
Down the road they came, two and two, at an easy walk; scarlet
flamed in the eye, bits jingled and saddles squeaked
delightfully; while the men, in a halo of dust, smoked their
short clays like the heroes they were. In a swirl of intoxicating
glory the troop clinked and clattered by, while we shouted and
waved, jumping up and down , and the big jolly horsemen
acknowledged the salute with easy condescension. The moment they
were past we were through the hedge and after them. Soldiers were
not the common stuff of everyday life. There had been nothing
like this since the winter before last, when on a certain
afternoon—bare of leaf and monochrome in its
`Is there going to be a battle?' panted Harold, hardly able to keep up for excitement.
`Of course there is,' I replied. `We're just in time. Come on!'
Perhaps I ought to have known better; and yet—The pigs and poultry, with who we chiefly consorted, could instruct us little concerning the peace that in these latter days lapped this seagirt realm. In the schoolroom we were just now dallying with the Wars of the Roses; and did not legends of the country-side inform us how Cavaliers had once galloped up and down these very lanes from their quarters in the village? Here, now, were soldiers unmistakable; and if their business was not fighting, what was it? Sniffing the joy of battle, we followed hard on their tracks.
`Won't Edward be sorry,' puffed Harold, `that he's begun that
beastly Latin?'
It did, indeed, seem hard. Edward, the most martial spirit of us
all, was drearily conjugating
It was a grievous disappointment to us that the troop passed through the village unmolested. Every cottage, I pointed out to my companions, ought to have been loopholed, and strongly held. But no opposition was offered to the soldiers, who, indeed, conducted themselves with a recklessness and a want of precaution that seemed simply criminal.
At the last cottage a transitory gleam of common sense flickered across me, and, turning on Charlotte, I sternly ordered her back. The small maiden, docile but exceedingly dolorous, dragged reluctant feet homewards, heavy at heart that she was to behold no stout fellows slain that day; but Harold and I held steadily on, expecting every instant to see the environing hedges crackle and spit forth the leaden death.
`Will they be Indians?' inquired my brother (meaning the enemy):
`or Roundheads, or what?'
I reflected. Harold always required direct, straightforward answers—not faltering suppositions.
`They won't be Indians,' I replied at last; `nor yet Roundheads. There haven't been any Roundheads seen about here for a long time. They'll be Frenchmen.'
Harold's face fell. `All right,' he said' `Frenchmen'll do; but I did hope they'd be Indians.'
`If they were going to be Indians,' I explained, `I—I don't think I'd go on. Because when Indians take you prisoner they scalp you first, and then burn you at a stake. But Frenchmen don't do that sort of thing.'
`Are you quite sure?' asked Harold doubtfully.
`Quite,' I replied. `Frenchmen only shut you up in a thing
called the Bastille; and then you get a file sent in to you in a
loaf of bread, and saw the bars through, and slide down a rope,
and they all fire at you— but they don't hit you—and you
run down to the seashore as hard as you can, and swim off to a
British frigate, and there you are!'
Harold brightened up again. The programmed was rather attractive. `If they try to take us prisoner,' he said,`we—we won't run, will we?'
Meanwhile, the craven foe was a longtime showing himself; and we were reaching strange outland country, uncivilised, wherein lions might be expected to prowl at nightfall. I had a stitch in my side, and both Harold's stockings had come down. Just as I was beginning to have gloomy doubts of the proverbial courage of Frenchmen, the officer called out something, the men closed up, and, breaking into a trot, the troops—already far ahead—vanished out of our sight. With a sinking at the heart, I began to suspect we had been fooled.
`Are they charging?' cried Harold, weary, but rallying gamely.
`I think not,' I replied doubtfully. `When there's going to be a charge, the officer always makes a speech, and then they draw their swords and the trumpets blow, and—but let's try a short cut. We may catch them up yet.'
So we struck across the fields and into another road, and pounded
down that, and then over more
As I gazed in dumb appeal on the face of unresponsive nature, the
sound of nearing wheels sent a pulse of hope through my being;
increasing to rapture as I recognized in the approaching vehicle
the familiar carriage of the old doctor. If ever a god emerged
from machine, it was when this
The doctor appeared puzzled. I briefly explained the situation.
`I see,' said the doctor, looking grave and twisting his face this way and that. `Well, the fact is, there isn't going to be any battle to-day. It's been put off, on account of the change in the weather. You will have due notice of the renewal of hostilities. And now you'd better jump in and I'll drive you home. You've been running a fine rig! Why, you might have both been taken and shot as spies!'
This special danger had never even occurred to us. The thrill of
it accentuated the cosey homelike feeling of the cushions we
nestled into as we rolled homewards. The doctor beguiled the
journey with blood-curdling narratives of personal adventures in
the tented field, he having followed the profession of arms (so
it seemed) in every quarter of the globe. Time, the destroyer of
all things beautiful, subsequently revealed the baselessness
It was the day I was promoted to a tooth-brush. The girls, irrespective of age, had been thus distinguished some time before; why, we boys could never rightly understand, except that it was part and parcel of a system of studied favouritism on behalf of creatures both physically inferior and (as was shown by a fondness for tale-bearing) of weaker mental fibre. It was not that we yearned after these strange instruments in themselves; Edward, indeed, applied his to the scrubbing-out of his squirrel's cage, and for personal use, when a superior eye was grim on him, borrowed Harold's or mine, indifferently; but the nimbus of distinction that clung to them—that we coveted exceedingly. What more, indeed, was there to ascend to, before the remote, but still possible, razor and strop?
Perhaps the exaltation had mounted to my head; or nature and the
perfect morning joined to hint
True, a fellow-rebel was wanted; and Harold might, as a rule,
have been counted on with certainty. But just then Harold was
very proud. The week before he had `gone into tables,' and had
been endowed with a new slate, having a miniature sponge
attached, wherewith we washed the faces of Charlotte dolls,
thereby producing an unhealthy pallor which truck terror into the
child's heart, always timorous regarding epidemic visitations. As
to `tables,' nobody knew exactly
The scene was familiar enough; and yet, this morning, how
different it all seemed! The act, with its daring, tinted
everything with new, strange hues; affecting the individuals with
a sort of bruised feeling just below the pit of the stomach. That
was intensified whenever his thoughts flew back to the ink-stained,
smelly schoolroom. And could this be really be me? or
was I only contemplating, from the schoolroom aforesaid, some
other jolly young mutineer, faring forth under the genial sun?
Anyhow, here was the friendly well, in its old place half way up
the lane. Hither the yoke-shouldering village-folk were wont to
come to fill their clinking buckets; when the drippings made
worms
If the land had been deserted, this was loneliness become
personal. Here mystery lurked and peeped; here brambles caught
and held with a
The excitement of the thing was becoming thrilling. A Black Flag
must surely be fluttering close by. Here was evidently a
malignant contrivance of the Pirates, designed to baffle our
gunboats when we dashed up-stream to shell them from their air. A
gun-boat, indeed, might well
Gone was the brambled waste, gone the flickering tangle of woodland. Instead, terrace after terrace of shaven sward, stone-edged, urn-cornered, stepped delicately down to where the stream, now tamed and educated, passed from one to another marble basin, in which on occasion gleams of red hinted at gold-fish in among the spreading water-lilies. The scene lay silent and slumbrous in the brooding noonday sun: the drowsing peacock squatted humped on the lawn, no fish leapt in the pools, nor bird declared himself from the environing hedges. Self-confessed it was here, then, at last the Garden off Sleep!
Two things, in those old days, I held in especial distrust:
gamekeepers and gardeners. Seeing, however, no baleful
apparitions of either nature, I pursued my way between rich
`Hallo, sprat!' he said, with some abruptness, `where do you
spring from ?'
`Then you are a water-baby,' he replied. `And what do you think of the Princess, now you've found her?'
`I think she is lovely,' I said (and doubtless I was right, having never learned to flatter). `But she's wide-awake, so I suppose somebody has kissed her!'
This very natural deduction moved the grown-up man to laughter; but the Princess, turning red and jumping up, declared that it was time for lunch.
`Come along, then,' said the grown-up man; `and you to, Water-baby; come and have some thing solid. You must want it.'
I accompanied them, without any feeling of false delicacy. The
world, as known to me, was spread with food each several midday,
and the particular table one sat at seemed a matter of no
importance. The palace was very sumptuous and beautiful, just
what a palace ought to be; and we were met by a stately lady,
rather more grown-up than the Princess—apparently her mother.
The lunch was excellent and varied. Another gentleman in beautiful clothes—a lord, presumably—lifted me into a high carved chair, and stood behind it, brooding over me like a Providence. I endeavoured to explain who I was and where I had come from, and to impress the company with my own tooth-brush and Harold's tables; but either they were stupid—or is it a characteristic of Fairyland that every one laughs at the most ordinary remarks? My friend the Man said good-natured, `All right, Water-baby; you came up the stream, and that's good enough for us.' The lord—a reserved sort of man, I thought—took no share in the conversation.
After lunch I walked on the terrace with the Princess and my
friend the Man, and was very proud. And I told him what I was
going to
They laughed again, and my friend suggested I should go down to the pond and look at the gold-fish, while they went for a stroll. I was sleepy, and assented; but before they left me, the grown-up man put two half-crowns in my hand, for the purpose, he explained, of treating the other water-babies. I was so touched by this crowning mark of friendship that I nearly cried; and thought much more of his generosity than of the fact that the Princess ere she moved away, stooped down and kissed me.
I watched them disappear down the path—how naturally arms seem to go round waits in Fairyland!—and then, my cheek on the cool marble, lulled by the trickle of water, I slipped into dreamland out of real and magic world alike.
A belt of rhododendrons grew close down to one side of our pond;
and along the edge of it many things flourished rankly. If you
crept through the undergrowth and crouched by the water's rim, it
was easy—if your imagination were in healthy working
order—to transport yourself in a trice to the heart of a
tropical forest. Overhead the monkeys chattered, parrots flashed
from bough to bough, strange large blossoms shone around you, and
the push and rustle of great beasts moving unseen thrilled you
deliciously. And if you lay down with your nose an inch or two
from the water, it was not long ere the old sense of proportion
vanished clean away. The glittering insects that darted to and
fro on its surface became sea-monsters dire, the gnats that hung
above them swelled to albatrosses, and the pond itself stretched
out into a vast inland sea, whereon a navy might ride secure, and
It is impossible, however, to play at tropical forests properly,
when homely accents of the human voice intrude; and all my hopes
of seeing a tiger seized by a crocodile while drinking
(
Her victims, who stared resignedly in front of them, were
recognisable as Jerry and Rosa. Jerry hailed from far Japan: his
hair was straight and black; his one garment cotton, of a simple
blue; and his reputation was distinctly bad. Jerome was his
proper name, from his supposed likeness to the holy man who hung
in a print on the
I suspected Jerry from the first; there was a latent devilry in his slant eyes as he sat there moodily, and knowing what he was capable of I scented trouble in store for Charlotte. Rosa I was not so sure about; she sat demurely and upright, and looked far away into the tree-tops in a visionary, world-forgetting sort of way; yet the prim purse of her mouth was somewhat overdone. and her eyes glittered unnaturally.
`Now, I'm going to begin where I left off,' said Charlotte,
regardless of stops, and thumping the turf with her fist
excitedly; `and you must pay attention, ' cos this is a treat, to
have a story told you before you're put to bed. Well, so the
White Rabbit scuttled off down the passage and Alice hoped he'd
come back ' cos he had a waistcoat on and her flamingo flew up a
tree—but we haven't got to that part yet—you must wait a
minute, and—where had I got to?'
Jerry only remained passive until Charlotte had got well under way, and then began to heel over quietly in Rosa's direction. His head fell on her plump shoulder, causing her to start nervously.
Charlotte seized and shook him with vigour. `O Jerry,' she cried piteously, ' if you're not going to be good, how ever shall I tell you my story?'
Jerry's face was injured innocence itself. `Blame if you like, Madam' he seemed to say, `the eternal laws of gravitation, but not a helpless puppet, who is also an orphan and a stranger in the land.'
`Now we'll go on,' began Charlotte once more. `So she got into the garden at last—I've left out a lot, but you won't care, I'll tell you some other time—and they were all playing croquet, and that's where the flamingo comes in, and the Queen shouted out, `Off with her head!'
At this point Jerry collapsed forward, suddenly and completely,
his bald pate between his knees. Charlotte was not very angry
this time. The sudden development of tragedy in the story had
evidently been too much for the poor fellow. She straightened him
out, wiped his nose, and, after
`If you'd been in the garden,' went on Charlotte, reproachfully, `and flopped down like that when the Queen said `Off with his head!' she'd have offed with your head; but Alice wasn't that sort of girl at all. She just said, `I'm not afraid of you, you're nothing but a pack of cards'—oh, dear! I've got to the end already, and I hadn't begun hardly! I never can make my stories last out! Never mind, I'll tell you another one.'
Jerry did not seem to care, now he had gained his end, whether
the stories last out or not. He was nestling against Rosa's
plump form with a look of satisfaction that was simple idiotic;
and one arm had disappeared form view—was it round her waist?
Rosa's natural blush seemed deeper than usual, her head inclined
shyly—it must have been round her waist.
`If it wasn't so near your bedtime,' continued Charlotte, reflectively, `I'd tell you a nice story with a bogy in it. but you'd be frightened, and you'd dream of bogies all night. So I'll tell you one about a White Bear, only you mustn't scream when the bear says `Wow,' like I used to, 'cos he's a good bear really—'
Here Rosa fell flat on her back in the deadest of faints. Her limbs were rigid, her eyes glass; what had Jerry been doing? It must have been something very bad, for her to take on like that. I scrutinised him carefully, while Charlotte ran to comfort the damsel. He appeared to be whistling a tune and regarding the scenery. If I only possessed Jerry's command of features, I thought to myself, half regretfully, I would never be found out in anything.
`It's all your fault, Jerry,' said Charlotte, reproachfully, when
the lady had been restored to consciousness: `Rosa's as good as
gold, except when you make her wicked. I'd put you in the corner,
only a stump hasn't got a corner—wonder why that is? Thought
everything had corners. Never mind, you'll have to sit with your
face to the wall—
Jerry seemed to hesitate a moment between the bliss of indulgence in sulks with a sense of injury, and the imperious summons of beauty waiting to be wooed at his elbow; then, carried away by his passion, he fell sideways across Rosa's lap. One arm stuck stiffly upwards, as in passionate protestation; his amorous countenance was full of entreaty. Rosa hesitated—wavered—and yielded, crushing his slight frame under the weight of her full-bodied surrender.
Charlotte had stood a good deal, but it was possible to abuse
even her patience. Snatching Jerry from his lawless embraces, she
reversed him across her knee, and then—the outrage offered to
the whole superior sex in Jerry's hapless person was too painful
to witness; but though I turned my head away, the sound of brisk
slaps continued to reach my tingling ears. When I looked again,
Jerry was sitting up as before; his garment, somewhat crumpled,
was restored to its original position but his pallid countenance
was set hard. Knowing as I did, only too well, what a volcano of
passion and shame must be seething under that impassive exterior,
for the moment I felt sorry for him.
Rosa's face was still buried in her frock; it might have been shame, it might have been grief for Jerry's sufferings. But the callous Japanese never even looked her way. His heart was exceeding bitter within him. In merely following up his natural impulses he had run his head against convention, and learnt how hard a thing it was; and the sunshiny world was all black to him. Even Charlotte softened somewhat at the sight of his rigid misery. `If you'll say you're sorry, Jerome,' she said, `I'll say I'm sorry, too.'
Jerry only dropped his shoulders against the stumpy and stared out in the direction of his dear native Japan, where love was no sin, and smacking had not been introduced. Why had he ever left lit? He would go back to-morrow—and yet there were obstacles; another grievance, nature, in endowing Jerry with every grace of form and feature, along with a sensitive soul, had somehow forgotten the gift of locomotion.
There was a crackling in the bushes behind me, with sharp short
pants as of a small steam-engine, and Rollo, the black retriever,
just released from his chain by some friendly hand, burst
No one would have suspected Edward of being in love, but that after breakfast, with an over-acted carelessness, `Anybody who likes,' he said, `can feed my rabbits,' and he disappeared, with a jauntiness that deceived nobody, in the direction of the orchard. Now, kingdoms might totter and reel, and convulsions change the map of Europe; but the iron unwritten law prevailed, that each boy severely fed his own rabbits. There was good ground, then, for suspicion and alarm; and while the lettuce-leaves were being drawn through the wires, Harold and I conferred seriously on the situation.
It may be thought that the affair was none of our business; and
indeed we cared little as individuals. We were only concerned as
members of a corporation, for each of whom the mental or physical
ailment of one of his fellows might have far-reaching effects. It
was thought best
I was not big enough to stand up to Edward personally, so I had
to console the sufferer by allowing him to grease the wheels of
the donkey-cart—a luscious treat that had been specially
reserved for me, a week past, by the gardener's boy, for putting
in a good word on his behalf with the new kitchen-maid. Harold
was soon all smiles and grease; and I was not, on the whole,
dissatisfied with the significant hint that had been gained as to
the
Fortunately, means were at hand for resolving any doubts on the
subject, since the morning was Sunday, and already the bells were
ringing for church. Lest the connexion may not be evident at
first sight, I should explain that the gloomy period of church-time,
with its enforced inaction and its lack of real
interest—passed, too, within sight of all that the village
held of fairest—was just the one when a young man's fancies
lightly
The fact being patent, the next thing was to grapple with it; and
my mind was fully occupied during the sermon. There was really
nothing unfair or unbrotherly in my attitude. A philosophic
affection such as mine own, which clashed with nothing, was (I
held) permissible; but the volcanic passions in which Edward
indulged about once a quarter were a serious interference with
business. To make matters worse, next week there was a circus
coming to the neighbourhood, to which we had all been strictly
forbidden to go; and without Edward no visit in contempt of law
and orders could be successfully brought off. I had sounded him
as to the circus on our way to church, and he had replied briefly
that the very thought of a clown made him sick. Morbidity could
not further go. But the sermon came to an end without any line of
conduct having suggested itself; and I walked home in some
By the irony of fate, Aunt Eliza, of all people, turned out to be
the
`It's surprising to me,' I heard my aunt remark presently, `how
my eldest nephew, Edward, despises little girls. I heard him tell
Charlotte the other day that he wished he could exchange her for
a pair of Japanese guinea-pigs. It made the poor child cry. Boys
are so heartless!' (I saw Sabina stiffen as she sat, and her tip-tilted
nose twitched scornfully.) `now this boy here—' (my
soul descended into my very
I breathed again. It was unnecessary to explain my real motives for that visit to the baker's. Sabina's face softened, and her contemptuous nose descended from its altitude of scorn; she gave me one shy glance of kindness, and then concentrated her attention upon Mercy knocking at the wicket Gate. I felt awfully mean as regarded Edward; but what could I do? I was in Gaza, gagged and bound; the Philistines hemmed me in.
The same evening the storm burst, the bolt fell, and —to
continue the metaphor—the atmosphere grew serene and clear
once more. The evening service was shorter than usual, the vicar,
as he ascended the pulpit steps, having dropped two pages out of
his sermon-case,—unperceived by any but ourselves, either at
the moment or subsequently when the hiatus was reached.
The crisis was past, and Edward was saved!..And yet..
It was much too fine a night to think of going to bed at once,
and so, although the witching hour of nine P.M. had struck,
Edward and I were still leaning out of the open window in our
nightshirts, watching the play of the cedar-branch shadows on the
moonlit lawn, and planning schemes of fresh devilry for the
sunshiny morrow. From below, strains of the jocund piano declared
that the Olympians were enjoying themselves in their listless,
impotent way; for the new curate had bee bidden to dinner that
night, and was at the moment unclerically proclaiming to all the
world that he feared no foe. His discordant vociferations
doubtless started a train of thought in Edward's mind, for the
youth presently remarked,
I scouted the notion. `Why, she's quite old,' I said. (She must
have seen some five-and twenty summers.)
`Of course she is,' replied Edward, scornfully. `It's not her, it's her money he's after, you bet!'
`Didn't know she had any money,' I observed timidly.
`Sure to have,' said my brother, with confidence. `Heaps and heaps.'
Silence ensued, both our minds being busy with the new situation thus presented,—mine, in wonderment at this flaw that so often declared itself in enviable natures of fullest endowment,—in a grown-up man and a good cricketer, for instance, even as this curate; Edward's (apparently,) in the consideration of how such a state of things, supposing it existed, could be best turned to his own advantage.
`Bobby Ferris told me,' began Edward in due course, 'that there was a fellow spooning his sister once—'
`What's spooning?' I asked meekly.
`On,
`What, from each of 'em?' I innocently inquired.
Edward looked at me with scornful pity. `Girls never have any money,' he briefly explained. `But she did his exercises and got him out of rows, and told stories for him when he needed it—and much better ones than he could have made up for himself. Girls are useful in some ways. So he was living in clover, when unfortunately they went and quarrelled about something.'
`Don't see what that's got to do with it, ' I said.
`Nor don't I,' rejoined Edward. `But anyhow the notes and things
stopped, and so did the shillings. Bobby was fairly cornered, for
he had bought two ferrets on tick, and promised to pay a shilling
a week, thinking the shillings were going on for ever, the silly
young ass. So when the week was up, and he was being dunned for
the shilling, he went off to the fellow and said, `Your broken-hearted
Bella implores you to meet her at sundown,—by the
hollow oak, as of old, be it only for a moment. Do not fail!' He
got all that out so some rotten
`"What hollow oak? I don't know any hollow oak."
`"Perhaps it was the Royal Oak? " said Bobby promptly, 'cos he saw he had made a slip, through trusting too much to the rotten book; but his didn't seem to make the fellow any happier.'
`Should think not,' I said, `the Royal Oaks's an awful low sort of pub.'
`I know,' said Edward. `Well, at last the fellow said, "I think I know what she means: the hollow tree in your father's paddock. It happens to be an elm, but she wouldn't know the difference. All right" say I'll be there. Bobby hung about a bit, for he hadn't got his money. "She was crying awfully," he said. Then he got his shilling.'
`And wasn't the fellow riled,' I inquired, `when he got to the place and found nothing?'
`He found Bobby,' said Edward, indignantly. `Young Ferris was a
gentleman, every inch of him. He brought the fellow another
message from Bella: `I dare not leave the house. My
`But what's that got to—' I began again.
`Oh,
`I don't remember about that,' replied Edward, indifferently;
`but Bobby got packed off to school a whole year earlier than his
people meant to send him,—which was just what he wanted. So
you see it all came right in the end!'
I was trying to puzzle out the moral of this story—it was evidently meant to contain one somewhere—when a flood of golden lamplight mingled with the moon-rays on the lawn, and Aunt Maria and the new curate strolled out on the grass below us, and took the direction of a garden-seat that was backed by a dense laurel shrubbery reaching round in a half-circle to the house. Edward meditated moodily. `If we only knew what they were talking about,' said he, `you'd soon see whether I was right or not. Look here! Let's send the kid down by the porch to reconnoitre!'
`Harold's asleep,' I said; `it seems rather a shame—'
`Oh, rot!' said my brother: `he's the youngest, and he's got to do as he's told!'
So the luckless Harold was hauled out of bed and given his
sailing-orders. He was naturally rather vexed at being stood up
suddenly on the cold floor, and the job had no particular
interest for him; but he was both staunch and well disciplined.
The means of exit were simple enough. A porch of iron trellis
came up to within easy reach of the window, and was habitually
used by
Indolence alone had made us devolve the task of investigation on
our younger brother. Now that danger had declared itself, there
was no hesitation. In a second we were down the side of the
porch, and crawling Cherokee-wise through the laurels to the back
of the garden-seat. Piteous was the sight that greeted us. Aunt
Maria was on the seat, in a white even frock, looking—for an
aunt—really quite nice. On the lawn stood an incensed curate,
grasping out small brother by a large ear, which—judging from
the row he was making—seemed on the point of part company with
the head it adorned. The gruesome noise he was emitting did not
really affect us otherwise than æsthetically. To one who has
`Well, leggo of my ear then!' shrilled Harold, `and I'll tell you the solemn truth!'
`Very well,' agreed the curate, releasing him; `now go ahead, and don't lie more than you can help.'
We abode the promised disclosure without the least misgiving; but even we had hardly given Harold due credit for his fertility of resource and powers of imagination.
`I had just finished saying my prayers,' began that young gentleman, slowly, `when I happened to look out of the window, and on the lawn I saw a sight which froze the marrow in my veins! A burglar was approaching the house with snake-like tread! He had a scowl and a dark lantern, and he was armed to the teeth!'
We listened with interest. The style, though unlike Harold's
native notes, seemed strangely familiar.
`Go on,' said the curate, grimy.
`Pausing in his stealthy career,' continued Harold, `he gave a low whistle. Instantly the signal was responded to, and from the adjacent shadows two more figure glided forth. The miscreants were both armed to the teeth,'
`Excellent,' said the curate; `proceed.'
`The robber chief,' pursued Harold, warming to his work, `joined his nefarious comrades, and converse with them in silent tones. His expression was truly ferocious, and I ought to have said that he was armed to the t—'
`There, never mind his teeth,' interrupted the curate, rudely; `there's too much jaw about you altogether. Hurry up and have done.'
`I was in a frightful funk,' continued the narrator, warily guarding his ear with his hand, `but just then the drawing-room window opened, and you and Aunt Maria came out—I mean emerged. The burglars vanished silently into the laurels, with horrid implications!'
The curate looked slightly puzzled. The tale was well sustained,
and certainly circumstantial. After all, the boy might have
really seen something. How was the poor man to know—though the
`Why did you not alarm the house?' he asked.
`'Cos I was afraid,' said Harold, sweetly, `that p'raps they mightn't believe me!'
`But how did you get down here, you naughty little?' put in Aunt Maria.
Harold was hard pressed—by his own flesh and blood, too!
At that moment Edward touched me on the shoulder and glided off
through the laurels. When some ten yards away he gave a low
whistle. I replied by another. The effect was magical. Aunt Maria
started up with a shriek. Harold gave one startled glance around,
and then fled like a hare, made straight for the back door, burst
in upon the servants at supper, and buried himself in the bosom
of the cook, his special ally. The curate faced the
laurels—hesitatingly. But Aunt Maria flung herself on him. `O
Mr. Hodgitts!' I heard her cry, `you are brave! for my sake do
not be rash!' He was not rash. When I peeped out a second later,
the coast was entirely clear.
By this time there were sounds of a household timidly emerging:
and Edward remarked to me that perhaps we had better be off.
Retreat was an easy matter. A stunted laurel gave a leg up on to
the garden wall, which led in its turn to the roof of an out-house,
up which, at a dubious angle, we could crawl to the window
of the box-room. This overland route had been revealed to us one
day by the domestic cat, when hard pressed in the course of an
otter-hunt, in which the cat—somewhat unwillingly—was
filling the title
The curate's undaunted demeanour, as reported by Aunt Maria, was
generally supposed to have terrified the burglars into flight,
and much kudos accrued to him thereby. Some days later, however,
when he had dropped in to afternoon tea, and was making a mild
curatorial joke about the moral courage required for taking the
last piece of bread-and-butter, I felt constrained to remark
dreamily,
Fortunately for me, the vicar was also a caller on that day; and it was always a comparatively easy matter to dodge my long-coated friend in the open.
The year was in its yellowing time, and the face of Nature a study
in old gold. `A field
Another waggon had shot its load, and was jolting out through the
rickyard gate, as we swung ourselves in, shouting, over its
tail. Edward was the first up, and, as I gained my feet, he
clutched me in a death-grapple. I was a privateersman, he
proclaimed, and he the captain of the British frigate
There was a touch of adventure in the expedition. This was not our own village, but a foreign one, distant at least a mile. One felt that sense of mingled distinction and insecurity which is familiar to the traveller: distinction, in that folk turned the head to note you curiously; insecurity, by reason of the ever-present possibility of missiles on the part of the more juvenile inhabitants, a class eternally conservative. Elated with isolation, I went even more nose-in-air than usual: and `even so,' I mused, `might Mungo Park have threaded the trackless African forest and ..' Here I plumped against a soft, but resisting body.
Recalled to my senses by the shock, I fell back in the attitude
every boy under these circumstances instinctively adopts—both
elbows well up over the ears. I found myself facing a tall
elderly man, clean-shaven, clad in well-worn
Now most boys would have suspected chaff under this courtly style of address. I take infinite credit to myself for recognising at once the natural attitude of a man to whom his fellows were gentlemen all, neither Jew nor Gentile, clean nor unclean. Of course, I took the blame on myself; adding, that I was very absent-minded too,—which was indeed the case.
`I perceive,' he said pleasantly, `that we have something in
common. I, an old man, dream dreams; you, a young one, see
vision. Your lot is the happier. And now—' his hand had been
resting all this time on a wicket-gate—`you are hot, it is
easily seen; the day is advanced,
We passed eventually through a dark hall into a room which struck
me at once as the ideal I had dreamed but failed to find. None
of your feminine fripperies here! None of your chair-backs and
tidies! This man, it was seen, groaned under no aunts. Stout
volumes in calf and vellum lined three
This I hailed with a squeal of delight. `Want to strum?' inquired my friend, as if it was the most natural wish in the world—his eyes were already straying towards another corner, where bits of writing-table peeped our from under a sort of Alpine system of book and foolscap.
`O, but may I?' I asked in doubt. `At home I'm not allowed to—only beastly exercises!'
`Well, you can strum here, at all event,' he replied; and
murmuring absently,
Those who painfully and with bleeding feet have scaled the crags of mastery over musical instruments have yet their loss in this,—that the wild joy of strumming has become a vanished sense. Their happiness comes form the concord and the relative values of the notes they handle: the pure, absolute quality and nature of each note in itself are only appreciated by the strummer. For some notes have all the sea in them, and some cathedral bells; others a woodland joyance and a smell of greenery; in some fauns dance to the merry reed, and even the grave centaurs peep out from their caves. Some bring moonlight, and some the deep crimson of a rose's heart; some are blue, some red, and others will tell of an army with silken standards and march-music. And throughout all the sequence of suggestion, up above the little white men leap and peep, and strive against the imprisoning wires; and all the big rosewood box hums as it were full of hiving bees.
Spent with the rapture, I paused a moment and caught my friend's
eye over the edge of a folio. `But as for these Germans,' he
began abruptly,
`They get nothing whatever from
`You think not?' he rejoined, doubtfully, getting up and walking
about the room. `Well, I applaud such fairness and temperance in
so young a critic. They are qualities—in youth—as rare as
they are pleasing. But just look at Schrumpffus, for
instance—how he struggles and wrestles with a simple
I peeped fearfully through the open door, half-dreading to see some sinuous and snark-like conflict in progress on the mat; but all was still. I saw no trouble at all in the passage, and I said so.
`Precisely,' he cried, delighted. `To you, who possess the natural scholar's faculty in so happy a degree, there is no difficulty at all. But to this Schrumpffius—' But here, luckily for me, in came the housekeeper, a clean-looking woman of staid aspect.
`Your tea is in the garden,' she said, severely,
He waved her off and continued his stride, brandishing an aorist over my devoted head. The housekeeper waited unmoved till there fell a moment's break in his descant; and then, `You'd better drink it before it gets cold,' she observed again, impassively. The wretched man cast a deprecating look at me. `Perhaps a little tea would be rather nice,' he observed, feebly; and to my great relief he led the way into the garden. I looked about for the little gentleman, but, failing to discover him I concluded he was absent-minded too, and attacked the `cakes and things' with no misgivings.
After a most successful and most learned tea a something happened
which, small as I was, never quite shook itself out of my memory.
To us at parley in an arbour over the high road, there entered,
slouching into view, a dingy tramp, satellited by a frowsy woman
and a pariah dog; and, catching sight of us, he set up his
professional whine; and I looked at my friend with the heartiest
`See,' said my friend, bearing somewhat on my shoulder,' how this
strange thing, this love of ours, lives and shines out in the
unlikeliest of places! You have been in the fields in early
The dew was falling, the dusk closing, as I trotted briskly homewards down the road. Lonely spaces everywhere, above and around. Only Hesperus hung in the sky, solitary, pure, ineffably far-drawn and remote: yet infinitely heartening, somehow, in his valorous isolation.
Twelfth-night had come and gone, and life next morning seemed a
trifle flat and purposeless. But yester-eve and the mummers were
here! They had come striding into the old kitchen, powdering the
red brick floor with snow from their barbaric bedizenments; and
stamping, and crossing, and declaiming, till all was whirl and
riot and shout. Harold was frankly afraid: unabashed, he buried
himself in the cook's ample bosom. Edward feigned a manly
superiority to illusion, and greeted these awful apparitions
familiarly, as Dick and Harry and Joe. As for me, I was too big
to run, too rapt to resist the magic and surprise. Whence came
these outlanders, breaking in on us with song and ordered masque
and a terrible clashing of wooden swords? And after these, what
strange visitants might we not look for any quiet night, when the
chestnuts popped in the ashes,
This morning, house-bound by the relentless, indefatigable snow,
I was feeling the reaction. Edward, on the contrary, being
violently stagestruck on this his first introduction to the real
Drama, was striding up and down the floor, proclaiming `Here be
I, King Gearge the Third,' in a strong Berkshire accent.
Harold, accustomed, as the youngest, to lonely antics and to
sports that asked no sympathy, was absorbed in `clubmen': a
performance consisting in a measured progress round the room arm-in-arm
with an imaginary companion of reverend years, with
occasional halts at imaginary clubs, where
Charlotte was sadly out of spirits. Having `countered' Miss
Smedley at breakfast, during some argument or other, by an apt
quotation from her favourite classic (the
`But how can you learn anything,' persisted Charlotte, `from what doesn't exist?' And she left the table defiant, howbeit depressed.
`Don't you mind
`Edward says everything's rot,' I explained, `now he thinks he's
going into the Army. If a thing's in a book it
Charlotte looked almost reassured. The room was quieter now, for
Edward had got the dragon down and was boring holes in him with a
purring sound' Harold was ascending the steps of the Athenæum
with a jaunty air—suggestive rather of the Junior Carlton.
Outside, the tall elm-tops were hardly to be seen through the
feathery storm. `The sky's a-falling,' quoted Charlotte, softly;
`I must go and tell the king.' The quotation suggested a fairy
story, and I offered to read to her,
`I know a jolly story,' he began. `Aunt Eliza told it me. It was
when she was somewhere over in that beastly abroad'—(he had
once spent a black month of misery at Dinan)—`and there
This was Edward idea of a jolly story! Down again went the
corners of poor Charlotte's mouth. Really Edward's stupid
inability to see the real point in anything was
`I want a live dragon,' he announced: `you've got to be my dragon!'
`Leave me go, will you?' squealed Harold, struggling stoutly. `I'm playin' at something else. How can I be a dragon and belong to all the clubs?'
`But wouldn't you like to be a nice scaly dragon, all green,' said Edward, trying persuasion, `with a curly tail and red eyes, and breathing real smoke and fire?'
Harold wavered an instant: Pall-Mall was still strong in him. The
next he was grovelling on
`Now I want a Princess,' cried Edward, clutching Charlotte
ecstatically; and
Of all professions I held the sacred art of healing in worst horror and contempt. Cataclysmal memories of purge and draught crowded thick on me, and with Charlotte—who courted no barren honours—I made a break for the door. Edward did likewise, and the hostile forces clashed together on the mat and for a brief space things were mixed and chaotic and Arthurian. The silvery sound of the luncheon-bell restored an instant peace, even in the teeth of clenched antagonisms like our. The Holy Grail itself, `sliding athwart a sunbeam,' never so effectually stilled a riot of warring passions into sweet and quiet accord.
Edward was standing ginger-beer like a gentleman, happening, as
the one that had last passed under the dentist's hands, to be the
capitalist of the flying hour. As in all well-regulated
families, the usual tariff obtained in ours,—half-a-crown a
tooth; one shilling only if the molar were a loose one. This one,
unfortunately—in spite of Edward's interested affectation of
agony—had been shaky undisguised; but the event was good
enough to run to ginger-beer. As financier, however, Edward had
claimed exemption from any servile dutied of procurement, and had
swaggered about the garden while I fetched from the village post-office,
and Harold stole a tumbler from the pantry. Our
preparations complete, we were sprawling on the law; the staidest
and most self-respecting of the rabbits had been let loose to
grace the feast, and was lopping demurely about the grass,
selecting the juiciest plantains; while Selina, as
`Hurry up, can't you?' growled our host; `what are you girls always so beastly particular for?'
`Martha say' explained Harold (thirsty too, but still just), `that if you swallow a bit of cork, it swells, and it swells, and it swells inside you. till you—'
`O bosh!' said Edward, draining the glass with a fine pretence of indifference to consequences, but all the same (as I noticed) dodging the floating cork-fragments with skill and judgment.
`O, it's all very well to say bosh,' replied Harold, nettles;
`but every one knows it's true but you. Why, when Uncle Thomas
was here last, and they got up a bottle of wine from him, he
took just one tiny sip out of his glass, and then he said, "Poo,
my goodness, that's corked!" And he wouldn't touch it. And they
had to get a fresh bottle up. The funny part was, though, I
looked in his glass afterwards, when it was brought out into the
passage, and there wasn't
`You'd better be careful, young man!' said his elder brother, regarding him severely. `D'you remember that night when the Mummers were here, and they had mulled port, and you went round and emptied all the glasses after they had gone away?'
`Ow! I did feel funny that night,' chuckled Harold. `Thought the house was comin' down, it jumped about so; and Martha had to carry me up to bed, 'cos the stairs was goin' all waggity!'
We gazed searchingly at our graceless junior: but it was clear that he viewed the matter in the light of a phenomenon rather than of a delinquency.
A third bottle was by this time circling; and Selina, who had evidently waited for it to reach her, took a most unfairly long pull, and then jumping up and shaking out her frock, announced that she was going for a walk. Then she fled like a hare; for it was the custom of our Family to meet with physical coercion any independence of action in individuals.
`She's off with those Vicarage girls again,'
`p'raps they talk about birds'-eggs,' I suggested sleepily (the
sun was hot, the turf soft, the ginger-beer potent); `and about
ships, and buffaloes, and desert islands; and why rabbits have
white tails; and whether they'd sooner have a schooner or a
cutter; and what they'll be when they're men—at least, I mean
there's lots of things to talk about, if you
`Yes; but they don't talk about those sort of things at all,'
persisted Edward. `How
`I asked Martha once,' put in Harold; `and she said, and she
said, `Never
`I don't believe it,' Edward growled.
`Well, that's what she
We heard the click of the front-gate. Through a gap in the hedge we could see the party setting off down the road. Selina was in the middle: a Vicarage girl had her by either arm; their heads were together, as Edward had described; and the clack of their tongues came down the breeze like the busy pipe of starlings on a bright March morning.
`What
`I don't know,' said poor Charlotte, dolefully. `They make me
walk behind, 'cos they say I'm too little, and mustn't hear. And
I
`When any lady comes to see Aunt Eliza,' said Harold, `they
both talk at once all the time. And yet each of 'em seems to hear
what
The Curate's the funniest man,' I remarked. `He's always saying things that have no sense in them at all, and then laughing at them as if they were jokes. Yesterday, when they asked him if he'd have some more tea, he said, "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more," and then sniggered all over. I didn't see anything funny in that. And then somebody asked him about his button-hole, and he said, "'Tis but a little faded flower," and exploded again. I thought it very stupid.'
`O
`O but rabbits
`I've watched them often in their hutch. They put their heads together and their noses go up and down, just like Selina's and the Vicarage girls' Only of course I can't hear what they're saying.'
`Well, if they do,' said Edward, unwillingly, `I'll bet they
don't talk such rot as those girls do!'—which was ungenerous,
as well as unfair; for it had not yet transpired—nor has it
to this day—
The advent of strangers, of whatever sort, into our circle, had
always been a matter of grave dubiety and suspicion; indeed, it was
generally a signal for retreat into caves and fastnesses of the
earth, into unthreaded copses, or remote outlaying cowshed,
whence we were only to be extricated by wily nursemaids, rendered
familiar by experience with our secret runs and refuges. It was
not surprising, therefore, that the heroes of classic legend,
when first we made their acquaintance failed to win our entire
sympathy at once. `Confidence,' says somebody, `is a plant of
slow growth:' and these stately dark-haired demi-gods, with names
hard to master and strange accoutrements, had to win a citadel
already strongly garrisoned with a more familiar soldiery. Their
chill foreign goddesses had no such direct appeal for us as the
mocking malicious fairies and witches of the North; we missed the
pleasant alliance of the
Even strangers, however, if they be good fellows at hears, may
develop into sworn comrades; and these gay swordsmen, after all,
were of the right stuff. Perseus, with his cap of darkness and
his wonderful sandals, was not long in winging his way to our
hearts; Apollo knocked at Admetus' gate in something of the right
fairy fashion; Psyche brought with her an orthodox palace of
magic, as well as helpful birds and friendly ants. Ulysses, with
his captivating shifts and strategies, broke down the final
I had been engaged in chasing Farmer Larkin's calves—his special pride—round the field, just to show the man we hadn't forgotten him, and was returning through the kitchen-garden with a conscience at peace with all men, when I happened upon Edward, grubbing for worms in the dung-heap. Edward put his worms into his hat, and we strolled along together, discussing high matters of state. As we reached the tool-shed, strange noises arrested our steps; looking in, we perceived Harold, alone, rapt, absorbed, immersed in the special game of the moment. He was squatting in an old pig-trough that had been brought in to be tinkered; and as he rhapsodised, anon he waved a shovel over his head, anon dug it into the ground with the action of those who would urge Canadian canoes. Edward strode in upon him
`What rot are you playing at now?' he demanded sternly
Harold flushed up, but stuck to his pig-trough like a man.
`I'm Jason,' he replied, defiantly; `and this is the Argo. The
other fellows are
Edward kicked the pig-trough contemptuously. `pretty sort of Argo you've got!' said he.
Harold began to get annoyed. `I can't help it,' he replied.
`It's the best sort of Argo I can manage, and it's all right if
you only pretend enough; but
Edward reflected. `Look here,' he said presently; `why shouldn't we get hold of Farmer Larkin's boat, and go right away up in the river in a real Argo, and look for Medea, and the Golden Fleece, and everything? And I'll tell you what, I don't mind your being Jason, as you though of it first.'
Harold tumbled out of the trough in the excess of his emotion. `But we are n't allowed to go on the water by ourselves,' he cried.
`No,' said Edward, with fine scorn: `we are n't allowed' and
Jason was n't allowed either, I daresay—but he
Harold's protest had been merely conventional:
`And now,' said Edward, `who's to ask Farmer Larkin?
I hesitated, for good reasons. `You know those precious calves of his?' I began.
Edward understood at once. `All right,' he said; `then we
won't ask him at all. It doesn't
We made our way down to the steam, and captured the farmer's boat without let or hindrance, the enemy being engaged in the hayfields. This `river,' so called, could never be discovered by us in any atlas; indeed our Argo could hardly turn in it without risk of shipwreck. But to us 't was Orinoco, and the cities of the world dotted its shores. We put the Argo's head up stream, since that led away from the Larkin province: Harold was faithfully permitted to be Jason, and we shared the rest of the heroes among us. Then launching forth from Thessaly, we threaded the Hellespont with shouts, breathlessly dodged the Clashing Rocks, and coasted under the lee of the Siren-haunted isles. Lemnos was fringed with meadow-sweet, dog-roses dotted the Mysian shore, and the cheery call of the haymaking folk sounded along the coast of Thrace.
After some hour or two's seafaring, the prow of the Argo embedded
itself in the mud of a landing-place, plashy with the tread of
cows and giving on to a lane that led towards the smoke of human
habitations. Edward jumped ashore, alert for exploration, and
strode off without waiting to see if
Indeed with the very air within seemed stiller, as we circumspectly passed through the gate; and Harold hung back shamefaced, as if we were crossing the threshold of some private chamber, and ghosts of old days were hustling past us. Flowers there were, everywhere; but they dropped and sprawled in an overgrowth hinting at indifference; the scent of heliotrope possessed the place, as if actually hung in solid festoons from tall untrimmed hedge to hedge. No basket-chairs, shawls, or novels dotted the lawn with colour; and on the garden-front of the house behind, the blinds were mostly drawn. A grey old sun-dial dominated the central sward, and we moved towards it instinctively, as the most human thing visible. An antique motto ran round it, and with eyes and fingers we struggled at the decipherment.
`TIME; TRYETH; TROTHE:' spelt out Harold at last. `I wonder what that means?'
I could not enlighten him, nor meet his further questions as to
the inner mechanism of the thing,
We were still puzzling our heads over the contrivance, when I became aware that Medea herself was moving down the path from the house. Dark-haired, supple, of a figure lightly poised and swayed, but pale and listless—I knew her at once, and having come out to find her, naturally felt no surprise at all. But Harold, who was trying to climb on the top of the sun-dial, having a cat-like fondness for the summit of things, started and fell prone, barking his chin and filling the pleasance with lamentation.
Medea skimmed the ground swallow-like, and in a moment was on her knees comforting him—wiping the dirt out of his chin with her own dainty handkerchief,—and vocal with soft murmur of consolation.
`You needn't take on so about him,' I observed, politely. `He'll cry for just one minute, and then he'll be all right.'
My estimate was justified. At the end of his regulation time
Harold stopped crying suddenly, like a clock that had struck its
hours; and with
`O you boys!' cried Medea, throwing wide her arms with abandonment. `Where have you dropped from? How dirty you are! I've been shut up here for a thousand years, and all that time I've never seen any one under a hundred and fifty! Let's play at something, at once!'
`Rounders is a good game,' I suggested. `girls can play at rounders. And we could serve up to the sun-dial here. But you want a bat and a ball, and some more people.'
She struck her hands together tragically. `I haven't a bat,' she cried, `or a ball, or more people, or anything sensible whatever. Never mind; let's play at hide-and-seek in the kitchen garden. And we'll race there, up to that walnut-tree; I haven't run for a century!'
She was so easy a victor, nevertheless, that I began to doubt, as
I panted behind, whether she had not exaggerated her age by a
year or two. She flung herself into hide-and-seek with all the
gusto and abandonment of the true artist; and as
Tired at last, we strolled back to the old sun-dial, and Harold,
who never relinquished a problem unsolved, began afresh, rubbing
his finger along the faint incisions,
Medea's face dropped low over the sun-dial, till it was almost hidden in her fingers. `That's what I'm here for,' she said presently, in quite a changed low voice. `They shut me up here—they think I'll forget—but I never will—never, never! And he, too—but I don't know—it is so long—I don't know!'
Her face was quite hidden now. There was silence again in the old
garden. I felt clumsily helpless and awkward; beyond a vague idea
of kicking Harold, nothing remedial seemed to suggest itself.
None of us had noticed the approach of another she-creature—one
of the angular and rigid class—how different
from our dear comrade! The years Medea had claimed might well
have belonged to her; she wore mittens, too—a trick I detested
in woman. `Lucy!' she said, sharply, in a tone with
`You've been crying,' said the newcomer, grimly regarding her through spectacles. `And pray who are these exceedingly dirty little boys?'
`Friends of mine, aunt,' said Medea, promptly, with forced cheerfulness. `I—I've known them a long time. I asked them to come.'
The aunt sniffed suspiciously. `You must come indoors, dear,' she said, `and lie down. The sun will give you a headache. And you little boys had better run away home to your tea. Remember, you should not come to pay visits without your nursemaid.'
Harold had been tugging nervously at my jacket for some time, and
I only waited till Medea turned and kissed a white hand to us as
she was led away. Then I ran. We gained the boat in safety; and
`What an old dragon!' said Harold.
`Wasn't she a beast!' I replied. `Fancy the sun giving any one a headache! But Medea was a real brick. Couldn't we carry her off?'
We could if Edward was here,' said Harold, confidently.
The question was, What had become of that defaulting hero? We were not left long in doubt. First, there came down the lane the shrill and wrathful clamour of a female tongue, then Edward, running his best, and then an excited woman hard on his heel. Edward tumbled into the bottom of the boat, gasping, `Shove her off!' And shove her off we did, mightily, while the dame abused us from the bank in the self-same accents in which Alfred hurled defiance at the marauding Dane.
`That was just like a bit out of
`Hadn't been doing anything,' panted Edward, still breathless. `I went up into the village and explored, and it was a very nice one, and the people were very polite. And there was a blacksmith's forge there, and they were shoeing horse, and the hoofs fizzled and smoked, and smelt so jolly! I stayed there quite a long time. Then I got thirsty, so I asked that old woman for some water, and while she was getting it her cat came out of the cottage, and looked at me in a nasty sort of way, and said something I didn't like. So I went up to it just to—to teach it manners, and somehow or other, next minute it was up an apple-tree, spitting, and I was running down the lane with that old thing after me.'
Edward was so full of his personal injuries that there was no
interesting him in Medea at all. Moreover, the evening was
closing in, and it was evident that this cutting-out expedition
must be kept for another day. As we neared home, it gradually
occurred to us that perhaps the greatest danger was yet to come;
for the farmer must have missed his boat ere now, and would
probably be lying in wait for us near the landing-place. There
was no other spot admitting of debarcation on the home side; if
we got out on the other, and made for the bridge, we should
certainly be seen and cut off. Then it was that I blessed my
stars that our elder brother
All the roads of our neighbourhood were cheerful and friendly,
having each of them pleasant qualities of their own; but this one
seemed different from the others in its masterful suggestion of a
serious purpose, speeding you along with a strange uplifting of
the heart. The others tempted chiefly with their treasures of
hedge and ditch; the rapt surprise of the first lords-and-ladies,
the rustle of a field-mouse, splash of a frog; while cool noses
of brother-beasts were pushed at you through gate or gap. A
loiterer you had need to be, did you choose one of them,—so
many were the tiny hands thrust out to detain you, from this side
and that. But this other was of a sterner sort, and even in its
shedding off of bank and hedgerow as it marched straight and full
for the open downs, it seemed to declare its contempt for
adventitious trappings to catch the shallow-pated. When the sense
`The Knights' Road,' we children had named it, from a sort of
feeling that, if from any quarter at all, it would be down this
track we might some day see Lancelot and his peers come pacing
on their great war-horses,—supposing that any of the stout
band still survived, in nooks and unexplored places. Grown-up
people sometimes spoke of it as the `Pilgrims' Way'; but I
didn't know much about pilgrims,—except Walter in the
Horselberg story. Him I sometimes saw, breaking with haggard eyes
out of yonder copse, and calling to the pilgrims as they hurried
along on their desperate march to the Holy City, where peace and
pardon were awaiting them. `All roads lead to Rome,' I had once
heard somebody say; and I had taken the remark very seriously, of
course, and puzzled over it many days. There must have been some
mistake, I concluded at last' but of one road at least I
intuitively felt it to be
Rome! It was fascinating to think that it lay at the other end of this white ribbon that rolled itself off from my feet over the distant downs. I was not quite so uninstructed as to imagine I could reach it that afternoon; but some day, I thought, if things went on being as unpleasant as they were now,—some day, when Aunt Eliza had gone on a visit,—we would see.
I tried to imagine what it would be like when I got there. The
Coliseum I knew, of course, from a woodcut in the history-book:
so to begin with I plumped that down in the middle. The rest had
to be patched up from the little grey market-town where twice a
year we went to
He was seated at work by the roadside, at a point whence the cool
large spaces of the downs,
After another five minutes or so had passed he remarked, without looking my way: `Fine afternoon we're having: going far to-day?'
`No, I'm not going any farther than this,' I replied;
I
`Pleasant place, Rome,' he murmured; `you'll like it.' It was some minutes later that he added: `But I wouldn't go just now, if I were you,—too jolly hot.'
`Rather,' he replied, briefly; `I live there.'
This was too much, and my jaw dropped as I struggled to grasp the fact that I was sitting there talking to a fellow who lived in Rome. Speech was out of the question: besides, I had other things to do. Ten solid minutes had I already spent in an examination of him as a mere stranger and artist; and now the whole thing had to be done over again, from the changed point of view. So I began afresh, at the crown of his soft hat, and worked down to his solid British shoes, this time investing everything with the new Roman halo; and at last I managed to get out: `But you don't really live there, do you?' never doubting the fact, but wanting to hear it repeated.
`Well,' he said, good-naturedly overlooking the slight rudeness
of my query, `I live there as much as I live anywhere,—about
half the year
`But do you live anywhere else as well?' I went on, feeling the forbidden tide of questions surging up within me.
`O yes, all over the place,' was his vague reply. `And I've got a diggings somewhere off Piccadilly.'
`Where's that?' I inquired.
`Where's what?' said he. `Oh, Piccadilly! It's in London.'
`Have you a large garden?' I asked; `and how many pigs have you got?'
`I've no garden at all,' he replied, sadly, `and they don't allow me to keep pigs, though I'd like to, awfully. It's very hard.'
`But what do you do all day, then,' I cried, `and where do you go and play, without any garden, or pigs, or things?'
`When I want to play,' he said, gravely, `I have to go and play in the street; but it's poor fun, I grant you. There's a goat, though, not far off, and sometimes I talk to him when I'm feeling lonely; but he's very proud.'
`Goats
`I do, well,' he replied, in a tone of proper melancholy, and painted on.
And have you been to any other places,' I began again, presently, `besides Rome and piccy-what's-his-name?'
`Heaps,' he cried. `I'm a sort of Ulysses—seen men and cities, you know. In fact, about the only place I never got to was the Fortunate Island.'
I began to like this man. He answered you questions briefly and to the point, and never tried to be funny. I felt I could be confidential with him.
`Wouldn't you like,' I inquired, `to find a city without any people in it at all?'
He looked puzzled. `I'm afraid I don 't quite understand,' said he.
`I mean,' I went on eagerly, `a city where you walk in at the
gates, and the shops are all full of beautiful things, and the
houses furnished as grand as can be, and there isn't anybody
there
The artist laid down his brush. `That
`And you'd ask your friends,' I went on, warming to my subject,—`only those you really like, of course,—and they'd each have a house to themselves,—there'd be lots of houses,—and no relations at all, unless they promised they'd be pleasant, and if they weren't they'd have to go.'
`So you wouldn't have any relations?' said the artist. `Well, perhaps you're right. We have tastes in common, I see.'
`I'd have Harold,' I said, reflectively,`and Charlotte. They'd
like it awfully. The others are getting too old. Oh, and
Martha—I'd have Martha, to cook and wash up and do things.
You'd
`Then I'm sure I should like her,' he replied, heartily, `and when I come to—what do you call this city of yours? Nephelo—something, did you say?'
`I—I don't know,' I replied, timidly. `I'm afraid it hasn't got a name—yet.'
The artist gazed out over the downs. `"The poet says, dear city of Cecrops;"' he said, softly, to himself, `" and wilt not thou say, dear city of Zeus?" That's from Marcus Aurelius,' he went on, turning again to his work. `You don't know him, I suppose; you will some day.'
`Who's he?' I inquired.
`Oh, just another fellow who lived in Rome,' he replied, dabbing away.
`O dear!' I cried disconsolately. `What a lot of people seem to
live at Rome, and I've never even been there! But I think I'd
like
`And so would I,' replied with unction. `But Marcus Aurelius wouldn't, you know.'
`Then we won't invite him,' I said, `will we?'
`Do you know,' he said, presently, `I've met one or two fellows from time to time who have been to a city like yours,—perhaps it was the same one. They won't talk much about it—only broken hints, now and then; but they've been there sure enough. They don't seem to care about anything in particular—and everything's the same to them, rough or smooth; and sooner or later they slip off and disappear; and you never see them again. Gone back I suppose.'
`Of course,' said I. `Don't see what they ever came away for;
The artist stared, but without incivility.
`Well there's Lancelot,' I went on. `The book says he died, but
it never seemed to read right, somehow. He just went away, like
Arthur. And Crusoe, when he got tired of
`And the men who never come off,' he said, `who try like the
rest, but get knocked out, or somehow miss,—or break down or
get bowled over in the
`Yes, if you like,' I replied, not quite understanding him; `if they're friends of yours, we'll ask 'em, of course.'
`What a time we shall have!' said the artist, reflectively' `and how shocked old Marcus Aurelius will be!'
The shadows had lengthened uncannily, a tide of golden haze was
flooding the grey-green surface of the downs, and the artist
began to put his traps together, preparatory to a move. I felt
very low; we would have to part, it seemed, just as we were
getting on so well together. Then he stood up, and he was very
straight and tall, and the sunset was in his hair and beard as
he stood there, high over me. He took my hand like an
`Of course we shall,' I replied, surprised that there should be any doubt about it.
In Rome, perhaps?' said he.
`Yes, in Rome,' I answered, `or Piccy-the-other-place, or somewhere.'
`Or else,' said he, `in that other city,—when we've found the way there. And I'll look out for you, and you'll sing out as soon as you see me. And we'll go down the street arm-in-arm, and into all the shops, and then I'll choose my house, and you'll choose your house, and we'll live there like princes and good fellows.'
`Oh, but you'll stay in my house, won't you?' I cried; `I
wouldn't ask everybody; but I'll ask
He affected to consider a moment; then `Right!' he said: `I
believe you mean it, and I
Upon this compact we parted, and I went down-heartedly form the man who understood me, back to the house where I never could do anything right. How was it that everything seemed natural and sensible to him, which these uncles, vicars, and other grown-up men took for the merest tomfoolery? Well, he would explain this, and many another thing, when we met again. The Knights' Road! How it always brought consolation! Was he possibly one of those vanished knights I had been looking for so long? Perhaps he would be in armour next time,—why not? He would look well in armour, I thought. And I would take car to get there first, and see the sunlight flash and play on his helmet and shield, as he rode up the High Street of the Golden City.
Meantime, there only remained the finding it,—an easy matter.
It must surely have served as a boudoir for the ladies of old
time, this little used, rarely entered chamber where the
neglected old bureau stood. There was something very feminine in
the faint hues of its faded brocades, in the rose and blue of
such bits of china as yet remained, and in the delicate old-world
fragrance of pot-pourri from the great bowl—blue and white,
with funny holes in its cover—that stood on the bureau's flat
top. Modern aunts disdained this out-of-the way, back-water,
upstairs room, preferring to do their accounts and grapple with
their correspondence in some central position more in the whirl
of things, whence one eye could be kept on the carriage drive,
while the other was alert for malingering servants and marauding
children. Those aunts of a former generation—I sometimes
felt—would have suited our habits better. But even by us
children, to whom few places were private.
Uncle Thomas was the first to draw my attention to the possibilities of the old bureau. He was pottering about the house one afternoon, having order me to keep at his heels for company,—he was a man who hated to be left one minute alone,—when his eye fell on it. `H'm Sheraton!' he remarked. (He had a
smattering of most things, this uncle, especially the vocabularies.) Then he let down the flap, and examined the empty pigeon-holes and dusty panelling. `Fine bit of inlay,' he went on: `good work, all of it. I know the sort. There's a secret drawer in there somewhere.' Then, as I breathlessly drew near, he suddenly exclaimed: `By Jove, I do want to smoke!' and wheeling round he abruptly fled for the garden, leaving me with the cup dashed from my lips. What a strange thing, I mused, was this smoking, that takes a man suddenly, be he in the court, the camp, or the grove, grips him like an Afreet, and whirls him off to do its imperious behests! Would it be even so with myself, I wondered, in those unknown grown-up years to come?
But I had no time to waste in vain speculations. My whole being
was still vibrating to those magic syllables, `secret drawer;' and
that particular chord had been touched that never fails to thrill
responsive to such words as
First, there was the pipe I wanted to give George Jannaway.
George, who was Martha's young man, was a shepherd, and a great
ally of mine; and the last fair he was at, when he bought his
sweetheart fairings, as a right-minded shepherd should, he had
purchased a lovely snake expressly for me; one of the wooden
sort, with joints, wagging deliciously in the hand; with yellow
spots on a green ground, sticky and strong-smelling, as a fresh-painted
snake out to be; and with a red-flannel tongue, pasted
cunningly into its jaws. I loved it much, and took it to bed with
me every night, till what time its spinal cored was loosed and it
fell apart, and went the way of all mortal joys. I thought it so
nice of George to think of me at the fair, and that's why I
wanted to give him a pipe. When the young year was chill and
lambing-time was on, George inhabited a little wooden house on
wheels, far out on the wintry downs, and saw no faces but such as
were sheepish and woolly and mute; and when he and Martha were
married, she was going to carry
Then there was the fourpence I owed Edward; not that he was
bothering me for it, but I knew he was in need of it himself, to
pay back Selina, who wanted it to make up a sum of two shillings,
to buy Harold an ironclad for his approaching birthday,—H.M.S.
And then there was that boy in the village who had caught a young
squirrel, and I had never yet possessed one, and he wanted a
shilling for it, but I knew that for ninepence in cash—but
what was the good of these sorry, threadbare reflections? I had
wants enough to exhaust any possible find of bullion, even if it
amounted to half a sovereign. My only hope now lay in the magic
drawer, and here I was standing and letting
The room was very still as I approached the bureau,—possessed, it seemed to be, by a sort of hush of expectation. The faint odour of orris-root that floated forth as I let down the flap, seemed to identify itself with the yellows and browns of the old wood, till hue and scent were of one quality and interchangeable. Even so, ere this, the pot-pourri had mixed itself with the tints of the old brocade, and brocade and pot-pourri had long been one. With expectant fingers I explored the empty pigeon-holes and sounded the depths of the softly-sliding drawers. No books that I knew of gave any general recipe for a quest like this; but the glory, would I succeed unaided, would be all the greater.
To him who is destined to arrive, the fates never fail to afford,
on the way, their small encouragements; in less than two minutes,
I had come across a rusty button-hook. This was truly
magnificent. In the nursery there existed indeed, a general
button-hook, common to either
Following on these bracing incentives, came a dull blank period of
unrewarded search. In vain I removed all the drawers and felt
over every inch of the smooth surfaces, from front to back.
Never a knob, spring or projection met the thrilling finger-tips;
unyielding the old bureau stood, stoutly guarding its secret, if
secret it really had. I began to grow weary and disheartened.
This was not the first time that Uncle Thomas had proved
shallow, uninformed, a guide into blind alleys where the echoes
mocked you. Was it any good persisting longer? Was anything any
good whatever? In my mind I began to review past disappointments,
and life seemed one long record of failure and of nonarrival.
Disillusioned and depressed, I left my work and went to the
window. The light was ebbing from the room, and outside seemed to
Westwards the clouds were massing themselves in a low violet
bank; below them, to north and south, as far round as eye could
reach, a narrow streak of gold ran out and stretched away,
straight along the horizon. Somewhere very far off, a horn was
being blown, clear and thin; it sounded like the golden streak
grown audible, while the gold seemed the visible sound. It
pricked my ebbing courage, this blended strain of music and
colour, and I turned for a last effort; and Fortune thereupon, as
if half-ashamed of the unworthy game she had been playing with
me, relented, opening her clenched fist. Hardly had I put my hand
once more to the obdurate wood, when with a sort of small
I drew it out and carried it to the window, to examine it in the failing light. Too hopeless had I gradually grown, in my dispiriting search, to expect very much; and yet at a glance I saw that my basket of glass lay in fragments at my feet. No ingots or dollars were here, to crown me the little Monte Cristo of a week. Outside, the distant horn had ceased its gnat-song, the gold was paling to primrose, and everything was lonely and still. Within, my confident little castles were tumbling down like card-houses, leaving me stripped of estate, both real and personal, and dominated by the depressing reaction.
And yet,—as I looked again at the small collection that lay
within that drawer of disillusions, some warmth crept back to my
heart as I recognised that a kindred spirit to my own had been at
the making of it. Two tarnished gilt buttons,—naval,
apparently,—a portrait of a monarch unknown to me, cut from
some antique print and deftly coloured by hand in just my own
bold style of brush-work,—some foreign copper coins, thicker
and clumsier of make than
I restored the drawer, with its contents, to the trusty bureau, and heard the spring click with a certain satisfaction. Some other boy, perhaps, would some day release that spring again. I trusted he would be equally appreciative. As I opened the door to go, I could hear from the nursery at the end of the passage shouts and yells, telling that the hunt was up. Bears, apparently, or bandits, were on the evening bill of fare, judging by the character of the noises. In another minute I would be in the thick of it, in all the warmth and light and laughter. And yet—what a long way off it all seemed, both in space and time, to me yet lingering on the threshold of that old-world chamber!
The eventful day had arrived at last, the day which, when first
named, had seemed—like all golden dates that promise anything
definite—so immeasurably remote. When it was first announced,
a fortnight before, that Miss Smedley was really going, the
resultant ecstasies had occupied a full week, during which we
blindly revelled in the contemplation and discussion of her past
tyrannies, crimes, malignities; in recalling to each other this
or that insult, dishonour, or physical assault, sullenly endured
at a time when deliverance was not even a small star on the
horizon; and in mapping out the golden days to come, with special
new troubles of their own, now doubt, since this is but a work-a-day
world, but at least free from one familiar scourge. The time
that remained had been taken up by the planning of practical
expressions of the popular sentiment. Under Edward's masterly
direction, arrangements had been made
I was awakened by Harold digging me in the ribs, and `She's going
today!' was the morning hymn that scattered the clouds of sleep.
Strange to say, it was with no corresponding jubilation of
spirits that I slowly realised the momentous fact. Indeed, as I
dressed, a dull disagreeable feeling that I could not define grew
within me—something like a physical bruise. Harold was
evidently feeling it too, for after repeating `She's going to-day!'
in a tone more befitting the Litany, he looked hard in my
face for direction as to how the situation was to be taken. But I
crossly bade him look sharp and
Down at last and out in the sun, we found Edward before us, swinging on a gate, and chanting a farm-yard ditty in which all the beasts appear in due order, jargoning in their several tongues, and every verse begins with the couplet—
`Now, my lads, come with me,
Out in the morning early!'
The fateful exodus of the day had evidently slipped his memory entirely. I touched him on the shoulder. `She's going to-day!' I said. Edward's carol subsided like a water-tap turned off. `So she is!' he replied, and got down at once off the gate: and we returned to the house without another word.
At breakfast Miss Smedley behaved in a most mean and uncalled-for
manner. The right divine of governesses to govern wrong
included no right to cry. In thus usurping the prerogative of
their victims, they ignore the rules of the
There were no lessons that morning, naturally—another
grievance! The fitness of things required that we should have
struggled to the last in a confused medley of moods and tenses,
and parted for ever, flushed with hatred, over the dismembered
corpse of the multiplication table. But his thing was not be; and
I was free to stroll by myself through the garden, and combat, as
best I might, this growing feeling of depression. It was a wrong
system
`Fired their ringing shot and passed,
Hotly charged and sank at last,`—
but Nature had ordered it so, and in requital had provided for rapid successors. Did you come to love a pig, and he was taken from you, grief was quickly assuaged in the delight of selection from the new litter. But now, when it was no question of a peerless pig, but only of a governess, Nature seemed helpless, and the future held no litter oblivion. Things might be better, or they might be worse, but they would never by the same; and the innate conservatism of youth asks neither poverty nor riches, but only immunity from change.
Edward slouched up alongside of me presently, with a hang-dog
look on him, as if he had been caught stealing jam. `What a lark
it'll be when she's really gone!' he observed, with a swagger
obviously assumed.
`Grand fun!' I replied, dolorously; and conversation flagged.
We reached the hen-house, and contemplated the banner of freedom lying ready to flaunt the breezes at the supreme moment.
`Shall you run it up,' I asked, `when the fly starts, or—or wait a little till it's out of sight?'
Edward gazed around him dubiously. `We're going to have some rain, I think,' he said; `and —and it's a new flag. It would be a pity to spoil it. P'haps I won't run it up at all.'
Harold came round the corner like a bison pursued by Indians. `I've polished up the cannons,' he cried, `and they look grand! Mayn't I load 'em now?
`You leave 'em alone,' said Edward, severely, `or you'll be blowing yourself up' (consideration for others was not usually Edwards's strong point.) `Don't touch the gunpowder till you're told, or you'll get your head smacked.'
Harold fell behind, limp, squashed, obedient. `She wants me to write to her,' he began, presently. `Says she doesn't mind the spelling, if I'll only write. Fancy her saying that!'
`Oh, shut up, will you?' said Edward savagely; and once more
we were silent, with only our thoughts for sorry company.
`Let's go off to the copse,' I suggested timidly, feeling that something had to be done to relieve the tension, `and cut more new bows and arrows.'
`She gave me a knife my last birthday,' said Edward, moodily, never budging. `It wasn't much of a knife—but I wish I hadn't lost it.'
`When my legs used to ache,' I said, `she sat up half the night, rubbing stuff on them. I forgot all about that till this morning.'
`There's the fly!' cried Harold suddenly. `I can hear it scrunching on the gravel.'
Then for the first time we turned and stared one another in the face.
The fly and its contents had finally disappeared through the
gate: the rumble of its wheels had died away; and no flag floated
definitely in the sun, no cannons proclaimed the passing of a
dynasty. From out the frosted cake of our existence Fate had cut
an irreplaceable segment; turn which way we would, the void was
`I've been chopping up wood,' he explained, in a guilty sort of way, through nobody had called on him to account for his doings.
`What for?' I inquired, stupidly. `There's piles and piles of it chopped up already.'
`I know,' said Edward; `but there's no harm in having a bit over. You never can tell what may happen. But what have you been doing all this digging for?'
`You said it was going to rain,' I explained, hastily; `so I though I'd get the digging done before it came. Good gardeners always tell you that's the right thing to do.'
`It did look like rain at one time,' Edward admitted; `but it's
passed off now. Very queer weather we're having. I suppose that's
why I've felt so sunny all day.'
`Yes, I suppose it's the weather,' I replied. `
The weather had nothing to do with it, as we well knew. But we would both have died rather than have admitted the real reason.
That nature has her moments of sympathy with man has been noted
often enough,—and generally as a new discovery; to us, who had
never known any other condition of things, it seemed entirely
right and fitting that the wind sang and sobbed in the poplar
tops, and in the lulls of it, sudden spirts of rain spattered the
already dusty roads, on that blusterous March day when Edward and
I awaited, on the station platform, the arrival of the new tutor.
Needless to say, this arrangement had been planned by an aunt,
from some fond idea that our shy, innocent young natures would
unfold themselves during the walk form the station, and that on
the revelation of each other's more solid qualities that must
then inevitably ensue, an enduring friendship springing from
mutual respect might be firmly based. A pretty dream,—nothing
more. For Edward, who foresaw that the brunt of tutorial
oppression
One is apt, however, to misjudge the special difficulties of a
situation; and the reception proved, after all, an easy and
informal matter. In a trainful so uniformly bucolic, a tutor was
readily recognisable; and his portmanteau had been consigned to
the luggage-cart, and his person conveyed into the lane, before I
had discharged one of my carefully considered sentences. I
breathed more easily, and, looking up at our new friend as we
stepped out together, remembered that we had been counting on
something altogether more arid, scholastic, and severe. A boyish
eager face and a petulant
He proceeded jerkily through the village, with glances on this side and that; and `Charming,' he broke out presently; `quite too charming and delightful!'
I had not counted on this sort of thing, and glanced for help to Edward, who, hands in pockets, looked grimly down his nose. He had taken his line, and meant to stick to it.
Meantime our friend had made an imaginary spy-glass out of his fist, and was squinting through it at something I could not perceive. `What an exquisite bit!' he burst out; `fifteenth century,—no,—yes, it is!'
I began to feel puzzled, not to say alarmed. It reminded me of
the butcher in the
`Ah!' he broke out again, as we jogged on
Edward, who was hanging sullenly behind, made a face at me, as if to say, `What sort of lunatic have we got here?'
`It has the true pastoral character, this country of yours,' went on our enthusiast: `with just that added touch in cottage and farmstead, relics of a bygone art, which makes our English landscape so divine, so unique!'
Really this grasshopper was becoming a burden. These familiar
fields and farms, of which we knew every blade and stick, had
done nothing that I knew of to be bespattered with adjectives in
this way. I had never thought of them as divine, unique, or
anything else. They were—well, they were just themselves, and
there was an end of it. Despairingly I jogged Edward in
`you can see the house how,' I remarked, presently; `and that's
Selina, chasing the donkey in the paddock,—or is it the donkey
chasing Selina? I can't quite make out' but it's
Needless to say, he exploded with a full charge of adjectives. `Exquisite!' he rapped out; `so mellow and harmonious! and so entirely in keeping!' (I could see from Edward's face that she was thinking who ought to be in keeping.) `Such possibilities of romance, now, in those old gables!'
`If you mean the garrets,' I said, `there's a lot of old furniture in them; and one is generally full of apples; and the bats get in sometimes, under the eaves, and flop about till we go up with hair-brushes and things and drive 'em out; but there's nothing else in them that I know of.'
`Oh, but there must be more than bats,' he cried. `Don't tell me
there are no ghosts. I shall be deeply disappointed if there
aren't any ghosts.'
I did not think it worth while to reply, feeling really unequal to this sort of conversation; besides, we were nearing the house, when my task would be ended. Aunt Eliza met us at the door, and in the cross-fire of adjectives that ensured—both of them talking at once, as grown-up folk have a habit of doing—we two slipped round to the back of the house, and speedily put several solid acres between us and civilisation , for fear of being ordered in to tea in the drawing-room. By the time we returned, our new importation had gone up to dress for dinner, so till the morrow at lest we were free of him.
Meanwhile the March wind, after dropping a while at sundown, had
been steadily increasing in volume; and although I fell asleep at
my usual hour, about midnight I was wakened by the stress and cry
of it. In the bright moonlight, wind-swung branches tossed and
swayed eerily across the blinds; there was rumbling in chimneys,
whistling in keyholes, and everywhere a clamour and call. Sleep
was out of the question, and, sitting up in bed, I looked round.
Edward sat up too, `I was wondering when you were going to wake,'
he said. `It's
`I'm game,' I replied. `Let's play at being in a ship at sea' (the plaint of the old house under the buffeting wind suggested this, naturally); `and we can be wrecked on an island, or left on a raft, whichever you choose; but I like an island best myself, because there's more things on it.'
Edward on reflection negatived the idea. `It would make too much noise,' he pointed out. `There's no fun playing at ships, unless you can make a jolly good row.'
The door creaked, and a small figure in white slipped cautiously in. `Thought I heard you talking,' said Charlotte. `We don't like it' we're afraid—Selina too. She'll be here in a minute. She's putting on her new dressing-gown she's so proud of.'
His arms round his knees, Edward cogitated deeply until Selina appeared, barefooted, and looking slim and tall in the new dressing-gown. Then, `Look here,' he exclaimed; `now we're all together, I vote we go and explore!'
You're always wanting to explore,' I said.
`What on earth is there to explore for in this house?'
`Biscuits!' said the inspired Edward.
`Horray! Come one!' chimed in Harold, sitting up suddenly. He had been awake all the time, but had been shamming asleep, let he should be fagged to do anything.
It was indeed a fact, as Edward had remembered, that our thoughtless elders occasionally left the biscuits out, a prize for the night-walking adventurer with nerves of steel.
Edward tumbled out of bed, and pulled a baggy old pair of knickerbockers over his bare shanks. Then he girt himself with a belt, into which he thrust, on the one side a large wooden pistol, on the other an old single-stick; and finally he donned a big slouch-hat—once an uncle's—that we used for playing Guy Fawkes and Charles-the-Second-up-a-tree in. What ever the audience, Edward, if possible, always dressed for his parts with care and conscientiousness; while Harold and I, true Elizabethans, cared little about the mounting of the piece, so long as the real dramatic heart of it beat sound.
Our commander now enjoined on us a silence
`But we'll take the short cut through the Blue Room,' said the wary Selina.
`Of course,' said Edward, approvingly. `I forgot about that. Now then! You lead the way!'
The Blue Room had in prehistoric times been added to by taking in
a superfluous passage, and so not only had the advantage of two
doors, but enabled us to get to the head of the stairs without
passing the chamber wherein our dragon-aunt lay couched. It was
rarely occupied, except when a casual uncle came down for the
night. We entered in noiseless file, the room being plunged in
darkness, except for a bright strip of moonlight on the floor,
across which we must pass for our exit. On this our leading lady
chose to pause, seizing the opportunity to study the hang of her
new dressing-gown. Greatly satisfied threat, she proceeded, after
the feminine fashion, to peacock and to pose, pacing a minuet
down the moonlit patch with an imaginary partner. This was too
much for Edward's histrionic instincts,
Once out on the dark landing, the noise of the storm without told
us that we had exaggerated the necessity for silence; so,
grasping the tails of each other's nightgowns, even as Alpine
climbers rope themselves together in perilous place, we fared
stoutly down the staircase-morraine, and across the grim glacier
of the hall, to where a faint glimmer from the half-open door of
the drawing-room beckoned to us like friendly hostel-lights.
Entering, we found that our thriftless seniors had left the sound
red heart of a fire, easily coaxed into a cheerful blaze; and
biscuits—a plateful—smiled at us in an encouraging sort of
way, together with the halves of a lemon,
`It's a funny thing,' said Edward, as we chatted, `how I hate this room in the daytime. It always means having your face washed, and your hair brushed, and talking silly company talk. But to-night it's really quite jolly. Looks different, somehow.'
`I never can make out,' I said,' what people come here to tea for. They can have their own tea at home if they like,—they're not poor people,—with jam and things, and drink out of their saucer, and suck their fingers and enjoy themselves; but they come here from a long way off, and sit up straight with their feet off the bars of their chairs, and have one cup, and talk the same sort of stuff every time.'
Selina sniffed disdainfully. `You don't know anything about it,'
she said. `In society you have to call on each other. It's the
proper thing to do.'
`Pooh!
`Yes, I shall, some day,' retorted Selina; `but I shan't ask you to come and see me, so there!'
`Wouldn't come if you did, ' growled Edward.
Well, you won't get the chance,' rejoined our sister, claiming her right of the last word. There was no heat about these little amenities, which made up—as we understood it—the art of polite conversation.
`I don't like society people,' put in Harold from the sofa, where
he was sprawling at full length,—a sight the daylight hours
would have blushed to witness. `There were some of 'em here this
afternoon, when you two had gone off to the station. Oh, and I
found a dead mouse on the lawn, and I wanted to skin it, but I
wasn't sure I knew how, by myself; and they came out into the
garden and patted my head,—I wish people wouldn't do
that,—and one of 'em asked me to pick her a flower. Don't know
why she couldn't pick it herself; but I said, `all right, I
`You have to be careful with mice,' reflected Edward; `They're such slippery things. Do you remember we were playing with a dead mouse once on the piano, and the mouse was Robinson Crusoe, and the piano was the island, and somehow Crusoe slipped down inside the island, into its works, and we couldn't get him out, though we tried rakes and all sorts of things, till the tuner came. And that wasn't till a week after, and then—'
Here Charlotte, who had been nodding solemnly, fell over into the
fender; and we realised that the wind had dropped at last, and
the house was lapped in a great stillness. Our vacant beds seemed
to be calling to us imperiously; and we were all glad when Edward
gave the signal for retreat. At the top of the staircase Harold
`By Jove!' he said; `I forgot all about it. The new tutor's sleeping in the Blue Room!'
Lucky he didn't wake up and catch us,' I grunted, drowsily; and both of us, without another thought on the matter, sank into well-earned repose.
Next morning we came down to breakfast braced to grapple with fresh adversity, but were surprised to find our garrulous friend of the previous day—he was late in making his appearance—strangely silent and (apparently) preoccupied. Having polished off our porridge, we ran out to feed the rabbits, explaining to them that a beast of a tutor would prevent their enjoying so much of our society as formerly.
On returning to the house at the fated hour
Some weeks later it happened that Uncle Thomas, while paying us a
flying visit, produced from his pocket a copy of the latest
weekly,
Harold told me the main facts of this episode some time later,—in bits, and with reluctance. It was not a recollection he cared to talk about. The crude blank misery of a moment is apt to leave a dull bruise which is slow to depart, if it ever does so entirely; and Harold confesses to a twinge or two, still, at times, like the veteran who brings home a bullet inside him from martial plains over sea.
He knew he was a brute the moment he had done it; Selina had not
meant to worry, only to comfort and assist. But his soul was one
raw sore within him, when he found himself shut up in the
schoolroom after hours, merely for insisting the 7 time 7
amounted to 47. The injustice of it seemed so flagrant. Why not
47 as much as 49? One number was no prettier than the other to
look at, and it was evidently only a matter of arbitrary taste
and preference, and, anyhow, it had always been 47 to him, and
would be to the end of time. So when Selina came in out of
Of course poor Selina looked for no sacrifice nor heroics
whatever; she didn't even want him to say he was sorry. If he
would only make it up, she would have done the apologising part
herself. But that was not a boy's way. Something solid, Harold
felt, was due form him; and until that was achieved, making-up
must not be thought of, in order that the final effect might not
be spoilt. Accordingly, when his release came, and poor Selina
hung about, trying to catch his eye, Harold, possessed by the
demon of a distorted motive, avoided her steadily—though he
was bleeding inwardly at every minute of delay—and came to me
`I know what she wants most,' said Harold. `She wants that set of tea-things in the toy-shop window, with the red and blue flowers on 'em; she's wanted it for months, 'cos her dolls are getting big enough to have real afternoon tea; and she wants it so badly that she won't walk that side of the street when we go into the town. But it costs five shillings!'
Then we set to work seriously, and devoted the afternoon to a realisation of assets and the composition of a Budget that might have been dated without shame from Whitehall. The result worked out as follows:—
By one uncle, unspent through having been lost for nearly a week—turned up at last in the straw of the dog-kennel..2 6
Carry forward, 2 6
Brought forward, 2 6
By advance form me on security of next uncle, and failing that, to be called in at Christmas..1 0
By shaken out of missionary-box with the help of a knife-blade. (They were our own pennies and a forced levy)..0 4
By bet due from Edward, for walking across the field where Farmer Larkin's bull was, and Edward bet him twopence he wouldn't—called in with difficulty..0 2
By advance form Martha, on no security at all, only you mustn't tell your aunt..1 0
Total 5 0
and at last we breathed again.
The rest promised to be easy. Selina had a tea-party at five on
the morrow, with the chipped old wooden tea-things that had
served her successive dolls from babyhood. Harold would slip off
directly after dinner, going alone, so as not to arouse
suspicion, as we were not allowed to go into the town by
ourselves. It was nearly two miles to our small metropolis, but
there would be plenty of time for him to go and return, even
laden with the olive-branch neatly packed in shavings; besides,
he might meet the butcher, who was his
When next day the hour for action arrived, Harold evaded Olympian attention with an easy modesty born of long practive, and made off for the front gate. Selina, who had been keeping her eye upon him, thought he was going down to the pond to catch frogs, a joy they had planned to share together, and made after him; but Harold, though he heard her footsteps, continued sternly on his high mission, without even looking back; and Selina was left to wander disconsolately among flower-beds that had lost—for her—all scent and colour. I saw it all, and although cold reason approved our line of action, instinct told me we were brutes.
Harold reached the town—so he recounted
It was useless, it was hopeless, all was over, and nothing could
now be done; nevertheless he turned and ran back wildly, blindly,
choking with the big sobs that evoked neither pity nor comfort
form a merciless mocking world around; a stitch
Had Harold been in his right and unclouded senses, he would have vanished through the hedge some seconds earlier, rather than pain the farmer by an unpleasant reminiscences which his appearance might call up; but as things were, he could only stand and blubber hopelessly, caring, indeed, little now what further ill might befall him. the farmer, for his part, surveyed the desolate figure with some astonishment, calling out in no unfriendly accents, `Why, Master Harold! whatever be the matter? Baint running' away, be ee?'
Then Harold, with the unnatural courage born of desperation,
flung himself on the step, and climbing into the cart, fell in
the straw at the bottom of it, sobbing out that he wanted to go
back, go back!
And now the farmer came out in quite a new and unexpected light.
Never a word did he say of broken fences and hurdles, or trampled
crops and harried flocks and herds. One would have thought the man
had never possessed a head of live stock in his life. Instead,
he was deeply interested in the whole dolorous quest of the tea-things,
and sympathised with Harold on the disputed point in
mathematics as if he had been himself at the same stage of
education. As they ensnared him, Harold found himself, to his
surprise, sitting up and chatting to his new friend like man to
man; and before he was dropped at a convenient gap in the garden
hedge, he had promised that when Selina gave her first public
tea-party, little Miss
At the hour of five, Selina, having spent the afternoon searching
for Harold in all his accustomed haunts, sat down disconsolately
to tea with her dolls, who ungenerously refused to wait beyond
the appointed hour. The wooden tea-things seemed more chipped
than usual; and the dolls themselves had more of wax and sawdust,
and less of human colour and intelligence about them, than she
ever remembered before. It was then that Harold burst in , very
dusty, his stockings at his heels, and the channels ploughed by
tears still showing on his grimy cheeks; and Selina was at last
permitted to know that he had been thinking of her ever since his
ill-judged exhibition of temper, and that his sulks had not been
the genuine article, nor had he gone frogging by himself. It was
a very happy hostess who dispensed hospitality that evening to a
glassy-eyed stiff-kneed circle;
But Harold and I, in our stupid masculine way, thought all her happiness sprang from possession of the long-coverted tea-service.
Among the many fatuous ideas that possess the Olympian noodle, this one was pre-eminent; that, being Olympians, they could talk quite freely in our presence on subjects of the closest import to us, so long as names, dates, and other landmarks were ignored. We were supposed to be denied the faculty for putting two and two together; and, like the monkeys, who very sensibly refrain from speech lest they should be set to earn their livings, we were careful to conceal our capabilities for a simple syllogism. Thus we rarely taken by surprise, and so were considered by our disappointed elders to be apathetic and to lack the divine capacity for wonder.
Now the daily output of the letter-bag, with the mysterious
discussions that ensued thereon, had speedily informed us that
Uncle Thomas was intrusted with a mission,—a mission, too,
To clinch our conclusion, we descended suddenly and together on
Martha; proceeding , however, not by simple inquiry as to
facts,—that would never have done,—but by informing her
that the air was full of school and that we knew all about it,
and then challenging denial. Martha was a trusty soul, but a bad
witness for the defence, and we soon and it all out of her. The
word had gone forth, the school had been selected;
It had always been before us as an inevitable bourne, this
strange unknown thing called school; and yet—perhaps I should
say consequently—we had never seriously set ourselves to
consider what it really meant. But now that the grim spectre
loomed imminent, stretching lean hands for one of our flock, it
behoved us to face the situation, to take soundings in this
uncharted sea and find out whither we were drifting.
Unfortunately, the data in our possession were absolutely
insufficient, and we knew not whither to turn for exact
information. Uncle Thomas could have told us all about it, of
course; he had been there himself, once, in the dim and misty
past. But an unfortunate conviction, that Nature had intended
him, for a humourist, tainted all his evidence, besides making it
wearisome to hear. Again, of such among our contemporaries as we
had approached, the trumpets gave forth an uncertain sound.
According to some, it meant larks, revels, emancipation, and a
foretaste of the bliss of manhood. According to others,—the
majority, alas!
It was to Edward, of course, that the situation was chiefly
productive of anxiety; and yet the ensuing change in my own
circumstances and position furnished me also with food for grave
reflexion. Hitherto I had acted mostly to orders. Even when I had
devised and counselled any particular devilry, it had been
carried out on Edward's approbation, and—as eldest—at his
special risk. Henceforward I began to be anxious
It would, moreover, be needless to be a Radical any more. Radical
I never was, really, by nature or by sympathy. The part had been
thrust on me one day, when Edward proposed to foist the House of
Lords on our small Republic. The principles of the thing he set
forth learnedly and well, and it all sounded promising enough,
till he went on to explain that, for the present at least, he
proposed to be the House of Lords himself. We others were to be
the Commons. There would be promotions, of course, he added,
dependent on service and on fitness, and open to both sexes; and
to me in especial he held out hopes of speedy advancement. But in
its initial stages the thing wouldn't work properly unless he
were first and only Lord. Then I put my foot down promptly,
And yet, did this and other gains really outbalance my losses?
Henceforth I should, it was true, be leader and chief; but I
should also be the buffer between the Olympians and my little
clan. To Edward this had been nothing; he had withstood the
impact of Olympus without flinching, like Teneriffe or Atlas
unremoved. But was I equal to the task? And was there not rather
a danger that for the sake of peace and quietness I might be
tempted to compromise, compound, and make terms? sinking thus, by
successive lapses, into the Blameless Prig? I don't mean, of
course, that I though out my thought to the exact point here set
down. In those fortunate days of old one was free from the hard
necessity of transmuting the vague idea into the
The unnatural halo round Edward got more pronounced, his own demeanour mere responsible and dignified, with the arrival of his new clothes. When his trunk and play-box were sent in, the approaching cleavage between our brother, who now belonged to the future, and ourselves, still claimed by the past, was accentuated indeed. His name was pointed on each of them, in large letters, and after their arrival their owner used to disappear mysteriously, and be found eventually wandering round his luggage, murmuring to himself, `Edward—,' in a rapt, remote sort of way. It was a weakness, of course, and pointed to a soft spot in his character; but those who can remember the sensation of first seeing their names in print will not think hardly of him.
As the short days sped by and the grim event cast its shadow
longer and longer across our threshold, an unnatural politeness,
a civility scarce canny, began to pervade the air. In those
latter hours Edward himself was frequently heard to say `Please,'
and also `Would you mind fetchin'
We all trooped down to the station, of course; it is only in later years that the farce of `seeing people off' is seen in its true colours. Edward was the life and soul of the party; and if his gaiety struck one at times as being a trifle overdone, it was not a moment to be critical. As we tramped along, I promised him I would ask Farmer Larkin not to kill any more pigs till he came back for the holidays, and he said he would send me a proper catapult,—the real lethal article, not a kid's plaything. Then suddenly, when we were about half-way down, one of the girls fell a-snivelling.
The happy few who dare to laugh at the woes of sea-sickness will
perhaps remember how , on occasion, the sudden collapse of a
fellow-voyager
At the station, Edward's first care was to dispose his boxes on
the platform so that every on might see the labels and the
lettering thereon. One did not go to school for the first time
every day! Then he read both sides of his ticket carefully;
shifted it to every one of his pockets in turn; and finally fell
to chinking of his money, to keep his courage up. We were all dry
of conversation by this time, and could only stand round and
stare in silence at the victim decked for the altar. And, as I
looked at Edward, in new clothes of a manly cut, with a hard hat
upon his head, a railway ticket in one pocket and money of his
own in the other,—money to spend as he liked
When the train steamed up at last, we all boarded it impetuously
with the view of selecting the one peerless carriage to which
Edward might be intrusted with the greatest comfort and honour;
and as each one found the ideal compartment at the same moment,
and vociferously maintained its merits, he stood some chance for
a time of being left behind. A porter settled the matter by
heaving him through the nearest door; and as the train moved off,
Edward's head was thrust out of the window, wearing on it an
unmistakable first-quality grin that he had been saving up
somewhere for the supreme moment. Very small and white his face
looked, on the long side of the retreating train. But the grin
was visible, undeniable, stoutly maintained; till a curve swept
him form our sight, and he was borne away in
When a crab has lost a leg, his gait is still more awkward than
his wont, till Time and healing Nature make him
And all the while Selina and Charlotte were busy stuffing
Edward's rabbits with unwonted forage, bilious and green;
polishing up the cage of his mice till the occupants raved and
swore like householders in spring-time; and collecting
And perhaps we have reason to be very grateful that, both as
children and long afterwards, we are never allowed to guess how
the absorbing pursuit of the moment will appear, not only to