The Project Gutenberg eBook of Number two Joy Street
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Title: Number two Joy Street
A medley of prose & verse for boys and girls
Contributor: G. K. Chesterton
Marian Allen
Hilaire Belloc
Hugh Chesterman
Walter De la Mare
Rose Fyleman
Laurence Housman
Valerian Viliamovich Karrik
Mabel Marlowe
A. A. Milne
M. Nightingale
B. Kathleen Pyke
Thomas Quayle
Edith Sitwell
Hugh Walpole
Blanche Winder
Release date: July 21, 2026 [eBook #79150]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: D. Appleton And Company, 1924
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79150
Credits: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NUMBER TWO JOY STREET ***
NUMBER TWO JOY STREET
[Illustration: Line drawing of a house with a peaked doorway, windows,
trees, and a triangular floating base decorated with checkerboard
shading]
TO
THE AUTHORS AND ARTISTS
WHO, BY THEIR SKILLFUL FURNISHING
OF NUMBER ONE JOY STREET, HAVE
MADE POSSIBLE THE BUILDING OF
NUMBER TWO
THEY
We found them in the little wood,
We found them suddenly one day:
We heard a tiny laughing sound
Close, close beside us on the ground,
And it was THEY.
We stood and looked, we held our breath;
The little minutes seemed like hours.
They did not speak, they did not stir,
But strange their little faces were
Among strange flowers.
There came a wind, there came a cloud;
The ferns were like a tossing sea....
We searched and searched about the place,
But they were gone without a trace—
How could it be?
ROSE FYLEMAN.
_Number Two Joy Street_
_A Medley of Prose & Verse for Boys and Girls_
_By_
G. K. CHESTERTON
WALTER DE LA MARE
A. A. MILNE
HILAIRE BELLOC
HUGH WALPOLE
LAURENCE HOUSMAN
MADELEINE NIGHTINGALE
EDITH SITWELL
HUGH CHESTERMAN
MABEL MARLOWE
VALERY CARRICK
B. KATHLEEN PYKE
MARIAN ALLEN
THOMAS QUAYLE
BLANCHE WINDER
ROSE FYLEMAN
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
New York :: :: MCMXXIV
COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
[Illustration: Color illustration of a seated child beneath an ornate
floral vine border with leaves and pink flowers]
[Illustration: Black and white line drawing of a pie beside a striped
mug on a surface]
PAGE
THEY _By ROSE FYLEMAN_ vii
_Picture by MARIAN ALLEN._
PRINCE RABBIT _By A. A. MILNE_ 1
_Pictures by HUGH CHESTERMAN._
AUTUMN WIND _By MARIAN ALLEN_ 18
_Picture by THE AUTHOR._
SINGING FEVER _By MABEL MARLOWE_ 19
_Pictures by HARRY ROUNTREE._
THE RAM AND THE LEOPARD _By VALERY CARRICK_ 30
_Pictures by THE AUTHOR._
THE DRAGON AT HIDE-AND-SEEK _By G. K. CHESTERTON_ 38
_Pictures by J. R. MONSELL._
THE CRINOLINE _By B. K. PYKE_ 51
_Pictures by ALEC BUCKELS._
RED PEPPER _By THOMAS QUAYLE_ 53
_Pictures by J. R. MONSELL._
MISHY THE SURF-BABY _By MABEL MARLOWE_ 60
_Pictures by KENNETH HARROW and
HARRY ROUNTREE._
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
THE PRINCESS OF KENSINGTON _By MADELEINE NIGHTINGALE_ 70
THOMAS THE RHYMER _Pictures by C. T. NIGHTINGALE._ 73
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
THE PIRATE SHIP _By MARIAN ALLEN_ 75
_Picture by THE AUTHOR._
A STRANGER _By HUGH WALPOLE_ 76
_Pictures by ROY MELDRUM._
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
PROUD SIR PIM _By HUGH CHESTERMAN_ 99
KNOWLEDGE _Pictures by THE AUTHOR._ 100
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
MAGIC CASEMENTS _By MADELEINE NIGHTINGALE_ 102
_Pictures by C. T. NIGHTINGALE._
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
SETTING THE THAMES ON FIRE _By HUGH CHESTERMAN_ 123
THE WANDERER _Pictures by THE AUTHOR._ 126
THE WRANGLERS 128
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
MOTHER CHRISTMAS _By ROSE FYLEMAN_ 130
_Pictures by TINKER TAYLOR._
FUNNY LOO _By EDITH SITWELL_ 136
_Picture by K. M. GIBBS._
A THING TO BE EXPLAINED _By LAURENCE HOUSMAN_ 138
_Pictures by C. T. NIGHTINGALE._
LUCY _By WALTER DE LA MARE_ 165
_Pictures by HILDA T. MILLER._
ON WHINNEY MOOR _By BLANCHE WINDER_ 207
_Pictures by FREDERICK CARTER._
THE BLACKSMITH _By B. K. PYKE_ 211
_Pictures by ALEC BUCKELS._
SARAH BYNG _By HILAIRE BELLOC_ 213
_Pictures by GABRIEL PIPPET._
[Illustration: A black silhouette graphic of two stylized cats facing
away from each other, their long, straight tails pointing inward and
nearly meeting.]
LIST OF COLOURED PLATES
THEY _By Marian Allen_ _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
AUTUMN WIND _By Marian Allen_ 18
THE DRAGON AT HIDE-AND-SEEK _By J. R. Monsell_ 38
MISHY _By Kenneth Harrow_ 60
THE PIRATE SHIP _By Marian Allen_ 74
PROUD SIR PIM _By Hugh Chesterman_ 97
A THING TO BE EXPLAINED _By C. T. Nightingale_ 136
LUCY _By Hilda T. Miller_ 163
[Illustration: A stylized illustration of a small green plant with dark
berries, growing out of a red and black checkered pot.]
_The pattern on the Cover and End-papers of this book is based on a
design from a picture by Orcagna (No. 569) in the National Gallery. It
is taken from a plate in “Fifteenth-Century Italian Ornament,” by
Sydney Vacher, and is reproduced by kind permission of Messrs. Bernard
Quaritch._
_The coloured wrapper is designed by Alec Buckels._
[Illustration: An illustration of a standing child with crossed arms
wearing a long, pink-flowered black cape, while another child kneels
behind them.]
NUMBER TWO JOY STREET
❦
PRINCE RABBIT _By A. A. MILNE_
[Illustration: An illustration of an elderly, bald man with a long white
beard and glasses, leaning on a cane while wearing a fur-trimmed cloak.]
Once upon a time there was a King who had no children. Sometimes he
would say to the Queen, “If only we had a son!” and the Queen would
answer, “If only we had!” And then on another day he would say, “If only
we had a daughter!” and the Queen would sigh and answer, “Yes, even if
we had a daughter, that would be something.” But they had no children at
all.
As the years went on, and there were still no children in the Royal
Palace, the people began to ask each other who would be the next King to
reign over them. And some said that perhaps it would be the Chancellor,
which was a pity, as nobody liked him very much; and others said that
there would be no King at all, but that everybody would be equal. Those
who were lowest of all thought that this would be a satisfactory ending
of the matter; but those who were higher up felt that, though in some
respects it would be a good thing, yet in other respects it would be an
ill-advised state of affairs; and they hoped, therefore, that a young
Prince would be born in the Palace. But no Prince was born.
One day, when the Chancellor was in audience with the King, it seemed
well to him to speak what was in the people’s minds.
“Your Majesty,” he said; and then stopped, wondering how best to put it.
“Well?” said the King.
“Have I your Majesty’s permission to speak my mind?”
“So far; yes,” said the King.
Encouraged by this, the Chancellor resolved to put the matter plainly.
“In the event of your Majesty’s death——” He coughed and began again. “If
your Majesty ever _should_ die,” he said, “which in any case will not be
for many years—if ever—as, I need hardly say, your Majesty’s loyal
subjects earnestly hope—I mean they hope it will be never. But assuming
for the moment—making the sad assumption——”
“You said you wanted to speak your mind,” interrupted the King. “Is this
it?”
“Yes, your Majesty.”
“Then I don’t think much of it.”
“Thank you, your Majesty.”
“What you are trying to say is, Who will be the next King?”
“Quite so, your Majesty.”
“Ah!” The King was silent for a little. Then he said, “I can tell you
who won’t be.”
The Chancellor did not seek for information on this point, feeling that
in the circumstances the answer was obvious.
“What do you suggest yourself?”
“That your Majesty choose a successor from among the young and the
highly-born of the country, putting him to whatever test seems good to
your Majesty.”
The King pulled at his beard and frowned.
“There must be not one test, but many tests. Let all, who will, offer
themselves, provided only that they are under the age of twenty and are
well-born. See to it.”
He waved his hand in dismissal, and with an accuracy established by long
practice the Chancellor retired backwards out of the Palace.
On the following morning, therefore, it was announced that all those who
were ambitious to be appointed the King’s successor, and who were of
high birth and not yet come to the age of twenty, should present
themselves a week later for the tests to which His Majesty desired to
put them, the first of which was to be a running race. Whereat the
people rejoiced, for they wished to be ruled by one to whom they could
look up, and running was much esteemed in that country.
On the appointed day the excitement was great. All along the course,
which was once round the castle, large crowds were massed, and at the
finishing point the King and Queen themselves were seated in a specially
erected pavilion. And to this pavilion the competitors were brought to
be introduced to their Majesties. And there were nine young nobles,
well-built, and handsome, and (it was thought) intelligent, who were
competitors. And there was also one Rabbit.
The Chancellor had first noticed the Rabbit when he was lining up the
competitors, pinning numbers on their backs so that the people should
identify them, and giving them such instructions as seemed necessary to
him. “Now, now, be off with you,” he had said. “Competitors only, this
way.” And he had made a motion of impatient dismissal with his foot.
[Illustration: A line drawing of a king with a yellow crown sitting on
an ornate throne, looking down at a small rabbit sitting on the floor.]
“I _am_ a competitor,” said the Rabbit. “And I don’t think it is usual,”
he added with dignity, “for the starter to kick one of the competitors
just at the beginning of an important foot-race. It looks like
favouritism.”
“_You_ can’t be a competitor,” laughed all the young nobles.
“Why not? Read the rules.”
The Chancellor, feeling rather hot suddenly, read the rules. The Rabbit
was certainly under twenty; he had a pedigree which showed that he was
of the highest birth; and——
“And,” said the Rabbit, “I am ambitious to be appointed the King’s
successor. Those were all the conditions. Now let’s get on with the
race.”
But first came the introduction to the King. One by one the competitors
came up ... and at the end——
“This,” said the Chancellor, as airily as he could, “is Rabbit.”
Rabbit bowed in the most graceful manner possible; first to the King and
then to the Queen. But the King only stared at him. Then he turned to
the Chancellor.
“Well?”
The Chancellor shrugged his shoulders.
“His entry does not appear to lack validity,” he said.
“He means, your Majesty, that it is all right,” explained Rabbit.
The King laughed suddenly. “Go on,” he said. “We can always have a race
for a new Chancellor afterwards.”
So the race was started. And the young Lord Calomel was much cheered on
coming in second; not only by their Majesties, but also by Rabbit, who
had finished the course some time before, and was now lounging in the
Royal Pavilion.
“A very good style, your Majesty,” said Rabbit, turning to the King.
“Altogether he seems to be a most promising youth.”
“Most,” said the King grimly. “So much so that I do not propose to
trouble the rest of the competitors. The next test shall take place
between you and him.”
“Not racing again, please, your Majesty. That would hardly be fair to
his lordship.”
“No, not racing; fighting.”
“Ah! What sort of fighting?”
“With swords,” said the King.
“I am a little rusty with swords, but I daresay in a day or two——”
“It will be now,” said the King.
“You mean, your Majesty, as soon as Lord Calomel has recovered his
breath?”
The King answered nothing, but turned to his Chancellor.
“Tell the young Lord Calomel that in half an hour I desire him to fight
with this Rabbit——”
“The young Lord Rabbit,” murmured the other competitor to the
Chancellor.
“To fight with him for my kingdom.”
“_And_ borrow me a sword, will you?” said Rabbit. “Quite a small one. I
don’t want to hurt him.”
So, half an hour later, on a level patch of grass in front of the
pavilion, the fight began. It was a short, but exciting, struggle.
Calomel, whirling his long sword in his strong right arm, dashed upon
Rabbit, and Rabbit, carrying his short sword in his teeth, dodged
between Calomel’s legs and brought him toppling. And when it was seen
that the young Lord rose from the ground with a broken arm, and that
with the utmost gallantry he had now taken his sword in his left hand,
the people cheered. And Rabbit, dropping his sword for a moment, cheered
too; and then he picked it up and got it entangled in his adversary’s
legs again, so that again the young Lord Calomel crashed to the ground,
this time with a sprained ankle. And there he lay.
Rabbit trotted into the Royal Pavilion, and dropped his sword in the
Chancellor’s lap.
“Thank you so much,” he said. “Have I won?”
And the King frowned and pulled at his beard.
“There are other tests,” he muttered.
But what were they to be? It was plain that Lord Calomel was in no
condition for another physical test. What, then, of an intellectual
test?
“After all,” said the King to the Queen that night, “intelligence is a
quality not without value to a ruler.”
“Is it?” asked the Queen doubtfully.
[Illustration:
Calomel dashed upon Rabbit.
]
“I have found it so,” said the King, a little haughtily.
“Oh,” said the Queen.
“There is a riddle, of which my father was fond, the answer to which has
never been revealed save to the Royal House. We might make this the
final test between them.”
“What is the riddle?”
“I fancy it goes like this.” He thought for a moment, and then recited
it, beating time with his hand.
“My _first_ I do for your delight,
Although ’tis neither black nor white.
My _second_ looks the other way,
Yet always goes to bed by day.
My _whole_ can fly, and climb a tree,
And sometimes swims upon the sea.”
“What is the answer?” asked the Queen.
“As far as I remember,” said His Majesty, “it is either _Dormouse_ or
_Raspberry_.”
“‘Dormouse’ doesn’t make sense,” objected the Queen.
“Neither does ‘raspberry,’” pointed out the King.
“Then how can they guess it?”
“They can’t. But my idea is that young Calomel should be secretly told
beforehand what the answer is, so that he may win the competition.”
“Is that fair?” asked the Queen doubtfully.
“Yes,” said the King. “Certainly. Or I wouldn’t have suggested it.”
So it was duly announced by the Chancellor that the final test between
the young Lord Calomel and Rabbit would be the solving of an ancient
riddle-me-ree, which in the past had baffled all save those of Royal
blood. Copies of the riddle had been sent to the competitors, and in a
week from that day they would be called upon to give their answers
before their Majesties and the full Court. And with Lord Calomel’s copy
went a message, which said this:
“_From a Friend._ The answer is _Dormouse_. BURN THIS.”
The day came round; and Calomel and Rabbit were brought before their
Majesties; and they bowed to their Majesties, and were ordered to be
seated, for Calomel’s ankle was still painful to him. And when the
Chancellor had called for silence, the King addressed those present,
explaining the conditions of the test to them.
“And the answer to the riddle,” he said, “is in this sealed paper, which
I now hand to my Chancellor, in order that he shall open it, as soon as
the competitors have told us what they know of the matter.”
The people, being uncertain what else to do, cheered slightly.
“I will ask Lord Calomel first,” His Majesty went on. He looked at his
lordship, and his lordship nodded slightly. And Rabbit, noticing that
nod, smiled suddenly to himself.
“Lord Calomel,” said the King, “what do you consider to be the best
answer to this riddle-me-ree?”
The young Lord Calomel tried to look very wise, and he said:
“There are many possible answers to this riddle-me-ree, but the best
answer seems to me to be _Dormouse_.”
“Let someone take a note of that answer,” said the King; whereupon the
Chief Secretary wrote down: “LORD CALOMEL—_Dormouse_.”
“Now,” said the King to Rabbit, “what suggestion have you to make in
this matter?”
Rabbit, who had spent an anxious week inventing answers each more
impossible than the last, looked down modestly.
“Well?” said the King.
“Your Majesty,” said Rabbit with some apparent hesitation, “I have a
great respect for the intelligence of the young Lord Calomel, but I
think that in this matter he is mistaken. The answer is not, as he
suggests, _wood-louse_, but _dormouse_.”
“I _said_ ‘dormouse,’” cried Calomel indignantly.
“I thought you said ‘wood-louse,’” said Rabbit in surprise.
“He certainly said ‘dormouse,’” said the King coldly.
“‘Wood-louse,’ I _think_,” said Rabbit.
“Lord Calomel—‘_Dormouse_,’” read out the Chief Secretary.
“There you are,” said Calomel. “I did say ‘dormouse.’”
“My apologies,” said Rabbit, with a bow. “Then we are both right, for
_dormouse_ it certainly is.”
The Chancellor broke open the sealed paper, and to the amazement of
nearly all present read out “Dormouse.”
“Apparently, your Majesty,” he said in some surprise, “they are both
equally correct.”
The King scowled. In some way, which he didn’t quite understand, he had
been tricked.
“May I suggest, your Majesty,” the Chancellor went on, “that they be
asked now some question of a different order, such as can be answered,
after not more than a few minutes’ thought, here in your Majesty’s
presence. Some problem in the higher mathematics, for instance, such as
might be profitable for a future King to know.”
“What question?” asked His Majesty, a little nervously.
“Well, as an example—what is seven times six?” And, behind his hand, he
whispered to the King, “Forty-two.”
[Illustration: Full-length historical illustration of a man in a red
tunic and blue breeches, making a counting gesture with his hands
against a white background.]
Not a muscle of the King’s face moved, but he looked thoughtfully at the
Lord Calomel. Supposing his lordship did not know!
“Well?” he said reluctantly. “What is the answer?”
The young Lord Calomel thought for some time, and then said,
“Fifty-four.”
“And you?” said the King to Rabbit.
Rabbit wondered what to say. As long as he gave the same answers as
Calomel, he could not lose in the encounter, yet in this case
“Forty-two” was the right answer. But the King, who could do no wrong,
even in arithmetic might decide, for the purposes of the competition,
that “fifty-four” was an answer more becoming to the future ruler of the
country. Was it, then, safe to say “Forty-two”?
“Your Majesty,” he said, “there are several possible answers to this
extraordinarily novel conundrum. At first sight the obvious solution
would appear to be ‘forty-two.’ The objection to this solution is that
it lacks originality. I have long felt that a progressive country such
as ours might well strike out a new line in the matter. Let us agree
that in future seven sixes are fifty-four. In that case the answer, as
Lord Calomel has pointed out, _is_ ‘fifty-four.’ But if your Majesty
would prefer to cling to the old style of counting, then your Majesty
and your Majesty’s Chancellor would make the answer ‘forty-two.’”
After saying which, Rabbit bowed gracefully, both to their Majesties and
to his opponent, and sat down again.
The King scratched his head in a puzzled sort of way.
[Illustration: Simple, dotted black ink line drawing of a rabbit sitting
down, viewed from behind with its head turned to the right.]
“The correct answer,” he said, “is, or will be in the future,
‘fifty-four.’”
“Make a note of that,” whispered the Chancellor to the Chief Secretary.
“Lord Calomel guessed this at his first attempt; Rabbit at his second
attempt. I therefore declare Lord Calomel the winner.”
“Shame!” said Rabbit.
“Who said that?” cried the King furiously.
Rabbit looked over his shoulder, with the object of identifying the
culprit, but was apparently unsuccessful.
“However,” went on the King, “in order that there should be no doubt in
the minds of my people as to the absolute fairness with which this
competition is being conducted, there will be one further test. It
happens that a King is often called upon to make speeches and
exhortations to his people, and for this purpose the ability to stand
evenly upon two legs for a considerable length of time is of much value
to him. The next test, therefore, will be——”
But at this point Lord Calomel cleared his throat so loudly that the
King had to stop and listen to him.
“Quite so,” said the King. “The next test, therefore, will be held in a
month’s time, when his lordship’s ankle is healed, and it will be a test
to see who can balance himself longest upon two legs only.”
Rabbit lolloped back to his home in the wood, pondering deeply.
[Illustration: A whimsical historical illustration of a person with a
tall, pointed red-and-blue hat shrugging their shoulders at a small
rabbit sitting before them.]
Now there was an enchanter who lived in the wood, a man of many magical
gifts. He could (it was averred by the countryside) extract coloured
ribbons from his mouth, cook plum-puddings in a hat, and produce as many
as ten silk handkerchiefs, knotted together, from a twist of paper. And
that night, after a simple dinner of salad, Rabbit called upon him.
“Can you,” he said, “turn a rabbit into a man?”
The enchanter considered this carefully.
“I can,” he said at last, “turn a plum-pudding into a rabbit.”
“That,” said Rabbit, “to be quite frank, would not be a helpful
operation.”
“I can turn almost anything into a rabbit,” said the enchanter with
growing enthusiasm. “In fact, I like doing it.”
Then Rabbit had an idea.
“Can you turn a man into a rabbit?”
“I did once. At least I turned a baby into a baby rabbit.”
“When was that?”
“Eighteen years ago. At the court of King Nicodemus. I was giving an
exhibition of my powers to him and his good Queen. I asked one of the
company to lend me a baby, never thinking for a moment that——The young
Prince was handed up. I put a red silk handkerchief over him, and waved
my hands. Then I took the handkerchief away.... The Queen was very much
distressed. I tried everything I could, but it was useless. The King was
most generous about it. He said that I could keep the rabbit. I carried
it about with me for some weeks, but one day it escaped. Dear, dear!” He
wiped his eyes gently with a red silk handkerchief.
“Most interesting,” said Rabbit. “Well, this is what I want you to do.”
And they discussed the matter from the beginning.
A month later the great Standing Competition was to take place. When all
was ready, the King rose to make his opening remarks.
“We are now,” he began, “to make one of the most interesting tests
between our two candidates for the throne. At the word ‘Go!’ they
will——” And then he stopped suddenly. “Why, what’s this?” he said,
putting on his spectacles. “Where is the young Lord Calomel? And what is
that second rabbit doing? There was no need to bring your brother,” he
added severely to Rabbit.
“I am Lord Calomel,” said the second rabbit meekly.
“Oh!” said the King.
“Go!” said the Chancellor, who was a little deaf.
Rabbit, who had been practising for a month, jumped on his back paws and
remained there. Lord Calomel, who had no practice at all, remained on
all fours. In the crowd at the back the enchanter chuckled to himself.
“How long do I stay like this?” asked Rabbit.
“This is all very awkward and distressing,” said the King.
“May I get down?” said Rabbit.
“There is no doubt that the Rabbit has won,” said the Chancellor.
“Which rabbit?” cried the King crossly. “They’re both rabbits.”
“The one with the white spots behind the ears,” said Rabbit helpfully.
“May I get down?”
There was a sudden cry from the back of the hall.
“Your Majesty?”
“Well, well, what is it?”
The enchanter pushed his way forward.
“May I look, your Majesty?” he said in a trembling voice. “White spots
behind the ears? Dear, dear! Allow me!” He seized Rabbit’s ears, and
bent them this way and that.
“Ow!” said Rabbit.
“It is! Your Majesty, it is!”
“Is what?”
“The son of the late King Nicodemus, whose country is now joined to your
own. Prince Silvio.”
“Quite so,” said Rabbit airily, hiding his surprise. “Didn’t any of you
recognize me?”
“Nicodemus only had one son,” said the Chancellor, “and he died as a
baby.”
“Not died,” said the enchanter, and forthwith explained the whole sad
story.
“I see,” said the King, when the story was ended. “But of course that is
neither here nor there. A competition like this must be conducted with
absolute impartiality.” He turned to the Chancellor. “Which of them won
that last test?”
“Prince Silvio,” said the Chancellor.
“Then, my dear Prince Silvio——”
“One moment,” interrupted the enchanter excitedly. “I’ve just thought of
the words. I _knew_ there were some words you had to say.”
He threw his red silk handkerchief over Rabbit, and cried “Hey presto!”
And the handkerchief rose and rose and rose....
And there was Prince Silvio!
You can imagine how loudly the people cheered. But the King appeared not
to notice that anything surprising had happened.
“Then, my dear Prince Silvio,” he went on, “as the winner of this most
interesting series of contests, you are appointed successor to our
throne.”
“Your Majesty,” said Silvio, “this is too much.” And he turned to the
enchanter and said, “May I borrow your handkerchief for a moment? My
emotion has overcome me.”
So on the following day, Prince Rabbit was duly proclaimed heir to the
throne before all the people. But not until the ceremony was over did he
return the enchanter’s red handkerchief.
“And now,” he said to the enchanter, “you may restore Lord Calomel to
his proper shape.”
And the enchanter placed his handkerchief on Lord Calomel’s head, and
said “Hey presto!” and Lord Calomel stretched himself and said “Thanks
very much.” But he said it rather coldly, as if he were not really very
grateful.
So they all lived happily for a long time. And Prince Rabbit married the
most beautiful Princess of those parts; and when a son was born to them
there was much feasting and jollification. And the King gave a great
party, whereat minstrels, tumblers, jugglers and suchlike were present
in large quantities to give pleasure to the company. But in spite of a
suggestion made by the Princess, the enchanter was not present.
“But I hear he is so clever,” said the Princess to her husband.
“He has many amusing inventions,” replied the Prince, “but some of them
are not in the best of taste.”
“Very well, dear,” said the Princess.
AUTUMN WIND _By MARIAN ALLEN_
The Autumn Wind I hear it say,
“Over the hills and far away—
The folded hills that are hedged and green
Where warm little villages huddle between—
Where peeps the spire of a half-hid town—
Over the hills that are furrowed and brown
To the distant hills that are blue and thin
Where the land must end and the sea begin—
Light as a leaf from the wind-blown tree—
Over the hills to the dancing sea—
Chasing your shadow across the sun—
Up little Playfellow! Up and run!”
[Illustration: Art nouveau illustration of a person with wild brown hair
leaping joyfully above a rolling landscape, surrounded by falling leaves
and a large white cloud.]
SINGING FEVER _By MABEL MARLOWE_
One midsummer eve, Gollop the gnome went into his little house, shut the
door, and began to sing. He began to sing softly at first, as if he had
a baby in a cradle; but after a while his song grew louder, and louder,
and louder still.
“Stop that noise, Gollop,” shouted the other gnomes, standing outside in
the lane.
“I can’t!” answered Gollop, and he went on singing more lustily than
ever. (The worst of it was, his voice was cracked.)
Then the other gnomes began to frown and to grumble and to stop their
ears. They banged on Gollop’s door, and shouted out, “Stop that noise,
Gollop!”
“I’ve tried, but I can’t,” replied Gollop, and he drew a long breath and
began on his eighteenth song. Oh, such a noise he made! Then all the
lady gnomes went into their houses and shut the doors and went to bed
and refused to get up.
But Gollop went on singing. All through the night he sang, and every
moment the sound of it grew louder. When morning came all the other
gnomes had headache. All of them had ear-ache, and all of them were as
vexed as they could be. They went to milk the cows, but the cows would
give no milk. They went to collect the eggs, but the hens had laid none.
Then the gnomes grew most annoyed with Gollop. They banged on his door
with their fists and they said, “Oh, Gollop, for goodness’ sake stop
that noise. The cows have gone dry and the hens have laid no eggs, and
our wives have gone under the bedclothes and refused to get up. And all
through you. Stop that noise at once!”
But Gollop answered, “Oh, friends, I am very sorry, but I simply can’t
stop singing. I have got singing fever.”
Then all the gnomes looked very startled and very worried in their
minds, and one of them said, “Oh, Gollop, if you really have got singing
fever I suppose you must sing. But you need not do it here, right in the
middle of the village. Get up. Put on your hat and go right away. Go
miles away, where we cannot hear you.”
“It might be catching!” said the other gnomes, looking fearfully at one
another.
Gollop the gnome opened his door and strode out, singing all the time.
Up the village street he went, and across the open moor, and away
through the woodlands—and away—and away. The sound of his singing grew
softer and softer, and at last faded altogether.
Then the wives got up, and the cows began to moo. The hens each laid an
egg, and all the village was at peace.
Gollop the gnome went singing on his way, and by evening he was twenty
miles away from home, right on the top of a pine-covered hill. A little
man lived here, in a house made of pine-trees, and when he heard Gollop
coming he called out, “Stop that noise!”
“I can’t!” said Gollop.
“Why not?”
“Because I’ve got singing fever.”
“Dear me, that is very serious,” said the little man. “Have you tried a
cure?”
[Illustration:
“Stop that noise,
Gollop!”
]
“I didn’t know there was a cure,” said Gollop (singing all the time).
“Oh yes, there is a cure. You simply have to do some fiddling. Then all
the fever goes out of your voice into the fiddle.”
“I haven’t got a fiddle,” said Gollop.
“Never mind. I will lend you mine. But be sure you don’t lose it,” said
the little man, and he went into his house and fetched a little fiddle
and a little bow.
“There! That will cure your singing fever,” he said.
Gollop put out his hand and took the fiddle, and immediately he touched
it his singing stopped.
“Keep it for three days,” said the little man, “and be sure you don’t
lose it.”
“Oh, thank you!” cried Gollop, and he kissed the little man on both
cheeks. Then he turned and ran down the hill. Very quickly he hurried
through the woodland and back across the moor, and he ran into the
village just as the gnomes were saying “Good-night.”
“Hallo, Gollop! Are you cured?” they said. And when he told them that he
was cured they all shook hands with him, and patted him on the back and
called him “mate.”
But no sooner had Gollop gone into his house and closed the door than a
weird noise was heard—a thin, screamy kind of noise, with a grunt here
and there, and then a screech, and then a long, long wail.
“Stop treading on the dog, Gollop!” shouted the gnomes.
“I’m not treading on the dog,” replied Gollop.
“Stop teasing the cat!”
“I’m not teasing the cat.”
“Well, whatever you are doing, stop it! Stop it at once!”
“I can’t!” cried poor Gollop. “I’ve tried, but I can’t. I do believe
I’ve got fiddle fever!”
Then all the other gnomes grew most annoyed with poor Gollop, They
banged on his door with their fists, and they said:
“Oh, Gollop, stop that noise at once! It is worse than singing fever. It
is making all the pigs lie on their backs with their feet in the air.
Open this door at once!”
So Gollop opened the door. Then one gnome said, “If he has no fiddle he
can’t have fiddle fever. Take his fiddle away!” So they took his fiddle
away from him. One gnome gave it to another. “Pass it on,” he said. That
gnome gave it to another. “Pass it on,” he said. And the fiddle was
passed on and on and on, all the way round the world.
“There! That’s soon settled! That has cured you of fiddle fever,” said
the gnomes, feeling very satisfied with themselves.
“Yes,” replied Gollop sadly. “Yes, that is true, BUT—but—I do believe
the singing fever is coming back again.”
Then he began to sing once more, and the noise of it was like the
shaking of pebbles in a can.
“Quick! Give him back his fiddle,” cried the gnomes. But the fiddle was
gone.
And Gollop went on singing.
Then all the gnomes began to get into a state, and they said, “Oh,
Gollop, if you’ve got singing fever we suppose you must sing. But please
don’t do it here. Our wives will go under the bedclothes and refuse to
get up. The cows will go dry, and the hens will not lay, and all the
pigs will lie on their backs with their feet up in the air. So please go
away. Go miles away, where we cannot hear you.”
So Gollop the gnome came out, singing all the time. Along the village
street he went, all in the glistening starlight. He crossed the open
moor, and went through the shadowy woodlands, away and away. The sound
of his singing grew softer and softer, and at last faded altogether.
Through the dark night Gollop travelled, singing all the way, and at
dawn he came to the hill where the pines grew.
The little old man was just getting up. He put his head out of the
window and shouted, “Stop that noise!”
“I can’t! I’ve got singing fever!” said Gollop.
“What? Again? I thought I cured you! What have you done with my fiddle?”
“It has gone round the world!”
[Illustration: Whimsical illustration of an old man in blue hat
whistling musical notes, causing a small pig to lie on its back, while a
gnome-like figure flees.]
“How very tiresome!” said the little old man. “It might be weeks before
it gets back to me again. As for you, I will lend you my flute. I can’t
let you go about the world making that noise. I will lend you my flute,
but be sure you don’t lose it.”
“Will it cure my singing fever?” asked Gollop the gnome.
“Yes, to be sure! But be sure you don’t lose it.” Then the little old
man drew in his head from the window, and in a few moments he came out
at the door, bringing a tortoise-shell flute, with silver stops to it.
Gollop put out his hand and took the flute, and immediately he touched
it his singing stopped.
Then Gollop turned and ran down the hill. Quickly he sped through the
woodlands and across the moor, and ran into the village just as the
gnomes were going off to work.
“Hallo, Gollop! Are you cured?” they said. And when he said “Yes” they
all shook hands with him once more, and patted him on the back and
called him “pal.”
But no sooner had Gollop got into his house and closed the door, than an
eerie, wailing sound was heard. Then there came a sound like a choke,
and then a long, long squeal.
“Stop hurting the pig, Gollop!” cried the gnomes.
“I’m not touching the pig.”
“Stop teasing the parrot!”
“I’m not touching the parrot.”
“Well, whatever you are doing, stop it at once!”
“I can’t!” cried poor Gollop. “I’ve tried, but I can’t. I do believe
I’ve got flute fever!”
Then all the gnomes grew most dreadfully annoyed with Gollop. They
knocked on his door with their sticks, and they said:
[Illustration:
Gollop turned and ran down the hill.
]
“Oh, Gollop, stop that noise at once! It is worse than singing fever. It
is worse than fiddle fever. It is making the goat stand on his hind legs
like a circus pony. Open this door at once!”
So Gollop opened the door. Then one gnome said, “If he has no flute he
cannot have flute fever. Take his flute away.” So they took his flute
away from him. One gnome gave it to another. “Pass it on,” he said. That
gnome gave it to another. “Pass it on,” he said. And the flute was
passed on and on and on, all the way round the world.
“There! That’s settled! That has soon cured you of flute fever,” said
the gnomes, feeling very proud and satisfied with themselves.
“Yes,” replied Gollop sadly. “Yes, dear friends, that is true.
But—but—I’m afraid the singing fever is coming back again.”
Then he began to sing.
“Give him back his flute,” cried the gnomes, tearing at their hair. But
the flute was gone.
Then the gnomes began to get into a fluster, and they said, “Oh, Gollop,
if you really have got singing fever we suppose you must sing. But pray
don’t do it here. Our wives will go to bed, and the hens will refuse to
lay, and all the cows in the meadows will go dry. So please go away. Go
a long way away. Go miles away, where we can’t hear you.”
“It’s all very fine! I’m getting tired,” said Gollop. But he went away
all the same, singing as he went. The sun was shining as he passed
through the village. Cocks were crowing in the farmyards and larks were
singing in the sky. On through the awakening woodland Gollop travelled,
and at last he reached the little house on the hill-top once more.
The little old man was sitting on a gate, swinging idly to and fro.
“Stop that noise!” he cried.
“I can’t! I’ve got singing fever!” replied Gollop.
“What? Again? I thought I cured you! What have you done with my flute?”
“It has gone round the world.”
“How very tiresome! It might be weeks before it gets back to me again.
As for you, I will lend you my musical box. I can’t let you go about the
world making that terrible noise. I will lend you my musical box. But be
sure you don’t lose it.”
Then the little old man felt in his coat pocket, and took out a small,
round musical box, with a picture on the top of it and a handle in the
middle.
“Take it, and be sure you don’t lose it,” he said. So Gollop took the
musical box into his hand, and immediately he touched it the singing
stopped.
“Oh, thank you,” said Gollop, and he turned and ran down the hill. All
through the sunny afternoon he trudged homewards, and he reached the
village just as the gnomes were coming back from work.
“Hallo, Gollop! Are you cured?” they said, and when he answered “Yes”
they patted him on the back and shook hands with him and called him
“chum.”
But no sooner had Gollop got into his house and closed the door, than a
faint, tinkly, fairy-like sound came floating through the window. It was
like silver bells shaking in the wind. It was like the laughter of
fairies. It was sweeter than choir boys singing in the little gnome
choir.
“Have you got a fairy in there?” asked the gnomes.
“No, dear friends. But I’m afraid I’ve got musical-box fever!” said
Gollop.
Then the gnomes looked at one another with big, slow smiles, and
delightful twinklings of merry eyes.
“If you’ve got musical-box fever,” they said, “we all think you had
better keep it.”
And he did.
[Illustration: Whimsical illustration of gnomes, mice, and a chick
surrounding an old man with a pot, above a tiny child walking a beetle
on a leash near 'THE END'.]
THE RAM AND THE LEOPARD _By VALERY CARRICK_
AN AFRICAN TALE
Once upon a time a ram thought he would build himself a house in the
forest. So he went into the forest and made a clearing.
“That’s done now,” he said; “to-morrow I’ll have a rest, and after that
I’ll start building my house.”
Then he went back to his home.
But at the same time a leopard thought he would build himself a house in
the forest. So he went there and began to look for a likely place, when
suddenly he saw that a clearing had already been made, as though on
purpose for a house to be built there.
“That’s splendid!” he thought. “I’ll begin to build my house here!”
And he started dragging sticks and stakes and logs along; he worked all
day, and got very tired, and then he said:
“Well, the beginning is always the hardest part! To-morrow I’ll rest,
and then start work again!”
The next day the ram came along, and saw all the sticks and stakes and
logs gathered there: all he had to do was to put them together! And he
was very much surprised, and he thought:
“This must be the fairies helping me!”
And then he began putting the walls up. And he got half way, and then
felt very tired, so he went away to rest.
The next day the leopard came along again, and saw that the walls had
been half built, and he thought:
“There, isn’t that splendid! I had a rest yesterday, and the fairies
meantime helped me!”
[Illustration: Black and white line drawing of a grumpy-faced leopard
standing on a hill in a jungle clearing surrounded by palm trees.]
And he started to work and finished building the walls, and got very
tired, and thought:
“That’s all right! All to-morrow I’ll rest, and then I’ll finish it
off!”
The next day the ram came along, and saw that it was all done but for
the roof. And he set to work and put the roof on. Then he thought:
“Well, to-morrow I’ll just have a good rest, and then I can start moving
in!”
The next day the leopard came along again, and when he saw what had
happened he thought:
[Illustration: Black and white line drawing of a horned ram standing in
a clearing next to a pile of logs, with palm trees behind.]
“There now, would you believe it, the work’s finished! The roof is on!
To-morrow I’ll move in!”
The next day the ram started moving into his new house, and the leopard
also started moving into HIS new house, and they both came along and
met, and the ram said:
“This house is for ME to live in! I built it, and the fairies helped
me!”
But the leopard said:
“No! This house is for ME to live in! It was I who built it, and it was
ME whom the fairies helped!”
[Illustration: Black and white line drawing of a leopard and a ram
facing each other before a thatched hut with a pointed roof and palm
trees.]
And they argued about it for a long time, and couldn’t settle who was to
live in the house, or whom the fairies had helped. And in the end they
went for judgment to the lion, and said to him:
“Please will YOU decide the question: Who built the house, whom did the
fairies help, and who is to live in it?”
And the lion replied:
“Both of you built the house, and the fairies helped you both, and so
both of you go and live in it, and don’t quarrel!”
[Illustration: Black and white line drawing of a grumpy lion sitting
centrally between two palm trees, facing a ram and a leopard standing
below.]
So both the leopard and the ram started living in the house, and they
got on all right and didn’t quarrel. The leopard would go off hunting,
bring back his prey, and eat it. And the ram just kept on walking about
round the house, nibbling the grass and getting quite satisfied with
that. And the leopard began to wonder how it was: the ram had no sharp
teeth, had no claws, and besides that he was lazy, so how did he manage
to get plenty to eat and keep fat? How did HE catch his prey? So he
asked him one day, and said:
“How do YOU catch your prey, Mr. Ram?”
And the ram answered:
“How do I catch my prey? First of all you show me how YOU catch your
prey!”
[Illustration: Black and white line drawing of a leopard sitting upright
near a single log, watching a ram headbutt the ground near a thatched
hut.]
Then the leopard put a log of wood on the ground, and began to approach
it as if he were hunting: first he’d come up from one side, crouch down
on the earth and creep along; then he’d come up from the other side,
crouch down on the earth and creep along. Then all at once he’d spring
right on to the log and start gnawing it with his teeth, hitting it with
his paws, and tearing it with his claws. And the ram watched him, and
then said:
“Well, now I’ll show you how I catch my prey.”
[Illustration: Black and white line drawing of a ram headbutting a
wide-eyed leopard in the side, with palm trees in the background.]
And he went and stood in front of the log, and then began to back. And
he backed and backed, till all at once he ran forward at the log and
butted it hard with his horns, and the log simply went spinning away
like a top. So the leopard saw that the ram was very strong, and he
thought to himself:
“The ram’s a dangerous beast! I must be on the look-out, or he’ll do for
me. But there’s one good thing: I know he’s got to go back before he
comes forward!”
And after that they went on living happily, the leopard going off
hunting and bringing back his prey, and the ram walking round the house
and nibbling the grass. But the leopard kept a sharp look-out and
watched to see if the ram hadn’t started backing.
Then came the rains, and the earth got wet and slippery. And one day the
leopard and the ram were standing together when suddenly the ram
slipped, and he slipped so much that he went quite a long way back. And
when the leopard saw this he got a terrible fright, and thought:
“Oh dear, oh dear! My end has come!”
And with that he dashed off into the forest. And ever since then the ram
has been sole master of the house.
[Illustration: Black and white line drawing of a ram standing in a
grassy clearing, watching a leopard flee into the background past palm
trees.]
[Illustration: Detailed black and white line drawing of a mechanical
dragon built like a steamship or train, with smokestacks, biplane wings,
and riveted metal plates.]
THE DRAGON AT HIDE-AND-SEEK _By G. K. CHESTERTON_
[Illustration: Monochrome historical illustration of a warrior standing
on a steep cliff peak holding a spear, while a diverse group below
climbs up the rocky slope.]
Once upon a time there was a knight who was an outlaw, that is a man
hiding from the king and everybody else; and one who lived so wild and
lawless a life, in being hunted from one hiding-place to another, that
he had great difficulty in going to church every Sunday. Although his
ordinary way of life was full of fighting, and burning, and breaking
down doors, and therefore looked a little careless, he had been very
carefully brought up, and it was obviously a very serious thing that he
should be late for church. But he was so clever and daring in his way of
getting from one place to another without being caught, that he
generally managed it somehow. And it was often a considerable
disturbance to the congregation when he came with a great crash flying
in through the big stained-glass window and smashing it to atoms, having
been patiently hanging on a gargoyle outside for half an hour; or, when
he dropped suddenly out of the belfry, where he had been hiding in one
of the big bells, and alighted almost on the heads of the worshippers.
Nor were they better pleased when he preferred to dig a hole in the
churchyard and crawl under the church-wall, coming up suddenly under a
lifted paving-stone in the middle of the nave or the chancel. They were
too well-behaved, of course, to notice the incident during the service;
and the more just among them admitted that even outlaws must get to
church somehow; but it caused a certain amount of talk in the town, and
the history of the knight and his wonderful way of hiding everywhere and
anywhere was by this time familiar to the whole countryside. At last
this knight, who was called Sir Laverok, began to feel so sure of his
power of escaping and hiding, whenever he wanted to, that he would come
into the market-place in the most impudent manner when any great
business was being transacted, such as the elections of the guilds, or
even to the coronation of the king, to whom he addressed some
well-chosen words of advice about his public duties, in a loud voice
from the chimney-pot of an adjoining house. Often when the king and his
lords were out hunting, or even when they were in camp during a great
war, they would look up and see Sir Laverok perched like a bird on a
tree above their heads, and ever ready with friendly counsels and almost
fatherly good wishes. But though they pursued him with emotions of
uninterrupted rage, lasting over several months, they were never able to
discover what were the holes and corners in which he hid himself. They
were forced to admit that his talent for disappearing into undiscovered
places was of the highest order, and that in a children’s game of
Hide-and-Seek he would have covered himself with everlasting glory; but
they all felt that a fugitive from justice should be strictly forbidden
to cultivate genius of this kind.
[Illustration: Black and white line drawing of a group on the ground
looking up at a fairy-like figure perched high in a slender tree.]
Now it was just about this time that there fell upon the whole of that
country an enormous calamity far worse than any war or pestilence. It
was of a kind which we have very few chances of experiencing nowadays;
though in the other matter of wars and diseases our opportunities are
still wide and varied. There had appeared in the wilderness, to the
north of that country, a monster of huge size and horrible habits and
disposition; a monster who might have been called for the sake of
simplicity, a dragon, only he had feet like an elephant, but a hundred
times bigger, with which he used to stamp and crush everything to a flat
and fine paste before he licked it up with a tongue as long and large as
the Great Sea Serpent; and his great jaws opened wide like a whale’s,
only that they could have swallowed a shoal of whales as if they were
whitebait. No weapons or missiles seemed to be of any avail against him;
for his skin was plated with iron of incredible thickness. Indeed, some
declared that he was entirely composed of iron, and that he had been
made out of that material by a magician who lived beyond the wilderness,
where such crafts and spells were more seriously studied. Indeed, it was
hinted by some that the land of the magicians was in every way in
advance of their own, and well worthy of emulation; and that if anyone
objected that this marvellous machinery had no apparent effect except in
killing people and destroying beautiful things, he should be rebuked as
one lacking in enterprise and a larger outlook upon the future. But
those who said this, commonly said it before they had actually met the
new animal; and it was noticed that after meeting him they seldom
uttered these thoughts, or, indeed, any other.
[Illustration: Black and white line drawing of a chaotic group of
historical figures and a dog scrambling frantically up a grassy hill
slope.]
The monster may have been made of iron, and his nerves and muscles may
have been, as some said, made like an arrangement of wheels and wires,
but he was most unmistakably alive; and proved it by having a hearty
appetite and an evident enjoyment of life. He trampled and devoured
first, all the fortifications of the frontier, and then the castles and
the larger towns of the interior; and by the time that he was marching
towards the capital, the king and his courtiers were all climbing to the
tops of towers, and everybody else to the tops of trees. These
precautions proved inadequate in practical experience; in very practical
experience. So long as the monster could be seen twenty miles away like
a marching mountain, already fantastic in outline, but still blue or
purple with distance, and there was no other sign of him except a slight
shaking of the houses as in a mild earthquake, these conjectures and
expedients could be debated copiously, if not always calmly. But when
the creature came near enough for his habits to be closely studied, it
was clear that he could tread down trees like grass, and flatten out
castles like houses of cards. It became more and more the fashion to
seek out less showy and more secluded country resorts; the whole
population, led by magistrates, merchants, and all its natural leaders,
fleeing with startling rapidity to the mountains and concealing
themselves in holes and caverns, which they blocked behind them with big
rocks. Even this was not very successful; the monster proceeded to scale
the mountains with the gaiety of a goat, to kick the rocky barricades to
pieces, letting in daylight on the cowering company within; and many of
them were able to recognise the familiar shape of the long and curling
tongue of the intelligent creature, exploring their retreat and coiling
and twisting and darting about in a very playful and sportive manner.
Those who had not found any hole to crawl into, and who were clinging in
crowds to the crags higher up the hill, were at this moment, however,
surprised with a sight that almost took their thoughts for an instant
off the universal peril. On the highest crag of all, above their heads,
had appeared suddenly the figure of Sir Laverok with his old spear in
his hand, with his sword girt around his ragged armour, and the wind
waving about his wild hair that was the colour of flame. In all that
huddling crowd it was only the man in hiding who stood out conspicuous;
and only the man fleeing from justice who did not flee.
“I am not afraid,” he said in answer to their wild cries. “You know I
have a trick of finding my way to places of safety. And as it happens, I
know a castle to which I shall retreat, and to which the dragon can
never come.”
“But my good Sir,” said the Chancellor, pausing in the act of trying to
creep into a rabbit-burrow, “the dragon can grind castles to powder with
his heel. I regret to say that he showed not the least embarrassment
even in approaching the Law Courts.”
“I know of a castle which he cannot reach,” said Sir Laverok.
“The offensive animal,” said the Lord Chamberlain, poking his head for a
moment out of a hole in the ground, “actually entered the king’s private
chamber without knocking.”
“I know of a private chamber that he cannot enter,” replied the outlaw
knight.
“It is very doubtful,” came the muffled voice of the Lord High Admiral
from somewhere underground, “whether we shall even be safe in any of the
caverns.”
“I know a cavern where I shall be safe,” said Sir Laverok.
[Illustration: A line drawing of a knight in armor charging with a spear
away from three figures huddled behind rocks.]
At the foot of the steep slope to which they clung spread a large
plateau like a plain; and over this bare tableland, at the moment, the
monster was prowling up and down like a polar bear, considering what he
would destroy next. Every time he turned his head towards them, the
crowds clambered a little higher up the hill; but they soon saw, to
their astonishment, that Sir Laverok was not climbing up, but climbing
down. He dropped from the last overhanging rock, and rushed out upon the
plain against the monster; when he came within a short distance, the
knight gave one wild leap and threw his spear like a thunderbolt.
What happened in the flash of that thunderbolt nobody in the crowd
seemed to know. Those who knew them best were of opinion that they all
shut their eyes tight, and most probably fell flat on their faces.
Others say that the monster stamped his foot upon his enemy with so
stunning a shock that a cloud of dust rolled up to the clouds of heaven,
and for a moment hid the whole scene. Others, again, explained that the
vast immeasurable bulk of the monster had come between them and the
victim. Anyhow, it is certain that when that vast bulk turned once more
and began swaying and lurching backwards and forwards on its lonely
prowl, no sign of the victim could be seen. Probably he had been stamped
to mire as everything else had been. But if it were conceivable that he
had indeed escaped, as he had boasted, it was hard to say where; as
there did not seem to be anywhere for him to escape to. And the
authorities in the holes and caves could not but regret that they had
not condemned him to be burned as a wizard instead of hanged as a rebel,
whenever they should have put the final touch to the sentence by
carrying it into effect. They comforted themselves in the cave by the
reflection that at least no hasty capture or premature execution had yet
put it out of their power to rectify the mistake; but for the moment it
seemed clear that their chances either of hanging or burning the
gentleman were further off than ever.
Just at that moment, however, there was a new interruption. It so
happened that the king’s third daughter was standing in the crowd on the
slope; for all the elder members of the royal family were enjoying a
temporary and semi-official retirement from the cares of state at the
bottom of a dry well on the other side of the mountain range. But she
had been unable or unwilling to travel with the extreme rapidity which
they had had the presence of mind to exhibit; for she was rather an
absent-minded person, wholly without aptitude for practical politics.
She was called the Princess Philomel, and was a dreamy sort of person,
with long hair and blue eyes that were like the blue of distant
horizons, and she was commonly very silent; but she had watched the
adventure of the vanishing outlaw with more interest than she commonly
showed in anything; and she startled everybody at this stage by breaking
her silence and calling out in a clear voice:
“Yes; he has found his fairy castle where no dragon can come.”
[Illustration: Black and white line drawing of a woman, a man, and a dog
on a rocky hill, looking toward smoking debris across a gap.]
The more dignified Councillors of State were just venturing to put their
noses above ground in order to remonstrate respectfully against the
breach of etiquette, when everybody’s attention was again distracted to
the monster, who was behaving in an even more extraordinary way than
usual. Instead of pacing backwards and forwards with a certain pomposity
as he had done before, he was bounding to and fro, taking totally
unnecessary leaps into the air and clawing in a most uncomfortable and
inconsequent fashion.
“What is the matter with him now?” enquired the Master of the
Buckhounds, who was something of a student of animal life, and would,
under other circumstances, have been much interested in the phenomenon.
“The monster is angry,” replied the Princess Philomel in the same
absolute if abstracted fashion. “He is angry because the knight has
reached the magic chamber and cannot be found.”
If the monster was indeed exhibiting anger, it would seem that his anger
had an element of self-reproach. For he was evidently clawing and
scratching at himself rather in the manner of a dog hunting a flea, but
much more savagely.
“Can he be killing himself?” asked the Lord Chancellor hopefully. “I am
the keeper of the King’s conscience, and not, of course, the keeper of
the dragon’s. But it seems possible that his conscience, if once
aroused, would find in retrospect some legitimate ground for remorse.”
“Nonsense,” said the Chamberlain, “why should he kill himself?”
“If it comes to that,” answered the other, “why should he fight himself,
as he seems to be doing?”
“Because,” answered the Princess, “Sir Laverok has at last reached the
cavern where he is safe.”
But even as she spoke, a further and final change seemed to pass over
the monster. For a moment it looked as if he had turned into two or
three different monsters, for the different parts of him were behaving
in different ways. One hind leg rested as calmly on the earth as the
column of a temple, while the other was kicking wildly up behind and
thrashing the air like the sail of a windmill. One eye was standing out
of the head in hideous prominence, and rolling round and round like a
catherine-wheel of fury, while the other was already closed with the
placid expression of a cow who had gone to sleep. Then the next moment
both eyes were closed, and both feet stationary, and the whole monster,
with a deprecating expression, turned his back and began to retreat
towards the plains at an amiable and ambling trot.
[Illustration:
The Princess surprised them by walking inside.
]
Thus began the last phase of the celebrated Dragon of the Wilderness,
which was more of a mystery than his wildest massacres and deeds of
destruction. He interfered with nobody; he stood politely on one side
for people to pass; he even succeeded, with some signs of reluctance, in
becoming a vegetarian and subsisting entirely upon grass. But when the
ultimate goal of his pilgrimage was discovered, the surprise was even
more general. The wondering and still doubtful crowds that followed him
across that country became gradually convinced of the incredible idea
that he intended to go to church. Moreover, he approached the sacred
edifice in a far more tactful and unobtrusive and respectful way than
Sir Laverok had done in the old days, when he broke windows and tore up
pavements in his indiscriminating excess of punctuality. Finally, the
monster surprised them most of all by kneeling down and opening his
mouth very wide with an ingratiating expression; and the Princess
surprised them still more by walking inside.
Something in the way in which she did it revealed to the more thoughtful
among them the fact that Sir Laverok had been inside the animal all the
time. It is unnecessary to repeat here the explanations which gradually
enlightened them about the inner truth of the story or the inner
machinery of the dragon. This exact and scientific narrative is also
addressed only to the thoughtful. And these will have no difficulty in
guessing that a magnificent marriage ceremony took place in the interior
of the dragon, which was treated as a temporary chapel while within the
precincts of the consecrated building. They may even form some notion of
what was meant when the Princess, who was given to oracular remarks,
said, “The whole world will behave differently when heroes find their
hiding-place in the world.” But it must be confessed that those learned
men, the Chancellor and the Chamberlain, could make very little of it.
THE CRINOLINE _By B. K. PYKE_
Charlotte all in hoop and frill
Was blown away
On Strawberry Hill;
Searched in every town and vale
She was found
In a milking pail!
[Illustration: Whimsical illustration of a girl tumbled upside down into
a wooden wash tub with her frilly petticoats and legs in the air,
surrounded by geese.]
[Illustration:
Charlotte all in hoop and frill
Was blown away....
]
[Illustration: Black and white line drawing of a bird flying through a
large, fluffy cloud.]
RED PEPPER _By THOMAS QUAYLE_
It was the day before the Prince’s wedding. All was hurry and bustle in
the kitchen. Suddenly the Cook exclaimed: “I have lost the pepper!” The
King replied: “If that be so, then woe is me! For is it not written in
the Great Book that my father brought from the Isles of the West, that
all the bridal dishes must be sprinkled with red pepper? Otherwise sad
troubles and misfortunes shall follow my son and his bride all the days
of their life. Therefore, O Cook, I tell thee that the pepper-castor
must be found, and if it be not found before the shadow of the Great
Mosque falls athwart the orange-grove, thou shalt surely die the death.”
And putting on his crown and his purple robes, he walked sadly away,
followed in slow procession by his seven pages, his cup-bearer and his
favourite minstrel.
[Illustration: A stylized line drawing featuring two female figures
adorned with household items, like a teapot and utensils, interacting
with a regal, elaborately dressed figure holding a large ceremonial
umbrella.]
At the words of the great King, the Cook wept sadly, and made much
lamentation. And all the maids, too, lifted their voices and wept. The
Chief Butler and his twenty-three assistants, likewise moaned and tore
their hair, for you must know that red pepper was an exceedingly scarce
commodity throughout that land, and full well feared they, that none
could by any good hap be procured before the shadow of the Great Mosque
fell athwart the orange-grove. And so, weeping altogether, they led the
Cook gently to her marbled kitchen, with its great copper cauldrons, its
gleaming ovens and fire-irons, its porcelain pie-dishes and pewter pots,
over which she had reigned for long years, and there they left her for a
while, that she might commune with herself, and make her peace with the
gods.
* * * * *
So the Cook sat her down sadly in the big rocking-chair, the very chair
in which her own mother had rocked and dangled her. She gazed at the
little tender beams of sunlight as they flashed through the
diamond-paned window. Outside the thrushes sang gaily in the lilac
bushes, and from the far corners of the Palace Gardens, she could hear
the soft twitterings of tomtits and robins. And as she saw and heard all
these sights and sounds, just as if she had before her all the friends
and companions of her girlhood days, she rocked herself to and fro, and
keened bitterly, and in her grief spoke forty curses on the castor, and
on the thieves who had purloined the precious treasure.
Now it happened that just in front of the half-opened and diamond-paned
window, there was a golden cage in which fluttered a little cockatoo.
The King’s mother, herself, had brought it from far-away lands as a
present for the Cook, and it was indeed her greatest pet. Many a dainty
did she keep for it, and many a lump of sugar, even in the days of
dearth, when queues and coupons troubled the heart of the people. Red
and purple was its plumage, with little tufts of faint sea-green. Keen
and sparkling were its eyes, and often, when the golden sunbeams flooded
the Cook’s kitchen, these eyes seemed to gaze out very fiercely, as if
the many-coloured bird could see its far-away home, there across the
wide, wide seas, the little palm-fringed isle with the surf dashing in
glistening white up to its yellow sands, to fall back to the main-sea
deep with soft, sad music.
* * * * *
And as the Cook made her moan the little cockatoo cocked its head on one
side, as if listening eagerly. For you must know that the isle where the
bird was born and bred was famed throughout the world for its rare,
rich, red pepper. Kings and Queens eagerly sought for it, and merchants
from Arabia, from Persia and from a far-away island called Britain, came
often to barter for it. And as the Cook keened softly, and bewept the
loss of the castor, you would have thought that the little cockatoo was
going mad with excitement, for it fluttered wildly around its golden
cage, and beat its wings against the bars, as if some wonderful scheme
were whirling through its little brain.
[Illustration: A figure with a salt shaker head rides a rocking chair
toward a bird in an ornate cage.]
And then, to the amazement of the Cook, the cockatoo put its pert head
through the bars of the golden cage and spoke in this wise: “O Cook, be
not afraid, for I tell thee that before the shadow of the Great Mosque
falls athwart the orange-grove, there shall be brought to thee from my
home far, far across the seas rich, rare, red pepper, such as Kings and
Queens and great merchants delight in. Only open the door of my golden
cage, and thou wilt be saved!”
Something spoke in the heart of the Cook, and told her that the bird
could save her. So, opening the door of the golden cage, she let the
cockatoo go free. For a moment it flew up and down the kitchen in the
full beams of the morning sun, flashing and sparkling like a little
bundle of diamonds and pearls, and amethysts and rubies. Then with a
shrill cry it darted out of the window, and soon all that the Cook could
see was a tiny speck mounting up the pathway of the sun.
Away flew the little bird, as if for its very life. Now it is skimming
over the silvery surface of the sun-sprinkled sea, bright and glittering
as a polished mirror. Now it is high up among the clouds, lost in fleecy
folds of pearly white. On and on and on it flew, until at last it could
glimpse the palm-fringed, surf-beaten shore where it had spent its
youngest and happiest days.
* * * * *
Meantime the dread hour drew near, for the shadow of the Great Mosque
was soon to fall athwart the orange-grove. The Ten Executioners, with
their heavy swords were ready, and the priests sang a sad song as they
moved slowly to the place of execution. All the household wept, but the
Cook herself wept not. She sat in silence gazing steadily through the
diamond-paned window up the golden pathway of the sun. And the people in
pity said: “Her mind has given away! Alas! she is distracted!” Yet they
crowded around her to say farewell, but she spake not a word, only gazed
steadily at the fleecy clouds.
[Illustration: A figure with a salt shaker head gestures toward a bird
while facing an armed figure, alongside a line of soldiers.]
And now, indeed, but few moments were left before the shadow of the
Great Mosque should fall athwart the orange-grove, and all things were
ready, and lamentations arose on every side. But just as the Lord High
Executioner moved to the Cook’s side to pinion her arms, and cover her
eyes, she uttered a great cry, and pointed to a little speck up, far up,
in the sky. It flashed like a dewdrop of the morn, and sparkled like
jewels of great price, and ever it came nearer and nearer, until the
astonished people saw that it was the little cockatoo, gleaming in the
sunlit glory of its red and purple, and faint sea-green. Through the
window it flew as if it had travelled down the pathway of the sun. Once,
and once only, it flew around the marbled kitchen, and then, with a
shrill cry, it alighted gently on the shoulder of the Cook. And all the
women gave a great shout, for fastened to the back of the little bird
was a packet of the rich, rare, red pepper beloved of Kings and Queens,
and sought for by rich merchants. And seeing it, the people rejoiced
exceedingly, even the King himself, and sang songs of joy, and raised
their voices in exultation, but the little cockatoo, fluttering feebly,
fell dead on the floor of the marbled kitchen.
Thus was the Cook saved, and joyous was the revelry at the
marriage-feast, and cunningly were the bridal dishes sprinkled with
rich, rare, red pepper. And the little cockatoo was buried with honour,
in the centre of the Palace Gardens, near the orange-grove, just where
the shadow of the Great Mosque falls athwart it. And if you do not
believe this tale, ask the robin redbreast, or the thrush, for all the
birds know it well.
MISHY THE SURF-BABY _By MABEL MARLOWE_
Mishy the surf-baby had twenty brothers and twenty sisters, and ever so
many other relations. But the one he loved best was Benny-whisper, who
was the youngest of all the surf-babies.
Benny-whisper was as tall as a banana, and so golden-yellow that when he
lay on the sand he could scarcely be seen. But Mishy was as tall as a
cucumber, and the face of him was always covered with smiles.
Now one morning Mishy awoke with a big noise in his ears. All the
surf-babies were running to and fro, making such a commotion, and the
Mother of all the surf-children was making more noise than anyone.
“Whatever is the matter?” said Mishy.
“Benny-whisper is lost! Oh, Mishy, Benny-whisper is lost!”
“Where is he lost?” said Mishy.
“If we knew that, he wouldn’t _be_ lost,” said the Mother of all the
surf-babies. “Oh, Mishy, do help us to find him.”
Then Mishy jumped out of his bed and ran down to the edge of the water,
where the waves were making rims of froth on the yellow sand. He stood
with his toes in the ripples, and he called out, “Oh waves of the sea,
Benny-whisper is lost. Have you got him?”
[Illustration: A black-and-white illustration depicting a small, joyful
child standing atop a large, swimming white bird, with mountains in the
background.]
But the waves of the sea splashed up and down in the sunlight, and they
answered, “No. We haven’t got him.”
Then Mishy the surf-baby ran and stood upon a high rock, where the wind
went whistling through his hair. He spread his arms out and called, “Oh
wind, Benny-whisper is lost. Have you got him?”
But the wind puffed with his breath and answered, “No. I haven’t got
him.”
Then Mishy the surf-baby dashed into the surf, and splashed his way
through the shallow water until he reached the path of the sunbeams. He
raised his wet arms above the waves and he called out, “Oh, beautiful
sun, Benny-whisper is lost. Pray help me to find him, for I love him
so.”
So the golden sun opened his big eye very wide and sent his beams
searching all through the daylight. But there was no sign of
Benny-whisper.
Mishy the surf-baby went slowly home. All the twinkles were gone out of
his eyes, and the smile on his face was a sad little smile. He sat down
in the doorway, nursing his knees, and all his brothers and sisters came
and sat beside him. Not a word did they say. But they all rocked to and
fro, looking very sad.
At last Mishy jumped to his feet, and he said, “Benny-whisper must be
somewhere. He is in a place where the sea does not reach. He is in a
place where the wind does not blow, and where the beams of the sun
cannot shine. He is in a corner somewhere. But I will find him. I will
find him if I have to search until bedtime.”
So he went down among the rocks, where the little crabs were scuttling
in the wet sand. He turned each rock over, and hunted in the dark
shadows beneath it. But Benny-whisper was not there.
Then Mishy went among the seaweed, and lifted each heavy strand that
trailed about the cliffs, and peeped into each little crevice and
corner. But Benny-whisper was not there.
Then Mishy said to himself, “I will climb the face of the cliff. Perhaps
Benny-whisper is high up on a ledge, and cannot get down.”
So he clambered up the face of the cliff, holding on by the sea-lavender
bushes that grew there, and calling out, “Benny-whisper! Benny-whisper,
where are you? Mishy wants you! Mishy is looking for you! Oh,
Benny-whisper, call out to me, and tell me where you are!”
But there was no answer.
Then Mishy climbed higher and higher. His little arms began to ache. His
little toes began to throb. He reached a ledge at last, overhung by the
top of the cliff and half hidden with samphire.
“I must rest here for a little,” said Mishy with a yawn. So he curled
himself up in a corner and closed his tired eyes.
In ten minutes he was asleep.
* * * * *
Mishy the surf-baby awoke with a queer, warm, cosy kind of feeling that
he had never known before. Something airy and soft and warm was spread
above him. It was very dark, and the only sound to be heard was a throb,
throb, throb.
[Illustration:
She looked at Mishy.
]
Mishy wriggled. Mishy kicked with his feet and pushed with his hands and
parted the softness that was covering him, so that the daylight shone
into his eyes. Then he saw, to his amazement, that a seagull was sitting
upon him—sitting so softly that she felt like warm snow, and the beat of
her heart throbbed like the tick of a velvet clock.
Mishy wriggled again. Mishy made a little squeaking noise with his
throat.
“The egg is hatching,” said the gull.
“Get off it, and let me see,” said another gull (it was the father one).
Then the gull made a cooing kind of noise, and stood up on her feet.
She looked at Mishy, and she said not a word.
_He_ looked at Mishy, and _he_ said not a word.
They looked again. They shut their eyes, and opened them and looked
again. They turned round three times, and looked at Mishy again.
Mishy began to laugh. He sat up, nursing his knees. His hair was all
rumply, and his little cheeks were all rosy and warm. “This is a grand
adventure,” he said to himself, and he combed his hair back from his
face with his fingers and laughed, showing glistening white teeth.
“That’s an odd kind of gull,” said the mother gull.
“A very odd kind of gull,” said the father gull.
“It has no wings.”
“It has no beak.”
“It has no tail.”
“It has toes on its feet.”
“I don’t know if I like it,” said the mother gull.
“I don’t know if _I_ like it,” said the father gull.
[Illustration:
The gull swooped down.
]
Then Mishy laughed aloud, and he stood up on his toes, and flung his
arms wide. “I am a gull’s baby,” he cried. “Hurrah, I am a gull’s baby.
I can’t think how it happened, but it’s true.” He danced about on the
ledge like a sunshine-sprite, and he dimpled his lips and whistled like
a canary.
“I believe I rather like him,” said the father gull.
“So do I,” said the mother gull. “Anyway, he is a most uncommon baby for
a gull to have. No other gull has a baby like him. I think I am rather
proud about it.”
“So am I,” said the father gull. “It is a pity he has no wings, but
perhaps they will grow.”
“I can ride on your back,” said Mishy, and he ran and jumped upon the
back of the father gull. “See, I am so light that you scarcely feel me,”
he said.
“You will fall off when I begin to fly.”
“Try me,” said Mishy.
Then the great bird laughed, and spread his beautiful white wings, and
leaped from the ledge with a cry. The wind whistled past Mishy’s ears as
the gull swooped down towards the water. His brown hair blew back from
his laughing face. He flung out his arms. He stood a-tiptoe with his
little pink feet. Never before had he enjoyed such a wonderful ride.
But all of a sudden he remembered Benny-whisper.
“Oh, take me to the breakers,” cried Mishy. So the gull swooped along
the edge of the ripples, where the surf-babies were washing in the foam.
“Is Benny-whisper found?” shouted Mishy, and all the surf-babies
answered, “No!”
Then Mishy cried out to the gull, and he said, “Oh, father gull, take me
for a ride across the ocean.” So the beautiful bird beat at the air with
his wings, and rose, and sped right away across the blue water, where
the tips of the waves were crested with white.
[Illustration:
So the gull flew back with two surf-babies.
]
But Mishy was not smiling now. He was looking around him with anxious
eyes, and all the while he was calling out, “Benny-whisper, where are
you?”
“Mishy! Mishy! MISHY!” came a little voice.
Mishy looked down. There, far below him on the billows, was a green
rock, all glistening in the sunlight—and standing on the edge of it was
Benny-whisper.
“Oh, take me to that rock,” cried Mishy. So the gull swerved and sailed
down to the rock, and Mishy jumped off and caught Benny-whisper in his
arms.
“However did you get here?” he said, between kisses.
“The tide brought me. I was sailing in my little cockle boat.”
“The waves of the sea did not tell me.”
“The sea did not know. I kept in the bottom of the boat and went to
sleep.”
“The wind did not tell me.”
“I pulled some seaweed over me before I went to sleep.”
“The sun did not tell me.”
“I kept in the shade.”
Then Mishy the surf-baby laughed more gaily than he had ever laughed
before. He picked Benny-whisper into his arms, and leaped upon the back
of the gull, and cried out, “Oh, dear father gull, fly back as quickly
as you can. Fly back to the breakers, where the ripples of the sea are
making froth on the golden sand.”
So the gull flew back, with two surf-babies nestling among his feathers.
* * * * *
“What have you done with that strange baby?” said the mother gull.
“I left him with the surf-babies.”
“That is very lucky,” said the mother gull. “When you were gone I found
my egg, still in the nest, not hatched at all.”
“Then he was not a gull’s baby, after all.”
“No. But I rather liked him.”
“So did I.”
* * * * *
Mishy the surf-baby often climbs the face of the cliff to the ledge
behind the samphire bush. He climbs up, but he doesn’t climb down again.
He comes down on the back of his friend the gull, in the loveliest,
swiftest joy-ride that there could ever be.
THE PRINCESS OF KENSINGTON _By MADELEINE NIGHTINGALE_
When, very long ago, Oberon held his court in Kensington Gardens, the
King of this Island had a son named Albion. Now, as everyone knows,
fairies have a dreadful habit of stealing mortal babies and leaving
small elfin changelings in their stead. This is just what happened to
Albion, and he was brought up in Fairyland. When he was nineteen years
old (according to human countings) he fell in love with Oberon’s
daughter; but since no fairy may marry a mortal, Oberon was very angry
and banished the young man from his fairy empire. So dearly, however,
did Albion love the Princess that, rather than give her up, he sought
the help of Neptune, and was slain by the elves in the great battle that
followed. In revenge, Neptune destroyed Oberon’s kingdom, driving out
the elves so that they live now only in the hills and the dales and the
sea-caves and the rivers and the woods. The Princess remained and sought
to bring her lover back to life by means of a magic herb. It is said
that no sooner did the juice of it touch Albion’s body than it changed
into a snowdrop. But we are afraid that, in her love and sorrow, the
poor little Princess has forgotten.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: A dark, high-contrast illustration featuring a queen
walking on a cobblestone path, followed by a child carrying her train,
attendants, and a majestic peacock.]
[Illustration]
The Princess of Kensington
Goes down the cobbled street;
Listen to the patter
Of her small brocaded feet.
Her peacock, her page-boy,
And maids-of-honour two,
From dawn to dusk they follow her
London through.
The fairies of Kensington
Are driven out and gone.
From Hyde Park to Holland Park
There’s left but only one;
And she—she’s lost her lover
And searches up and down
The highways and byways
Of London town.
The night-watch of Kensington
A-calling on his round,
“Two o’ the clock and starlight!”
—It _is_ a pleasant sound.
But, ah, the little Princess,
How softly whispers she,
“Albion! Albion!
Where can—where can he be?”
The children of Kensington
Lazily they lie,
Fast and warm within their beds,
And hear her passing by.
But not a child will draw his blind
And shout, “Oh, _don’t_ you know?
He’s hiding in the Green Park
Where the snowdrops grow.”
[Illustration: A high-contrast, dark illustration of a queen in a
flowing gown with a bright pink trim, kneeling in a wooded area near
grazing sheep.]
[Illustration: A black-and-white illustration of a young girl sitting on
a grassy hill near a bare tree, looking up at a boy standing nearby
holding a staff.]
THOMAS THE RHYMER
_By MADELEINE NIGHTINGALE_ THE CHOOSING
[Illustration]
As I was fishing by Huntlie Bank
True Thomas he passed by.
“Thomas the Rhymer!” I called his name;
He turned and he looked and back he came.
“And how may I serve you, my pretty child,
Sitting so meek and sitting so mild,
A-fishing the pool where the sedge is rank
Round and about of Huntlie Bank?”
And, oh, but the strangest face had he,
His coat was as green as the greenest sea,
And it seemed, as he stood and stared at me,
There was magic in his eye.
He held me an apple in his right hand
—The half of a fairy-man was he—
But up I got me and curtsied low,
Staid as a duchess and twice as slow;
And all my petticoats flounced as neat
As a daisy’s petals about my feet.
“Nay, prithee,” said I, “good sir, if you
Be going to Elfland, why, take me too.”
He clippered a clap of his velvet shoon
And a little white road fell out of the moon.
Quoth he, “If we’re starting we’d best start soon
Or we’ll never be home for tea.”
[Illustration: A dark, stylized illustration depicting a girl kneeling
near a tree, looking toward a standing boy who is gesturing with a
cloth.]
[Illustration: A stylized, high-contrast illustration of a dark ship
silhouetted against a large, bright moon above churning ocean waves.]
THE PIRATE SHIP _By MARIAN ALLEN_
I wish I was the Pirate King
Who sailed the seas in days of old;
I’d drink my wine and loudly sing,
And capture great ships packed with gold
And fling my captives in the hold
And sail away across the night
Beyond the moon so round and white.
The ships who sail the ocean now
Just wireless all they want to say,
Like “How d’you do,” before they bow
And pass politely on their way;
All sorts of rules they must obey.
I think, when all is said and done,
The Pirate King had much more fun.
[Illustration: A black-and-white line drawing showing a long train
crossing a tall viaduct bridge over a valley with mountains and small
houses below.]
A STRANGER _By HUGH WALPOLE_
A STORY TOLD BY
“UNCLE” EDWARD TO CHARLES AND ROSALIND
You asked me yesterday afternoon, when we were out for a walk, to tell
you what was the most exciting thing that ever happened to me. People
are excited in such different ways, you know, and it’s quite possible
that this won’t seem exciting to you at all, but you asked me, and I’ll
do my best to tell you. I am now ever so old, as I heard Rosalind saying
to Miss Banbury when she was trying to teach you French verbs the other
morning, and when you are as old as I am, you’ll find that the things
that you remember best are the things that happened years and years ago.
For instance, I remember nothing about last Christmas, except that we
had a tree, and that Charlie was sick on Boxing Day, but if you ask me
to tell you every little thing that happened to me before I was
fourteen, I fancy that I can; mind you, I say fancy, as it is possible
that I am making the whole thing up, but what’s the real difference
between making things up and remembering things that once happened to
you, it will need a cleverer man than your uncle to tell you.
Now I come to the point. This adventure began with reading a book in a
farmhouse. I know that both of you would rather go to Shawmill Farm than
anywhere else in the world. You are always telling me so, and that month
in the summer doesn’t seem nearly to content you, and apparently you
expect me to take you off there any time at a moment’s notice on a kind
of magic carpet like the one I told you about the other day. Well, my
farm was every bit as good as yours; in fact, if you don’t mind my
saying so it was, I think, a little bit better, but everybody has their
favourite farm and the longer it is since you’ve been there the more
favourite it is. I loved mine so much partly because I think, it was my
first one, and I have never had all the good times that both of you are
so accustomed to that you don’t know they are good times at all. For one
thing, I had no brothers or sisters, and for another thing, my mother
died when I was so small that I can scarcely remember her. Then my
father wasn’t like your father; the only things he cared for were books,
and those are very good things to care about, but if you care for them
too much, you forget about people, and think that books are more
important than people, which they are not, and never can be, and don’t
you forget it.
Mind you, my father was very kind to me when he remembered me, but he
had to leave me a great deal in the hands of other people. We lived in
London in a very large house, so large that when you were in the top
part of it it was like being in another house altogether. I had lots of
room to move about in, plenty of toys, and anything I wanted so long as
the grown-ups thought it was good for me, but what I wanted most was
other children to play with, and that I never had. One day I was ill. I
had one of those terrible headaches that you get, Charlie, sometimes
from eating too much, but that I got, I think, from being by myself and
thinking too much. I don’t mean that you haven’t got to do your work
properly; it is a silly thing to be lazy, so that when you grow up
everyone thinks how stupid you are, and wonders why you never learnt
anything. But my thinking was done all by myself, and I formed a very
bad habit of talking to myself, and I think it was because I talked so
much to myself that I got the headache of which I was telling you. Well,
I was put to bed, and the doctor came to see me, and poked me in the
chest, and put a thermometer in my mouth, and looked at my tongue, and
went away and didn’t say a word, and they kept me in bed so long that I
got very tired of it and wondered if they were ever going to let me get
up again. Then at last a wonderful day arrived when I put on my clothes
again, and although my legs were very shaky and I was as weak as a
kitten I was so proud at being out of bed that I could have danced all
round the schoolroom. Then I was told that Father wanted to see me, so I
went all the way down to the library, and there he was, as he always
was, sitting at a large table covered with books, and looking at me when
I came in with a puzzled expression that people have when they have been
reading a great deal. Although he was so kind to me I was a little
afraid of my father; although he wanted to, I don’t think he knew how to
make children easy and comfortable. I went and stood beside him, and he
put his arm around me and asked me whether I was feeling quite well now,
and I said yes, which wasn’t quite true I’m afraid, and then he said how
would I like to go into the country? I hadn’t very much idea what the
country really was. I had been once to the seaside but I hadn’t enjoyed
it because I was never allowed to go about by myself, and I was rather
afraid of the country to tell you the truth, but I wasn’t going to show
anybody that I was afraid, and I said that I would like to go. Then he
gave a great sigh and I always remember that sigh because it was the
first time that I realised that he had troubles just as I had them. I’d
like to have asked him what his troubles were but I hadn’t the courage.
Then he kissed me and told me to go upstairs again and upstairs I went.
I was excited all day at this thought of the country, but I didn’t like
to ask anybody any questions because I might be thought foolish and I
tell you both here and now always ask questions if you want to ask them;
never mind how foolish people will think you; that’s the only way to
learn anything.
[Illustration:
I was put to bed.
]
[Illustration:
You know what it is like waking up on the first morning at your farm.
]
Next morning I was wrapped up so warmly that I looked like a little
polar bear. I came downstairs again; my father was in the hall and
kissed me; then I was put into a carriage with my governess who was
called Miss Somerset, whom, between you and me and the bedpost, I didn’t
like at all. She was always telling me not to do things, but never
suggesting things that I might do or, at any rate, never suggesting
interesting things. However, I was so terribly excited that I didn’t
mind about Miss Somerset or anyone else. We came to the station and got
into the train, and I am afraid I can’t remember anything about the
journey. I think I must have slept most of the time because I seem to
remember that when the train started it was in the morning, and the sun
was shining, and a minute later it was quite dark outside the windows
and there was a light in the carriage. Directly after that, Miss
Somerset said, “Here we are,” and that she had a terrible headache. I
remember about her headache, because I asked her whether it was the same
as mine, and she told me not to ask silly questions, but I didn’t care
what she said because now we were out on the platform and the wind was
blowing so strongly that it nearly took me off my feet. There had been a
wind at the sea but this was different; there was something exciting
about it. I remember last year when we were on the hill above the farm,
Rosalind saying what an exciting wind it was. This was just the same
sort of wind, friendly, as though it had come to the station to meet you
and wanted to carry you off with it to some fine place that it knew of.
All Miss Somerset said was, “Bother the wind.” She hurried me into a cab
that was waiting outside the station. We drove for a long time in the
dark, and although I couldn’t see anything I had a feeling that it was
different from any other place that I had ever been to. There was a kind
of smell about it that was quite new to me, and it was all so quiet
after London that I felt as though it were waiting to get me away from
Miss Somerset, and then tell me something very important. We got out of
the cab at last, and then I was so sleepy that I fell right into
somebody’s arms and was taken up to bed without noticing anything at
all.
You know what it is like waking up on the first morning at your farm,
how first you smell the difference of the house, the scent of the bacon
that you’re going to eat in half-an-hour’s time is coming up the wrong
staircase; through the window which if you’re wise, you’ve had open all
night, there are all sorts of new smells; the air smells differently and
it’s as though you’d had your bed planted in the very middle of a field
all night, so close do you seem to the scent of the soil, and then,
almost at once, smells are connected with noises. The first thing you
were conscious of waking in London was the toot of a cab or the rattle
of a tram, and now it’s a dog and a horse, and above all, a cock
strutting about conceitedly on the top of a wall just under your window.
Then, although you’ve scarcely raised your head from the pillow, the
sounds and the smells together carry your imagination—the most useful
part of you by a long run—across the fields, out of the gate up the hill
behind the farm to the Downs, and your feet are already dancing on that
turf that is so alive that you can almost feel it moving under you.
That’s what happens on your farm, how much more was it the case on mine?
Remember, I had never been away from a town before, and when I rather
timidly looked out of my window and saw first a yard with chickens and a
large black dog, a pond blue in the morning sun at the end of it and
ducks paddling there, and then beyond it fields greener than I had
believed it possible for grass to be, and beyond them a mysterious dark
wood that seemed to be begging me to step into it, you can imagine
whether I was excited or not. But I tell you the honest truth, I don’t,
on looking back, think that this was ideally the place for a boy’s first
farm; only you see, I couldn’t criticise it, because I had never been to
another one. Now, you would, both of you, be very severe critics of
farms, because you happen to have for yours one of the brightest and
most beautiful that ever was made, and yet I said just now that my farm
was better than yours, and I said that because you are both a little
spoilt about things. When I was small children didn’t have any of the
fun and excitement that you both have every minute of the day. People
weren’t always thinking about the best way to amuse children, how to
keep them happy and give them fun, and so, when any fun did come our
way, it meant a terrible lot to us, but I can see now on looking back
that this was an odd farm to send a small boy all by himself to. There
was, of course, Miss Somerset, but I hardly count her, because she was
unwell, all the month we were there, sitting up in her room most of the
time with that terrible headache of hers. I believe that really she had
determined to hate the country before ever she got to it, being one of
those people who get more happiness out of being miserable than out of
being happy, and the result of this was that I was left a great deal to
myself.
You know how you all love the Tuttles at your farm, and I tell you in
confidence that I think that they are very nearly the nicest family in
England. The man who ran my farm was called Mr. Andrew. He was a big,
black, silent man. I daresay that he meant to be friendly, but I don’t
think that he had much more idea about the way in which little boys are
made comfortable than my father had, and then I discovered afterwards
that his wife had died some five years before I arrived, and that made
him melancholy. His sister, Miss Andrew, looked after the domestic part
of the farm, and was as silent as her brother, so you can fancy that I
hadn’t very much company, but I didn’t mind. I was thoroughly used to
being by myself, and what I liked to do was to imagine myself somebody
else and run it on for weeks and weeks, with fresh adventures every day.
Rosalind told me the other day that she would like to write stories when
she grew up just like me, but I was writing stories in my head almost
from the moment I was born, I think. Perhaps Rosalind is doing the same,
but if she is, she keeps it very dark. I hadn’t been about the place for
more than a day or two before I had decided that I was a prince in
disguise, and owned all the country around me.
This country was called Cumberland, and the great feature about
Cumberland is that it is made up for the most part of mountains and
lakes. Now, you’ll find that the very clever people who have travelled
all over the world will tell you that the Cumberland mountains are
nothing at all, that they are so small compared with other mountains,
that they are only little hills, and that once you’ve been to
Switzerland you’ll never look at the English mountains again. Don’t you
believe them. I am very delighted for everybody to have their own
opinion, but I also have travelled all over the world, and I tell you
that there is something about the Cumberland Hills that no other hills
have got, and that they always look a great deal bigger than they are. I
think that’s because they are all in such beautiful proportion, and seem
just as big as the Swiss mountains when you are in the middle of them.
However that may be when you’re grown up, they of course seem gigantic
to a boy who has never seen any others. As a matter of fact, from my
farm you could only see one mountain and that was a long way off, but
that was quite enough for me; I filled it at once with every kind of
treasure because I was prince of the whole country and could do as I
liked with it, and at once put a secret door at the bottom of it, just
where there was a little wood that looked from my window like a
tooth-brush, and from this door there was a passage that led all the way
through the mountain and had on every side of it large rooms filled with
every kind of treasure, heaps and heaps of rubies, and piles of
diamonds, and ropes and ropes of pearls. There was, of course, an enemy
prince in the neighbouring country who wanted to take this mountain, and
he would send spies and try to discover the way through the door, and
one day even went there himself, but my right-hand man, Black Jack, was
waiting for him and in spite of all his troubles succeeded in
imprisoning him in a cave all by himself on the side of the mountain.
That was a very great day for me when I heard that he had been captured.
[Illustration:
She said in Farmer Somebody’s barn.
]
I was allowed to go a great deal about by myself, very much more I fancy
than my father would have approved had he known it but Miss Somerset,
because of her headaches and because the weather was never what she
thought it ought to be, and because there was so much mud about that she
was afraid of getting her feet wet, kept more and more in her room, and
deputed her job of looking after me to the maid-of-all-work in the
house, who was a girl from the village near by, and was called Nellie.
Nellie was a good girl, and a kindly, but she had so much work to do,
poor thing, that she couldn’t do more than give me a look every once and
again, to see that I was all right. I was very quiet and never gave
anyone any trouble, and seemed to amuse myself very easily. Very soon
they all ceased to bother about me. So the days went by, and very
wonderful days they were to me. Then came the adventure of which I am
going to tell you.
It was, of course, summer time when all this happened, and there came a
day called midsummer’s eve. That is the day when, as soon as the sun
sets, all the fairies are supposed to come out and dance in rings on the
grass, and run up and down the house, and play jokes on everybody and
have a wonderful time. I knew about the fairies, because Nellie had told
me, and I waited with great excitement determined that, however sleepy I
might be, I would keep awake and watch all the fun. I wasn’t frightened
in the least, because I had known all about the fairies ever since I
could remember, and many of them were my very good friends. I was
tremendously pleased that at last I should have a chance of meeting some
of them. That was a very beautiful day, and when the evening came
everything was bathed in golden light, and the colours of the fields,
and the wood, and the distant mountain were as clear as though they had
been painted on glass. Mr. Andrew and his sister went out early in the
evening to somebody’s house and I was left alone with Miss Somerset and
Nellie. There was a midsummer night’s dance in the village which Nellie,
poor dear, was very anxious to go to, and she confided to me that it was
a great shame that everybody else should have such great fun and that
she shouldn’t be able to share in it.
I was very sorry for Nellie; she had been so kind to me that I was very
anxious to help her. I asked her how far away it was that they were
dancing, she said in Farmer Somebody’s barn at the bottom of the hill,
and then I suggested that she should go down for an hour, that I would
be quite all right. To tell the truth, I was in the very middle of a
story called “Redgauntlet” that was written by one of the greatest men
who ever lived. The same man wrote “Ivanhoe,” that you told me was very
long, Charlie, the other day when I wanted to read it to you. I don’t
want to shove books down your throats, but if you try to read
“Redgauntlet,” and find that too long for you, I am in despair of both
of you. Well, in any case I was in the very middle of this book and
Nellie, who was not herself fond of reading—indeed, I doubt whether she
could read at all—had never learnt the great gift of “letting reading
dogs lie.” She would interrupt me every second, with an exclamation, or
a wonder, or a surprise, so I was rather glad to get rid of her, and saw
myself having a whole glorious hour perched on a very high chair by the
window, and although I was reading so intensely that I never would lift
my eyes from the page, at the same time I would be conscious of the
light gradually fading from the sky, and green fields turning to silk,
and of the birds slowly wheeling home. I loved all these things because,
you see, I had always lived in streets. I think that it was really
during that month that I grew to love space so deeply; I liked to be
able to look on and on and on, and to feel that I had only to order my
snow-white charger to be brought to the door, and so go flying off
through the dusk to my mountain fastnesses. Then the kitchen behind me
was very wonderful, so large, that at this hour before the light had
faded, before the candles were lit you could not see into its farthest
corners, and all the plates in rows on the old dresser were like
friendly faces smiling. It must have been nearly nine o’clock by now,
and I was supposed to go to bed at nine, so that Nellie’s obvious
suggestion was, that I should go to bed, and then she should creep off
for a little time. Mr. Andrew and his sister would not return till after
ten, and Miss Somerset was fast asleep with her headache tucked quietly
under her arm. But I begged Nellie to let me stay for a little while; I
promised most faithfully to go up to bed exactly when the kitchen clock
struck half-past nine. She had by that time so complete a faith in my
keeping my word, and was so sure that I could come to no harm, that
after one longing look through the open window at the lovely summer
evening (we could hear very faintly coming up the hill strains of the
rustic band) she nodded her head and said she would go. She slipped on
her coat and hat, gave me a kiss and was off.
[Illustration: A person sits reading while looking toward a window,
where a man appears to be standing and gazing inward from the outside.]
How I loved it when she was gone! If I sat at the right of my window, I
could see the rounded top of my mountain quite black against a sky that
was now very pale like an evening primrose. I remember the look of that
sky so well because, when I look back, everything that was to happen in
a minute seemed to be bathed in that light. If it had happened half an
hour later I would have been frightened, because it would have been so
dark, and it couldn’t have happened half an hour earlier, because Nellie
would have been there. It all occurred at just the right moment, as
things so often do in life. Well, I sat there reading, and everything
grew quieter and quieter, so that I could hear the stream running over
the pebbles at the bottom of the field, with a little tinkly sound of
the fiddle coming up from the barn and even, I fancied, Miss Somerset’s
snores from upstairs. But for some reason or another I couldn’t read; my
own imaginations were stronger than the book, splendid though the book
was. I was using my magic powers, I was holding my hand up to order the
evening to stay still just as it was, as evening stayed still, you will
remember in “The Sleeping Beauty.” There, they would all be for one
thousand years, Nellie half way down the hill towards the dance, Miss
Somerset snoring, the cows lying in the byre, the sheep in their pen,
and two birds transfixed for ever in that primrose sky. I was feeling
very powerful and very grand when in a moment the spell was broken, and
a man appeared on the grass just outside the window, so close to me that
if I had put out my hand I would have touched him.
[Illustration:
They stood me in the middle of the floor.
]
The strange thing was that I wasn’t frightened at all, although his
appearance would have frightened many a grown-up person. He seemed very
large in that evening light, he had been running and was breathing hard,
his clothes were ragged and torn, and he had no hat on his head. He
didn’t say a word, but climbed over the window into the kitchen in a
second of time. He didn’t seem surprised to see me, but bent down very
close to me (he was a very tall man indeed) so that his face was right
up against mine, put his hand on my shoulder with such a grip that he
almost lifted me off my chair, and said “Don’t speak a word, or you’ll
be the worse for it!” The odd thing was, that I liked his face, it was
odd because he can’t have been beautiful to look at; his cheeks were
rough and hairy, and his eyes were fierce, but it doesn’t matter,
everyone is either a friend or not a friend from the first moment you
see them and I hadn’t any doubt at all about him. “Of course, I won’t
tell anybody,” I said getting off my chair, and I remember that I was so
little frightened that I put the book down carefully on the window-sill
so that it should come to no harm. He was, I think, astonished at my
taking it so quietly, but he was too desperately alarmed to think of
anything but his own danger. He stood lost and bewildered in the
kitchen, looking about him as though he couldn’t pull himself together
and make up his mind. Now, looking back, I should imagine that he wasn’t
very old, quite a young fellow, but he seemed to me, of course,
extraordinarily big and strong. His clothes had been torn partly off his
back, and his shoulder was bare and bleeding, and I remember that he
kept trying to pull up his rent coat over the shoulder, as though he
would like to appear more decent and respectable. I expect it was only a
nervous movement, and he didn’t know what he was doing. He realised, I
suppose, that he must take me into his confidence, and that whatever
happened he must reassure me, so he sat down in the big wooden
arm-chair, and drew me towards him, and stood me between his knees. I
remember as though it had happened only yesterday, that his trousers
were torn, and his knees bare like his shoulder. He spoke to me then,
very quietly (wonderfully quietly for a man pressed as he was) he told
me that he was a stranger, this he impressed upon me over and over
again. What kind of a stranger he was, he didn’t tell me, but I realised
that his voice wasn’t like the voice of my father and my friends, and
that although I could understand everything he said there was a curious
twist once and again, that was like nothing I had ever heard before; but
the point was that he was a stranger, and that he meant nobody any harm,
but that they laughed at him, and that he stood as long as he could, and
then they laughed at his country; that he could not stand, and so he had
hit somebody. After that there had been a fight, and that he didn’t know
what had happened, but he was terrible when his anger was roused, and
that after all he was a stranger, that they were pursuing him now, all
of them, with sticks and forks, and that if they caught him they would
shut him up, and that he wasn’t going to be shut up, that he meant
nobody any harm, and if they tried to shut him up he would kill them, so
they had better look out, and that after all he was a stranger; that was
what was the matter, and that if he hadn’t been a stranger they would
never have touched him.
All the time that he was talking to me, he was looking into my eyes, and
I was looking in his. He had his hands on my shoulders, and his bare
knees pressed against my body, but he wasn’t hurting me, and his eyes
asked me to help him, and my eyes answered that I would without my
speaking a word. Indeed I think I would have gone with him anywhere; it
is odd when I look back, but I believe that this man with the rough hair
and the torn clothes, in his terrible state of fear and haste was the
first person in all the world who had talked to me in that kind of way.
Perhaps what drew us together, although I was too young to understand
it, was the fact that I was a stranger in my own way too, a stranger to
Miss Somerset and a stranger to my father and to many another who didn’t
understand me nor what they called my funny ways. He took me on to his
knee and held me close against him, as though I were the only safeguard
he had in all the world, but I didn’t say a word but just waited for him
to tell me what to do.
However, I hadn’t long to hesitate. We hadn’t been there for more than
five minutes I suppose, when we heard the sound of voices. In another
moment he was on his feet, gazing desperately about him. It had become
suddenly dark, and all the voices seemed to swirl up on the grass plot
outside the window. We stood in the shadow of the kitchen, and as though
I had been a hundred years old, moving by instinct, I suppose, I had
shown him a large empty cupboard in the farthest corner of the kitchen,
and he was in it and the door closed, and it was as though he had never
been.
[Illustration: A man stands in a doorway, looking down toward a person
standing in front of him, with a small framed picture of a cow on the
wall.]
I had the sense then (and I don’t know now where I got it from) to go
quietly to the window and pick up my book. They all came rushing into
the kitchen; the kitchen was filled with them. Mr. Andrew was there, and
his sister, but they were mostly men all shouting and crying out and
waving their sticks. At first they didn’t see me and then Mr. Andrew
suddenly called out “Why, there’s the child.” I wasn’t frightened even
then (this was all so much less than so many of my own imagined
adventures) but they stood me in the middle of the floor, held up their
lanterns to look at me, and began asking all kinds of questions. The
point was that the fugitive, if he had come into the house, must have
been heard by me. Had I heard anybody? I shook my head. Where had I been
all the time? I had been sitting there by the window reading my book.
Had I been there all the time? Yes, I had been there all the time. There
was no entrance to the house, save through the kitchen or the front door
just beside the window. In any case, he couldn’t be in the kitchen, he
might be upstairs, so all of them rushed up to see. I could hear them
hunting about upstairs, they even, I fancy, broke into Miss Somerset’s
bedroom, then down they came again and, after a little more discussion,
rushed out and up the road.
Mr. Andrew went with them. Nellie had, fortunately for her, joined the
crowd with a number of the dancers, and now she and Miss Andrew were
left alone with me. They were both of them tremendously excited; what
exactly the stranger had done, I could not understand, but it was
something very terrible. Forgetting me for a moment, they went upstairs
to reassure Miss Somerset, and to see whether any damage had been done.
In a moment I was at the cupboard door, and the stranger and I were
alone in the room again, as though all those people had never been. He
was quieter now he had been given time to breathe, he seemed to have
made up his mind what he would do. I am ashamed to say that I robbed
Miss Andrew, because I gave him half a loaf of bread and a piece of cold
bacon, and all the time I never spoke to him and he didn’t say anything
to me but just before he went, he caught me up in his arms, held me very
tight, kissed me and, as he put me down, said in his funny broken voice
some words in a foreign language that I didn’t understand at all, of
course, but that meant that he approved of me. Then he was over the
window-sill, on the grass, away under the stars, vanished. I hope he
reached my mountain and that Black Jack looked after him until all
pursuit was over. I don’t know; I never heard of him again, but I have a
kind of idea that if I met him anywhere, even now, after all these
years, I should recognise him. I hope, wherever he is, he is a stranger
no longer. Many things that other people would call exciting, have
happened to me since then, but to myself, that will always be the most
exciting of all, and it is an adventure to tell you the truth, that
isn’t yet ended.
[Illustration: A colorful, stylized illustration of a knight in full
armor riding a white horse in front of a castle.]
POEMS _By HUGH CHESTERMAN_
PROUD SIR PIM
Sir Pim was proud, uncommon proud;
His friends and relatives allowed
That Proud Sir Pim displayed more pride
Than any other knight beside.
And nought there was could dull or dim
Or tarnish
The splendour of this proud Sir Pim:
His waist was slim, his harness trim,
His helmet shone from tip to brim
Like varnish.
And when he walked or rode abroad
The passers-by were overawed
And little boys and girls would stammer
(With slight regard for English grammar),
“That’s him—
That’s Proud Sir Pim!”
KNOWLEDGE
I remember ...
Twenty shillings in a pound,
Seven days in every week,
And once a year the earth goes round
The staring sun, and Chesapeake
Is _not_ a mountain but a bay
Whereto the Susquehanna flows,
And Potomac, and goodness knows
What other streams in U. S. A.!
And twenty quires make a ream,
And grouse, in plural, is not “grice,”
And Watt revealed the use of steam,
And John of Gaunt was married twice,
Canute and Charlemagne were kings,
And Martinmas is mid-November.
· · · · ·
But there are lots and lots of things
I _can’t_ remember.
[Illustration:
Knowledge.
]
MAGIC CASEMENTS _By MADELEINE NIGHTINGALE_
From Tony’s house the ground slopes north, east, and south, for the
house stands upon the spur of a ridge, and away on the left the long
range of the Downs shoulder the sky, whilst on the right, miles
northward, you can see Blackdown and Hascombe and on a clear day even
Leith Hill and Newlands Corner. But due east a little steep hill road
wanders away by gorse-strewn commons and under great spreading Sussex
oaks, where you meet no one save perhaps a milch goat, trailing its long
chain amongst the wayside bushes, or a cow or two wandered from their
pasturage and “feeding their way home,” as the natives say. And this is,
perhaps, Tony’s favourite walk. I am not quite sure why he so especially
loves it, but I think, maybe, it is because that way lies the Silver
Wood. For in the Silver Wood there once befell him a great and wonderful
adventure; and the happening of it was in this wise:
* * * * *
It was early May, but the May of a backward year, and only the larches
were in “proper green” (as Tony put it), though here and there a silver
birch was shaking out her smallest crumpled leaves, and all about the
commons and in the roadside hedges white bushes of blackthorn shone, and
the old mushroom man had told Tony this was “blackthorn winter.” Then
came two blazing days of unexpected summer, and on the second night,
just as the clock in the hall struck one, Tony had wakened suddenly into
moonlight bright as day and a world become, as it seemed, half Heaven by
reason of the music with which it was filled.
“What is it? Oh, what is it?” he whispered, and for an hour lay
quivering with the wonder of it, until at last he could bear no longer
the loveliness all alone, and, slipping out of bed, crept along the dark
passage and scratched softly at his mother’s door. This scratching was
an invention of his own, because, as he once explained, “The mice
scratch and it doesn’t wake them, so if they are really asleep I won’t
disturb them, and if they aren’t, why, they’ll know it’s _me_.”
To-night, his father’s voice answered, prompt and wide awake. “That you,
Tony? Come along!” He had crouched down under an eiderdown, and all
three had listened until at last the chorus died down into silence, a
cock from the valley crew welcome to the coming dawn, and a cow in the
byre at the back of the house lowed as if in answer. Then Tony’s father
had picked him up by the scruff of his pyjamas like a kitten, gathered
him in his arms, and carried him back to bed.
“It’s the nightingales, old man,” said he, “and now to sleep and I’ll
tell you all about them in the morning.”
Accordingly, next day, seated in his father’s study, whilst outside the
sun shone and beckoned with long beams through the wafting curtains, he
heard how Philomel, the nightingale, had come back from his winter
quarters in Egypt or Syria or Northern Africa, and was last night
voicing his return; how he loves dense coverts, and how skilfully he
hides his nest; how the eggs are five in number, and of a brownish
shade; and how, as he grows busy with the feeding and rearing of his
young, his song decreases until at the end of the season, just before he
leaves our shores, so hoarse has his voice become that he cannot sing at
all, but only croak. And lastly, how he sings by day as well as night;
only, because a thousand other birds are singing too, one scarcely
recognizes him.
Tony had listened, interested and attentive; but when the instruction
was over, a book had been taken down from its shelf, and verses more
wonderful than Tony had ever heard before—as wonderful, indeed, as the
nightingale’s songs themselves—were read to him in the wonderful way and
wonderful voice which only his father had. “And that’s what John Keats
thought about ’em, Tony, my son. Some day you shall tell me what _you_
think. But, there, off with you into the sunshine, and perhaps they’ll
sing for you again to-night.” So did his father finish.
And Tony had gone, but now all the careful facts of the bird’s self and
habits had drifted from his mind, and there remained to him only
snatches of the poem John Keats had written and some dim realization of
its glory and its joy.
In the afternoon he had borrowed the volume, going through the poem
stanza by stanza, finding great portions which he in no way understood,
but fastening, nevertheless, on the lines that most fascinated him,
reading them again and again, until they were unmistakably his own.
“The same that oft-times hath
Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.”
* * * * *
[Illustration: A black-and-white illustration of a boy standing in a
field watching a large goat graze nearby.]
It was a fortnight later when the adventure happened. After the few hot
days, the wind had swung anew into the north, and there had followed an
extraordinarily cold week, at the end of which Summer asserted herself
firmly, and upon this particular afternoon the air was quite sleepily
warm.
The blackthorn had all blown away, and on the wayside banks only here
and there a last primrose peeped out lonelily from its clump of green
leaves, a little sorrowful it seemed, for the many brothers and sisters
drooped and faded on their stalks at its side. The gorse was blazing
though, all the oak-trees were green, and down in the woods there would
be bluebells. Five or six larks carolled noisily overhead and Tony, too,
was singing as he walked. He had his bow-and-arrow in case he saw
buffalo, and over his back was slung a scout’s bag. For after tea the
prairie nights got chilly, and he needed wood-chips for a fire in his
wigwam at the bottom of the garden. He strode with large strides, but
silently as befitted an Apache brave (though, for that matter, he cared
little that over by Blackdown the Sioux were encamped. Were not the
young men of his own tribe within call, should he need them, which was
unlikely? Trust an Apache to keep or at any rate extricate himself from
danger).
[Illustration: A black-and-white illustration depicting a man falling
backward in a forest as a boy watches, with an axe lying on the ground
nearby.]
At the bottom of the hill he left the road and struck across the common.
A large white goat was cropping grass down in the dip, and he paused to
watch it critically.
“A strayed broncho!” said he. “And a fine one, too. I wish I had my
lariat.” Then he slid his head through his bow, dropped the arrow in its
quiver, climbed the stile of the Silver Wood, and promptly forgetting
all about Indians, became himself again. For in the woods the flowers,
shut out somewhat from the sun, are often weeks later than those of the
hedgerows and open fields, and here everywhere was carpeted with
primroses and dog violets, and the white stars of the wood anemone.
Tony gave a little crow of delight.
“Oh, I _do_ like it!” he said aloud.
Then he threw back his head and stared up into the trees, for somewhere
above him he thought he heard a voice say, “So do I.” Nor was he
mistaken. Astride a big branch that spread out half-way up the oak-trunk
sat a small grey man, and Tony recognized him at once. It was the
Woodcutter.
“Hello,” said Tony.
“Hello,” said the Woodcutter, and went on with his work, chopping away
with his axe at the bough on which he was perched. But as he chopped at
wood _between_ the tree-stem and himself, Tony felt a little anxious.
“You mustn’t do that, Woodcutter,” he said. “When the bough breaks——”
“The cradle will fall,” finished the Woodcutter; and even as he spoke
the branch cracked loudly. “’Ware heads!” he shouted; and down it came,
he with it, almost at Tony’s feet.
Tony sprang back in some alarm. He stepped forward again, however,
almost immediately, to help the little man to his feet; but the
Woodcutter, rather pettishly, motioned him away and proceeded leisurely
to brush from his clothes the dirt, grass ends, and dried leaves which
clung to them.
“Did it hurt you?” Tony asked, with much feeling.
The little man snorted.
“Try it yourself,” he said tartly.
“Well, I did warn you not to cut between the trunk and you,” Tony said
presently, a little nettled by the other’s ungraciousness.
“It makes no difference where I cut,” the Woodcutter returned rather
dolefully. “I fall just the same. Look at my head.” He turned sideways,
and Tony saw that the back of it bulged in two enormous bumps.
“That’s why I can’t wear a hat. You see, they never quite go down before
the next bump bumps them.”
“I’m so sorry,” Tony said gently. “But I can’t help thinking that if
only you didn’t cut——”
“Oh, don’t say it all over again,” the Woodcutter cried irritably. “If
you’re behind, you fall after; if you’re before you fall with. And after
all, it’s soonest over if you fall with.”
Tony looked a little bewildered.
“I don’t see why you _should_ fall after,” he said at last.
“You must if you haven’t fallen before,” retorted the other.
Tony considered awhile.
“But that’s a joke,” he remarked at last.
“Oh, is it!” said the Woodcutter indignantly. “Try it. You’ll soon see.”
Tony shook his head. “No, thank you,” he said, and then, “I didn’t mean
_that_ kind of joke.”
The little man grunted.
“I don’t think it’s any kind of joke,” he said huffily, and Tony,
hopeless of explaining, changed the subject.
“Why did you cut such a beautiful branch?” He fingered the bright green
leaves regretfully.
“It’s for my windows—wood-windows you know. Every wood has windows.”
“Windows?” Tony spoke doubtfully, but he pricked his ears as the little
man went on.
“Yes. Windows. Magic casements.”
Tony’s heart began to beat faster.
[Illustration: A black-and-white illustration of a boy and an older,
bearded man working together to carry a long, fallen tree branch across
a field.]
“For the nightingale? _Their_ magic casements, I mean?”
The Woodcutter stared at him.
“Yes, of course,” he said. “Whose else?”
“I didn’t understand ... that you make them for yourself, I mean,” Tony
said slowly. “Can I come and watch?”
The Woodcutter motioned him to shoulder one end of the bough, and
raising the other himself, started off down the slope.
“You don’t altogether,” he said.
“Don’t altogether what?”
“Make them yourself. The material is there. You only need to use it.”
“Yes,” returned Tony after a pause, “I think I see that.”
“And that’s why it had to be specially beautiful,” he went on; “to fit
in with the music, I suppose.”
The Woodcutter grunted assent and then plodded on in silence.
* * * * *
Now when you have climbed the stile of the Silver Wood, the path, all
grass and primroses and violets, runs steeply down for 100 yards or so,
and crosses in the dip a little brushwood bridge that spans the boggy
bed of a small stream. On the other side you rise again, and almost at
once on the left a lane turns at right angles, leading straightly
through a plantation of silver birches. If you follow this, you come
shortly into meadows, for the wood is narrow here. Fifty yards farther
is another lane, cut through great oaks, and one trunk, topped and
lonely, lies right across the way. Both these the Woodcutter passed by.
The third lane is narrower, and the branches of the trees on either hand
spread and so intermingle that, when they are in full summer foliage,
the path beneath is dim and cool like the tunnels through the corn and
bracken that the rabbits use. To-day, however, since the oak-buds had
only just uncurled their crinkly leaves, the sun lay all along it,
flecking and dappling it in a pattern of light and shade. And above was
the same pattern, but fashioned of the leaves themselves against the
sky. The Woodcutter halted for a moment. “Listen!” he said, and far away
ahead, very faint and muffled, Tony heard a whistle, thin and sweet and
repeated several times. Then came a little burst of gurgling song that
set his shoulders wriggling with delight. And then all was still again.
“It’s a nightingale!” he cried.
The Woodcutter nodded.
“They love the quiet and lonely places, where no one goes. But _we’ll_
go, you and I, Tony o’ Dreams, and we’ll build a window there for them
to charm.”
Tony stared, for it seemed to him odd that a little rough-clothed,
rough-handed Woodcutter should be speaking in the language of a poet.
“Do you know Keats, then?” he asked, and paused, ashamed of his
astonishment.
The Woodcutter smiled.
“That’s not just John Keats,” he said, “it’s everyone, boy—everyone,
that is, who looks and feels.”
“But John Keats _wrote_ it,” Tony persisted.
“Yes, but Keats only gathered what grows for all of us; gathered and
thought on it and put it into words. It’s _ours_ as well as his. That’s
why we love it so.”
[Illustration: A black-and-white illustration of a boy dragging a log
while an older man stands nearby with his arms raised, as if gesturing
or exclaiming.]
Tony pondered this very seriously.
“Suppose”—he said—“suppose I gathered something and thought on it; could
_I_ ever put it into words—into words, I mean, like those?”
The Woodcutter did not answer at once, and Tony waited patiently,
listening as he walked to the soft pad of their feet on the grass, the
pipe of an occasional chaffinch, the coo of a wood-pigeon, the quiet
stir of the trees and the rustle of a rabbit here and there amongst the
undergrowth.
[Illustration: A black-and-white illustration of a boy standing in a
forest watching an older, bearded man who is dragging a log along the
ground.]
“I dare say,” the little man said at last. “Maybe, they’d come to you
somewhere, somehow, as they came to him. I cannot tell.” He lowered his
end of the branch and suddenly flung his arms wide.
“Listen!” he cried. “Can you hear?”
Tony regarded the strange little figure wonderingly.
“I can hear. Yes. Lots of things,” he answered after a while. “The trees
and the wind, and the birds and the rabbits; and ... sometimes I think I
can hear the clouds and the flowers and the sunshine. But I can’t quite
tell what they say.”
“_Listen_ then,” said the Woodcutter again; “listen to them, and one day
perhaps you _will_ understand the language, so that their words shall
come to be your own.”
He raised the bough again and trudged off, and Tony, absorbed in his own
thoughts, followed in silence until the whistle of another nightingale,
quite near at hand, roused him.
The lane now had dwindled to a narrow path, and on either hand all
tangled round the grey lichened trunks of the trees was so dense an
undergrowth of bramble, honeysuckle, and little springing birches that
he and his companion seemed shut out from all the world. But far ahead,
at the path’s end, a little patch of white gleamed like a pool in a
green field.
[Illustration: A black-and-white illustration of an older, bearded man
leaning against a tree while a young boy stands nearby, watching him.]
The Woodcutter pointed to it.
“See!” he cried. “A magic casement! I must frame the sky.”
In a moment he had his branch flat upon the ground and was chopping
vigorously, measuring, tenoning, fitting, until—so swiftly as to seem
indeed magical—the magic casement was complete. Tony laid hands upon one
side of its square frame to help bear it to its destination, but the
Woodcutter shook his head.
“The nightingales know _me_,” he said, “but I must go alone. When it is
fixed, perhaps for you also the charm will charm. Wait.”
[Illustration: A high-contrast illustration of a small boy standing at
the edge of a dark, expansive body of water, looking out into the
distance.]
And so Tony waited, sitting by the side of the path on a mat of new
white wood-chips with his back against a tree.
Then quite suddenly the nightingales called him. Springing to his feet,
and flinging away his bow and quiver because they hindered him, he raced
down the path as fast as his legs could carry him.
At the end of it, round the little patch of sky, was the magic casement
exactly as the Woodcutter had made it; but the Woodcutter was gone.
There was no one here now but himself and the nightingales; and the
nightingales, as they had sung that night when he heard them first, were
singing all together, so that the very air was quivering with music. For
fully a minute Tony stood quiet, quivering too, his hand on the
window-sill, almost afraid to look. And then he looked, and knew that it
was all right. For him also the charm had charmed. For in front of him
stretched long, shining sands and beyond them a great sea. And the sea
was all spangled with wave crests that the moonlight caught. And across
both sands and sea a silver way ran, broad and straight, to the horizon
and then onward endlessly into the beyond. But sometimes as he looked
the bright silver of it blurred for a moment as the spray-scud drove
across it like a cloud. Some of the spray drove inland too, for Tony’s
face grew moist with it, and when he touched his lips and fingers with
his tongue the taste of them was like salt.
“The same that oft-times hath
Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.”
he chanted softly.
Then he clambered upon the sill, balanced for a moment or two with his
legs dangling, dropped through, and set off slowly across the lonely
sands. Far ahead he could see, in the moonlight, line after line of
breakers and, a little nearer, the ebbing, flowing ripple of their
fringe. Here and there about the shore were strewn great rocks, which,
as he approached, towered jet black against the violet sky and threw
shadows as black as themselves upon the sands below. Some had little
pools around their base, and at one of them he stopped, doffed shoes and
stockings, and, standing with his tired feet cool in the soft water,
stared thoughtfully across this new and wonderful sea that he had found.
“Perilous?” he said at last. “The billows don’t roar very angrily, and
it’s too beautiful to be perilous, I think.”
“Ah, but you’re thinking backwards way, Master Tony; it’s perilous just
because it _is_ so beautiful.”
Tony jumped. He had felt himself so utterly alone, and yet the voice
sounded at his very elbow. Then he stared in amazement, for at his side
stood a little old woman in a mob cap and a long grey cloak, half dusty,
half sheeny, as cobwebs are. In her hand she carried a kind of wand with
a bright end to it which shone just like a star.
[Illustration: A dark, atmospheric illustration of a young boy standing
in a rocky, water-filled area with a figure dressed in a pointed hat and
cloak who is holding a staff tipped with a glowing light.]
“Are you the Queen Moon?” he asked her, remembering his Keats; but she
burst into a laugh and began to dance with most astonishing agility,
wetting him all over as she splashed the water with her long, sharp-toed
shoes.
“Queen Moon, indeed!” cried she, and pointed to the sky. “Not I! Don’t
you see? The Queen Moon is on her throne, clustered about with all her
starry fays.” She shook her wand in his face. “As for this! Did you
think it was a star? Look! It’s an elf-stone! Turn your coat, Tony, turn
your coat! I’m a fairy.”
Tony had often heard of elf-stones, and once his father had seen one. A
cow had been found dead in the pasture, and the old cowman had brought
up to the house a little bright piece of flint, triangular and barbed on
each side like an arrow head. “’Tis elf-shot she be, surely, and never a
mark on her to show,” he had said. “But there ’twas, alongside—the
fairies’ arrow-point.” And the old fellow had begged that he might keep
it, hanging it round his neck as an amulet against a like fate falling
on himself. Here, sure enough, was the flint just as Tony had pictured
it. He took the wand rather gingerly and examined it, giving it back to
her at last, with a little laugh. “I’m not afraid of fairies,” he said
stoutly. “So I won’t need to turn my coat. But who _are_ you, then?
Queen _Mab_?”
“No, nor yet Queen _Mab_,” she retorted, mimicking his accent; “just
_Mistress_ Mab, an it please you.”
She dropped a little curtsey and her grey cloak spread out all about the
water and dripped a hundred tiny silver rivulets as she rose again to
her small height.
“But everyone _says_ Queen,” he persisted.
“Everyone is wrong, then,” she answered, and paused and heaved a sigh.
“And yet,” she went on, “Queen Mab it _is_, perhaps—Queen by courtesy.
But Queen only of men’s dreams.”
Tony made a low bow, stepped out of his pool and dropped upon one knee.
“Then,” said he, “at least you are _my_ Queen.”
“And why?”
“Because,” he said, rather red and shy, “because of my name, you see.
Tony o’ Dreams, they call me. So I must be _your_ knight, mustn’t I?”
“I see,” she said gently, and both were silent, she as well as he,
gazing seaward to the fringe of foam. Suddenly she laid her hand upon
his shoulder.
“Well then, small knight,” she cried, “and what of the perilous seas?”
Tony shivered. “I’m not afraid,” he said, “only ... they are so
beautiful. _Must_ all that’s beautiful be perilous too?”
“But of course! Perilous—to be adventured—to be tried and made your
own!”
“Oh but perilous? Does perilous mean that?” he asked quickly.
“Why, yes—what else?”
Tony pondered.
“I thought quite differently,” he said at last. “I thought it meant
dangerous.”
She caught him up almost before the words were out of his mouth. “Ah,
no! Not dangerous. Beauty—real beauty is safer, surer than all other
things in all the world. Remember that, Tony, now and always. Come, will
you sail these perilous seas with me for faery lands, so lost, so
lost—for faery lands forlorn?”
He looked at her without speaking, and suddenly she began to sing:
“Away, away and away we go,
Away by ourselves, away!
For it’s somewhere hid ’twixt the sea and sky
That the long-lost lands of faery lie,
And I know if we sail there, you and I,
We shall find them one fine day.”
As she ended, the moon slid behind a cloud, and in the sudden darkness
she tugged his hand.
“Fly, Tony! Spread your wings and fly!” she cried, “lest we grow old and
tired before we come there.”
Eagerly he stretched out his arms, straining up on tiptoe. In a moment
the ground was gone from beneath his feet and, lightly as a bird, he was
gliding onward through the air, the scud wet upon his face again and the
sweet salt smell of the sea growing stronger and stronger as he
breathed.
He shut his eyes the better to enjoy the delight of it, and it seemed
quite a long time later when Queen Mab pulled his arm again to rouse
him.
“Now you can hear the billows,” she said.
Listening, he caught the rhythmic roar of them deep down below, and
clutched her hand more tightly for the thoughts they raised.
“You’re frightened!” she jeered.
“No,” he answered simply. “I love it. That’s all.”
“Come, then, and we’ll sail.”
They began to drop rapidly, and just as Tony’s feet touched ground the
moon came out again and showed him the foam-fringe of the sea curling
and glistening round his ankles. A yard or so away, quivering in water
almost deep enough to float her, lay a little boat in which Queen Mab
already sat.
“Push off, Sir Tony Knight,” she said, “and spring aboard.”
He pushed and clambered, falling perhaps rather clumsily over the
gunwale, but picking himself up without so much as a rub of his bruised
elbows and settling the oars in the rowlocks neatly, as a Cornishman’s
son should.
“That’s right, Tony! Pull! Pull hard!” his companion whispered. “For on
these faery seas, most often whilst we strive it is that the winds blow
us where we will.”
Tony looked back at her over his shoulder.
“I _am_ pulling,” he said. “But only a very little, I think. The boat
moves of itself.”
She leaned forward and pinched his cheek.
“And what is the wind but your spirit,” she demanded, “decked in a
lovelier name?”
He shook his head.
“I don’t understand, Queen Mab,” he said, but went on pulling long even
strokes as his father had taught him, until the soft creak-creak of the
rowlocks and the drip of the water from the blades made a sleepy music,
and he fell to humming softly to keep himself awake. Even this, it
seemed, began to fail, and shipping his oars, he turned at last to his
companion to tell her how tired he was and to ask whether it would be
unknightly if for two minutes he should curl up at the bottom of the
boat and sleep his sleepiness away.
And then he rubbed his eyes in amazement and all his sleepiness passed
as completely as the spray scud passed across the moonshine, for her
seat was empty and he was all alone.
“Queen Mab!” he shouted. “Queen Mab! Ahoy!” But there was no answer
except the roar of the surf far behind him, and the lap of the water
against the sides of the boat. A little tremor took him, and clambering
to the bows he knelt there, staring ahead. Then he stretched out both
his hands and spoke:
“Oh, faery lands—faery lands forlorn. It wasn’t I that lost you, was it?
If it was, I’m sorry, but I’ve come to find you now. Don’t hide
yourselves away from me too long.”
And all in a moment it was day again and the sun was shining. And when
he stared—out of the horizon, it seemed—rose a long low bank of green.
At first he thought it was faery land itself coming towards him in
answer to his call. Then he realized it was a great wave, and with a
rush came back the memory of a certain day last year. He was in his
uncle’s yacht. A storm had overtaken them and, huddled behind a hatch,
he had sat with his father, listening to the shrieks of the wind and the
deafening rattle of every stay and rope the little vessel carried, and
wondering whether it was really he who sat there, or some boy in a book.
And how, poking his head round the hatch, he had seen just such a wall
of green water rushing down upon him then. The yacht had buried _her_
nose in it and the green had sluiced along the deck on either side,
churning as it went, and poured over the stern. In just such a way did
his own little boat now bury her nose, only not her nose merely, but the
boat and he and all went in. And the water parted itself into a square
opening, and as he tumbled through—lo and behold, it was the magic
casement; and here was the wood again, and it wasn’t the bottom of the
sea at all, but just his heap of wood-chips from which he picked himself
up, a little dazed and confused. And the magic casement slid away from
him along its “verdurous glooms and winding mossy way,” until it was
once more only a pale patch of light where the path’s end touched the
sky.
His bow and quiver hung in a bramble just where he had flung them when
he raced away, and he gazed at them a long while before he gathered and
slung them on his back.
A nightingale whistled somewhere to the left. He waited for its burst of
song, standing listening with his head flung back. Up the path the magic
casement seemed to beckon him, but as the music ended he knew suddenly
that he was tired and hungry.
“Oh, nightingales!” he cried, “I know! I know! And beyond, the seas
_are_ very perilous. I shall come again. But, you see, I’m not a very
valiant knight. Even as it was, I failed. I was so tired, I stopped
rowing and almost fell asleep. And now I’m tireder than ever. And
perhaps I was nearly there.”
He blinked furiously because his tiredness made his eyes blur a little,
and he was afraid he might think he was crying.
“I—I shall shoot buffalo on my way home,” he said. Then he filled his
scout’s bag with the white wood-chips and set off.
[Illustration: A high-contrast illustration of a dark boat on water
under a bright yellow moon.]
POEMS _By HUGH CHESTERMAN_
SETTING THE THAMES ON FIRE
You’ve heard of Tovey Trant, Esquire,
Who tried to set the Thames on fire
And would not be dissuaded
From dropping lighted matches in,
With candle-ends and paraffin
And all the things that servants use
For lighting fires that refuse
To burn unaided?
He started his experiment
At Erith on the coast of Kent,
And when it wouldn’t burn he tried
At Purfleet on the Essex side
(For Tovey _was_ a trier).
He tried at Cleeve (near Nettlebed),
And then again at Maidenhead,
But all the people watching said,
“Go higher, Trant, go higher!”
So up he moved to Hurley Mill
And then to Caversham, and still
The stupid stream would not ignite;
Although he tried with all his might
He _could_ not set the Thames alight,
And that there’s no denying.
He tried at Stoke, and then a spot
Near Wallingford, and Wolvercot,
Again at Bablock, and so up
To Shifford, Rushy Lock and Thrupp,
And Inglesham. At Water Hay
He neared the source, and there, they say,
Poor Tovey’s still a-trying.
HUGH CHESTERMAN
[Illustration:
Setting the Thames on fire.
]
THE WANDERER
What open ways before him lie!
High hills where Earth with Heav’n meets,
And shining downs where plovers cry,
Or idle towns with crooked streets.
But vain to ask which way have gone
Those vagrant feet—for no one knows
What urgent star compels him on,
Nor whence he came—nor where he goes.
HUGH CHESTERMAN
[Illustration:
The Wanderer.
]
THE WRANGLERS
There was a man of Languedoc
Who had a friend in Wapping;
For seven hours by the clock
They’d argue without stopping;
They’d talk of this and tell of that,
And contradict each other flat
On any given topic.
And if the one did introduce
A subject deep or too abstruse,
The other fell to sharp abuse,
And tempers would grow “tropic.”
“I’d sooner argue with a block!”
Protested he from Languedoc.
“For all I care, my friend, you can,”
Replied the wrathful Wapping man.
HUGH CHESTERMAN
[Illustration:
The Wranglers.
]
[Illustration: A high-contrast, black-and-white illustration of Santa
Claus riding in a sleigh pulled by two reindeer across a starry night
sky.]
MOTHER CHRISTMAS _By ROSE FYLEMAN_
“My dear,” said Mother Christmas, “it’s no use. You can’t go.”
“Nonsense,” said Father Christmas. “Of course I shall go. I’ve never
missed yet. The children would never get over it.”
“Then let _me_ go,” said Mother Christmas. “It’s absurd for you to think
of it with a cold like that on you. I can manage perfectly. After all,
it was I who packed up all the presents and I know exactly where to take
them.”
“And how are you going to manage the reindeer, I’d like to know, with
all those telegraph wires about?” said her husband. “No, my dear, it’s a
man’s job. I shall be all right. Mix me a hot drink and I’ll have a five
minutes’ snooze by the fire before I start.”
[Illustration:
It made him very sleepy.
]
Mother Christmas said no more, but there was an odd gleam in her eye as
she mixed Father Christmas’s glass of hot lemon and water. It’s my
belief she put something more than lemon into the hot water; however
that may be, it certainly made him very sleepy. The five minutes’ snooze
lengthened into ten—fifteen—twenty. Mother Christmas was moving about
the room very quietly and softly. She wrapped herself up in all manner
of woollies, and at last put on her husband’s great red coat and hood
all trimmed with white fur, and stole quietly out of the door.
Plup, plup, plup—there was a noise of light hoofs flying over the snow.
Plup, plup, plup—softer and softer it grew. At last it died away.
Father Christmas still slept by the fire.
* * * * *
When he woke up it was quite dark, and it didn’t take him many minutes
to realize what had happened. He hurried to the reindeer shed—empty.
The snow was falling thickly. He was terribly upset. What was to be
done? He had no other sleigh and no other reindeer, and of course it was
impossible to follow his wife down to earth on foot.
Finally he decided to ring up the Fairy Queen. She was always so kind
and helpful.
“Please, your Majesty,” he said when he had got through, “I’m nearly
distracted. My wife insisted upon taking out the Christmas presents
because I had such a cold, and I’m so afraid she may get lost, or stick
somewhere.”
“Dear, dear,” said the Queen. “Hold the line a minute while
I tell the head of the look-out department to put on his
million-horse-power-wireless-radio-telescope-spectacles in order to see
where she is.” In a minute or two came news.
[Illustration:
“She’s caught on some telegraph wires.”
]
“She’s caught on some telegraph wires and the reindeer and the sleigh
are all tangled up in them. He can see them quite plainly. What would
you like me to do?”
“Oh dear, oh dear,” said poor Father Christmas. “I’m afraid the only
thing to do is to cut the wires, and the wire-cutter is in the tool-box
under the seat of the sledge. She’ll never think of that.”
“Would you like me to send her a message?” said the Queen.
“Oh, your Majesty, if you _would_ ...” said Father Christmas.
So the Queen sent down a messenger at once with instructions about the
wire-cutter.
* * * * *
Mother Christmas was in a dreadful tangle. She simply could not get out,
and the reindeer were kicking and plunging in a most troublesome way.
Large snowflakes were falling. They fell on to Mother Christmas’s hair
and nose and spectacles.
She put up her hand to brush one off her ear.
“Hi,” said a tiny voice. “You mustn’t treat me like that. I’m a Queen’s
Messenger.”
Mother Christmas took off her spectacles and wiped them and put them on
again.
A tiny dapper little person sat on the rail of the sleigh. He really did
look rather like a snowflake in his snug white cap and ulster, but he
was very much alive.
“The wire-cutter’s in the tool-box under the seat,” he said, and was off
like a flash. He wanted to get home to bed I expect. And so Mother
Christmas got back safely after all, and she had delivered all the
presents too. You may guess what a welcome she received from her husband
and what a lot the reindeer had to talk about to one another before
_they_ went to sleep.
* * * * *
“There must have been a terrible gale last night,” people said on
Christmas morning. “Quite a lot of telegraph wires are down.”
The head of the listening department in Fairyland heard them and told
the Queen what they said. How she laughed!
[Illustration: A stylized illustration of a winged, fairy-like creature
with a small crown sitting centered in a black, arched frame, with two
small, domed structures placed on either side.]
FUNNY LOO _By EDITH SITWELL_
“Whose tears are running
Down the window-pane?”
“Never mind,” said funny Loo—
“It is the King of Spain
Who is weeping tears of gold
To wake the crocus cold” ...
Then, running like bunnies in the warm spring rain
My thoughts go lumping out to Timbuctoo,
They steal gold cherries from a pirate crew,
They steal golden wool from the trees for you—
Then through the green fields of corn go running home to Loo.
[Illustration:
“Whose tears are running
Down the window-pane?”
]
A THING TO BE EXPLAINED _By LAURENCE HOUSMAN_
When Professor Braintree and his granddaughter Elfrida took a walk
together, there was only one thing in which they were alike: they both
took short steps. But even when they thus agreed, they did it for
different reasons: he because he was so old, she because she was so
small. And in that point of likeness, which had two such different
reasons at the back of it, you get a picture of their characters—they
were as different as different could be, and yet they got on together.
It may have been that each had a way of appearing to pay attention while
the other talked, and so made good company together; or it may simply
have been that Elfrida liked him because he was so old, and that he
liked Elfrida because she was so young; it is a great relief, at times,
to get away from yourself by being with something quite different.
As they walked together Elfrida’s voice seemed to come up to him out of
the ground, and his voice seemed to her to come from the trees; yet it
was really just the other way, for he had his mind in the ground, and
she had her mind in the trees; and his words were pebbles of wisdom, dug
up by long experience and worth a great deal, and hers were like loose
fluttering leaves blown down from the trees, and worth nothing because
they meant nothing, except that she was happy at being alive. The
Professor wasn’t happy at being alive; but he didn’t want to die, all
the same.
[Illustration: A colorful illustration of a young girl and an older,
bearded man in a hat walking through a forest, where they encounter a
large, spotted butterfly-like creature.]
And all this time they had been taking short steps together, going
through the wood, and each looking at things in their own way, and
having their own names for them.
“Oh, Grandpapa!” cried Elfrida suddenly. “Did you see? That was a
fairy!”
“No, it wasn’t, my dear, it was a tiger-moth. Its proper name is—you
wouldn’t remember its proper name if I told you.”
“Does it have babies?” inquired Elfrida.
“No, my dear, it has eggs; but we don’t eat them.”
But Elfrida had seen something which seemed to her much bigger than a
tiger-moth, and the thought of eggs disappointed her.
“Do fairies only have eggs?” she asked anxiously.
“Fairies don’t have anything,” replied her grandfather: “they don’t
exist. They only live in story-books. When you come back to London you
shall begin to learn natural history; then you won’t think about fairies
any more.”
“But Grandpapa,” said Elfrida, “how do you know there are no fairies?”
“Because,” said he, “if there were fairies I should have discovered
them.”
From which remark the reader will perceive that though a very wise and
learned, he was also a very conceited old man.
Perhaps he had a right to be, for he was one of the most celebrated
living scientists of his day, though his day is now over; and he had
discovered a great many things about nature—animal nature, and bird
nature, and insect nature—that had never been discovered before. He was
so great that correspondents, writing to him from all over the world,
had to put after his name the magic letters O.M., which is the Buddhist
word for God, I believe, but in our language means something a little
different.
He was rich, and he lived in a large house on the borders of Richmond
Park, where his study looked out upon trees. And in it he had
microscopes and spectrographs, and dictaphones, and a lot of other
instruments which, if I tried to name them, I should get wrong. But they
helped him to hear things, and see things, and know things more minutely
than they had ever been heard or seen or known before. It was said that
he was the only man in the world as yet who had been able to see an
atom, and hear the sound of an electron; and as these are about a
million times smaller than anything you or I have ever seen, and make
less noise than the smallest flea when it is dead, it is no wonder he
should have thought that, if there were fairies, he would have
discovered them.
All the same, if this is a true story, Professor Braintree was wrong.
But it does not follow that he was mad, though to his dying day he
believed that if it was true mad he must have been.
And now, having taken all these short steps to be in the Professor’s
whereabouts, we can get on with the story. The next day he went back to
his house at Richmond, leaving Elfrida with her relatives. She was to
return three days later. And grandfather and grandchild, being parted,
each made the best of their time; but they no longer kept step together,
as news from Elfrida will presently tell.
The Professor, from the moment of his return, was kept very busy with
his correspondence, which had got into arrears—so busy, in fact, that
when on the evening of the second day a letter arrived from Elfrida he
had not time to open it, and so it came about that he did not read it
till the morning of her arrival.
The Professor was working at his microscope when his secretary, Miss
Tuckey, came in with the letters, last night’s and this morning’s. He
had been seeing wonderful things in it; but when he looked up he saw
nothing distinctly, for his eyes were feeble, and a large glass case of
stuffed birds standing in the window appeared only as a haze of colour
until he put on one of his two pairs of spectacles, those which he used
for looking at things from a distance. Then he saw that Miss Tuckey had
a smut on her nose, and told her so; for he very much liked being on the
spot himself and correcting others, and did not mind being rude about
it.
Miss Tuckey wiped the smut off her nose, and giving him his letters
waited to receive instructions. For that he had to put on his
reading-glasses; and once more Miss Tuckey became a blur, and could have
had as many smuts as she liked on her nose without his seeing one of
them. This changing of glasses always took up a great deal of his day;
but to-day it was going to matter rather more than usual, which is why I
mention it.
Having, in about half an hour, disposed of all his business letters, he
came at last to Elfrida’s. It was in a pink envelope, and it had a scent
of violets; and as he opened it and unfolded the letter, a green leaf
dropped out—just an ordinary green leaf from a tree. He took it up and
examined it, and knew it at once. “What is she sending me this botanical
specimen for, I wonder?” he said. “A leaf of the hornbeam, _Carpinus
betulus_, if I am not mistaken.”
Then he looked at the letter, but Elfrida’s handwriting, which at the
best of times was bad, when she was excited became almost unreadable—by
him, at any rate.
Handing it over to Miss Tuckey, he told her to read it to him, and this
is what she read:
“DEAREST GRANDPAPA,
“I am coming back to-morrow. I have had a lovely time. So did Benjy;
we went everywhere together, but he always would go into the water,
and I had to stay out.
[“Benjy is the dog, I believe,” explained the Professor.]
“That was wrong of him, wasn’t it? To-day in the wood I saw a tree
full of fairies; it was wonderful. Benjy was barking at them, and they
didn’t mind. But when I came they all climbed up and hid behind the
leaves; and I waited till one came out again—quite close I was then.
If I’d had a butterfly net I could have caught him easily. And I send
you a leaf off the tree, so as to show you it was a real one, and not
what you call my ‘imagination.’
[The Professor made a dry noise; it couldn’t be called a laugh. “Oh!”
said he, “so that’s what the botanical specimen is for.... Yes?” Miss
Tuckey went on reading.]
“Please keep it till I come, then I will tell you all about it.”
[Illustration:
“I saw a tree full of fairies.”
]
The Professor gave an uncomfortable wriggle, and rubbed the back of his
neck.
“Miss Tuckey,” he said, “I wish you would not leave that door open!
There’s a dreadful draught at my back.”
“It isn’t open, sir,” replied Miss Tuckey.
“Well, there’s a draught somewhere—quite a wind! It seemed to come all
of a sudden. And there! it has blown Miss Elfrida’s leaf away, that was
here only a moment ago. Put the screen round me; then perhaps I shan’t
feel it.”
Miss Tuckey went and arranged the screen, and while she did so he drew
out his writing materials and began to settle to his morning’s work. “Is
that all the letter?” he asked.
“Yes, sir, except she sends her love.”
Then for a moment he remembered the leaf, and looked to see where it had
fallen. But it was nowhere in sight, and being of no importance, in
another moment he had forgotten it.
Miss Tuckey made final arrangements for his comfort: she put his papers
in order and within reach, then made up the fire, and because the sun
was shining drew down the green venetian blinds, so that the room
remained in pleasant gloom. Then she put the electric reading-lamp and
the telephone by his side, and having switched on the light, which he
preferred, left him to his work.
This so absorbed him that he was entirely unaware of being looked at.
Some people feel it instinctively, others don’t. But perhaps it needs to
be the eye of a human being. We should not, perhaps, know that a cow was
looking at us; and if a flea looked at us, still less; a queen very
likely would not know that she was being looked at by a cat.
But this wasn’t a cat, or a cow, or a flea; it was something quite
different. Those who have seen anything like it before will, perhaps,
recognize it from my description: and how could I describe it if I had
not seen it myself?
If we sat where the Professor was sitting, this is how it would appear
to us: first, over the far end of the writing-table, a pair of strange
eyes rather prominent, polished, shining. Dark and bird-like they stared
at him out of a small green face, that looked funny but wasn’t human.
Out of the head sprouted two long horns that curved and waved like
feelers, this way and that, and the rest was all of a piece. The
creature was a curious mixture of beetle, bird, and grasshopper; it had
a cover, but it did not wear clothes; its colour from head to foot was
bright green.
With great interest and curiosity it stood looking at the Professor, but
apparently without understanding; and presently, as if to get a nearer
view of him, it moved slowly round the writing-table till it stood
opposite to him.
The Professor, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, paid no attention. The
only noise in the room was the soft scratching of a quill pen.
Presently the creature smacked its lips, and began making a soft jabber
to itself, not much louder than the whip of leaves on a window-pane. If
you have heard a starling nibbling its beak on a fine spring day—that is
the sort of sound the creature made.
The Professor, thinking that he heard something he ought not to hear,
looked up through his reading-glasses, and could not believe his eyes.
This, of course, must be the fault of the glasses, for it was quite
impossible that he should see in front of him a small green figure with
eyes in its head, which appeared to be resting claw-like fingers upon
his writing-table, while dancing up and down upon its toes, and looking
altogether rather pleased with itself and rather puzzled at him.
So in great haste the Professor changed his glasses, and looked again.
To his horror and consternation the creature was still there.
The Professor at once took up the scientific attitude. Though it was a
great shock to him for his eyes to be seeing something which could not
be there, it was still capable of explanation.
“Dear me, now!” he said to himself. “This is most extraordinary. Let me
think! How many cups of green tea did I have this morning?”
And hardly had he put the question than the creature spoke—made a noise,
that is to say:
“Sik-sik-sik-sik-sik-sik-sik!”
It sounded like a blackbird flying away through the trees.
“Six, I believe it was,” said the Professor; then he started. “Did that
thing speak?”
And immediately, if speaking it can be called, the thing spoke again,
and having begun, went on, paying very little attention to him:
“Chwee-e-weet! Chick-a-wee! Chick-a-wee! Chip-chip-chip-chick-a-wee!”
This persistence of the hallucination made the Professor realize that
the situation was serious. “I must be ill!” he said to himself, made a
dive for the telephone, and rang up without pause, till the exchange
heard him.
“Station 1228, please—yes, 1, double 2, 8!”
And as he said it, that creature, that figment of his imagination, took
up and repeated the sound.
“Two-eight! two-eight! Eight-eight-eight-eight-eight!”
* * * * *
This was not like a blackbird, it was like a nightingale. The Professor
was getting more and more frightened; to be in such a state of health
was terrible. Then, to his relief, a voice came down the telephone.
“Is Doctor Locum——?” he began. “Oh, is that you, Doctor? Will you come
and see me at once?... Braintree, Professor Braintree. Yes—most urgent.
I’m afraid I’ve—broken down.”
The Doctor had not quite caught him. “No, no, not a blood-vessel—worse!
Do come at once! Don’t lose a moment.... What?”
But the Doctor had already gone, presumably was upon his way.
“What? what? what? what? what?”
It was that thing talking again! The Professor fixed it with a stare
which tried to be sensible. He knew that it did not exist. Why, then,
must he go on seeing it, hearing it? He made a great effort of will:
shut it out of his sight, diverted his attention, went back to his
writing. He dipped his pen.
The horrible little creature watched him, imitated him, leaned over,
dipped its finger in the inkpot, and flipped the ink over his paper.
In his terror, to avoid thinking himself mad, the Professor was
magnanimous. “There! I did that!” he said.
He looked across; the creature had disappeared. Willpower was having its
effect.
But scarcely had he begun to congratulate himself on that fact, when
over his shoulder came the horned head.
He started away from it in irrepressible disgust. “Get out!” he cried.
The creature made a dive, and disappeared again. Once more he began to
feel relief, when suddenly from a corner of the room he heard it tapping
at the typewriter, and as it tapped it imitated the sound. It sounded
almost, but not quite, like: “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled
peppercorns.” But it couldn’t be actually those words: _words_, no! If
he began actually hearing it say words—sentences with a meaning—the
state of his mind would be worse than ever.
The Professor picked up his penwiper and threw it; and sportively, as
though it were playing a game with him, the green imp ducked and
disappeared.
A moment later it had hold of him by the toe. The Professor gave a
despairing howl, and sprang up into his chair. Another of his senses was
gone; not only did he see and hear this thing which did not exist—he had
felt it as well. “If this goes on much longer,” he said to himself, “I
shall go stark, staring mad.”
But even as he spoke the imp’s active and ever-shifting interest had
gone elsewhere. Twisting and pirouetting across the room, it came
suddenly on the case of stuffed birds standing in the window, and
stopped, transfixed with astonishment.
[Illustration:
Net in hand, the Professor advanced.
]
Then it tapped upon the glass case, and after a close scrutiny began
trying, with bird-like sounds and a flapping motion of the hands, to
coax the occupants back to life.
The Professor stood and listened spellbound; this was getting worse and
worse, for now the creature was showing sympathy; it was saying things
that meant something.
“Chick-a-wake! Weet-weet! Oh, why? Tickle ’em up! Two-to-eat!
Two-to-eat! Eat-eat-eat! Quick, quick! Josaphat! Josaphat!
Drink-and-eat! Wake-up!”
This advance of the green imp in the direction of speech had upon the
Professor only the effect of making his own mind descend into the depth.
The more sane, the more understanding this creature of his imagination
appeared to be, the more obviously was he himself the victim of a
delusion. He knew, he knew for certain, that such a thing could not
really exist. And yet by the evidence of all his senses it did.
And then, all at once, he got a bright idea; granted that it was an
illusion, of which momentarily he was the victim, then, perhaps, all
that was necessary was to adapt himself to the fantasy, while its power
was upon him; to play up to it, to behave as though it were real, to do
as he would do if a hornet, or a beetle, or a butterfly, or a bat had
got into the room; to catch it and kill it, and make a specimen of it.
If he could only reduce it to the condition of a specimen, he left quite
sure that the hallucination would go and the scientific balance of his
mind be restored.
And there, close at hand, lay the means, the instrument with which to
experiment—a large green butterfly net on a bamboo cane, standing in the
corner rack behind him.
The creature was still looking into the case of stuffed birds; it had
its back to him. Net in hand, the Professor advanced cautiously, intent
on capture. Catching sight of his reflection in the glass the imp turned
and fled; it jumped on to the writing-table, jumped on to the back of
his chair, jumped over the screen and vanished.
There came a knock at the door. Miss Tuckey entered.
“I beg your pardon,” she said. “I thought I heard—something. Did you
call, sir?”
The Professor stood, butterfly net in hand, rather at a loss how to
account for himself. He was not going to tell Miss Tuckey that he was
mad, whatever he might have to tell the Doctor.
“No, no,” he said, giving the net a flourish as he spoke. “I was only
just practising. As a matter of fact, a butterfly has got into the
room—a rare one, I think—and I was trying to catch it. I fancy that now
it has gone behind that screen—will you look, Miss Tuckey?... Will you
drive it out? Don’t be afraid; it won’t bite you.”
Miss Tuckey smiled to herself at the idea of being afraid of a
butterfly; the Professor did say curious things sometimes, old age had
made him a little eccentric.
She went behind the screen; the Professor stood expectant, very much
interested. Miss Tuckey had pulled out her handkerchief, and was
flapping it. “No,” she said, “I don’t think anything’s here.”
“Oh, thank you, it doesn’t matter, then,” said the Professor. “By the
way, I’m expecting the Doctor. Will you send him up when he comes?”
Miss Tuckey departed, and he was alone again—alone with his
hallucination. Clearly, she had seen nothing. He wondered whether it was
still there, waiting for him to treat it as though it were real.
He advanced cautiously, and peeped. Then suddenly at his back he heard
the cry of the spring peewit. “Peweet! Peweet! Just-look-at-me!
Just-look-at-me!” And there was the green imp bounding and tumbling, as
ready for a game of catch-as-catch-can as a young flea on the first of
March; and if you have ever tried to catch one on that day you know the
difficulty.
The Professor never had, so knew nothing about it; but now was his
opportunity: a weapon was in his hand, and the net of it was large and
the handle of it was long. And so for a few moments you have the
degrading spectacle of an eminent scientist, and an O.M., pursuing on
the material plane something which he did not really believe to exist.
But the pursuit was soon over. The imp was too agile, the pace too
killing; and the Professor in his stumbling course managed to knock over
a great many things he did not intend to. He stopped exhausted, put down
the net, and began to pick up his scattered papers.
The imp, imitative, seeing him thus occupied, made a playful addition to
his task by scattering more.
At this the Professor thoroughly lost his temper. “Hallucination,” he
cried, “you are a perfect nuisance!”
As he spoke he opened a small chest and, to get them out of harm’s way,
began bundling the papers into it.
With a sportive dive, the imp plunged into the chest and scattered them
out again. It was clear that he regarded this merely as a game; and the
green butterfly net had given him his excuse.
[Illustration:
The imp made a playful addition to his task.
]
But it gave him nothing else; for on this last bit of exasperating
frivolity the Professor slammed down the lid and locked it. And there
was the Tree-imp safely boxed inside.
It took him a minute or two to realize his triumph; it was, indeed, a
little difficult to know on what lines to take it. Had the locking of
the box, with the hallucination inside, disposed of the hallucination?
Or was it still there?
His doubt was solved almost at once, for from the inside of the chest
the hallucination had once more become audible.
“What? What? Oh, I say! Let it out! Let it out! Quick, quick! Oh, why?”
The voice was a little plaintive, a little anxious, but it had not yet
begun seriously to complain. Then followed a pause.
The Professor stood considering; he had the key; going across to his
writing-table, he laid it down. The chest continued to give forth sound:
first a tapping on the lid, then a renewed chatter, which gradually grew
faint.
The Professor drew a firm breath, and with a big effort of will took up
his pen and tried to resume his writing: but the interest of the thing
held him. The little secluded voice took on a more lamentable accent,
but faint like a kettle trying to sing under a tea-cosy.
“I say! I say! Pick it out! Pick it out! What? What? Oh, why?...
What?... Oh, why?... Oh!... Oh!... Oh!”
The sound was now so faint the Professor himself could no longer hear
it; but for a little while it still went on. Once more from inside the
chest came audibly that question so often repeated, “Oh, why?” Then all
was still.
The Professor sat resolutely holding his pen, collecting his thoughts,
trying not to listen, but listening still. And though he assured himself
that his mind really had recovered its balance at last, he gave a sharp
start when there came a knock at the door and the Doctor entered.
The Doctor, with an encouraging smile, greeted him in the correct tone
of professional optimism. “How are you, Professor? Nothing very serious,
I hope?”
The Professor, in no hurry to give himself away, held himself in. He was
now feeling a little aggrieved at the shock he had experienced.
“Doctor, before I say anything, I want you to examine me,” he said.
The Doctor examined him, questioned him as to diet and sleep, felt his
pulse, took his temperature, looked at his tongue, and then assured him
that he found nothing the matter with him except old age.
“Am I mad?” inquired the Professor.
“Certainly not,” said the Doctor.
“You won’t send me to a lunatic asylum, if I tell you something you
can’t believe?”
“I will not, I promise you,” replied the Doctor.
“I can’t believe it myself,” said the Professor.
“Then why talk about it?” said the Doctor.
“Because——” The Professor looked at the locked chest, then he said:
“I was sitting here writing, Doctor, and suddenly I glanced up, and
there I saw a horrid little green thing looking at me—with eyes.”
“Yes, it would have eyes, if it was looking at you,” said the Doctor.
“Very curious eyes, Doctor—like a young bird’s and it had horns,
and—well, there it was, you know. At first I didn’t believe it, I
thought it was green tea.”
So the story started, and so, up to a certain point, it went on, as we
know it: the Professor telling quite truthfully all that had happened,
till he came to the point where he had upset his papers. “I was still
picking them up,” he said, “when you came in.”
“Well?” said the Doctor, “and then——”
The Professor looked at the key, and he looked at the chest. No, he
could not risk it: he could not risk having it proved that the thing he
could not believe was really true.
“Then,” he said, “it disappeared.”
“And you haven’t seen it since?”
“No.”
“Nor heard it?”
“I have not——. That is, _no_.”
“Well, then, that is all right,” said the Doctor encouragingly.
But the Professor wasn’t happy. “I hope so,” he said doubtfully, and
then, in more detail, began to explain himself.
“Doctor, I haven’t explained to you the shock it was to me. It was that
terrible moment when I thought there might be something in it after all.
At that moment I saw all my life’s work disappear. All my science, all
my philosophy gone! Everything I had written—worth nothing! It was
terrible. If it were true,” he said after a pause, “I think I should
have to kill myself.”
The Doctor soothed him: told him to work less, take walks, go early to
bed, drink less green tea, and then, after writing him a prescription,
took his comfortable leave.
The Doctor’s visit had undoubtedly done the Professor good; but no
sooner was the Doctor’s back turned than he went and stood by the chest
and listened.
He listened for a long time and heard nothing. Then he stooped and
tapped.
“Is anyone——? Is anything there?” he said.
There was no answer.
Much relieved, he went back to his work-table, and was just settling
down again when his eye fell upon the key.
Twice he took hold of it, and twice laid it down again.
“No, I will not,” he said.
And that being decided, his mind recovered its accustomed balance, and
he fell to work again.
The clock had just struck twelve, when the door quietly opened and in
came Elfrida.
Now it so happened that, that day, Elfrida was dressed all in green—even
the cap on her head was green, and it had a green feather in it,
sticking out. And so, as Elfrida came softly up to him, seeing something
green moving it gave him a dreadful start, till a second look at her
over the top of his glasses reassured him.
“Effie! Why Effie, my dear,” he cried, “what a start you gave me!”
Elfrida nodded and laughed, and, wise in her way, said, “You thought I
was a fairy.”
“No, I didn’t,” cried the Professor. “I thought you were an
hallucination.”
“What’s that?” inquired Elfrida.
“Something that’s not real, my dear.”
Then Elfrida kissed him. “I’m real!” she said, and the Professor thanked
God for it, feeling that an uncomfortable incident was well over.
All at once Elfrida began, very excited.
“Oh! you got my letter, Grandpapa, didn’t you? And you got my present,
too?”
“I got your letter, my dear. What present?”
“Why, the leaf that came off the tree that had fairies in it.”
“Oh, yes, I got it, my dear; but I’m afraid I’ve lost it.”
Elfrida didn’t mind his losing the leaf; but she was very excited about
the fairies.
“And you do believe what I told you,” she cried, “don’t you, Grandpapa?
It was _true_; I _saw_ them. You must believe that!”
“Well, I don’t know,” said the Professor wisely. “One isn’t sure of
everything one sees. At least, I’m not now.”
But Elfrida was now only attending to herself, for she had much to say.
“Grandpapa, if you could only make people _know_ there are fairies,
wouldn’t it be wonderful?”
“I suppose it would, my dear.”
“And Grandpapa, if you were able to find one for them, wouldn’t that be
the wonderfullest thing of all?”
“Would it, my dear?”
The Professor was listening; he was almost beginning to think.
“Why, yes; for then they’d think you ever such a great person—much
greater than you are now. To make the whole world think differently—just
think of that!”
“But, my dear, if people—people who’ve read all my books—were told that
Professor Braintree believed in fairies, they would laugh.”
“You’d laugh too: but you could laugh longer than they would—because
you’d have discovered it. Why, it would be like a miracle, Grandpapa.
People would begin to _love_ fairies again then.”
The Professor was really thinking now, thinking hard; but all he said
was: “Well, perhaps. Green isn’t my favourite colour, though.”
This caused Elfrida to pay attention. “It’s funny your saying that,” she
remarked. “The fairy _I_ saw was green.”
“Was it, my dear?”
“And it had long horns, and its mouth and eyes were like a young bird’s;
and when I tried to catch it, it made a noise at me—just like a bird—a
nice bird.”
The Professor was now having shocks again, but all he said was: “Did it
say, ‘Sick, sick, sick, sick’?”
“No,” replied Elfrida, and then, giving a vivid imitation of the very
sound he had heard, “It just went ‘Chewee! chewee!’—like that.”
The Professor sat with his eyes staring out of his head: then he hadn’t
been so mad after all! But not to be was almost worse.
Elfrida looked at him in great surprise. “But, Grandpapa,” she cried,
“if you found one, you wouldn’t be afraid of it, would you? I wasn’t!”
That was a wise word of Elfrida’s; it came a little late, but it
converted him.
“My dear,” he said, “would you like to see that—that thing again?”
“Why, yes!” cried Elfrida.
“Green, and with horns and eyes? Hear it again?”
Elfrida was joyfully prepared even for that.
“Well,” he said, giving her the key, “there’s no accounting for tastes!”
He had quite made up his mind now, and did not wait to let himself think
again.
“You see that chest?” he went on. “Well, that is the key to it. Go and
open it, and tell me what you find.”
Elfrida took the key; she was rather solemn about it, for the
Professor’s manner impressed her. She crossed the room, opened the
chest, and looked in. While she did so, there was much more excitement
in the Professor’s demeanour than in hers.
For a while she stood looking in, seeing nothing. Then she uttered a
little cry, and stooped, and picked up something. She held it out in her
hand. “Why, it’s the leaf,” she cried, “the leaf of that tree what I
sent you! Oh, dear!”
This was quite unexpected to both of them.
“The leaf, you say?” replied the Professor. “Bring it here.”
Elfrida brought it.
“And it’s all withered and dead!” she cried, holding it up for his
inspection.
The Professor looked at it with curious eyes, and was no longer afraid.
“So it is, to be sure!” he said. “Quite withered and dead. Well, put it
down, my dear, and be off with you. I must get on with my work.”
“Where shall I put it?” inquired Elfrida.
“Put it in the waste-paper basket, my dear. That’s right. Now run away!”
[Illustration:
Coming through the palings was a long string of little figures.
]
And so the dead leaf dropped to its repose on a bed of scrapped
science-siftings. And though Elfrida did not quite know what she had
done, she felt sad about it, and with head bent and hands straight down,
as though convicted of some act of deep disgrace, she turned and walked
softly out of the room.
As the door closed behind her, the Professor stooped down, and took a
good long look into the waste-paper basket. Then, with a deep sigh of
relief, he took up his pen and went on with his work.
But that night—no, it was the night after—something happened.
Quite suddenly Elfrida woke and sat up; in her sleep she had remembered
something. She remembered how, that morning, she had seen the maid
emptying her pan on the dust-heap in a corner of the garden behind the
house, a pan full of torn papers, and litter, and sweepings—the sort of
things which were emptied there every day.
Why Elfrida should so suddenly remember it, and be woken up by it, she
did not know.
She was quite awake, quite dreadfully awake. The moon was shining
through the blind. She got up, went across and lifted it, and looked
out.
There was the garden, softly paved with the silver of moonlight, so
silver that it looked like frost. And out beyond, over the wooden
palings, lay Richmond Park.
And there, coming through the palings were little figures, a long string
of them, crossing the garden and going in the direction of the
dust-heap.
[Illustration:
They were searching the dust-heap.
]
Presently she saw that they were searching it, turning it over this way
and that. And then it seemed as if they had found something.
What she saw next, she never told anybody but me; and she only told me
because she knew that I would believe it.
“It was like a funeral!” she said. “They had all put on black, and as
they walked they flapped with their hands, and swung their heads from
side to side as if they were so sorry about something. And in the middle
they had something that they carried, like the thing that carries dead
people. And they brought it to the palings, and pushed it through, and
then got through themselves; and after that they took it right away into
Richmond Park, over the grass and through the trees, till I couldn’t see
them any more.”
“Do you think,” she asked, when she had quite finished her story, “do
you think it could have been—_that leaf_?”
I did think—that it was possible.
“And that it had a fairy in it?”
“Well, yes, that would account for it, wouldn’t it? That would explain.”
“Then the fairy must have been dead,” she said sadly.
Yes, I had to own that it seemed like it.
“Did I kill the fairy, by sending it in the letter, do you think?”
“No, I don’t think you did, my dear,” I replied. “Fairies don’t die like
that; they die of shock.”
“What kind of shock?” she asked. “When I shock Auntie, she doesn’t die
of it.”
“_When people don’t believe in them_,” I said.
[Illustration: A monochrome, atmospheric illustration of a young girl in
a long dress walking through a meadow of flowers by a body of water at
dusk, with tall pine trees in the background.]
LUCY _By WALTER DE LA MARE_
Once upon a time there were three sisters, the Misses MacKnackery—or,
better still, the Miss MacKnackeries. They lived in a large, white,
square mansion called Stoneyhouse; and their names were Euphemia,
Tabitha, and Jean Elspeth. They were known over Scotland for miles and
miles, from the Tay to the Grampians—from the Tay to the Grumpy Ones, as
a cousin who did not like Euphemia and Tabitha used to say.
Stoneyhouse had been built by the Miss MacKnackeries’s grandfather, Mr.
Angus MacKnackery, who, from being a poor boy with scarcely a bawbee in
his breeches pocket, had risen up to be a wealthy manufacturer of the
best Scotch burlap, which is a kind of sacking. He made twine, too, for
tying up parcels. He would have made almost anything to make money. But
at last, when he was sixty-six, he felt he would like to be a gentleman
living in the country with a large garden to walk about in, flowers in
beds, cucumbers in frames, and one or two cows for milk, cream, and
butter.
So he sold his huge, smoky works and warehouse, and all the twine and
burlap, hemp, jute, and whalebone still in it, for £80,000. With this
£80,000 he built Stoneyhouse, purchased some fine furniture and some
carriages and horses, and invested what was over.
Jean Elspeth, when she was learning sums, and when she had come to
Interest—having sometimes heard her father and mother speak of her
grandfather and of his fortune, and how he had invested it—just to
please her governess, Miss Gimp, thought she would make a sum of it. So
she wrote down in her rather straggly figures in an exercise book:
£80,000 @ £4 per centum per annum
= £80,000 × 4 ÷ 100 = £52,000.
It was the first really enjoyable sum she had ever done. And yet Miss
Gimp was a little put about when Jean Elspeth showed it to her father.
Still, Mr. MacKnackery, senior, had been a really rich man, and
regretted that the gentleman who bought his factory never could
afterwards make such fine burlap as himself, nor even such admirable
twine.
He lived to be eighty, and then he died, leaving his money to his son,
Robert Duncan Donald David, Jean Elspeth’s father. And when _he_ died,
his dear wife Euphemia Tabitha being dead too, he left all that was over
of the £80,000 (for, alas and alas! he had lost a good part of it) to
his three daughters: Euphemia, Tabitha, and Jean Elspeth.
When Jean Elspeth was old enough to breakfast with the family in the big
dining-room with the four immense windows, she used to sit opposite the
portraits of her grandfather, her father, and her mother. They hung in
heavy handsome gilt frames on the wall opposite the windows. And while
in her high chair she gobbled up her porridge—and gobbled it up quickly,
not so much because she liked it as because she hated being put in the
corner for not eating it—she would sit and look at them.
Her grandfather’s was by far the largest of the three portraits, and it
hung in the very middle of the lofty wall, under the moulded ceiling. He
was a stout and imposing man, with bushy whiskers and cold bright blue
eyes. The thumb and first finger of his right hand held a fine thick
Albert watch-chain, which the painter had painted so skilfully that you
could see it was eighteen-carat gold at a single glance. So he hung, for
ever boldly gazing.
What was more, her grandfather always looked exactly as if he was on the
point of taking out his watch to see the time; and Jean Elspeth had the
odd notion that, if he ever did succeed in so doing, its hands would
undoubtedly point to a quarter to twelve. But she could no more have
told you why, than she could tell you why she used to count each
spoonful of her porridge, or why she felt happier when the last spoonful
was an odd number.
The portrait of her father was that of a man much less stout and
imposing than her grandfather. He was dark, and smiling, and he had no
whiskers. But Jean Elspeth had loved him dearly, and each morning when
she had finished her breakfast (and if nobody was looking) she would
give a tiny little secret wave of the spoon towards him, as if he might
be pleased at seeing her empty plate.
On the other side of her grandfather’s portrait hung a picture of her
mother. And the odd thing about this picture was that, if you looked
long enough, you could not help seeing—as if it were almost the ghost of
Jean Elspeth—her very own small face, peeping out of the paint at you,
just like a tiny little green marmoset out of a cage all to itself in
the Zoo. Jean Elspeth had discovered this when she was only seven; but
Euphemia and Tabitha had never noticed it at all.
[Illustration: A delicate, lightly colored illustration of a young girl
wearing a patterned dress and bonnet, standing and looking up at a
framed portrait of a woman hanging on a wall.]
They knew they were far less like their mother (who had been a Miss
Reeks MacGillicuddy of Kelso) than their grandfather, and they were
exceedingly proud of _that_. As for Jean Elspeth, they didn’t think she
was like any of the family at all. Indeed, Euphemia had more than once
remarked that Jean Elspeth had “no deegnity,” and Tabitha that “she
micht just as weel ha’ been a changeling.” Even now, when they were
elderly ladies, they always treated her as if she were still not very
far from being a child, though, after all, Jean Elspeth was only five
years younger than Tabitha.
But then, how different she was in looks! For while Tabitha had a long
pale face a little like a horse, with mouse-colored hair and green-grey
eyes, Jean Elspeth was dark and small, with red in her cheek and a tip
to her nose. And while Tabitha’s face changed very little, Jean
Elspeth’s was like a dark little glancing pool on an April morning.
Sometimes it looked almost centuries older than either of her sisters’,
and then, again, sometimes it looked simply no age at all.
It depended on what she was doing—whether she was sitting at seven
o’clock dinner on Great Occasions, when the Bults and the McGaskins, and
Dr. Menzies were guests, or merely basking idly in the sunshine at her
bedroom window. Jean Elspeth would sometimes, too, go wandering off by
herself over the hills a mile or two away from the house. And _then_ she
looked not a minute older than looks an elf-child, or a whinchat,
perched with his white eyebrow on a fuzz-bush near a lichenous
half-hidden rock among the heather.
However sad, too, she looked, she never looked grim. And even though (at
dinner parties) she parted her hair straight down the middle, and
smoothed the sides over as sleek as satin, she simply could not look
what is called “superior.” Besides, she had lips that were the colour of
cherries, and curious quick hands that she was sometimes compelled to
clasp together lest they should talk even more rapidly than her tongue.
Now in Stoneyhouse nobody—except perhaps the tweeny-maid and the
scullery-maid, Sally and Nancy McGullie, who were cousins—ever talked
_much_. It was difficult even to tell exactly how wise and sagacious and
full of useful knowledge Euphemia and Tabitha were, simply because they
so seldom opened their mouths, except at meals. And never to sing.
This, maybe, was because it is impossible to keep order if everybody’s
tongue keeps wagging. It wastes time, too, for only very few people can
work hard and talk hard both at the same time. And in Stoneyhouse
everything was in apple-pie order (except the beds), and nobody ever
wasted any time.
And yet, although time was never wasted, nobody seemed to be very much
the better off for any that was actually “saved.” Nobody had ever
managed to pack some of it up in neat brown-paper parcels, or to put it
in a bank as Mr. MacKnackery, senior, had put his money, or to pour it
into jars like home-made jam. It just went. And in Stoneyhouse (until,
at least, Euphemia one morning received a certain letter) it went very
very slowly. The big hands of its clocks seemed to be envious of the
little ones. They crept like shadows. And between their “tick” and their
“tock” at times yawned a huge hole, as dark as a cellar. So, at least,
Jean Elspeth fancied.
[Illustration:
Jean Elspeth would sometimes go wandering off by herself over the
hills.
]
One glance at Stoneyhouse, even from the outside, would tell you how
orderly it was. The four high white walls, with their large square slate
roof fixed firmly on top of them, stood stiff as bombardiers on
extremely solid foundations, and they on even solider rock. No tree
dared cast a shadow upon them, no creeper crept. The glossy windows,
with their straight lines of curtains behind them, just stared down on
you as if they said, “Find the faintest speck or smear or flaw in us if
you can!” And you hadn’t the courage even to try.
[Illustration: A delicate, lightly colored illustration of a woman in a
floral dress and bonnet standing at a vanity table, reaching toward a
small object while a piece of clothing lies on the floor.]
It was just so inside. Everything was in its place. Not only the great
solid pieces of substantial furniture which Mr. MacKnackery had
purchased with his burlap money—wardrobes, coffers, presses,
four-posters, chests-of-drawers, sideboards, tables, sofas, chairs—but
even all the little things, bead-mats, footstools, candle-snuffers,
boottrees, ornaments, knick-knacks, Euphemia’s silks and Tabitha’s
water-colours. There was a place for everything, and everything was in
its place. Yes, and kept there.
_Except_ in Jean Elspeth’s room. She could never learn to be tidy, not
even in her sums. She was constantly taking things out, and either
forgetting to put them away again, or putting them away again in their
wrong places. And do you suppose she blamed herself for this? Not at
all. When she lost anything and had been looking for it for hours and
hours—a book, or a brooch, or a ribbon, or a shoe—she would say to
herself, laughing all over, “Well now, there! That _Lucy_ must have
hidden it!” And presently _there_ it would be, right in the middle of
her dressing-table or under a chair, as if it had been put back there
just for fun.
And who was this “_Lucy_”? There couldn’t be a more difficult question;
and Jean Elspeth had never attempted to answer it. It was one of those
questions she never even asked herself, at least, not out loud. This,
perhaps, was because she hated the thought of hurting anybody’s
feelings. As if Lucy—but, never mind!
It was Lucy, at any rate, who so unfortunately came into that dreadful
talk over the porridge on the morning when the fatal letter came to
Euphemia. It arrived just like any other letter. The butler, with his
mouth as closely shut as usual, laid it beside Euphemia’s plate. Judging
from its large white envelope, nobody could possibly have thought it was
as deadly as a poison and sharper than a serpent’s tooth. Euphemia
opened it, too, just as usual—with her long, lean forefinger, and her
eyebrows lifted a little under her grey front of hair. And then she read
it, and turned to ice.
It was from her lawyer, or rather from her Four Lawyers, for they all
shared the same office, and at the foot of the letter one of them had
signed all their four names. It was a pitch-black letter—a thunderbolt.
It said at the beginning that the Miss MacKnackeries must expect in
future to be less well off than they had been in the past, and it said
at the end that they were ruined.
You see, Euphemia’s grandfather had lent what remained of his £80,000
(after building Stoneyhouse and buying furniture, cucumber-seed, horses,
cows, and so on) to the British Government, for the use of the British
nation. The British Government of that day put the money into what were
called the Consolidated Funds. And to show how much obliged they were to
Mr. MacKnackery for the loan of it, they used every year to pay him
interest on it—so many shillings for every hundred pounds. Not so much
as £4 per centum, as Jean Elspeth had put down in her sum, but as much
as they could afford—and that was at least 1,000,000 bawbees. There
couldn’t have been a safer money-box; nor could Mr. MacKnackery’s income
have “come in” more regularly if it had come in by clockwork. So far the
British Government resembled Stoneyhouse itself.
But the Miss MacKnackeries’s father was not only a less imposing man
than their grandfather, he had been much less careful of his money. He
delighted in _buying_ things and giving presents, and the more he spent
the more he wanted to spend. So he had gradually asked for his money
back from the British Government, using some of it and lending the rest
to persons making railways and gasworks in foreign parts, and digging up
gold and diamonds, and making scent out of tar, and paint which they
said would never wear off or change colour, and everything like that.
These persons paid him for helping them like this a good deal more than
the Consolidated Funds could pay. But then gasworks are not always so
_safe_ as the British nation. It is what is called a speculation to lend
gentlemen money to help them to dig up diamonds or to make waterworks in
Armenia, which means that you cannot be perfectly sure of getting it
back again. Often and often, indeed, the Miss MacKnackeries’s father had
not got _his_ money back.
And now—these long years after his death—the worst had befallen. The
Four Lawyers had been suddenly compelled to tell the Miss MacKnackeries
that nearly every bit left of their grandfather’s savings was gone; that
their bright gold had vanished like the glinting mists of a June
morning. They had for some time been accustomed to growing less and less
rich; but that’s a very different thing from becoming desperately poor.
It is the difference between a mouse with a fat slice of cheese and a
mouse without a crumb.
Euphemia, before opening the letter, had put on her pince-nez. As she
read, the very life seemed to ebb out of her countenance, leaving it
cold and grey. She finished it to the last word, then with a trembling
hand took the glasses off her nose and passed the letter to Tabitha.
Tabitha could still read without spectacles. Her light eyes passed
rapidly to and fro across the letter, then she, too, put it down, her
face not pale, but red and a little swollen. “It is the end, Euphemia,”
she said.
Jean Elspeth was sitting that morning with her back to the portraits,
and at the moment was gently munching a slice of dry toast and Scotch
marmalade (made by the Miss MacKnackeries’s cook, Mrs. O’Phrump). She
had been watching a pied wagtail flitting after flies across the smooth
shorn lawn on the white stone terrace. Then her gaze had wandered off to
the blue outline of the lovely distant hills, the Grumpy Ones, and her
mind had slid into a kind of day-dream.
Into the very middle of this day-dream had broken the sound of Tabitha’s
words, “It is the end, Euphemia”; and it was as if a trumpet had uttered
them.
She looked round in dismay, and saw her sisters, Euphemia and Tabitha,
sitting there in their chairs at the table, as stiff and cold as statues
of stone. Not only this, which was not so very unusual, but they both of
them looked extremely unwell. _Then_ she noticed the letter. And she
knew at once that this must be the serpent that had suddenly bitten her
sisters’ minds. The blood rushed up into her cheeks, and she
said—feeling more intensely sorry for them both than she could possibly
express—“Is there anything wrong, Euphemia?”
And Euphemia, in a voice Jean Elspeth would certainly not have
recognized if she had heard it from outside the door, replied, “You may
well ask it.” And then in a rush Jean Elspeth remembered her strange
dream of the night before, and at once went blundering on: “Well, you
know, Euphemia, I had a dream last night, all dark and awful, and, in
it, _there_ was _Lucy_ looking out of a crooked window over some water.
And she said to me——”
[Illustration:
She knew that Lucy was somewhere close beside her.
]
But Tabitha interrupted her: “I think, Elspeth, neither myself nor
Euphemia at this moment wish to hear what Lucy, as you call her, said in
your dream. We have received exceedingly bad news this morning, that
intimately concerns not only Tabitha and me, but even yourself also. And
this is no time for frivolity.” And it sounded even more tragic in her
Scots tongue.
Jean Elspeth had not meant to be frivolous. She had hoped merely, and if
but for a moment, to turn her sisters’ minds away from this dreadful
news that had come with the postman, and to explain what her dream had
seemed to promise. But no. It was just her way. Whenever she said
anything to her sisters, anything that came from the very bottom of her
heart, she always made a muddle of it. It sounded as small and
meaningless as the echo of a grasshopper’s chirrup against a bare stone
wall. They would look at her out of their green-grey eyes, down their
long pale noses, with an expression either grim or superior, or both. Of
course, too, at such a moment, any mention of Lucy was a dreadfully
silly mistake. Even at the best of times they despised Jean Elspeth for
such “childishness,” and now it must seem like a hideous joke.
For there never was and there never could be any _real_ Lucy. It was
only a name. And yet Jean Elspeth still longed to find any word of hope
or comfort that would bring back a little colour into poor Euphemia’s
cheeks, and make her look a little less like an image in marble. But no
word came. She had even failed to hear what her sisters were saying. At
last she could bear herself no longer.
[Illustration:
She would sometimes sit on one flower-pot, and she would put another
flower-pot for Lucy.
]
“I am sure, Euphemia, that you would like to talk the letter over with
Tabitha in quiet, and that you will tell me if I can be of any help, I
think I will go out into the garden.”
Euphemia bowed her head. And though, by trying to move it with as little
noise as possible, Jean Elspeth made her heavy chair give a loud screech
on the polished floor, she managed to escape at last.
It was a cold, clear spring morning, and the trees in the distance were
just tipped with their new green buds. The gardeners were already
mapping out their rows of plants in the herbaceous borders, in
preparation for the summer. There never was a garden “kept” so well. The
angles of the flower-beds on the lawn—diamonds and lozenges, octagons,
squares, and oblongs—were as sharp as if they had been cut out of
cardboard with a pair of scissors. Not a blade of grass was out of
place.
If even one little round pebble pushed up a shoulder in the gravel path,
up came an immense heavy roller and ground him back into his place. As
for a weed, let but one poke her blunt green nose above the black mould,
she would soon see what happened.
The bright light from the sky streamed down upon the house, and every
single window in the high white wall of it seemed to be scornfully
watching Jean Elspeth as she made her way down to a little straight
green seat under the terrace. Here, at least, she was out of their
sight.
She sat down, folded her hands in her lap, and looked straight in front
of her. She always so sat when she was in trouble. In vain she tried to
compose and fix her mind and to _think_. It was impossible. For she had
not been there more than a moment or two before she knew that Lucy was
haunting somewhere close beside her. So close and so much on purpose, as
it were, that it was almost as if she wanted to whisper something in her
ear.
[Illustration:
She was sitting in a corner by the large cupboard.
]
Now it has been said that Lucy was only a name. Yet, after all, she was
a little more than that. Years and years ago, when Jean Elspeth was only
seven, she “sort of” made Lucy up. It was simply because there was no
one else to play with, for Tabitha was five years older, and at least
fifty-five times more sensible and intelligent and grown-up. So Jean
Elspeth had just pretended.
In those days she would sometimes sit on one flower-pot on the long hot
or windy terrace, and she would put another flower-pot for Lucy. And
they would talk, or rather she would talk, and Lucy would look. Or
sometimes they sat together in a corner of the great bare nursery. And
sometimes Jean Elspeth would pretend she was holding Lucy’s hand when
she fell asleep.
And the really odd thing was that the less in those days she tried to
“pretend,” the more Lucy came. And though Jean Elspeth had never seen
her with what is called her naked eye, she must have seen her with some
other kind of eye, for she knew that her hair and skin were fairer than
the fairest of flax, and that she was dressed in very light and
old-fashioned clothes, though she could not say _how_ old-fashioned.
Another queer thing was that Lucy always seemed to come and appear
entirely out of nothing, and entirely of herself, when anything very odd
or unexpected or sad or very beautiful happened, and sometimes just
before they happened. That had been why she had told Euphemia her dream
of the night before. For though everything else in the dream had been
dark and dismal, and the water had roared furiously over its rocks,
breaking into foam like snow, and Jean Elspeth had been shaken with
terror, Lucy herself appearing at the window had been more beautiful
than moonlight and comforting as a star.
It was a pity, of course, that Jean Elspeth had ever so much as
mentioned Lucy at all. But that had been years and years ago and then
she could not really help doing so. For Tabitha had crept up behind her
one morning—it was on her eighth birthday—while she was sitting in a
corner by the large cupboard, with her back to the nursery door, and had
overheard her talking to someone.
“Aha! little Miss Toad-in-the-hole; and who are _you_ talking to?”
Tabitha had asked.
Jean Elspeth had turned cold all over. “Nobody,” she said.
“Oh, Nobody is it? Then you just tell me Nobody’s name,” said Tabitha.
And Jean Elspeth had refused. Unfortunately, she had been wearing that
morning a high-waisted frock, with sleeves that came down only to the
elbow, and though Tabitha, with nips and pinches of her bare skinny arm
could not make Jean Elspeth cry, she had at least made her tell.
“Oh, so its name’s Lucy, is it?” said Tabitha. “You horrid little frump.
Then you tell her from me that if _I_ catch her anywhere about, I’ll
scratch her eyes out.”
After another pinch or two, and a good “ring-of-the-bells” at Jean
Elspeth’s plait, Tabitha had gone downstairs to her father.
“Papa,” she said, “I am sorry to interrupt you, but I think poor Elspeth
must be ill or in a fever. She is ‘rambling.’ Had we better give her
some Gregory’s powder, or some castor-oil, do you think?”
Mr. MacKnackery had been worried that morning by a letter about a gold
mine, something like that which poor Euphemia so many years afterwards
was to receive from the Four Lawyers, though it was less worrying than
that. But when _he_ was worried he at once tried to forget his worry.
Indeed, even at sight of what looked like an ugly letter, he would begin
softly whistling and smiling. So it was almost with a sigh of relief
that he pushed the uncomfortable letter into a drawer and climbed the
stairs to the nursery.
And when Jean Elspeth, after crying a little as she sat on his knee, had
told him about Lucy, he merely smiled out of his dark eyes, and, poking
his finger and thumb into a waistcoat pocket, had pulled out, just as if
it had been waiting there especially for this occasion, a tiny little
gold locket with a picture of a moss-rose inside, which he asked Jean
Elspeth to give to Lucy the very next time she came again. “My dear,” he
had said, “I have my Lucy, too, though I never, never talk about her. I
keep her ‘for best.’”
As for Tabitha, he thanked her most gratefully that morning at luncheon
for having been so thoughtful about her sister. “But I fear, my child,”
he said, “you must be fretting yourself without need. And for fretting
there is nothing so good as Gregory’s powder. So I have asked Alison to
mix a good dose for you at bedtime, and if you are very generous,
perhaps Jenny would like to lick the spoon.”
The very moment he turned his face away, with as dreadful a grimace as
she could manage, Tabitha had put out her long pale tongue at Jean
Elspeth—which was about as much use as it would have been to put out her
tongue for their old doctor—Dr. Menzies—after he had gone out of the
room.
Whenever Jean Elspeth thought of those far-away years she always began
to day-dream. And whenever she began to day-dream Lucy was sure to seem
more real to her than at any other time. The gravel path, the green
lawn, the distant hills vanished away before her eyes. She was lost as
if in a region of light and happiness. There she was happy awhile. But
cold spattering rain-drops on her cheeks soon called her back to
herself. A dark cloud had come over the world, and for the first time a
dark dread came into her mind of what Euphemia’s letter might mean.
She turned sharply on the little green seat almost as if she had been
caught trespassing. And at that instant she could have vowed that she
actually saw—this time with her real naked eye—a child standing and
looking at her a few paces beyond. It was mere make-believe, of course;
but what most surprised Jean Elspeth was that there should be such a
peculiar smile on the child’s face—as if she was saying: “Never mind, my
dear; whatever happens, whatever they say, I am going to be with you
more than _ever_ before. You just see!”
And then, not for the first time in her life Jean Elspeth felt almost
ashamed of having a phantom friend. When they were all in such trouble,
was it quite fair to Euphemia and Tabitha? Was it even quite right? She
actually went so far as to turn away in the opposite direction, and
would have hastened straight back to the house if, at that moment, she
had not heard a small, curious fluttering behind her. She turned her
head on her shoulder, but it was to find only that a robin had stolen in
on her to share her company, and was now eyeing her with his bead-black
eye from his perch on the green seat which she had but just vacated.
For lunch that day the butler brought in a small soup-tureen of
porridge. When he had attended to each of the ladies, and had withdrawn,
Euphemia explained to Jean Elspeth precisely what the lawyer’s letter
meant. It was a long letter, not only about the gentlemen who had failed
to find water enough for their waterworks in Armenia, but also about
some other gentlemen in Madagascar whose crops of manioc and caoutchouc
had almost as suddenly failed. Jean Elspeth did not quite grasp the
details: she did not quite understand why the lawyers had ever taken
such a fancy to caoutchouc: but she did perfectly understand Euphemia’s
last sentence: “So you see, Elspeth, we are ruined!”
And would you believe it? Once more Jean Elspeth said the wrong thing.
Or rather it was her voice that was wrong. Far away in it was the sound
as of a bugle bugling at break of day. “And does that mean, Euphemia,
that we shall have to _leave_ Stoneyhouse?”
“It means,” said Tabitha tartly, “that Stoneyhouse may have to leave
_us_.”
“In either case we are powerless,” added Euphemia. And the tone in which
Euphemia uttered these words—sitting there straight and erect, with her
long white face, in her sleek grey silk morning gown with its pattern of
tiny mauve flowers—brought tears, not to Jean Elspeth’s eyes, but to
somewhere deep down inside her. It was as if somebody was drawing water
out of the very well of her heart.
“It is the disgrace,” said Tabitha. “To have to turn our backs, to run
away. We shall be the talk, the laughingstock of the county.”
“Laugh at us because we are ruined!” cried Jean Elspeth.
But this time Tabitha ignored her. “This is the house,” she said, “our
noble grandfather built for us. And here I will die, unless I am
positively driven out of it by these systematic blood-suckers.”
“Tabitha!” cried Euphemia. “Surely we should not demean ourselves so far
even as to call them by their right name.”
“Systematic blood-suckers,” cried Tabitha fiercely. “I will sell the
very rings off my fingers rather than be an exile from the house where I
was born. And _he_—_he_ at least shall never witness the ruin into which
our father’s folly has betrayed us.”
She rose from her seat, and mounting on one of the maroon damask chairs
that, unless guests were present, were accustomed to stand in a demure
row along the wall, she succeeded, after one or two vain attempts, in
turning the immense gilt portrait of her grandfather with its face to
the wall.
Then tears really came into Jean Elspeth’s eyes. But they were tears of
anger rather than of pity. “I think,” she said, “that is being intensely
unkind to father.”
“By this time,” said Tabitha sternly, “I should have supposed that you
would have given up the notion that you are capable of thinking. What
right have you to defend your father, pray, simply because you take
after him?”
Jean Elspeth made no answer. Her father continued to smile down at her
from his nail—though it was not a very good portrait, because the
painter had been unable to get the hair and the waistcoat quite right.
And if—even at this unhappy moment—Jean Elspeth had had her porridge
spoon in her hand, she would certainly have given it a little secret
wave in his direction.
But he was not to smile down for very long. The Miss MacKnackeries’s
grandfather continued to hang with his face to the wall. But the two
other portraits, together with the wardrobes, coffers, presses,
sideboards, bead-mats, bureaus, and even the Indian work-boxes, were all
taken off in a few weeks, to be sold for what they would fetch. And
Euphemia now, instead of five, wore but one ring, and that of
turquoises.
In a month all the servants, from the butler to Sally McGullie, and all
the gardeners were gone. Mrs. O’Phrump alone remained—first because she
was too stout to be likely to be comfortable in any new place, and next,
because she was not greedy about wages. That was all. Just Mrs. O’Phrump
and the gardener’s boy, Tom Piper, whose mother lived in the village,
and who slept at home. But he was a lazy boy, was Tom Piper, and when he
was not fast asleep in the tool-shed, he was dreaming in the deserted
orchard.
It was extraordinary to be alive and to be living in so empty a house.
The echoes! Why, if you but walked alone down a corridor, you heard your
own footsteps tap-tapping after you all the way down. If by yourself, in
“your ain, ain company,” you but laughed out in a room, it was like
being the silver clapper of a huge hollow bell. All Stoneyhouse seemed
empty now; and yet perhaps the emptiest place of all was the
coach-house.
And then the stables. It was simply astonishing how quickly stray oats,
that had fallen by chance into the crannies, sprang up green among the
cobblestones in front of their walls. And if for a little while you
actually stood in the stables beside one of the empty mangers, the note
of a bird was like the sound of a hundred. And you could almost see
ghostly horses with their dark eyes looking round at you out of their
long narrow heads, as if to say: “So this is what you have done with
us!”
Not that Jean Elspeth had very much time to linger over such
experiences. Somehow, she seemed to have grown even smaller in the empty
house. But she was ten times more active. And, though she tried not to
be selfish by showing it, she was more than ten times happier. Between
Jean Elspeth herself and the eagle-surmounted gateposts, indeed, she now
secretly confessed that she had always hated Stoneyhouse. How very odd,
then, that the moment it ceased to be a place in which any fine
personage would care to stay a moment, she began to be friends with it.
She began to pity it.
No doubt Tabitha was right. Their grandfather would assuredly have
“turned in his grave,” in her own words, at the sound of those enormous
vans, those hideous pantechnicons, as their wheels ground down the
gravel in the lingering twilight evenings. And yet, after all, that
grandfather had been born—a fact that very much shocked Tabitha,
whenever her father had smilingly related it—that grandfather had been
born in a two-roomed cottage so minute that, if only you could have got
it through the windows, it would have fitted quite comfortably into the
great dining-room at Stoneyhouse.
There was not a single bawbee then in his breeches pocket, and having
been such a good man, as both Euphemia and Tabitha agreed, he did not
need a bawbee now. _Would_ he then—once the pantechnicons were out of
the way—would he, thought Jean Elspeth, have been so very miserable to
see all this light in the house and to hear all these charming echoes?
There were other advantages, too. It was easy to sweep the dining-room
now; and much easier to dust it. There was peace in its vacancy, and it
was not stagnant. And one day, more out of kindness than curiosity,
after busily whisking over its gilt frame with her feather
cornice-broom, Jean Elspeth climbed on to a chair, and, tilting it,
looked in at the portrait. A spider had spun its web in one corner, but
otherwise (it was almost disappointing) the picture was unchanged. Nor
had Mr. MacKnackery yet taken his watch out of his pocket even though
(for his three granddaughters at any rate) the time was now, so to
speak, long past twelve.
Jean Elspeth had had ridiculous thoughts like these as long as she could
remember. But now they came swarming into her mind like midsummer bees
into a hive. Try as she might, she could not keep them all to herself,
and though on this account alone Tabitha seemed to dislike her more than
ever, Euphemia seemed sometimes to wish for her company. But then,
Euphemia was by no means well. She had begun to stoop a little, and
sometimes did not hear what was said to her. To watch her visibly grow
older like this gave Jean Elspeth dreadful anxiety. Still, in most
things she confessed to herself almost every dawn, looking down from her
upper window, she was far far happier than when Stoneyhouse stood in all
its glory.
Indeed, there was no time to be anything else; and even if there had
been a complete cupboard _full_ of neat packages of time _saved_, she
would have used them all up in a week. Euphemia, being so poorly, did
very little. She helped to make the beds and to do the mending. Only the
mending, for, fortunately, the making of any new clothes would be
unnecessary for years and years to come; they had so many old ones.
Tabitha did what she could manage of the lighter work, but although she
had a quick tongue, she had slow, clumsy hands. And it is quite certain,
though nobody, of course, would have been so unkind as to say so, that
she would never have got even as low wages as Sally McGullie, if she had
been in need of a place.
Mrs. O’Phrump did the cooking; but sat on one chair in the kitchen for
so many hours together that she became almost like a piece of
furniture—the heaviest piece in the house. For the cooking of
water-porridge and potatoes does not require very much time, and that
was pretty much all that the Miss MacKnackeries had to eat, except for
the eggs from Jean Elspeth’s three Cochin-Chinas. And Mrs. O’Phrump
needed most of these, as there was so much of her to sustain. As for the
apples and pears in the orchard, since Mrs. O’Phrump was too stout to
stoop to make dumplings, Jean Elspeth, having two wonderful rows of
small sharp teeth, shared these with Tom Piper—though _he_ had all the
stomach-aches.
All the rest of the work fell to Jean Elspeth. She slaved from morning
till night. And to slave the more merrily, she had taught herself to
whistle. She never asked herself why she was so happy. And no doubt it
was chiefly by contrast of having been so cramped-in, and kept-under,
and miserable in days gone by.
Still, certain things did now happen in Stoneyhouse that had not
happened before, and some of these may have helped. For one thing, Jean
Elspeth had always dreaded “company.” Dressing-up made her feel awkward.
The simplest stranger made her shy. She would have much preferred to say
Boh to a goose. None came now, except Dr. Menzies, who of his kindness
sometimes called to feel Euphemia’s pulse and look at her tongue.
Jean Elspeth, too, had never liked servants, not because they were
servants, but because Euphemia and Tabitha seemed to think that they
oughtn’t to be talked to much. Just given their orders. Now Jean Elspeth
could easily have given everything else in the world: but not orders.
And if there ever _had_ been an interesting creature in Stoneyhouse,
even though she was so stupid in some things, it was Sally McGullie.
Then, again, Jean Elspeth, being by nature desperately untidy, never
showed it now. For it’s all but impossible to be untidy in a room that
contains only a table and three chairs!
[Illustration:
There hung within it a marvellous bush of Traveller’s Joy.
]
Then, yet again, Jean Elspeth, before the gentlemen in Armenia and
Madagascar had been disappointed in their waterworks and caoutchouc, had
had very little to do. She was scarcely even allowed to read. For
Tabitha was convinced that most reading was a waste of time, if not
worse. And somehow, improving books had never the least bit improved
Jean Elspeth. But now she had so many things to do that it was a perfect
joy to fit them all in (like the pieces of a puzzle). And the perfectest
joy of all was to scramble into her truckle bed, which had formerly been
Sally McGullie’s bed, and, with a tallow candle stuck by its own grease
to the left hand knob, to read and read and read.
The hours she spent like this, with no living company but mice and moths
and bats and scritch-owls! When her upper parts in the winter were cold,
she put her skirt over the quilt. One thin blanket, indeed, is not much
comfort on cold nights, when one is lying up North there, almost in
positive view of the Grumpy Ones. And for her feet, she used to boil
some water in a kettle and fill a wine bottle.
This, of course, broke a good many bottles; and it was an odd thing that
until there was only one left, Tabitha (whose feet were like slabs of
ice) refused to think of such a vulgarity. And _then_ she changed her
mind. And medicine-bottles are too small.
Apart from all this, queer things now happened in Stoneyhouse. Little
things, but entrancing. The pantechnicon men, for example, had broken a
window on a lower staircase as they were heaving down old Mr.
MacKnackery’s best wardrobe. A pair of robins in the springtime noticed
this hole, and decided to build their nest in a nook of the cornice.
Jean Elspeth (with her tiny whistling) was accepted as the bosom friend
of the whole family.
There was too a boot cupboard, one too far from the kitchen for Mrs.
O’Phrump to use. Its window had been left open. And when, by chance,
Jean Elspeth looked in one sunny afternoon, there hung within it a
marvellous bush of Traveller’s Joy, rather pale in leaf, but actually
flowering there; and even a butterfly sipping of its nectar. After that,
not a day passed more but she would peep in at this delicate green
visitor, and kiss her hand. It was, too, an immense relief to Jean
Elspeth to have said goodbye for ever to lots of things in the house
that seemed to her to have been her enemies ever since she was a child.
She wandered up into rooms she had never seen before, and looked out of
windows whose views had never before lain under her eyes. Nor did she
cease to day-dream, but indulged in just tiny ones, that may come and
go, like swifts, between two ticks of a clock. And although, of course,
Tabitha strongly disapproved of much that delighted Jean Elspeth now,
there was not nearly so much time in which to tell her so.
Besides, Jean Elspeth was more useful in that great barracks of a place
than ten superior parlourmaids would have been. She was more like a
little steam-engine than a maiden lady. And, like a steam-engine, she
refused to be angry; she refused to sulk; and she usually refused to
answer back. But when nowadays she _did_ answer back, her tongue had a
sting to it at least as sharp (though never so venomous) as that of the
busy bee.
And last, but not least, there was the _outside_ of the house. As soon
as ever Mr. McPhizz and his undergardeners had departed with their
shears and knives and edging-irons and mowing-machines, wildness had
begun to creep into the garden. Wind and bird carried in seeds from the
wilderness, and after but two summers, the trim barbered lawns sprang up
into a marvellous meadow of daisies and buttercups, dandelions,
meadowsweet and fools’ parsley, and then seeding dock and thistle and
feathery grasses. Toadflax, bindweed, convolvulus crept across the
terrace; Hosts of the Tiny blossomed between the stones. Moss, too, in
mats and cushions of a green livelier than the emerald, or even than a
one-night-old beech-leaf. Rain stains now softly coloured the white
walls, as if a stranger had come in the night and begun to paint
pictures there. And the roses, in their now hidden beds, rushed back as
fast as ever they could to bloom like their wild-briar sisters again.
And not only green things growing. Jean Elspeth would tiptoe out to see
complete little families of rabbits nibbling their breakfast or supper
of dandelion leaves on the very flagstones under the windows. Squirrels
nutted; moles burrowed; hedgehogs came beetle-hunting; mice of every
tiny size scampered and twinkled and danced and made merry.
As for the birds—birds numberless! And of so many kinds and colours and
notes that she had to sit up half the night looking out their names in
the huge bird-book her father had given her on her eleventh Christmas.
This was the one treasure she had saved from the pantechnicon men. She
had wrapped it up in two copies of _The Scotsman_, and hidden it in the
chimney. She felt a little guilty over it at times, but none the less
determined that the Four Lawyers should never hear of _that_.
It was strange, exceedingly strange, to be so happy; and Jean Elspeth
sometimes could hardly contain herself, she was so much ashamed of it in
the presence of her sisters. Still, she drew the line, as they say, at
Lucy.
And that was the strangest, most curious thing of all. After the
dreadful shock of the Four Lawyers’ letter, after the torment and
anxiety and horror, the pantechnicons and the tradespeople, poor Tabitha
and Euphemia—however brave their faces and stiff their backs—had drooped
within, like flowers in autumn nipped by frost. In their pride, too,
they had renounced even the friends who would have been faithful to them
in their trouble.
They shut themselves up in themselves more than ever, like birds in
cages. They scarcely ever even looked from the windows. It was only on
Sundays they went out of doors. Euphemia, too, had sometimes to keep to
her bed. And Jean Elspeth would cry to herself, “Oh, my dear, oh, my
dear!” at sight of Tabitha trailing about the house with a large duster
and so little to dust. To see her sipping at her water-porridge as if
she were not in the least hungry, and as if it was the daintiest dish in
Christendom, was like having a knife stuck in one’s very breast.
Yet, such was Tabitha’s “strength of mind” and hardihood, Jean Elspeth
never dared to comfort her, to cheer her up, to wave her spoon by so
much as a quarter of an inch in _her_ direction.
In these circumstances it had seemed to Jean Elspeth it would be utterly
unfair to share Lucy’s company, even in her hidden mind. It would be
like stealing a march, as they say. It would be cheating. At any rate,
it might hurt their feelings. They would see, more stark than ever
before, how desolate they were. They would look up and realize by the
very light in her eyes that her old playmate had not deserted her. No.
She could wait. There was plenty of time. She would keep her wishes
down. And the little secret door of her mind should be left, not, as it
once was, wide open, but just ajar.
How, she could not exactly say. And yet, in spite of all this, Lucy
herself, just as if she were a real live ghost, seemed to be everywhere.
If in her scrubbing Jean Elspeth happened to glance up out of the
window, as like as not that fair gentle face would be stealthily smiling
in. If some moonlight night she leaned for a few precious sweet cold
moments over her bedroom sill, as like as not that pale phantom would be
seen wandering, shadowless, amid the tall whispering weeds and grasses
of the lawn.
Spectres and ghosts, of course, may be the most forbidding company. But
Lucy was nothing but gaiety and grace. The least little glimpse of her
was like hearing a wild bird singing—even the Southern nightingale,
though without those long, bubbling, grievous notes, that seem to darken
the darkness. Having this ghost, then, for company, how ever much she
tried not to heed it, all that Jean Elspeth _had_ to do in order just to
play fair—and she did it with all her might—was not to _look_ for Lucy,
and not to _show_ that she saw her, when there she was, plain to be
seen, before her very eyes. And when at last she realized her plot was
succeeding, that Lucy was gone from her, her very heart seemed to come
into her mouth.
And so the years went by. And the sisters became older and older, and
Stoneyhouse older and older too. Walls, fences, stables, coach-house,
hen-house, and little lodge crept on steadily to rack and ruin. Tabitha
kept more and more to herself, and the sisters scarcely spoke at
mealtimes.
Then at last Euphemia fell really ill; and everything else for a while
went completely out of Jean Elspeth’s life and remembrance. She hadn’t a
moment even to lean from her window or to read in her bed. It was
unfortunate, of course, that Euphemia’s bedroom was three stair-flights
up. Jean Elspeth’s legs grew very tired of climbing those long ladders,
and Tabitha could do little else than sit at the window and knit—knit
the wool of worn-out shawls and stockings into new ones. So she would
stay for hours together, never raising her eyes to glance over the pair
of horn-rimmed spectacles that had belonged to her grandfather, and now
straddled her own lean nose. Dr. Menzies, too, was an old man now, and
could visit them but seldom.
Jean Elspeth seldom even went to bed. She sat on a chair in Euphemia’s
room and snatched morsels of sleep, as a hungry dog snatches at bits of
meat on a butcher’s tray. It was on such a night as this, nodding there
in her chair, that, after having seemed to fall into a long narrow
nightmare hole of utter cold and darkness, and to have stayed there for
centuries without light or sound, she was suddenly roused by Euphemia’s
voice.
It was not Euphemia’s usual voice, and the words were following one
another much more rapidly than usual, like sheep and lambs running
through a gate. Daybreak was at the window. And in this first chill
eastern light Euphemia was sitting up in bed—a thing she had been unable
to do for weeks. And she was asking Jean Elspeth to tell her who the
child was that was now standing at the end of her bed.
Euphemia described her, too—“A fair child with straight hair. And she is
carrying a bundle of gorse, with its prickles and flowers wide open. I
can smell the almond smell. And she keeps on looking and smiling first
at me, and then at you. Don’t you _see_, Elspeth? Tell her, please, to
go away. Tell her I don’t want to be happy like that. She is making me
afraid. Tell her to go away at once, please.”
Jean Elspeth sat there shivering, like a snail in its shell. The awful
thing was to know this visitor must be Lucy, and yet not to be able to
see her—not a vestige, nothing but the iron bed and the bedpost, and
Euphemia sitting there, gazing. How, then, could she tell Lucy to go
away?
She hastened across the room, and took Euphemia’s cold hands in hers.
“You are dreaming, Euphemia. _I_ see nothing. And if it is a pleasant
dream, why banish it away?”
“No,” said Euphemia, in the same strange, low, clear voice. “It is not a
dream. You are deceiving me, Elspeth. She has come only to mock at me.
Send her away!”
And Jean Elspeth, gazing into her sister’s wide light eyes, that now
seemed deeper than the deepest well that ever was on earth, was
compelled to answer her.
“Please, please Euphemia, do not think of it any more. There is nothing
to fear—nothing at all. Why, it sounds like Lucy—that old silly story;
do you remember? But I have not seen her myself for ever so long. I
couldn’t while you were ill.”
The lids closed gently down over the wide eyes, but Euphemia still held
tight to Jean Elspeth’s work-roughened hand. “Never mind, then,” she
whispered, “if that is all. I had no wish to take her away from you,
Elspeth. Keep close to me. One thing, we are happier now, you and I.”
[Illustration:
A fair child with straight hair.
]
“Oh, Euphemia, do you mean that?” said Jean Elspeth, peering closer.
“Well,” Euphemia replied; and it was as if there were now two voices
speaking: the old Euphemia’s and the low, even, dreamlike voice. “I mean
it. There is plenty of air now—a different place. And I hope your friend
will come as often as she pleases. There’s room for us all.”
And with that word “room,” and the grim smile that accompanied it, all
the old Euphemia seemed to have come back again, though a moment after
she had dropped back upon her pillow and appeared to be asleep.
Seeing her thus still once more, Jean Elspeth very, very cautiously
turned her head. The first rays of the sun were on the window. Not the
faintest scent of almond was borne to her nostrils on the air. There was
no sign at all of any company. A crooked frown had settled on her
forehead. She was cold through and through, and her body ached, but she
tried to smile, and almost imperceptibly lifted a finger just as if it
held a teaspoon, and she was waving it in her own old secret childish
way to her father’s portrait on the wall.
Now and again after that Jean Elspeth watched the same absent far-away
look steal over Euphemia’s face, and the same smile, dour and grim, and
yet happy—like still, deep water under waves. It was almost as if
Euphemia were amused at having stolen Lucy away.
“You see, my dear,” she said suddenly to Jean Elspeth one morning, as if
after a long talk, “it only proves that we all go the same way home.”
“Euphemia, please do not say that,” whispered Jean Elspeth.
“But why not?” said Euphemia. “So it is. And _she_ almost laughing out
loud at me. The hussy!”...
None of their old friends knew when Euphemia died, so it was only Dr.
Menzies and his sister who came to Stoneyhouse for the funeral. And
though Jean Elspeth would now have been contented to do _all_ the work
in the house and to take care of Tabitha and her knitting into the
bargain, they persuaded her at last that this would be impossible. And
so, one blazing hot morning, having given a little parting gift to Tom
Piper and wept a moment or two on Mrs. O’Phrump’s ample shoulder, Jean
Elspeth climbed with Tabitha into a cab, and that evening found herself
hundreds of miles away from Stoneyhouse, in the two upper rooms set
apart for the two ladies by Sally McGullie, who had married a fisherman
and was now Mrs. John Jones.
Jean Elspeth could not have imagined a life so different. It was as if
she had simply been pulled up by the roots. Whenever Tabitha could spare
her—and that was seldom now—she would sit at her window looking on the
square stone harbour and the sea, or in a glass shelter on its narrow
front. But now that time stretched vacantly before her, and she was at
liberty if she pleased to “pretend” whenever she wished, and to fall
into day-dreams one after another, just as they might happen to come, it
was just life’s queer way that she could scarcely picture Lucy now, even
with her inward eye, and never with her naked one.
It was, too, just the way of this odd world that she should pine and
long for Stoneyhouse beyond words to tell. She felt sometimes she must
die—suffocate—of homesickness, and would frown at the grey moving sea,
as if that alone were the enemy who was keeping her away from it. Not
only this, but she saved up in a tin money-box every bawbee which she
could spare of the little money the Four Lawyers had managed to save
from the caoutchouc. And all for one distant purpose.
And at length, years and years afterwards, she told Mrs. Jones that she
could bear herself no longer, that—like the cat in the fairy-tale—she
must pay a visit, and must go alone....
It was on an autumn afternoon, about five o’clock, and long shadows were
creeping across the grasses of the forsaken garden, when Jean Elspeth
came into sight again of Stoneyhouse, and found herself standing some
little distance from the gaunt familiar walls by a small pond that had
formed itself in a hollow of the garden. Her father had delighted in
water, and, making use of a tiny stream that coursed near by, had made a
jetting fountain and a fishpond. The fountain having long ceased to flow
and the pond having become choked with water-weeds, the stream had
pushed its way out across the hollows, and had made itself this dank
dark resting-place. You might almost have thought it was trying to copy
Jean Elspeth’s life in Sally Jones’s seaside cottage. On the other hand,
the windows of the great house did not stare so fiercely now; they were
blurred and empty, like the eyes of a man walking in his sleep. One of
the chimney-stacks had toppled down, and creepers had rambled all over
the wide expanse of the walls.
Jean Elspeth, little old woman that she now was, in her small black
bonnet and a beaded mantle that had belonged to Euphemia, stood there
drinking the great still scene in, as a dry sponge drinks salt water.
And after hesitating for some little time, she decided to venture
nearer. She pushed her way through the matted wilderness of the garden,
crossed the terrace, and presently peered in through one of the dingy
dining-room windows. Half a shutter had by chance been left unclosed.
When her eyes were grown accustomed to the gloom within, she discovered
that the opposite wall was now quite empty. The portrait of her
grandfather must have slowly ravelled through its cord. It had fallen
face upwards on to the boards beneath.
It saddened her to see this. She had left the picture hanging there
simply because she felt sure that Euphemia would so have wished it to
hang. But though she wearied herself out seeking to find entry into the
house, in order, at least, to lean her grandfather up again against the
wall, it was in vain. The doors were rustily bolted; the lower windows
tight shut. And it was beginning to be twilight when she found herself
once more beside the dark-watered pond.
All this while she had been utterly alone. It had been a dreadful and
sorrowful sight to see the great house thus decaying, and all this
neglect. Yet she was not unhappy, for it seemed with its trees and
greenery in this solitude to be uncomplaining and at peace. And so, too,
was she. It was as if her whole life had just vanished and flitted away
like a dream leaving merely her body standing there in the evening light
under the boughs of the heavy chestnut-tree overhead.
And then by chance, in that still hush, her eyes wandered to the surface
of the water at her feet, and there fixed themselves, her whole mind in
a sudden confusion. For by some strange freak of the cheating dusk, she
saw gazing back at her from under a squat old crape bonnet, with
Euphemia’s cast-off beaded mantle on the shoulders beneath it, a face
not in the least like that of the little old woman inside them, but a
face, fair and smiling, as of one eternally young and happy and
blessed—Lucy’s. She gazed and gazed, in the darkening evening. A peace
beyond understanding enwrapt her spirit. It was by far the oddest thing
that had ever happened to Jean Elspeth in all the eighty years of her
odd, long life on earth.
[Illustration: A delicate, lightly colored illustration showing a woman
in a dark, floral-patterned dress and a bonnet standing at the grassy
edge of a pond, looking down at a small figure or object partially
submerged in the water.]
[Illustration: A stylized, whimsical illustration of a man dressed in
historical-style clothing, including a hat and puffed breeches, dancing
or leaping high above a landscape with hills and a small village in the
distance.]
ON WHINNEY MOOR
_By BLANCHE WINDER_
On the bracken hill
Whinney Moor way
You may see a strange sight
Any time o’ day.
A green tall man
With a crooked knee
Goes trot-trot-trot
Unceasingly.
He lifts each foot
High on the hill,
He steps and he steps,
Yet he stays quite still.
From his either ear
A ring hangs down
In a silver disc
Like a big half-crown.
Long ribbons float
Round his crooked knee
Green as the leaves
Of an alder-tree.
Green are his breeches,
Green is his hat,
With a great gold buckle
Wide and flat.
His puffing breath
And his quick loud feet
Sound like a farmer
Threshing wheat.
On a bending stalk
A pipit stares
And forgets to sing.
The rough brown hares
That squat so flat
In the long deep grass
Wonder why he takes
Such a while to pass.
But the still grey sheep,
That look like stones,
Never lift a head
From the sunburnt downs
As this green tall man,
With the crooked knee,
Goes trot-trot-trot
Unceasingly.
His goblin feet
As they strike the ground
Are turning the big world
Round and round!
Round goes Stony Hill
And wide Merrow Down,
Stately Windsor Castle
Noisy London town!
Round goes England
From Deeside to Penzance,
Round goes Scotland
And round goes France,
Turned and turned
As fast as can be
By the green tall man
With the crooked knee
And the goblin feet
You may see any day
You happen to pass
Whinney Moor way.
[Illustration:
The rough brown hares
That squat so flat.
]
[Illustration: A decorative, symmetrical illustration featuring a
central, somewhat abstract face surrounded by swirling, leaf-like
ornamentation, with a small figure dancing atop a globe positioned below
the face.]
THE BLACKSMITH _By B. K. PYKE_
All the night
And all day long
I hark to the sound
Of the blacksmith’s song.
Red his fire—
The bright sparks fly
To dance with stars
In the joyous sky.
[Illustration: A black-and-white illustration of a blacksmith working at
an anvil with a hammer, while a young boy stands nearby observing the
process.]
[Illustration:
The bright sparks fly.
]
SARAH BYNG WHO COULD NOT READ AND WAS TOSSED INTO A THORNY HEDGE BY A
BULL _By HILAIRE BELLOC_
Some years ago you heard me sing
My doubts on _Alexander Byng_.
His sister SARAH now inspires
My jaded Muse, my failing fires.
Of Sarah Byng the tale is told
How though the child was twelve years old
She could not read or write a line.
[Illustration: A simple, black-and-white line drawing of a young girl
standing with her eyes closed, wearing a dress and necklace, while
holding a book labeled "CATECHISM".]
Her sister Jane, though barely nine,
Could spout the Catechism through
And parts of Matthew Arnold too,
While little Bill, who came between
Was quite unnaturally keen
On _Athalie_, by _Jean Racine_.
[Illustration: A black-and-white line drawing of a man with disheveled
hair and round spectacles, sitting on a rounded object and hunched over
while intently reading a small book.]
[Illustration: A simple, black-and-white line drawing depicting a girl
with her hair tied back, sitting on a couch with an annoyed or pained
expression, with an open book lying on the floor nearby.]
But not so Sarah! Not so Sal!
She was a most uncultured girl
Who didn’t care a pinch of snuff
For any literary stuff
And gave the classics all a miss.
Observe the consequence of this!
As she was walking home one day,
Upon the fields across her way
A gate, securely padlocked, stood,
And by its side a piece of wood
On which was painted plain and full
[Illustration: A partially colored line drawing of a young girl with a
dark braid, wearing a blue bonnet and a pink dress, walking along a path
while holding a small bundle of wheat.]
[Illustration: A partially colored line drawing of a young girl in a
pink sun hat standing on a wooden fence, looking toward a sign that
reads "BEWARE THE VERY FURIOUS BULL."]
[Illustration: A partially colored line drawing showing a young girl in
a sun hat walking while holding wheat, unaware that a bull is running
towards her from behind in the field.]
Alas! The young illiterate
Went blindly forward to her fate,
And ignorantly climbed the gate!
· · · · ·
[Illustration: A black-and-white line drawing depicting a startling
encounter where a young girl in a sun hat has just turned to see a large
bull standing directly in front of her, the bull appearing to have its
tongue out.]
Now happily the Bull that day
Was rather in a mood for play
Than goring people through and through
As Bulls so very often do;
[Illustration: A man in a top hat and suit standing calmly beside a
large bull.]
[Illustration: A stylized black-and-white line drawing of a bull]
[Illustration: A dramatic, black-and-white line drawing showing a young
girl being tossed into the air by a large bull in a field.]
He tossed her lightly with his horns
Into a prickly hedge of thorns,
And stood by laughing while she strode
And pushed and struggled to the road.
· · · · ·
The lesson was not lost upon
The child, who, since, has always gone
A long way round to keep away
From signs, whatever they may say,
And leaves a padlocked gate alone.
Moreover she has wisely grown
Confirmed in her instinctive guess
That letters always bring distress.
[Illustration: A black-and-white line drawing depicting a bull looking
toward a large, leafy bush where a girl is hiding and looking out with a
worried expression.]
[Illustration: A partially colored drawing of a girl in a yellow dress
leaping past a sign that reads "LEMONADE - ICES - STRAWB’ SOLD HERE."]
[Illustration: A colorful, geometric illustration of a castle featuring
a tall blue tower, a red central section, and a dark base.]
THE END
[Illustration: An endpapper with repeating, intricate blue-and-white
pattern featuring stylized birds and foliate designs.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
● Images without captions use the HTML alt text supplied by the
transcriber in place of a caption.
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