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Title: William Jordan, Junior
Author: J. C. Snaith
Release date: March 4, 2024 [eBook #73096]
Language: English
Original publication: United Kingdom: Archibald Constable & Co. Ltd, 1907
Credits: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIAM JORDAN, JUNIOR ***
WILLIAM JORDAN, JUNIOR
NEW NOVELS. 6s. each.
=DELICIA=, and other Stories never before collected. By MARIE CORELLI.
[_Third Impression._
=NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA= By KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN. With
Illustrations by F. C. YOHN.
=THE FIGHTING CHANCE= By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS. With Illustrations by
FRED PEGRAM. [_Fifth Impression._
=THE HELPMATE= By MAY SINCLAIR. [_Second Impression._
=WILLIAM JORDAN, JUNIOR= By J. C. SNAITH.
=CONFLICT= By CONSTANCE SMEDLEY.
=THE GOOD COMRADE= By UNA L. SILBERRAD. [_Second Impression._
=THE SQUARE PEG= By W. E. NORRIS.
=DOCTOR PONS= By PAUL GWYNNE.
=THE ‘WIDDA-MAN’= By T. KINGSTON CLARKE.
=BACHELOR BETTY= By WINIFRED JAMES. [_Third Impression._
=MARCUS HAY= By STANLEY HYATT.
=THE THREE COMRADES= By GUSTAV FRENSSEN.
=THE MEASURE OF THE RULE= By ROBERT BARR.
=REED ANTHONY, COWMAN= By ANDY ADAMS.
=A WALKING GENTLEMAN= By JAMES PRIOR.
=THE PRICE OF SILENCE= By M. E. M. DAVIS. With Illustrations by
GRISWOLD TYNG.
WILLIAM JORDAN
JUNIOR
By
J. C. SNAITH
Author of
“Broke of Covenden,” “Henry Northcote,” etc.
LONDON
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO. LTD.
1907
RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND
BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
WILLIAM JORDAN, JUNIOR
I
It had been raining all day in London. The beating of water, cold,
monotonous and heavy upon the streets, had now acquired mystery from
the darkness of a November night. The vague forms floating here and
there through the haze of the lamps, which a few hours ago were easy
to define, were full of strangeness, while the noise of the water as
it gurgled into the sewers, and slopped from the spouts over the dark
fronts of the shops had a remote significance. Now and again odd shapes
would emerge from the curtain of the shadows: a wet policeman, a dog, a
bedraggled walker of the streets, a sullen cabman, a lame horse. Over
and above, round and about these phantasmal appearances, was the sound
of continual water falling upon the great roar of London.
In one of the narrow purlieus leading from the City to the eastern
wilderness, night had erased the actual like a wet cloth drawn across
writing in chalk upon a board. Two rows of sopping shuttered walls
were only able to emit an occasional smear of lamplight, by which the
pageant of the individual consciousness could embody itself. Here and
there a signboard would be half-disclosed over some deserted shop;
and in the middle of a long and very dismal thoroughfare was one that
seemed to take a quality from the fact that a faint gleam of light was
stealing through a chink in the shutters of a door. Above this door,
in faded letters which the film of shadows rendered barely visible,
was the legend, “Second-hand Bookseller.” It seemed to be centuries
old. The light, however, frail as it was, somehow appeared to make it
memorable. Yet the source of this talisman was not the shop itself, but
a little room that lay behind.
This small shop in which a thousand and one volumes huddled, like
corpses in a chasm, seemed almost to form an intermediary between the
real on the one hand, and the chimerical on the other. On its shelves,
in a limbo of darkness and neglect, lay the dead, the dying, and the
imperishable. Buried in dust and decay, in covers that could hardly
hold together, were pregnant annotations upon the human comedy. On the
upper shelves were tomes whose destiny it had been to hold back the
hands of time, and had duly fulfilled it. Below these were a thousand
formulas which had proved disconcerting to man. Still, however, as in
the sodden and shadow-fraught chimera beyond the shutters, even here
darkness did not reign inviolate. There were tiny lamps on this shelf
and that: like those in the street without the power to offer more than
a flicker of light, yet able to suggest that the blackest night is
susceptible of challenge. A candle shone here and there in the gloom,
faint yet invincible, like a will-o’-the-wisp that hops about the
mounds in a cemetery.
Opening out of the shop was a little inner room. It was from this that
the thread of light proceeded. This tiny chamber, some twelve feet by
sixteen, had little furniture. In the centre was a quaint old table. A
curious tome of yellow parchments was spread open upon it. Built into
the outer wall was a cupboard. Its heavy oak door was studded with
nails and strongly secured. In the grate the fire was bright; the bare
floor and walls were spotless; and from the low ceiling depended a lamp
in the form of a censer whose light was soft yet clear.
The room had two occupants: a man whose hair was almost white and a
boy. Each was immersed in a book: the man in the tome outspread on the
table, whose yellow leaves, venerable binding, and iron clasps, gave it
a monastic appearance; the boy was reading in the ancient authors.
The countenance of each was remarkable. The eyes of the man were those
which age does not darken; yet his cheeks were gaunt, and the lines
of his frame seemed to be prematurely old; but the ample forehead
and every feature was suffused with the luminosity by which a high
intelligence reflects itself. The face of the boy, pale, gentle and
mobile, was too rare to describe. His eyes, vivid in hue and very
deeply set, were bright with a kind of veiled lustre; his form was
of elfin slightness; his hands looked as frail as gossamer. Yet the
countenance, although full of the solemn wonder of childhood, and
angelic beauty, was marred by a gross physical blemish. Every feature
appeared to have been touched by the wand of a fairy, yet in the middle
of the right cheek was an open wound.
There was not a sound in the little room except the ticking of the
clock, and an occasional creak from the fire. Now and again the man
would pause in his scrutiny of the old yellow page. Uplifting the
finger which pursued every word of the faded and almost illegible
writing, he would seem to consider it with secret thoughts shaping
themselves upon his lips. Then he would smile a little and sigh faintly
and turn to it again.
Presently his gaze sought the boy. Within it was a look of
indescribable solitude, for as the boy crouched over the old volume
printed in black letter which he held upon his knees, great tears
dripped softly from his eyes. The white-haired man addressed him in a
low voice that was like a caress.
“Ah, my brave one! thou dost not fear the drama.”
The boy looked up with a startled face. He gave a little shiver.
“What is that, my father,” he asked, “that you speak of as the drama?”
“What is that, beloved one,” asked his father, “that afflicts you with
dismay?”
The boy pressed his palms against his thin temples.
“I think--I think it is the words, my father,” he said, “the something
in the sound of the words.”
“Truly,” said his father, “the something in the sound of the words.
That which is given is taken away--the something in the sound of the
words.”
“Did you not say, my father,” said the boy, “that the drama was--was
what you call a ‘play’?”
“Yes, a play,” said his father, “a bewildering and curious play--a
haunting and strange play. It is almost terrible, and yet it is
beautiful also.”
“I don’t understand,” said the boy, his eyes growing dark with
perplexity.
His father was quick to read his distress, and a mournful compassion
came into his face. The boy left his book and came to his father’s
side. The man folded the frail and excitable form to his bosom.
“Patience, patience, agile spirit!” he exclaimed as he pressed his lips
upon the gaunt cheek upon which lay the wound.
“I must understand all things, my father,” said the boy, who was
composed a little by his father’s arms. “I--I must know something more
about the drama, for I--I must understand it all.”
“It is that which we feel,” said his father. “It is sometimes in the
air. If we listen we can hear it. I hear it now.”
The boy lifted his face with all his senses strung.
“I can only hear the ticking of the clock, my father, and the creaking
of the fire.”
“There is something else.”
The boy walked to the shutters of the little room, pressed his ear
against them, and listened with great intensity.
“There is only the gurgle of water,” he said, “and the little voice of
the wind.”
“And,” said the man with faint eyes.
“And--and! And the mighty roar of the streets of the great city.”
“That is the drama, beloved one.”
The boy sprang away from the shutters with a little cry.
“Yes, now I know,” he said excitedly. “Now I know what it is. And it
_was_ the something in the sound of the words. That which is given is
taken away. It is what I am always dreaming about this little room of
ours. I am always dreaming, my father, that it has been taken from
us, that we have been cast out of it, that we have it no more. I have
even dreamt that we wandered all day and all night in the cold and
dreadful streets of the great city, among all those fierce and cruel
street-persons, and that they looked upon us continually with their
rude eyes. Then it is that I shiver so much in my fear that I awaken;
and I could shout with joy when I find it is ours still, and that it
has all been a dream.”
The look of compassion deepened in the man’s face.
“Dost thou never grow weary of this little room?” he said.
“Never, never, my father,” said the boy. “I can never grow weary of
this little room. I almost wish sometimes we did not venture to leave
it, lest one day we should lose our path in the great city, and not
find our way back. I sometimes think I would like to stay in it every
moment of my earth-life, so that I might read every one of those
authors in the shop. How I wish, my father, that I understood all the
hard words and all the strange tongues like you do. But at least I
understand one more very difficult word now that I know what is the
meaning of the drama.”
“That is to say, beloved one,” said his father, “now that you
understand the meaning of the drama you hold the key to many other
words that are also very difficult.”
“Yes, yes, my father--and how quickly I shall learn them!”
“You are indeed wonderful at learning.”
“Yet sometimes, my father, I hardly dare to think how much there is to
know. Sometimes when I lie by your side in the darkness, my father,
and something seems to have happened to the moon, I almost feel that I
shall never be able to know all.”
“Thou art quite resolved, my brave one, to know all?”
“Oh yes, my father,” said the boy, and his eyes grew round with
surprise at the question.
“Wherefore, beloved?”
“I must, I must!” said the boy, and his eyes grew dark with
bewilderment. “Dost thou not know, O my father----” He checked his
words of surprised explanation shyly and suddenly.
“I know,” said his father gently, “thou art one of great projects.”
“I had forgotten, O my father,” said the boy, a little timorously,
“that I had not revealed them unto you.”
“Pray do so, my beloved,” said the man softly.
The boy faltered. A shy blush overspread the pallor of his cheeks.
“I am to be one of the great ones of the earth, my father,” he said,
with the sensitive gaze of a girl.
“Truly,” said his father, with a glance of grave tenderness; “destiny
declared it so in the hour that you were born. And I doubt not you will
be called to great endeavours.”
“Oh yes, my father,” said the boy, with strange simplicity. “I am to
walk the path of heroes.”
The white-haired man averted his glance.
“It is for that reason I must be well found in knowledge, my father,”
said the boy.
“True, beloved one,” said the man through pale lips.
“And the meaning of every thing, my father,” said the boy; “bird, beast
and reptile, and the moon and stars, and why the street-persons walk
the streets of the great city; and why the earth is so many-coloured;
and why the sky is so near and yet so far off; and why when you clutch
the air there is nothing in your hand. Must not such as I know all
this, my father?”
“True.”
“And why a man has two legs, and a horse four, and a crocodile I know
not how many, and why a serpent crawls upon its belly.”
“True, true,” said his father. “But I fear, beloved one, that all this
knowledge is not to be acquired in this little room of ours. If you
wish to learn the meaning of all things, will you not have to go to
school?”
A shiver passed through the boy’s frame. His face had the pallor of
great fear.
“Dost thou mean, O my father,” he said, “that I must leave this little
room of ours and go out among the street-persons in the endless streets
of the great city?”
“He who would understand the meaning of all things,” said his father,
“must certainly go to school.”
“Yet are not all things to be learned from the ancient authors, my
father?” asked the boy eagerly. “Is not every secret contained in those
hundreds of books in the shop that it is not yet given to my mind to
grasp?”
“There are many secrets, beloved, which no book has the power to
reveal.”
“Not even those among them, my father, which are wrought of the great
souls of heroes?” said the boy in dismay.
“Not even they.”
“Yet have I not heard you say, my father, that there were few things
they did not understand?”
“True, beloved, but they had not the power to commit the whole of their
knowledge to their writings.”
“But did you not say, my father, that each of these great ones communed
with his peers constantly and faithfully in his little inner room?”
“What a prodigious memory is yours! But I ought to have made it
clear to you that before these heroes could commune with their peers
faithfully, they were compelled to leave their little rooms, adventure
out among the streets of the great city and go to school.”
“Then, my father, I also will go to school.”
The boy clasped his frail hands, and strove to conceal the abject fear
in his eyes.
“When, my brave one?”
“To-morrow I will go, my father.”
“So be it then, beloved one.”
In the silence which followed the tense breathing of the frail form
could be heard to surmount the ticking of the clock, the creaking of
the fire, the little voice of the wind, the gurgle of water, and the
great roar of London.
“Are all heroes in bitter fear, my father, when first they go to
school?” asked the boy.
“Indeed, yes.”
“Do they ever tremble like cravens, and do their eyes grow dark?”
“Yes, beloved one.”
“Have not these great ones a strange cowardice, my father?”
“Is not the cowardice of heroes the measure of their courage?”
“Can it be, O my father,” said the boy, with a deepening pallor, “that
these great ones derive their valour from their craven hearts?”
“Truly, beloved, if they learn the secret.”
“The secret, my father?”
“The secret which is only to be learned in the school which is in the
streets of the great city.”
The face of the boy grew like death. “To-morrow then, my father,” he
said in a faint and small voice, “Achilles will adventure forth to this
school which is in the streets of the great city, that he too may learn
this secret. He should have known that one like himself should not only
have great learning, wisdom and constancy, but also a noble valour.”
“True, a thousand times! This is indeed Achilles!”
“I give you good-night, my father. Pray remember me in your vigil.”
The boy threw his arms round the man’s neck, and pressed his cheek
against him. It seemed to burn like a flame.
The boy took a candle from the chimney-piece, lighted it, and in his
great fear of the darkness, was accompanied by his father up the
stairs. When the white-haired man had enveloped the frail form in the
blankets with a woman’s tenderness, he left the light in the chamber
burning at its fullest, and returned to the little room. It was then
near to midnight.
The massive old tome in which he had been reading was open still upon
the table. He knelt before it, pressing his eyes upon the yellow
parchments. On the clock in the little room the hands made their tardy
circuit: midnight passed; one o’clock; two o’clock; three o’clock.
Throughout these hours the man remained thus, not heeding that all
about him was darkness; for the lamp and the fire had burned themselves
out long ago.
Near to the hour of four a ghostly figure, pale but luminous, crept
into the silence of the room. It was the boy, clad in a white gown and
bearing a lighted candle. He touched the kneeling figure softly.
“My father,” he breathed; “how you tremble, my father, and how cold you
are!”
The man rose to his feet with a slight shiver.
“The fire is low,” he said. “Are we not ever cold when the fire is low?”
“The fire is out, my father,” said the boy.
“Is the fire ever out, beloved,” said his father, “while one ember is
still faintly burning? May we not draw it into flame perhaps?”
The man knelt again and breathed upon the embers, so that presently
they began to glow.
“I could not rest, my father,” said the boy, “and I grew so afraid of
the loneliness that I have come to be near you. I do not think it is
raining now, but the wind is speaking bitterly. I wish the stars would
shine. I am not so craven-hearted when the stars look at me with their
bright eyes.”
“May there not be one among all those millions,” said his father, “who
knows that to be so, and shines out to comfort you? Let us look.”
With eager hands the boy helped his father to unfasten and cast back
the shutters. Through heavy masses of walls and chimney-stacks a
fragment of the void was to be seen. Across it the broken clouds were
scudding, and a single star was visible. It emerged faint but keen and
clear.
“It is Jupiter,” cried the boy in a voice of joy and excitement. “Hail,
mighty prince of the heavens! Ave, ave, great lord of the air!”
The patient white-haired figure at the boy’s side was peering also
towards the star. In his eyes shone the entrancement of many thoughts.
II
When at last the morning brought its grey light the boy set out with
his father into the streets of the great city. Amid the dun-coloured
wilderness through which he passed, amid the labyrinth of dread
thoroughfares in which noise, dirt, and confusion seemed to contend,
he grasped his father’s hand in the fear of his heart. The rattle of
horses and carts, the mud-flinging hoofs and the cries of the drivers,
the vigour and rudeness of the street-persons by whom he was hustled,
filled him with a dire consternation. Yet beyond all that he suffered
in this way, which was no more than a little personal inconvenience
after all, was the fear, permanent, overmastering and intense, that
never would his father and he be able to retrace their steps to that
tiny refuge which they had left so lately, which now seemed so far
away that they could never hope to win their way back. How could they
hope to retrace their steps among that ever-surging sea of streets and
houses and faces and vehicles? Once as he was submerged in a whirlpool
that was formed by the meeting of four main arteries of traffic, and
was compelled to wait until a strangely clad street-person, who wore a
helmet like Minerva, stopped, by the magic process of holding up his
hand, the unending procession of carts and horses to enable his father
and himself and a swarm of street-persons, who pressed upon his heels
and trod upon his toes, to pass to that debatable land across the way,
which looked so full already that it could not yield space for another
living soul, he held his father’s hand convulsively and said in a voice
of despair: “I feel sure, my father, we shall never win our way back to
our little room.”
In point of actual time this journey was not more than half-an-hour,
yet it formed such a highly wrought experience, that to the boy it
seemed to transcend and even to efface all that had previously happened
in the placid term of his existence. At last it came to an end in
a succession of quiet streets that led to a gloomy square, which,
although very forbidding of aspect, was almost peaceful. The houses
in it, tall and stately and austere, had a row of steep stone steps
furnished with iron railings. It was one of these rows he ascended; and
his father knocked with a boldness that seemed superhuman at a very
stern-looking front door.
After a brief period of waiting in which it seemed to the boy that
he must be choked by the violent beatings of his heart, the door was
opened by an old woman, equally stern of aspect, who asked their
business in a gruff voice. The boy’s father said something to her which
the boy was too excited to comprehend, whereupon she conducted them
into a dark passage filled with bad air, and left them there while she
went to inquire if they would be received by him they sought. Presently
she returned to lead them to his presence.
In a room at the end of the long passage, which seemed to grow darker
and darker at every step they took, they found a very aged man. In
appearance he was not unlike a faun. His eyes were sunken far in his
cheeks, and they seemed to be faded like those of the blind. His
features were so lean that they looked almost spectral; his tall frame
and long limbs were warped with feebleness; and the boy noticed that
his hands had red mittens to keep them warm. His head, which was of
great nobility, was bald at the top, yet the lower part was covered by
hair that was even whiter than that of the boy’s father, and so long
that it came down upon his shoulders.
This venerable figure sat at a table before a fire in a dark and sombre
room, which faced the north and smelt of ink. Maps were on the walls;
here and there were scattered books; there was a globe on a tripod;
while blackboards, charts and desks abounded in all the panoply of
education. The old school-master was ruling lines in a ciphering-book
with the gravest nicety; while at his back the fire was shedding its
glow on a coat which use had rendered green, ragged and threadbare.
When the boy and his father came into his presence, the aged man,
although stricken with painful infirmity, rose to his feet and welcomed
them with a beautiful courtesy.
“I cannot expect you to remember me, sir,” said the boy’s father, with
a simplicity that was a little timorous.
The aged school-master approached quite close to the boy’s father; in
his faded eyes was a peering intentness.
“You must give me a minute to think, if you please,” he quavered in a
low voice, which in the ears of the boy had the effect of music. “Now
that I am old, my memory, of which I have always been vain, is the
first to desert me. If you are one of my scholars I shall recall you,
for it is my boast that each of my scholars has graven a line in the
tablets of my mind.”
Of a sudden the aged school-master gave a cry of joy.
“Why--why!” he exclaimed, “it must be William Jordan.”
He held out both his hands to the boy’s father with an eagerness that
was like a child’s, and the boy saw that his eyes, which a moment since
were destitute of meaning, had now the pregnant beauty of an ancient
masterpiece.
“O that the hour should be at hand,” said the old man, “when I should
cease to recall William Jordan!”
The old man seemed to avert his face from that of the boy’s father in a
kind of dismay; and his voice pierced the boy with an emotion that he
had never felt before.
“It is thirty years since you saw me last,” said the boy’s father.
“In the flesh as an eager-faced young man,” said the school-master.
“But every night as I sit by the fire, I summon William Jordan to
lead the pageant of my experience. When my spirit is like clay you
stand before it, the first among the valiant, so subtle yet so brave.
When this generation, which is so restless, so brilliant, so full of
vitality, seems to tell me that I am but a survival of a phase which
now is nought, I say to it, ‘So be it, my children, but where is the
William Jordan among you? I would have you show me his peer before I
yield.’”
The boy, whose nature was like the strings of some miraculous
instrument which are not only susceptible to the slightest human touch,
but are also responsive to the delicate waves in the air, knew that
some strange emotion was overwhelming his father, although none could
have perceived it but himself.
“My dear old master,” said the boy’s father, with an indescribable
melancholy, “it is the old voice--the old voice that we loved to hear.
And it is the old courage--the old incomparable suit of mail.”
“A school-master’s courage should increase as he grows old, I think,”
said the old man, whose voice was like a harp. “It is true his age is
menaced by all the noble energies he has failed to mould; by all the
expenditure of spirit, by all the devout patience he has lavished upon
them, which have come to no harvest; but is it not by giving our all
without hope of a requital that in the end teaches us to accept our
destiny?”
The boy’s father stood like a statue before his old preceptor.
“Master, your voice overcomes me,” he said. “But it is just, it is
perfectly just that I should live to hear it sound reproachful in my
ears.”
“I do not reproach you, dear Isocrates,” said the old man, with the
exquisite humility that is only begotten by wisdom. “Or if my words
have chidden you it is that there is an echo in yourself. Isocrates
was ever your name among us. We cannot order our destiny; we can only
fulfil it.”
“I was one of great projects,” said the boy’s father.
“Him whom I recall had ambition burning in his veins like a chemical,”
said the old man.
“Yes, master,” said the boy’s father, with a curious simplicity, “but
on a day he tasted the poppy that perished the red blood in his veins.
From that hour he could never be what he promised. The strength was
taken from his right hand.”
An expression of pain escaped the lips of the aged school-master.
“I foresaw that peril,” he said. “I prayed for you continually,
Isocrates; and I would have forewarned you had I not feared the
catastrophe so much. It is the cardinal weakness of such as myself that
we fear even to gaze upon the vulnerable heel whereby the poisoned
arrow enters the powerful. False preceptor hast thou been, O Socrates,
to the young Plato!”
The aged man seemed all broken by the sudden anguish that shook his
feebleness. The boy’s father, in whose eyes the suffering of his former
preceptor was reflected, raised the senile fingers to his lips with
strange humility.
“All the devices of the pharmacopeia,” said the boy’s father, “could
not have kept the poison out of these weak veins, dear master. It is
one more act of wantonness that we must lay to the door of Nature.
For the poison was first compounded by the fermentation of those many
diverse and potent essences with which the blood was charged. It is
the curse of the age, master. It is the deadly gas exuded by the
putrefaction of what we have agreed to call ‘progress,’ which fuses
the nerves and the tissues into the incandescent fervour by which they
destroy themselves.”
“But only, Apollo, that there may be a nobler renascence.”
“We shall not heed it, master, when we lie with the worms.”
“Ah, no! Yet as we crouch by the fire on these cold winter evenings,
is it not well to wrap ourselves in the vision of all the undeveloped
glories in our midst? Is it not well for our minds to behold a William
Jordan brooding in his garret among all these millions of people who
will never learn his name? For thirty years have I been seeking that
treatise by which he is to establish Reason on its only possible basis.”
“Ah, dear master, philosophy is an anodyne for subtle minds,” said the
boy’s father.
“Were these your words, Isocrates, when you expounded to me that
wonderful synopsis on your twentieth birthday?”
“Philosophy is a narcotic which in the end destroys the cells of the
brain.”
“And poetry, my dear friend, what is poetry?”
“I have not the courage to define it, master.”
“Is this the language of despair, Isocrates?”
“It is the curse of the time, dear master,” said the boy’s father,
with wan eyes. “This terrible electrical machinery of the age which
grandiloquently we call Science, has ground our wits to a point so fine
that they pierce through the brave old faiths that once made us happy.
This William Jordan of whom you speak spent twenty years in his little
room seeking to establish Reason on its only possible basis. He planned
his ethic in I know not how many tomes. Each was to be a masterpiece of
courage, truth, and vitality; each was to be wrought of the life-blood
and fine flower of his manhood. He began his labour a powerful and
imperious young man; he passed the all-too-rapid years in his profound
speculations; and then he found himself inept and white-haired.”
“So then, after all, Isocrates, your ethic is embodied?” said the aged
man with the eager devoutness of the disciple.
The joy in the face of the old man was that of one who has long dreamed
of a treasure which at last is to be revealed to his gaze. His eyes
were about to feast on its peerless splendour, yet of a sudden his
hopes seemed to render him afraid. There might not be a sufficient heat
left in his veins to yield those intolerable pangs of rapture which
fuse with ecstasy the worship of the devotee.
“Let me see it,” he said. “The desires of my youth are returning upon
me. I must look upon it; I must press it to my bosom. I yearn to see
how my own strength in the heyday of its promise, in the passion of
its development, yet condemned to walk in chains, has yet been able to
vindicate the nobility of its inheritance. Show me your Ethic, beloved
Isocrates. I yearn to feast my eyes upon this latest blow for freedom
with the same intensity with which I fingered the yellow pages in which
I first found wisdom hiding her maiden chastity.”
The boy’s father met this entreaty with a gesture that seemed to pierce
the old man like a sword.
“Where is it?” he cried. “You will not deny one who is old the last of
his hopes!”
The boy’s father had the mien of a corpse.
“It is unwritten, master,” he said, in a voice that seemed to be no
louder than the croak of a frog. “When after twenty years of devout
preparation I took up the pen, I found that Nature had denied the
strength to my right hand.”
The old man recoiled from the gaze of the boy’s father with a cry of
dismay.
“I should have known it,” he said; and then, with strange humility,
“let us not reproach her, Isocrates; she, too, must obey the decree.”
“By which human sacrifice is offered on her altars,” said the boy’s
father, with a gaunt gaze. “What new abortion shall she fashion with
our blood and tears?”
“The issue of our loins,” said the aged man, with a kind of gentle
passion.
“In order that our humiliation may re-enact itself,” said the boy’s
father; “in order, dear master, that we may mock ourselves again.”
“Nay, Isocrates,” said the old man, “is it not written that if by our
fortitude we sustain the Dynasty to its appointed hour, Nature will
grant it a means to affirm itself?”
Speaking out of a simple faith the old man turned for the first time
to the boy, who, throughout this interview, had stood timidly at his
father’s side. The old faded eyes seemed to devour the delicate and
shrinking face of the child with their surmise. Suddenly he took the
boy by the hand.
“It is by this that the Dynasty will affirm itself,” said the old man,
enfolding the frail form in a kind of prophetic exaltation.
The boy’s father seemed to cower at these words of his old preceptor.
“My prophetic soul!” he cried. Horror appeared to scarify the wasted
features of the boy’s father.
The proud gladness of the well-remembered voice had seemed to break the
boy’s father; for those ears it was charged with mockery.
The old school-master, still smiling in the expression of his simple
faith, received his former pupil in his arms and took him to his bosom
with the ineffable tenderness by which a matron consoles a young girl.
The boy could not understand this painful scene which had been enacted
before him. He could form no conception of the manner in which two
natures had been wrung by their first meeting after thirty years. He
could only discern, and that very dimly, that this aged man bore a
similar relation to his father that his father bore to himself. The
voice, the look, the bearing of this old man, were precisely those with
which he himself was succoured when he awoke shuddering and bathed
in terror, and implored his father to strike a match to dispel the
phantasies which peopled the darkness of the night.
III
Sunk in bewilderment that one so wise and powerful as his father should
be so distressed, the boy seemed to lose the sense of what was taking
place around him. But he was recalled to it with a start of dismay;
his father was about to leave the room. Involuntarily he turned to the
door also, and placed his hand on his father’s arm.
“Do you forget that you are now at school, Achilles?” said his father
in a low voice.
The boy could not repress a little quiver of fear.
“You--you are not going to forsake me, my father!” he said.
“What of the resolve you took last night?” said his father. “By whose
act is it, beloved one, that you have come to school?”
A vague sense of darkness seemed to close about the boy.
“But our little room,” he said, shivering. “Am I never to return to it,
my father? Am I never to behold it again?”
“I make you my promise, beloved one,” said his father softly. “At dusk
I will return to take you there.”
Furtively, mournfully the boy relaxed his grip of his father’s hand.
In the next instant he realized that his father was gone, and that he
was alone with the dumb immensity of his despair. All about him was
black and vague. Yet in the midst of the close-pressing stillness sat
the school-master, a venerable and silent form, slowly ruling lines in
a ciphering-book. How old, noble, and patient he looked!
Presently the aged master ceased from his labours. He gathered a pile
of books, rose and placed them under his arm. He turned to the boy, who
was weeping secretly, and said, “Dry your eyes and come with me.”
Filled with nameless misgivings, the boy followed the school-master out
through the door, along a passage, and down a flight of stone stairs.
At the bottom of these was another door. It opened into a large room,
which was full of youthful street-persons, and a great clamour.
The master took his seat at a table apart. It was somewhat higher than
the desks at which the youthful street-persons were seated. He told
the boy, who followed very close upon his heels, to sit at his side.
The entrance of the aged master appeared to have an effect upon the
behaviour of his scholars, or perhaps the appearance in his wake of a
new companion had engaged their curiosity. But the boy, trembling in
every limb, was far from returning their bold glances. He sat close
by the master, mutely craving protection from the fierce horde that
was all about him. Had he been led into a den of wild beasts, his fear
could not have been more extreme.
The tasks of the day were begun by each of the boys reading aloud
in his turn a brief portion of Holy Writ. To him, who heard their
voices for the first time, they sounded harsh, strange, and uncouth.
Most of them faltered and grew confused at the easiest words, in none
were sincerity and coherence; and when the master, to sustain one who
was baffled, recited a few verses, his tones, in their sweetness and
dignity, sounded like music. Sometimes the master would remark upon the
beauty and truth of that which was read, or he would pause to furnish a
parallel out of common experience, in order to elucidate an incident as
it was narrated.
The presence of this gentle and learned man, the continual sense that
he was near, began to soothe the boy’s tremors. And the beautiful
language seemed to gird him with the sense of a new and enkindling
security. But his terror returned upon him with overmastering power
when the moment came in which he was asked personally to continue the
theme. The whole of it had long been so familiar to him that he carried
every word in his heart, yet when the call was made upon him to recite
that for which he required no book, he was so much oppressed with the
nameless dread of his surroundings that he could only gasp and burst
into tears.
After all the boys had done their tasks after their own private
fashion, the master read to them a fable, which the boy recognized
gratefully as an old friend out of the ancient authors; also a
wonderful tale from similar sources, and a few passages from the life
of a great national hero.
The boy was enchanted. The simplicity of the reading made him strangely
happy; the themes addressed him with a ravishment he had never felt
before. And the horde of fierce creatures all about him, indulging in
grimaces and covert horseplay, seemed also to become amenable to this
delight. At least their uneasy roughness grew less as the beautiful
voice proceeded; and by the time these stories of wonder, wisdom and
endeavour were at an end, even the rudest among them had wide eyes and
open mouths.
Upon the conclusion of these tales the old school-master wrote a few
cabalistic figures on a board, and then said to the boy, “Can you do
sums?”
“I--I--I--I d-don’t t-think I--I k-know, sir,” said the boy, stammering
timorously.
“Perhaps we will test your knowledge,” said the old man, and added
as he smiled in a secret and beautiful manner, “there is one simple
question in arithmetic that it is the custom to put to a new scholar on
his first appearance among us. Can you tell us what two and two make?”
Now, although the boy was advanced in book-knowledge far beyond his
years, he had hardly the rudiments of the practical sciences. Therefore
at first he was unable to answer the most primitive of all questions
therein, and his confusion was great. And the other boys who had heard
this question, which was so simple as to seem ridiculous, observed his
distress with a scorn that was far too lofty to conceal.
“What would you say that two and two make?” the school-master asked.
“I--I--I think, sir, they m-make five,” stammered the boy at last.
A shout of laughter arose from the other boys at this grotesque answer.
“He thinks two and two make five!” boy after boy could be heard
repeating to his companions; “he thinks two and two make five!”
The aged school-master, however, derived neither amusement nor scorn
from this answer. His look was one of high yet grave happiness as he
said, “We give a special name to each of our boys, and I have been
wondering what name to bestow upon you. The name of your father was
Isocrates--one of great gifts, but timorous of disposition; but I think
you must be known by the name of a universal hero. We will call you by
the name of Achilles, who was the bravest among all the Greeks.”
At these words of the master looks of consternation clouded the faces
of all the boys.
“Why, sir, he is a dunce,” expostulated a thoughtful and shrewd boy
with piercing black eyes.
The aged master looked at this boy with a mild indulgence in his smile.
“Adamantus,” said the master, “that is a condition necessary to a
universal hero in his youth.”
Adamantus, who was one of the first boys in the school, was far from a
comprehension of this dark saying; yet he felt himself to be rebuked,
without knowing to what extent or why he should be. But shortly
afterwards, when the play-hour came, and they ran out to indulge in
their games in the small London garden, some of the older and graver
boys, of whom Adamantus was one of the chief, stood apart to discuss
what they were bound to consider an act of notorious partiality on
the part of the master. That a mere small boy, a weak and foolish boy
should be decorated with a much-coveted name for returning a ridiculous
answer was one of those frank injustices that they felt obliged to
resent.
“Adamantus only means that I am a bit of a sticker at my books, which I
don’t think I am really,” said the bearer of that name; “and who ever
heard of Polycrates and Polydames?”
“Yes, it is not fair,” said the bearer of the last of these names; “but
then, he is an old fool. He is just an old dodderer.”
When the boys had gone forth to the garden, the master said to his new
pupil, “Will you not go out and make their acquaintance, Achilles?”
For answer the boy clasped his fingers about the master’s sleeve. He
had grown dumb with terror.
“So be it,” said the old man, regarding him with pity and concealed
tenderness.
A little while afterwards the boy rose suddenly of his own motion from
the master’s table.
“Where are you going, Achilles?” said the master.
“I--I am g-going, s-sir, to the garden to the boys,” he stammered.
As he walked out through the door his gaunt cheeks were like death.
He crept into the garden with the greatest caution and secrecy. He
hardly dared to breathe lest he should be heard, he feared to move lest
he should be seen. Crouching against the wall, moving neither foot nor
hand, he longed to stop the motions of his heart. They were so loud
that he felt they were bound to be noticed.
His fears proved to be well founded. A tall, heavy, puffy boy with
vivid red hair came near. He was trying to kick the cap of another
boy, who was much smaller than himself, over the wall. By an odd
misadventure one of these attempts landed it full in the face of the
trembling intruder.
“Hullo, New Boy!” said the boy with red hair.
He gave the cap a final kick, which lifted it among the branches of the
only tree the garden contained. He then turned his attention to his
important discovery. He moistened his lips with his tongue, and gave an
anticipatory leer to the figure that shrank away from him.
“New Boy,” he said, “what is your name?”
“I--I d-don’t t-think I know, sir,” the boy stammered.
“D-don’t t-think you know your name, New Boy,” said the boy with red
hair, with polite deprecation. “How odd!”
Almost as quick as thought the boy with red hair took the boy’s arm in
what seemed to be the grip of a giant and twisted it ferociously. The
boy gave a little yelp of agony and stupefaction.
“D-doesn’t t-that help you to remember your name, New Boy?” said the
boy with red hair persuasively. As he spoke he pressed his face so
close to that of the quivering thing in his grasp that he almost rubbed
the gaunt cheek with his blunt and freckled nose.
The boy hung mute and limp with terror.
“L-lost y-your tongue, New Boy?” said the boy with red hair. “Or
perhaps you haven’t lost it really?”
The arm that was still in the grip of the giant received another such
twist that a wild shriek was heard all over the garden.
The cry brought other boys crowding to the scene. They were of diverse
ages and sizes, they were of various tempers and complexions, but one
and all were animated by the same critical curiosity. Among them was
a boy, who, although far more robust of physique, was slightly less
in inches than he who cowered away from their eyes. He measured him
carefully with his eye, and, seeming to derive an ampler power from
such gross terror, turned to his companions with a swelling air, as if
to enforce the fact that in stature he was somewhat the less of the
two, and said, “I think I ought to be able to hit him.”
With chin borne loftily, with each step taken firmly yet delicately,
and with an air of dauntlessness which affected not to be in the least
conscious of the approval such a deed was bound to excite in the minds
of the intelligent, this boy approached, and at his leisure struck the
new boy in the face with his clenched fist as hard as he could.
A little afterwards the ringing of a bell summoned all the boys indoors
to their books. The new boy crept back to his place at the master’s
table in a kind of swoon. For the remainder of that day any command
of the common faculties which, under happy conditions, he sometimes
enjoyed, was destroyed. He could hardly see, he could affix no meaning
to that which he heard; the functions of speech and memory were denied
to him altogether. Whenever the school-master left the room he followed
upon his heels from one place to another with the ridiculous docility
of a dumb animal.
At noon the mid-day meal was taken. Many of the scholars then adjourned
to a long table in another room, but as the master followed them the
boy kept ever by his side. An old woman who cut the food, and who
seemed to wield great authority, said to him in a harsh voice, which
made him tremble, “You have no right to sit there. Down there at the
bottom is the place for new boys.”
“No,” said the master, “let him sit with me.”
During the meal the boy ate no food. When, having declined to touch a
robust helping of meat, he also rejected an even more liberal serving
of pudding, the old woman said to him roughly, “You must have a proud
stomach if it refuses good food.”
After the meal he followed in the steps of the master wherever he went,
until the hour came to re-enter the school-room to renew the tasks of
the day. Many were the fierce and scornful eyes that were directed upon
him as again he took his seat at the master’s table; yet of these he
was not conscious, for he had no knowledge of what was happening about
him.
About the hour the shadows of the dismal November afternoon grew so
oppressive that it became necessary to light the gas, he saw the form
of his father in the door. He gave a little convulsed cry, threw
his arms round his father’s neck, and buried his face in his coat.
His father and the aged master looked at one another without saying
anything.
The boy and his father journeyed home on the top of an omnibus. On
another occasion such a proceeding would have filled him with a high
sense of adventure, but now all the life seemed to have passed out of
him. The horses and carts, their drivers, the shouting newsboys, the
seething crowds on the pavements, the flaring lights of the shops had
nothing to communicate. Yet, when he found himself again in the little
room, which he had left only a few brief hours, the sudden joy in
recovering that which he had felt to be lost for ever amounted almost
to delirium. It soon passed. It was followed by deep dejection, and a
sense of strange despair.
The hours of the long evening went very slowly. The ticking of the
clock had never seemed so loud and so deliberate. A feeling of
lassitude at last began to creep upon him, so that he leant his arms
on the table, and pressed his closed eyes upon them. Yet he was not
in the least weary, and felt no desire for sleep. His father asked no
questions in regard to the doings of the day.
At eight o’clock his father put up the shutters of the shop. It was his
habit to sit all day amid the books waiting for customers who seldom
came. That day not one had crossed the threshold.
When the hour arrived at which it was usual for the boy to go to bed,
he lighted his candle in a dull and mechanical way.
“I suppose, my father,” he said, “heroes do not crave for death?”
“Yes, Achilles,” said his father, “death is a guerdon they do not seek.”
His father accompanied him up the stairs as was his invariable custom
during the winter evenings, for he had not the courage to enter a dark
room alone. When the boy had sought sanctuary in his cold bed, his
father left him with the light burning at its fullest.
It was in the small hours of the morning when his father entered the
chamber again. The boy lay wide-eyed, with his head pillowed upon his
hands. He was gazing through the curtainless window at the bright
stars. Thus did he lie all night very cold and still, but at six
o’clock, when his father left his side to light the fire in the little
room and to clean out the shop, he had fallen into a light and troubled
rest. Later, when his father returned to bid him rise, he found that
sheer fatigue had at last overcome him, and that his broken sleep
had changed to a slumber that was deep and dreamless. It was only by
shaking that the boy could be induced to open his eyes.
“You will be late at the school, Achilles,” said his father.
The boy gave a little faint shiver, and for an instant he cowered among
the warm blankets in terror and dismay. In the next, however, he had
left his too-pleasant refuge. He clothed his tottering limbs, yet they
were so weak that he could hardly walk down the stairs. He took a deep
draught of milk, of the inferior London kind, and again accompanied his
father through the press of traffic to the house in the gloomy square.
Throughout the journey neither spoke.
The incidents of the day were much like those of the previous one,
except that his father and the aged master did not re-enact their
former interview. As on the day before, the boy sat at the master’s
table, and followed him wherever he went. The aged man continued to
show him much consideration, while his voice, as it became familiar to
the boy’s ears, seemed to grow even gentler and more melodious. Yet the
eyes of the boys who sat opposite seemed to grow increasingly scornful
and fierce.
The days passed with little change from this order. The boy’s pallor
deepened, and his cheeks grew more gaunt than when he entered the
school. Sometimes when he returned to the little room in the evening,
still in his father’s care, he would be so overcome with weariness that
he would lay his head on the table and fall asleep. He ate little; and
the previous brightness of his childhood, his frank and insatiable
curiosity, gave place to a settled air of lassitude, weariness and
dejection.
Once or twice upon returning to the little room he would appear to have
been invigorated by some incident of the day, which yet he did not
mention. On these infrequent occasions he would seem to have a little
appetite for his food, and he would read in some of the less familiar
of the ancient authors under his father’s guidance.
Sometimes when his father went to rest in the midnight hours he found
the boy kneeling at the side of the bed in his white gown. On one
occasion, when the boy was too overborne to take off his own clothes,
his father helped him to do so. In removing them his father observed
the right arm to be much swollen, and to be greatly bruised and
lacerated. His father affected not to notice its condition.
The boy was unfailing in his attendance at the school. Every morning
at the same hour he went forth in his father’s care; at the same
hour every evening he returned in the same vigilant custody. Days
grew into weeks, weeks grew into months, months into years, but the
intimacy of time, and increase in stature and understanding opened up
no intercourse with the other boys in the school. He still remained
one apart at the master’s table. The contemptuous disfavour with which
he was viewed upon his first entrance into their midst grew into a
tradition which all respected, so that even those who came after him,
who were his inferiors in years and stature and knowledge of books,
were only too eager to accept the verdict which had been passed upon
him. By this pious conformity they gained the freedom of their own
republic.
As the boy grew older his reading in the ancient authors became more
prolonged, more profound, and more various. The longer he spent at his
books, the more authors with whom he entered into an acquaintance, the
more was his curiosity inspired. The questions he put to his father in
the little room increased greatly in number and magnitude. Some were
so delicate that his father, although familiar with many authors in
many tongues, was fain to hesitate in his replies; yet, whenever he
was able, he would give an answer that was tempered, not to his own
experience, but to that of his questioner.
One evening, when the boy had been nearly two years at the school, he
asked his father, who observed that his eyes were much swollen with
tears recently shed, “When pain hurts us bitterly, my father, must we
still continue to praise the Most High?”
“Pain is a monitor whose zeal is sometimes a little excessive, beloved
one,” said his father.
“Is it our own incontinence, my father, that makes our fear so great?
There seems to be two opinions among these authors.”
“When nature is affronted,” said his father, “she utters protests that
all must heed. The wise do not shun her indignation, neither do they
court it; but, when they come to suffer it, they seek first for the
cause, and then for that which may remove it.”
“And having found the cause, my father, and also that which may remove
it, must they ever shrink from the task?”
“Never, Achilles,” said his father.
The boy rose from his chair at the table. His face was like death.
“Do you mind kneeling with me here, my father?” he said. “I seem to do
better when you are at my side.”
The boy and his father knelt together in the little room.
All that long night the boy never closed his eyes. He lay on his
pillow looking at the brightness of the stars. After a while he tossed
restlessly from side to side. His lips were parched; his cheeks burned;
his mind had an intolerable vivacity.
At the first faint streaks of dawn he staggered from his bed, dressed
his faint limbs, and crept down the stairs. Presently, when his father
rose, he found him sharpening upon a stone a large knife, which was
used for cutting bread. Observing the boy’s deadly white cheeks and
burning eyes, his father placed his hand on his shoulder, saying, “I
trust, Achilles, you are aware that there are remedies from which there
is no appeal.”
The face of the boy showed that no appeal was desired. He partook
neither of food nor drink at the frugal breakfast; and when his father,
as was his custom, made ready to accompany him to the school, he said,
“I think, my father, I must walk alone to-day. I am twelve years old
to-day.”
“As you will, Achilles,” said his father, as he replaced his hat on the
peg.
It was with the greatest difficulty that the boy reached the school.
He had a perfect acquaintance with every step of the way. The name of
every street was engraved in his memory in its proper sequence; he knew
by heart almost every tradesman’s sign; yet it was only by the aid
of others that he ever reached the school. When he came to the wide
crossings, where the traffic was endless, his courage deserted him,
and do what he would he had not the physical power to leave the kerb.
He remained upon the verge of the crossing for more than half-an-hour,
reduced to tears of dismay at his own futility, until an old woman
happened to observe him and led him across the street. No sooner had
he come to the other side, than, without venturing to thank her, he
started to run as fast as he could, pursued by an agony of shame.
Upon his arrival at the school he provided delight and astonishment
for his fellows by breaking down in those tasks in which his
proficiency had long been remarkable. At each fresh attempt he failed
the more miserably. From the first his skill in the classic authors had
been so great that it was thought by the others to be discreditable;
yet this morning they rejoiced to find that it had passed from him
altogether. When at last, in his humiliation, he burst into tears, they
raised a shout of laughter.
“The power will return to you, my dear Achilles,” said the aged
school-master softly. “It will be the greater for having been denied
you altogether.”
In the play-hour the others gathered round him with their taunts.
The heavy boy with red hair, who from the first day had shown the
greatest assiduity in beating him, said, as he winked at his laughing
companions, “Watch me tickle up the biggest dunce in the school.”
However, almost so soon as he advanced, with his ruthless hands
outspread, he recoiled with a cry of fear. His victim had suddenly
produced a large knife from his coat.
“If you make me cry out again,” said the boy, in a slow and quiet
voice, “it is my intention to kill you.”
All stood gaping with amazement and horror, and the boy’s face was
so strange that at first none ventured to come near him. At last the
oldest boy in the school, who was also the boldest, crept round behind
him cautiously, swooped upon him and pinioned his arms. There and then,
with the knife still in his hand, they dragged him into the presence of
the master.
The old man, very infirm and half blind as he was, could not understand
their clamour at first. But when that which had occurred was rendered
clear to him, he ordered every boy to his place. Then addressing the
heavy boy with red hair, he said, “Come to me, Enceladus.”
A deep silence, the fruit of curiosity, was maintained while this boy
lurched up to the master’s table. He wore a smirk of satisfaction upon
his face, as one who, unaccustomed to notoriety, has come to taste it
suddenly.
“Enceladus,” said the aged master, in so sorrowful a voice that it sank
into the hearts even of those who were accustomed to heed it least,
“you are rude and unmannerly. Take up your books and leave us. Never,
upon any pretext, must you come among us again.”
The boy with red hair, insensitive and slow-witted as he was, was as if
stunned by this public and totally unexpected humiliation.
“Why, sir,” he whimpered, “why, sir, it was not I who drew the knife.”
A burning sense of injustice caused the head boy of the school to rise
in his place. He it was who had pinioned the arms of him who had dared
to hold such a weapon.
“No, sir,” he cried, “it was not Enceladus who drew the knife; it was
Achilles.”
“Mnestheus,” said the aged master, addressing the head boy with a stern
melancholy that none had heard on his lips before, “you are declared
unworthy of that office to which you have been called. You also, here
and now, must go from among us, and never, Mnestheus, must you come
among us again.”
Silence and consternation fell upon all as their two companions, thus
excommunicated, passed for ever out of their midst.
From that hour the many wanton acts which had been practised upon
the boy were practised no more. In lieu of the fierce contempt with
which he had been previously regarded, they began to pay him a kind of
respect. This immunity from physical violence, which he enjoyed for the
first time, was even tinged with a kind of homage. It was in nowise due
to his extraordinary preeminence in books, but rather in spite of it,
for it was hard for such unworthy attainment to be condoned. Indeed,
this tolerance was extended to one who had dared to enter upon a course
that had not been possible to the boldest among them.
“Tell us, Achilles,” they demanded in excited tones, “did you intend
_really_ to use the knife?”
“Y-yes,” stammered the boy, as the blood fled from his cheeks; “h-had I
b-been m-made to cry out again, I had buried the knife to the hilt in
his heart.”
From this time forth it was remarkable how one who had been deficient
in every quality which permits a human creature to dwell among his
kind upon equal terms, began to acquire an ascendency over them.
His physical shortcomings seemed to grow less apparent. His timid
disposition, whose extravagant fear of others had made him their prey,
now grew amenable to a new faculty which was suddenly born within him.
He who had been despised as outside the pale of their intercourse,
found himself clad in a kind of authority, which sometimes he dared to
exert.
Nevertheless, this change found little reflection in the natures of
those who had persecuted him. At heart they remained as they were
before. This innate ferocity was shown the more particularly in their
attitude towards the aged school-master. Each day the old man seemed to
fail more visibly in years. His eyes grew so dim that he could hardly
walk without a guide. He became so deaf that he could not hear the
loudest words that were spoken. So feeble was his frame that it could
scarcely totter from one room to another.
Of these circumstances his pupils took a full advantage. They fought
among themselves continually, and indulged in rude play in the master’s
presence. They caricatured his infirmities, and made grimaces at him.
Sometimes they would pester him with tricks; they would pelt him with
balls of paper, or spill ink over him, or secretly fasten his coat to
his chair. One boy stretched a cord across the door in the hope that
the old man might trip over it; another boy wrote “Doddering old fool”
in chalk upon his back.
Such a pitiable weakness was taken as the proclamation of a perpetual
holiday. For many weeks not a task was performed, since, although the
master was able to call on each boy as formerly to read aloud his task,
he had no longer the power to discriminate between the true and the
false. Thus scope was given for their natural love of parody. One would
read in lieu of a passage from Homer the report of a cricket match from
a newspaper; another would substitute “Dick Deadeye’s Adventures among
the Red Indians” for the Metamorphoses of Ovid; while a third would
incorporate the description of a crime in the “Police Gazette” with the
poetry of Virgil and Wordsworth.
One boy alone remained faithful to the precept of this aged man, and
it was he who still sat at the master’s table. He only maintained his
obedience; he only abstained from casting indignity upon impotent old
age. On more than one occasion the boy, timorous by nature as he was,
was almost moved to a rage of tears by some more than usually wanton
jest. Once he rose from his seat and cried in high-pitched tones,
“Shame upon you all, that you have no mercy for the infirm.”
This outburst was received with derision. A little while before, had
the boy dared to make it, he would have been requited with blows.
During this time the numbers who came to the school diminished
steadily. Many of the boys ceased to attend, and no new scholars
appeared to take their places. But the aged school-master sat still at
his post, although his eyes grew dimmer and dimmer, his hearing duller,
his limbs feebler. One morning as he called the roster and marked only
nine as answering to their names, he said, “Our numbers are not what
they were. Nine is our smallest muster in sixty-eight years.”
“Have you kept this school sixty-eight years, sir?” said one of the
nine, with an air of incredulity, and making at the same time a grimace
for the amusement of his eight companions.
“Sixty-eight years, Amphistides, have I kept this school,” said the old
man.
“You must be getting on in years, sir,” said Amphistides, with mock
gravity.
“I am ninety-four years of age, Amphistides,” said the master;
“ninety-four years of age. I have seen many and strange things.”
“Yes, sir, you must have done,” said Amphistides, leering all about
him; “and I suppose you will retire on your fortune on your hundredth
birthday?”
“If Nature has bowels, Amphistides,” said the old man, “she may spare
this frame from such a term. Yet, as I say, Amphistides, my life has
seen many strange things. It has run its course in the most wonderful
era of which history has kept the record. It has seen steam and
electricity annihilate time and space. It has seen bombshells and
anæsthetics, and devices of a most wonderful character arrive upon the
earth. It has seen new forces dragged out of the bosom of nature. It
has seen time forced to yield his dread secrets. It has witnessed the
overthrow of many creeds. It has witnessed the mind of man pass through
many phases. New dynasties has it seen arise; new planets has it seen
appear in the heavens. It has seen death robbed of its terrors, and
birth bereaved of its sanctity. It has been taught to read the past
like an open page. And now, Amphistides, it only remains to commit
these limbs to the quiet earth.”
The latter part of this queer utterance could scarcely be heard, for
the thin, piping tones of the aged school-master were drowned by the
boys exclaiming to one another, “What an old babbler he is! He is like
a baby without its nurse.”
From this time even the slender number of boys that remained began to
grow less. And at last came the day when there was only one boy left
in the school. He was the boy who had sat continually at the master’s
table. And one day, as he sat transcribing a favourite passage out of
the ancient authors, two rough and coarse-looking men entered the room
rudely and noisily. Without ceremony they began to strip the walls and
to uproot the desks, which were clamped by pieces of iron to the floor.
Having removed these, they took away the chairs and tables, and other
pieces of furniture. Then they came to demand the table at which the
boy and the aged master were seated side by side.
“Now then,” said one of the men roughly to the old man; “give us this
table and these two chairs. You have paid no rent for a year.”
The aged school-master did not answer.
“He must be deaf,” they said to one another.
The man who had first spoken repeated his words in a louder and coarser
tone.
“He must be asleep,” he said.
Yet, as they continued to speak to the old man without receiving an
answer, they began to address their questions to his stark visage and
his curious posture. They shook him by the arms and peered into his
face.
“Why,” they said, “he looks as though he will never answer again.”
IV
The next few years of the boy’s existence were passed almost entirely
in the society of his father in the little room behind the shop. He
attended no other school, but devoted many hours in the day to the
faded and timeworn volumes which so seldom found a purchaser. He read
deeply in books of all kinds, of all ages and countries, for his great
hunger for information seemed to grow on what it fed. In the evening,
when the shop was closed for the night, and his father came to bear him
company, he would spend many hours in putting questions to him. To
many of these his father would smile in the secret and beautiful manner
of the aged school-master, but would vouchsafe no answer.
On high days and holy days they would walk abroad together. Sometimes
they would explore the quarters of the great city; at other times they
would seek the country lanes. The boy’s partiality was for these latter
excursions. He could never divest himself of the nameless dread that
seized him in mingling with these vast acres of bricks and mortar, of
immitigable noise, of unfathomable dirt, and, above all, of his horror
of the mighty multitude that rendered the streets so terrible. One day
as their steps were pointed towards the heart of the great city, and he
was filled with misgiving, he ventured to say, “How I wish, my father,
we could walk always where we walked yesterday.”
“As it pleases you, beloved one,” said his father.
A little afterwards his father hailed an omnibus. They climbed together
to the roof, and were borne away by the sturdy horses through nests
of cheerless houses, and hives of dismal human creatures, until green
fields and tall trees came into view. As they walked in these groves
already spread in the mantle of spring, and their feet felt the sweet
and bright earth responsive beneath them, the boy said, “Why is it, my
father, that we sometimes choose the dirt, the noise, and the darkness,
when fair Elysium is so close about us?”
“I have observed, beloved one,” said his father, “that you do not
always turn to the easy and pleasant authors.”
The boy blushed vividly.
“How I wish,” he said, with vehement lips, “that I had never asked to
come here! We will forsake these groves, my father, which are spread
with flowers, which are quick with the songs of birds, and not return
to them for many days.”
“As you will, Achilles,” said his father gently.
In the spring and summer months the boy sometimes rose at dawn to
sally out alone into the streets. They were almost free of traffic and
street-persons at this time, and when his courage mounted high he was
not afraid to move among them. But later in the day, when the press
became so great he could only move abroad mistrustfully, and when the
darkness came he only dared to do so in his father’s company.
He determined to celebrate his fifteenth birthday with an adventure. On
the eve of that anniversary he made up his mind that on the following
morning he would buy a newspaper. When it came he went forth soon after
dawn, and remained in the streets until nearly eight o’clock. Then it
was he encountered a boy standing by the kerb with a newsbill spread
out before it. He had a bundle of newspapers under his arm, and was
bawling lustily. The boy approached with many misgivings, but finding
that the newsboy was taller, and that his voice was louder than he had
at first suspected, he moved away without venturing to speak to him.
However, a little farther off was a second newsboy who was very ragged,
who was not so tall, and whose voice was not so loud. This boy he spoke
to with an inflexible determination in his heart.
“I-if you p-please for w-what p-piece of m-money will you give me one
of your n-newspapers?” he said.
“Hay?” said the newsboy, looking at him in amazement.
With infinite difficulty the boy stammered through his question again.
“Why, a ha’penny, o’ course!” said the newsboy gruffly as he scratched
his head, for an uneasy suspicion lurked in it that the question was a
jest at his personal expense. “Did yer fink they was a quid apiece?”
“I--I w-will purchase one if you please,” said the boy. “T-this is a
halfpenny, is it not?”
He produced a shilling, and handed it to the newsboy, who gave him a
newspaper in exchange.
“I am much obliged to you,” said the boy, lifting his cap and moving
away hurriedly.
The newsboy stared with open mouth after the rapidly receding figure.
He then bit the shilling, spat on it, and inserted it carefully in a
hole in his somewhat nondescript nether garment.
“Law lummy!” he said.
The boy hurried back to the little room with the newspaper. Within him
was a glowing sense of physical achievement which he tried to repress.
As he sat down to take breakfast with his father, he said excitedly,
“Thou wilt never guess what I have done, O my father!”
“I am sure, Achilles, I cannot,” said his father; and he added, as
he placed an arm round the fragile form that was all shaken with
excitement, “Whatever you have done, beloved one, I pray that you have
not overtaxed your strength.”
“I have purchased one of those newspapers they sell in the streets of
the great city, my father,” said the boy. “See, it is here. I trust,
my father, there is no reason why I should not address my mind to that
which is written therein. I am fifteen years old to-day.”
“As you will, beloved one,” said his father sombrely.
After the meal, when the boy had removed the breakfast things from the
table, had cleansed them and laid them by, he sat down to read the
newspaper, full of an excited curiosity. As he did so a kind of proud
bewilderment came over him that his own personal initiative had brought
a thing of such mysterious import into the little room.
He began to read the newspaper at the first word of the first page, at
the top corner of the left hand. He read slowly and carefully every
word the page contained. He then turned to the next, and continued
to go word by word through each one of the twelve pages. When he had
finished, he found to his consternation that he had not been able to
draw a single ray of meaning out of all that vast assemblage of words.
After a period of reflection, in which he refrained zealously from
mentioning the subject to his father, he proceeded very carefully to
read it again. His failure to understand it proved just as lamentable.
In his chagrin and dismay he read it a third time, and a fourth; he
committed portions of it by heart; he committed other portions to
paper. In the evening he said to his father, with a blank face, “Why,
my father, dost thou know that I have not the strength of understanding
to comprehend a phrase of what is written in the newspaper!”
His father smiled in his secret manner.
“Can it be, Achilles,” he said, “that here is a bow that you cannot
bend?”
“My mind is as grass, my father, before the words in this newspaper,”
said the boy woefully. “I am fifteen years old to-day; I have been
able to gather the inmost meanings of some of the authors I have read,
and even in diverse tongues, my father, from that which is spoken by
you and me. For what reason is it that I do not gather that which is
written in the newspapers the street-persons are always reading as they
walk the streets of the great city?”
“Is it not, beloved one,” said his father, “that these newspapers are
composed in the strange tongues of those curious beings who walk the
streets of the great city?”
“You would say, my father,” said the boy, “that only street-persons can
comprehend that which is written in these newspapers of theirs?”
“At least, beloved one,” said his father, “to comprehend their
newspapers we must become familiar with their language, their nature,
and their ideas.”
“How I wish,” cried the boy, “that I had never purchased a newspaper!
How I wish I had never dared to bring it into this little room of
ours!”
With a curious repugnance in his face, the boy rent the newspaper in
the middle.
This, however, was not the conclusion of the matter. Although the boy
did not refer again to the subject for three days, it was constantly
in his thoughts. At the end of that period he said, “He that has a
passion, my father, to understand all things, must even understand the
contents of a newspaper, must he not? Yet, if he would understand that,
must he not first learn all that these street-persons, who darken the
great city, are doing and thinking and talking about?”
“The penalty is dire, beloved one,” said his father softly, “for all
passions that are imperious.”
“And why these street-persons walk so fast, my father,” said the boy,
“and why they look so cruel?”
“He who would converse with the book of their wisdom must not shrink
from their knowledge, beloved one,” said his father.
“Yet one such as I must learn to understand all things, my father, must
he not?”
“Truly, Achilles,” said his father, “the god-like one who aspires to
enfold himself in the mantle of heroes must wear the robe of a wide and
deep knowledge of all that is under the sun.”
“I knew it, my father, I knew it!” cried the boy with gaunt eyes.
He sank his head to the table, breathing heavily.
V
In the afternoon of the next day a slight and forlorn figure left the
precincts of the little room. Alone the boy stole out of the shop,
that _via media_ to the great world out of doors. Timorous of aspect
he entered the ever-moving throng in the streets of the great city. At
first he hardly dared to look at the faces of the street-persons or to
listen to their words; for he was clad in a kind of fear; he was about
to pluck the fruit of mysterious knowledge. After awhile, however, he
took a little courage. Covertly, and in dread lest his woeful ignorance
should be discovered, he began to mark the faces of the street-persons,
and to listen that he might hear their words. He even grew so bold as
to follow two street-persons whose voices were audible in discourse.
Others, whom he observed to be lingering in talk on the pavement, he
would approach warily. But in spite of this eager pursuit of knowledge
he was obliged to confess that the conversation of these street-persons
was as unintelligible as their newspapers.
In the course of his wanderings among the streets of the great city,
the boy’s attention was at last attracted by the most beautiful
creature he had ever seen outside his dreams and the pages of the
ancient authors. She was just a common woman street-person in a
particularly gay and handsome dress, yet her skin shone like marble,
and her hair was dark and glossy like the plumage of some wonderful
bird. A little girl, also dressed in great beauty, was at her side.
She had an aureole of golden curls, which to the boy seemed all woven
of sunbeams and gossamer. They were walking in an opposite direction
to that in which he was going, but in a sudden transport of delight at
their appearance he turned and followed them.
Presently the beautiful woman street-person and the little girl
stayed their steps to look in the window of a huge and brilliantly
decorated shop. The interior seemed so dazzling to the boy that it
might have been the palace of a magician. While he stood a little way
off observing street-beauty preoccupied with the street-beautiful--and
he was fain to confess that when closely observed the street-beautiful
seemed much nearer to the beautiful of rare and strange authenticity
with which he held constant intercourse, than he had ever suspected--a
handsome man street-person, wearing fine clothes, sauntered towards
the woman and the little girl.
This man also stayed to look in the bright windows of the shop. To the
great surprise and curiosity of the boy, who was observing him closely,
although this man spoke neither to the woman nor the little girl nor
claimed their attention in any way, his hand entered the woman’s pocket
and took out some article which he transferred to his own pocket in
his closed fist. Then, without in any way attracting the regard of
the woman and the little girl, this handsome and finely-dressed male
street-person sauntered away from the shop in just the same careless
and leisurely fashion in which he had come near it.
A little while afterwards the woman and the little girl entered the
shop. Although the boy was awed by the superb nature of its precincts,
his timidity was overcome by the most powerful impulse that had ever
been excited in him. It was too potent to resist. Therefore he followed
the woman and the little girl into the gorgeous interior, devouring
them with his gaze.
A second tall and handsome male street-person, also dressed finely,
came forward to greet the woman and the little girl. He bowed to them
with graceful deference.
“Let me look at one of those _peignoirs_ you have in the window,” said
the woman.
The sound of her voice was so loud and harsh that a cold thrill went
through the boy’s veins.
“Certainly, madam,” said the tall man. “Will you kindly go forward?
Straight on up the stairs.”
In the middle of the great shop was a broad flight of richly carpeted
stairs. The woman, the little girl, and the tall man ascended these.
Involuntarily, as if drawn by a magnet, the boy followed them up the
stairs.
At the top of the stairs was another great and glittering room. Here
were counters and chairs, resplendent articles of wearing apparel
strewn all about; and some other women street-persons, who wore no
hats, yet very good to look upon and dressed in neat black clothes. The
beautiful woman sank languidly upon a chair. The little girl with the
golden curls began to roam about the great room.
Quite suddenly the little girl chanced to see the boy, who stood gazing
at her with rapture in his eyes. She walked up to him fearlessly as
though he were one of her chief friends. She looked upon him in such
a manner of artless simplicity that his cheeks began to burn with
gladness.
“I yike oo,” said the little girl in a voice so loud and clear that it
could be heard all over the great room. “Would oo yike to kiss me?”
The woman half-turned in her chair and looked at the boy coldly and
steadily. As his eyes met hers the blood seemed to turn to ice in his
veins.
“Come here immediately,” she said to the little girl in the loud tone
she had used down-stairs to the tall man. “What a horrid-looking boy!
He has a sore on his face.”
The boy grew petrified with fear and distress. As he reeled against
one of the counters, with no more life in him than a stone, one of the
women in black came up to him.
“You have no right whatever to be here,” she said roughly. “How dare
you come in!”
The boy, numb with terror, could hardly apprehend that he was being
addressed.
“Miss Sharp,” said the woman in black, turning to one who was similarly
attired, “fetch Mr. Parley. This boy has no right whatever to be here.”
The tall man came up.
“Mr. Parley,” said the woman in black, “this boy has been found in this
department. Oughtn’t he to be searched?”
“What do you mean by coming into this shop?” said the tall man, turning
to the boy very roughly.
“I--I--I d-don’t think I know, sir,” the boy stammered in a voice that
was not audible.
The woman with the little girl rose from her chair suddenly.
“Why, where is my purse!” she cried in a tone of angry surprise.
A great outcry seemed to arise all at once. Excited street-persons
sprang into being on this side and that. They emerged from behind
curtains, doorways and recesses; they came pressing forward until they
formed a circle of startled faces around the boy. One and all seemed to
be staring with incredulous dismay at an object in their midst.
When the boy had recovered a little from the shock of being addressed
in a public manner by street-persons, he began to look about him with
a sense of bewilderment, which, however, was quite impersonal. He
appeared to be standing in the centre of some strange incident, yet
seek as he might he could not discern its nature. The buzz of eager
tongues all around seemed to be discussing, that is as far as he could
apprehend the queer language that they spoke, some remarkable creature
who in sober verity did not appear to be present at all.
“How shocking it is to see crime stamped on such a young face!” he
could distinguish as the indignantly spoken words of the street-woman
who had lost her purse.
“I do hope the police won’t be long,” said one of the women in black.
“You are sure, Miss Sharp, you saw no confederates?” he heard the tall
man say.
“There were no confederates,” said an angular woman with great
impressiveness.
“Ah!” said another woman, drawing a breath of relief, “here’s the
police.”
The burly forms of two extremely dignified and curiously dressed
street-persons, whom the boy’s knowledge of the practical sciences
enabled him to identify as police constables, appeared through the ring
of excited faces. After they had held some little intercourse with the
bystanders, which to the boy was not intelligible, to his astonishment
and great consternation one police constable seized him by the right
arm, the other by the left. With much celerity they turned out all his
pockets and exposed their content to view. Then they began to pull him
about in a most curious and alarming manner. They twisted his body
this way and that. They gripped him, and shook him, and punched him,
and pressed him. They took off his boots and looked into his mouth.
The only articles they found in his possession were a handkerchief,
fourpence in coppers, and an elzevir volume of Sophocles printed at
Düsseldorf in 1640.
“We can’t find no purse, ma’am,” said the more burly of the two police
constables, speaking slowly and heavily, “but no doubt you’ll hidentify
this?”
He offered the owner of the missing purse the volume of Sophocles.
“I shall identify nothing of the kind,” said the woman angrily. “I
want my purse; I can’t live without it,” and then she said with a cold
vehemence, “If my purse is not restored to me immediately it will be
most serious for everybody. My husband is a member of the Government.”
At this announcement a profound sigh appeared to escape the
ever-increasing circle of spectators. The excitement depicted in their
faces deepened perceptibly.
“Might I ask for the name of your husband, madam?” said the tall man,
with a very grave air.
“My husband,” said the woman in a tone which was quite fit to address
a mass meeting, “is Lord Pomeroy, the President of the Board of Public
Enlightenment.”
“Then your ladyship is the Countess of Pomeroy!” said the tall man in a
voice of awe.
“I have that misfortune,” said the woman, in a tone still louder than
any she had used before. As she spoke she looked round at all about
her, and in the act of so doing her eyes seemed to bulge out of her
head like those of a reptile.
Each police constable saluted respectfully.
“Miss Sharp,” said the tall man, “fetch the manager at once.”
The woman in black tore her skirt and knocked down a china ornament,
owing to the expedition with which she went forth to do so.
“I beg your pardon, my lady,” said the more amply nourished of the two
constables, “but I’m afeared we must ax you to prefer a charge.”
“I have nothing whatever to do with the charges,” said the woman
tartly. “I merely ask for my purse; I can’t live without it.”
“Well, my lady,” said the fatter of the two constables, “we can’t do
nothing unless you prefers a charge.”
“These people are concerned with the charges,” said the woman,
including all present by a comprehensive wave of the hand. “The charges
are _entirely_ their affair. They must pay all costs. I hold them
_entirely_ responsible for the loss of my purse.”
“Well, your ladyship----”
“Please don’t be stupid, constable,” said the woman. “One feels it
is trying you highly. But if these people prove unreasonable you had
better communicate with Lord Pomeroy at 220, Carlton House Terrace.”
The throng seemed to grow greater about the boy. The voices of the
street-persons seemed to increase in volume and earnestness. By this he
was divested of every tremor of fear. All his emotions were merged in
wonder and bewilderment, and an overpowering desire to know what would
happen next.
An obese and bald-headed man, with superb side-whiskers, who wore a
white waistcoat and very bright boots, came forward. His air was a
singular admixture of authority and deference. The woman who had lost
her purse was now rating the fatter of the two police constables at the
top of her voice. The man in the white waistcoat appeared to develop
a cough as he stood listening. Once or twice he glanced round at the
onlookers, yet affected that he had not done so.
In the meantime the only person on the huge premises who did not seem
to be ministering to this spectacle was the little girl with the golden
curls. She had strayed away behind one of the counters farther up the
room, and was engaged in ransacking several boxes of dolls. Those which
particularly appealed to her fancy she stuffed in the pockets of her
coat.
After a good deal of argument between the woman who had lost her
purse and the more amply nourished of the two police constables, in
the course of which the woman said some extremely rude things in an
extremely loud voice, all of which were received with much deference,
especially by those to whom they were not addressed, she called to
the little girl. Cramming another doll in her pocket that fairy-like
creature ran to her mother just as that person, somewhat hoarse and
red in the face, led the way down-stairs accompanied by the tall man
and the manager, each of whom, for a quarter of an hour past, had been
issuing somewhat irrelevant instructions to the woman in black and
other subordinates.
Behind these three Olympian figures, yet at an effective interval, came
the scarcely less Olympian figures of the two official representatives
of law and order, whose portliness of aspect, dignity of bearing, and
magnificent self-possession were enhanced by the fact that a frail,
bewildered and anæmic-looking boy was in their concentrated clutch. A
somewhat incongruous but profoundly impressed assemblage brought up the
rear of the procession.
A hansom cab and a four-wheeler were drawn up in readiness at the side
of the kerb opposite the doors of the shop. Quite a crowd was besieging
the pavement, although perfect order was maintained by a small but
diligent posse of police constables of the X division. When the owner
of the purse emerged from the precincts of the shop each constable
saluted with military precision, and then proceeded to hustle stray
members of the multitude away from the door. As the woman and the
little girl entered the hansom with the aid of the tall man and the
man in the white waistcoat, and with the further aid of two police
officers, some of the bystanders removed their hats.
The woman seemed to be a little exhilarated by the proportions attained
by the crowd, and also by the respectful warmth of her reception. She
stood up in the hansom and addressed the crowd as though it had been a
public meeting.
“I hold you entirely responsible for the loss of my purse,” she said,
looking all around her as if to include one and all in this indictment.
“I refuse to pay any charges. Lord Pomeroy will be indignant.”
The travellers outside a passing omnibus stood up to listen, and as
the hansom drove off with the woman and the little girl to the nearest
police station, a man, wearing a “wide-awake” hat and a white tie,
called out from the roof of the bus, “Three cheers for Lord Pomeroy!”
They were given heartily.
The more amply nourished of the two police constables then entered the
four-wheeled cab. The boy was thrust in after him. The second police
constable followed. A third police constable, whose dignity and ample
nourishment, assisted by stripes on the arm, seemed even to transcend
those of his brethren in the interior, hoisted himself with difficulty
on the driver’s box, which groaned beneath his weight. As the vehicle
moved off slowly, some of the bystanders also groaned.
The police station was round the corner of the next street, some fifty
yards distant. The woman’s hansom had been there quite a minute by the
time the four-wheeled cab appeared at the rate of three miles an hour.
The woman had deemed it expedient to remain in the hansom until its
arrival. The absence of excited onlookers at the door of the police
station had been a disappointment to her. It had seemed to be an error
of judgment to arrive before the police. And by a curious oversight she
had neglected to have a police constable riding in the hansom with her.
However, with the consummate generalship gained by a long intercourse
with public life she was able to repair this omission. She stood up in
the hansom, and after catching the eye of several of the passers-by,
called out to no one in particular in her most vibrant mass-meeting
accents, “Let the prisoner get out first.”
The portly police constable got down from the box of the four-wheeler
with an alacrity which a detached observer might have felt to be
beneath the dignity of his physical equipment, and communicated this
order to those who sat within. It reassured the woman to observe that
the door of the police station had opened, and that on its threshold
were a police constable and a pale man with a pen behind his ear. A
second crowd was beginning already to assemble. As the boy in the
grasp of his two custodians was marched into the police station, the
woman had the gratification of noticing that by this time a number
of eye-witnesses had come round the corner from the Emporium. Their
interest was reassuring.
By the time the crowd on the pavement had grown almost large enough to
warrant the woman’s descent from the hansom, another pale man, with a
pen behind both ears, came out of the police station. The crowd made
way for him respectfully. He approached the step of the hansom with the
finely considered deportment of one who is accustomed to deal with men
and things.
“I am afraid, Lady Pomeroy,” he said firmly, but with perfect courtesy,
“we shall have to trouble you to come in and prefer a charge.”
“I have nothing whatever to do with the charges,” said the woman,
speaking over his head to the crowd. “I ask for my purse; I can’t live
without it. If it is not returned to me _immediately_ it will give
great displeasure to Lord Pomeroy.”
However, by this time the woman had seemed fully to decide that the
hour was ripe to make a descent from the vehicle. As she did so one of
those who had been privileged to take part in the scene outside the
Emporium cried, “Three cheers for Lord Pomeroy!”
They were given heartily.
By an impulse which she was powerless to repress, the woman stopped in
her triumphal progress to the door of the police station, and bowed and
smiled gracefully on all sides.
“Three cheers for the Countess!” was the reward she received.
Amidst quite a display of enthusiasm the woman entered the police
station, accompanied by the little girl with the golden curls, who was
clapping her small hands with glee. She did not seem to be aware that
several of the dolls she had been at the trouble to convey from the
Emporium had fallen out of her pockets on to the pavement.
“Wot’s up, Bill?” said a male street-person, with a filthy scarf round
his neck, to one whose neck was encased less adequately in only the
band of his shirt.
“Bin pinching one o’ the unemployed,” said his companion, with an
admirable assumption of the air of a Christian martyr.
VI
Within the precincts of the police station the boy, still bewildered
yet not afraid, was brought to stand in a gloomy room with iron bars
across the windows. In this a bald-headed man sat at a desk writing.
“Pearson,” said the bald-headed man to a police constable who wore no
helmet, “fetch one o’ them velvet cheers out o’ the horfis for her
ladyship.”
The bald-headed man spoke in a very dictatorial manner, without
looking up from his writing. Upon the entrance of the woman he rose
majestically.
“There’ll be a cheer for you in a minute, my lady,” he said, addressing
the woman as though it gave him great pleasure to do so. “Had we knowed
you was coming we’d ’a had it dusted.”
“It is of no consequence,” said the woman, as if she meant it.
By this time her tone had acquired a note of sweetness. She had seemed
to be mollified by the manner in which her progress had stirred the
great heart of the public.
“I understand, my lady,” said the bald-headed man, “that you prefers
a charge against the accused of theft from the person at Barter’s
Emporium?”
“I have nothing whatever to do with the charges,” said the woman
tenaciously. “I ask only for my purse. I can’t _live_ without it. If it
is not restored to me immediately it will be most displeasing to Lord
Pomeroy.”
“On’y a matter o’ form, my lady,” said the bald-headed man blandly.
“Bring the book, Harby. This way, Pearson. Take a cheer, your ladyship.”
With considerable stateliness the woman sank on to a chair of purple
velvet.
The bald-headed man re-seated himself at the table and opened the book.
He turned to the boy with an almost ferocious sternness, which made him
shudder in spite of his bewilderment.
“Now then, my lad,” he said, “what’s your name?”
“I--I--I d-don’t think I know, sir,” stammered the boy, after this
question had been repeated twice.
“Oh, don’t you?” said the bald-headed man, his ferocity yielding to a
sudden pleasantness that seemed even more remarkable. “You don’t think
you knows? Bring the register, Harby. He don’t think he knows!”
The boy’s confession of ignorance had conferred upon the bald-headed
man a sweetness of manner of which few would have suspected him to be
capable.
“Look up ‘C,’ Harby, vollum six,” said the bald-headed man, rubbing his
hands with much satisfaction, and then adjusting a pair of pince-nez
which hung by a gold cord from his neck. “Open wound on the face.”
The woman turned sharply to the little girl.
“Come here, child,” she said. “Have I not told you to keep away from
that horrid boy?”
Without paying the least attention to the woman, the little girl
touched the hand of the boy with a kind of odd confidentialness.
“I yike oo velly much,” she said.
“We shall not detain you, my lady,” said the bald-headed man, bestowing
a studious attention upon his diction. “But I’m afraid we must trouble
you to come to see the magistrate to-morrow morning at eleven. The
accused will be detained in custody. He has all the appearance of being
an old hand. By to-morrow we shall hope to have found out a bit more
about him.”
“Why don’t you give me my purse?” said the woman. “I can’t live without
it.”
“Was a purse found on the accused, Moxon?” said the bald-headed man to
the stouter of the two original constables.
“No, sir,” said Moxon, “on’y fourpence in copper and a foreign book.”
“Hand them to me,” said the bald-headed man peremptorily, “and go over
him properly.”
The boy was taken by two policemen into a room close by. Immediately
they began to pull off his clothes. To his extreme horror, bewilderment
and shame they stripped him stark naked. They lifted up his heels
and passed their fingers between his toes; they held up his arms and
pressed their hands into his armpits; they ran their fingers through
his hair, and placed them in his mouth.
“No purse,” they said.
They left the boy naked, with all his clothes on the floor. As the
door closed behind them he fell senseless on the cold stone. A long
and vague period followed, which was veiled from his consciousness by
a kind of semi-darkness. During that period he seemed to find himself
again in the presence of the bald-headed man, who still sat at his desk
and glared at him over the rims of his gold eye-glasses.
The boy had only the haziest knowledge of that which took place; and
subsequently was never able to satisfy himself as to whether or not
he was again wearing clothes at this interview. At least he had no
recollection of having put them on again or of any one else having done
so.
The beautiful woman street-person in the gay clothes, and the little
girl with golden curls, had gone away. The large and gloomy room smelt
very oppressive, and seemed full of police constables.
“Have you a father?” said the bald-headed man. Although all was
darkness and confusion about the boy the harsh voice seemed to cause
his heart to stop beating.
The boy made some inaudible reply, which finally was taken for an
answer in the affirmative.
“A mother?”
A further inaudible reply was taken to be a negative.
“What is the name of your father?”
“I--I--I d-don’t think I know, sir,” stammered the boy.
“Now then, none o’ that, or it will be ’otted up for you.”
The voice of the bald-headed man caused the boy’s teeth to chatter.
“What is your father?”
The boy lifted up his strange eyes in dumb bewilderment.
“I think he’s a little bit touched, sir,” said a very melancholy-looking
police constable, tapping his head with his forefinger.
“You think nothing, Gravener,” said the bald-headed man sternly. “What
right have you to think? You’ve been in the Force long enough to know
that. What does your father do?” he said to the boy.
After a moment a flash of intelligence seemed to fuse the deadly pallor
of the boy’s face.
“H-he keeps a lot of books,” he said, “a lot of books written by the
ancient authors.”
“Vendor of old books, eh? Where does he live?”
For a moment the dark curtain of incomprehension again descended upon
the boy; but quite suddenly it lifted and his mind was illumined with a
ray of meaning.
“My father lives in the street of the second among the English
authors,” he said.
“Now then, now then,” said the bald-headed man. “If you talk in that
way I’ll promise you it will be ’otted up for you.”
“I--I know the author’s name quite well,” said the boy, disregarding
this reproof, for his mind was reverting now to the little room, which
already he seemed to have left an epoch ago. “The name begins with the
letter M. M--Mi--Mil--it is the street of Milton!”
“Milton Street--vendor of old books in Milton Street. What number?”
“N-number!” muttered the boy blankly. “N-number. Oh yes! The number of
the shop of my father is the number of the year in which Ovid was born.”
“Hovvid!” said the bald-headed man impatiently. “Who the ’ell’s Hovvid?
Do you know, Harby, who Hovvid is?”
“Not I!” said a solemn, grey-headed police constable. “Do you know,
Pearson?”
“Hovvid!” said a police constable with mutton-chop whiskers. “Can’t say
as ’ow I do. Sounds like the name of a ’oss.”
“Do you mean, my lad,” said the bald-headed man, “the number o’ the
year a ’oss o’ the name of Hovvid won the Derby?”
“A ’oss o’ the name of Hovvid never did win the Derby,” said the police
constable with mutton-chop whiskers decisively.
“Ovid is one of the chief among the Roman authors,” said the boy. For
the moment everything else had yielded to the astonishment he felt that
all these imposing, austere, and strikingly-dressed street-persons
should not know who Ovid was.
“Get the directory, Harby,” said the bald-headed man, “and look up the
year in which Hovvid was born. You were right, Gravener; he is a bit
touched.”
“Coorse I’m right,” said Gravener. “Anybody with ’alf a heye can see
that.”
“Ovid was born in the year 43 before Christ,” said the boy. “The number
of the shop of my father is forty-three.”
“Then why couldn’t you say so at first, my lad, and save all this
parley?” said the bald-headed man sternly. “What’s in Number One,
Harby?”
“A drunk and incapable, and a petty larceny.”
“Better put him in there for to-night.”
The boy was led into a room somewhat similar to that in which his
clothes had been taken off. But this apartment seemed not only larger
and more cheerless, but also very much darker. The only means by which
daylight could get in was through a narrow window high up in the wall,
and this was barred with iron. The few beams that were able to struggle
through seemed merely to render everything malign and hideous. The boy,
who from his first hour in the world had had an overpowering horror of
the darkness, shuddered in every vein when he discovered that he was
alone, and irrevocably committed to it for a nameless term. After the
first trance of his terror had passed he was able to discern that a
settle ran along the side of the wall. Hardly daring to move, he crept
towards it. As he did so he stumbled over something. It was warm and
soft. Something alive was lying on the floor. It was a shapeless mass.
He could hear it breathing.
He sank on to the settle at the side of the wall. He was inert and
stupefied. Great cold beads began to roll from his cheeks. He could see
and comprehend nothing. Under the dominion of his terror he began to
wish for death.
Quite suddenly a voice came out of the darkness.
“What ’ave they pinched you for, mate?” said a low growl in his ear.
He had not been conscious that any other living presence was in the
dark room, except that nameless something which was lying on the floor.
He was so startled that he gave a little shriek.
“Pipe up, cully,” said the low growl in his ear.
The boy’s teeth began to chatter furiously, but they emitted no sounds
that were coherent.
“Off his onion!” growled the voice, together with a string of
blood-curdling expressions, from which the boy was mercifully delivered
comprehension.
Presently the voice growled out of the darkness again.
“Got a chew, cully?”
The faculty of speech was still denied to the boy.
Further blood-curdling expressions followed from the other occupant of
the bench, who then relapsed into a morose silence.
The boy grew very cold. He trembled violently; yet his heart had
almost seemed to stop beating. The darkness and the silence and the
strangeness and the loneliness seemed to grow more intense. His mind
would hardly submit to the question of what had happened to him. It
refused to revert to his father and the little room. He felt that he
was never going to see them again.
After a while he slipped from the bench involuntarily. He found himself
on his knees on the cold stone floor. He clasped his hands and pressed
his eyes convulsively against the piece of wood on which he had been
sitting. He began to pray. There seemed to be nothing else to do.
Two hours later a police constable entered and lit a feeble gas-jet
high up in the wall. It was protected by a cage of wire. He then gave a
kick to the breathing, shapeless thing without a name, which lay in the
middle of the stone floor.
With a leer of jocular malignity the occupant of the form pointed to
the kneeling figure of the boy.
“Off his onion, mate,” he said, with a low growl and expectorating
freely.
“Pity you ain’t,” said the police constable.
The occupant of the form spat upon the boots of the police constable.
The police constable approached the boy, and said, with a sort of rough
kindness--
“You can have the _Christian Herald_, my lad, if you’d like it.”
The boy neither moved nor answered. He did not know that a word had
been spoken to him.
“Told yer, cully,” came the rough growl from the form. “He’s up the
pole.”
The police constable walked out of the cell with a greater show of
delicacy than that with which he had entered it.
An hour afterwards he came in again carrying two basins of thick
lukewarm gruel and a copy of the _Christian Herald_, two months out of
date. He found the boy to be still on his knees in the precise attitude
he was in when he entered before.
“Balmy!” growled the voice from the bench.
The police constable gave one basin of gruel to the speaker, and placed
the other basin and the copy of the _Christian Herald_ at the far end
of the form, well out of the reach of its occupant.
The police constable touched the boy on the shoulder gently.
“Don’t want to disturb you, my lad,” he said, “but your supper’s
waiting for you when you want it. And I’ve brought you the _Christian
Herald_ to cheer you up a bit.”
No sign came from the boy to suggest that he was conscious that he had
been addressed.
The police constable walked out of the cell on tiptoe.
The occupant of the form devoured his basin of gruel ravenously. The
sounds that he emitted in so doing were strongly reminiscent of the
lower animals. He then rose and fetched the other basin of gruel from
the end of the bench, together with the _Christian Herald_. He placed
the _Christian Herald_ on the floor, and wiped his boots on it with
an odd kind of gusto. He then proceeded to devour the second basin of
gruel. Afterwards he placed his legs up on the bench, went to sleep and
snored lustily.
VII
The boy had no recollection afterwards of what occurred during the long
period which intervened between this hour and that remote one in which
he saw again his father’s face. How long the darkness lasted and what
happened in it he could not tell. He prayed continuously until his
flesh ached and his mind grew frail. Yet in the midst of that which
seemed to be without a limit, in the midst of an anguish that seemed to
have no end, it was borne in upon him that the daylight had come back
again.
Thereafter he had a vague knowledge of cold water, other rooms, other
voices, more light, and more air. At last he came to understand
that he was in the midst of a large place which contained many
street-persons who looked very solemn and wore no hats. Far away in
front of him he seemed to discern a high desk, at which was seated
an elderly street-person with grey hair, a shining bald head and
impressive manners. Seated on either side of him were a number of women
in gay and beautiful clothes. There was also a number of those odd
beings whom he had come to recognize as police constables. And then
quite suddenly he saw his father’s face.
The pale, noble and serene countenance was looking up at him. It was
pervaded by that secret and beautiful smile which the boy had seen so
many times upon it. With a little convulsive shudder of recognition the
boy started to run to his father, but as he made to do so he awoke to
the discovery that he was enclosed in a kind of cage.
“My father, my father!” the boy called out.
“Keep quiet,” said a police constable beside him in a rough whisper.
The elderly grey-haired man at the high desk lifted up his head in a
startled manner, and looked about him.
“Remove that man from the court,” he said.
He thrust out a finger straight at the boy’s father. With his heart
beating faint and small, the boy watched his father vanish out of his
ken. He passed out through a side door in the custody of two immense
police constables.
“My husband, Lord Pomeroy,” said a woman who sat next to the elderly
man with the grey hair and the impressive manners, “my husband, Lord
Pomeroy, is much displeased that my purse has been stolen, and he would
be here personally to express his displeasure had he not been commanded
to Windsor unexpectedly.”
These words, very loudly spoken, seemed to provoke a kind of joyful
flutter in the breasts of all present. Even in the breast of the boy
it provoked a flutter, yet not perhaps of a similar kind. It was the
sound of the loud and harsh voice itself which to him was of sinister
omen. As in an agony of remembrance he felt what this voice denoted,
the blood ran as water in his veins.
“I am sure, Lady Pomeroy,” said the man with grey hair in a most silken
manner, “in your misfortune you are entitled to every sympathy from
this court. May it trust that there was nothing of great value in your
purse.”
“Oh dear, _dear_ no!” said the woman emotionally, “there was nothing
_whatever_ in my purse, but I can’t _live_ without it.”
“Quite so, just so,” said the man with grey hair. “The court
appreciates that perfectly. It feels you are entitled to every
sympathy.”
“Pray what is the use of sympathy, my dear good man,” said the woman
petulantly, “if it doesn’t restore my purse?”
“Precisely, dear Lady Pomeroy,” said the man with grey hair, “your
concern for your purse is most natural.”
At this stage in the proceedings the man with grey hair gave a kind
of benevolent signal to a sedulous-looking man, whose hair was very
glossy, who sat immediately opposite to him, and who at this moment was
engaged in sharpening a lead pencil.
“But, dear Lady Pomeroy,” said the man with grey hair, speaking very
slowly and with his eye fixed on the man opposite, “sympathy is not
necessarily barren, even if it is not fertile of visible result.”
Upon the utterance of these words, an extremely intellectual looking
police constable, who was stationed in the centre of the crowded room,
broke into a sudden and totally unexpected guffaw of laughter, which
he turned into a cough with equal suddenness and great dexterity. His
action incited the row of gaily dressed females to give vent to a
little melodious cackle. These in turn seemed to incite the man who
had been sharpening the lead pencil to write furiously. And all these
portents having assured the man with grey hair that his memorable
utterance had passed into history, he composed his features into a form
of polite expostulation that words so trivial should have achieved that
destiny.
Much passed between the woman with the loud voice and the man with the
grey hair and the impressive manners. All, however, went unheeded by
the boy; for during the whole of the time he stood clutching at the
wooden rail by which he was surrounded, in order to save himself from
measuring his length on the floor. To every other person in the court,
however, the intercourse of the woman with the loud voice and the man
with grey hair seemed to be fraught with a high significance.
Presently the constable who stood beside the boy gave him a sharp nudge.
“Now then,” he whispered truculently. “Pull yerself together. His
washup is a-speaking to you.”
The boy was able to observe that the man with grey hair and impressive
manners was wagging a short and fat forefinger in his direction. He
also appeared to be speaking with a kind of stern deliberation, but the
boy failed to appreciate a word that he said.
This homily, however, proceeded for some time; and in the course of it
all present were much impressed. The man with grey hair and impressive
manners concluded his discourse somewhat in this fashion: “Owing
to the humane clemency which has been exhibited by Lady Pomeroy, a
clemency, I may say, which is so familiar among all grades of society
as to stand in need of no advertisement from this court”--(“Hear,
hear,” in a suppressed but perfectly audible whisper from a voice at
the back)--“there is no undue desire to press this charge. William
Jordan, as this seems to be the first occasion on which you have
appeared before this court, and as I am informed that no record of
a previous conviction stands against your name, you will at the
express desire of Lady Pomeroy”--(“Hear, hear,” from the voice at the
back)--“be dealt with under the First Offenders Act. After entering
into recognizances to come up for judgment if called upon, you will
be discharged. It is deemed advisable, however, that you should have
an interview with the police court missionary. In conclusion I hail
this opportunity of tendering the most sincere thanks of the public to
Lady Pomeroy”--(“Hear, hear,” from the back)--“for the public-spirited
manner in which she has come forward to discharge a duty which must
have been peculiarly distasteful to her.”
While the row of gaily dressed women rose wreathed in smiles, and
formed a cordon round the man with grey hair and impressive manners, in
order to shake hands with him, the boy was led into an adjoining room.
In the next instant he was shuddering convulsively in the arms of his
father.
A sad-looking man with cadaverous cheeks and sunken black eyes came up
to them. With an odd kind of compunction he laid his hand on the boy’s
sleeve.
“What is _he_ doing here?” he said.
The boy’s father enfolded the questioner in his secret and beautiful
smile.
“You ask a question which admits of no answer,” he said.
At the sound of the voice of the boy’s father, the man with the
cadaverous cheeks recoiled a step. His sallow face flushed a little.
With the _naïveté_ of a child he peered into the eyes of the boy’s
father.
“I think, sir,” he said, with a curiously humble gesture, “I think you
are perfectly right.”
VIII
From that time forward and for many days the boy did not venture again
out of the little room behind the shop. And at night he could not bear
to be out of his father’s company, so that he never went to bed without
him, but sat reading in the ancient authors, or staring into vacancy
with his chin propped on his hands. On some evenings after the shutters
of the shop had been put up at eight o’clock, and each had partaken of
his frugal supper, his father would take down from the shelf on the
wall the old and massive volume in which he read so diligently.
The boy had never sought to read in this volume, because although he
had always viewed it with the greatest curiosity, and had even seen
when it lay open for his father’s perusal, that its pages of vellum
were covered in close and faded, and almost undecipherable writing in
red ink, he had felt instinctively from his father’s manner in regard
to it that the contents were only for his father’s eyes.
One night, however, long after the hour of midnight had chimed out
from the clocks of the neighbouring churches, and his father had been
reading in the old volume with a fidelity that seemed even greater than
his wont, the boy could stifle his curiosity no more. This was owing to
a strange incident that befell. Towards the dawn of the summer morning,
his father, who had not allowed his eyes to stray from the book for
many hours, rose from the table suddenly. There was an expression upon
his face that the boy had never seen before.
His father went to the cupboard which was let into the wall, into
which, owing to some occult reason that had never even shaped itself in
his mind, the boy had never sought to peer. Therefrom he took a knife
which was contained in a case that was very old and chased curiously,
a chalice for the reception of ink, and a stylus.
Setting out these articles upon the table, his father took off his
threadbare coat, and laid his right arm naked to the elbow. He then
took the knife from the case and plunged it into the flesh. As the
red blood spurted forth and dripped into the chalice, the boy gave an
exclamation of horror and dismay.
“If you have not yet the power, Achilles, to withstand this spectacle,”
said his father in that voice which never failed to calm his most
instant fears, “pray turn your eyes away.”
Although the boy was on the verge of swooning, for such a sight bereft
him of his strength, he continued to look at his father in sore
distress.
After his father had allowed a quantity of blood to pass into the
chalice, he swathed the wound in his arm in a linen band, opened a
blank page in the book, and sat down before it, stylus in hand.
He dipped the pen in the red fluid; he poised it over the page. For a
long time he maintained this attitude, yet not a mark of any kind did
the fingers trace on the vellum. At last with a gesture of profound
anguish, which filled the youthful witness with terror, he rose, and a
kind of moan came from his lips.
“It is not to be!” he muttered.
The fire in the grate was still smouldering, and into this the boy’s
father cast the contents of the chalice. Then with a religious care
he cleansed each of the articles he had taken from the cupboard, and
replaced them there.
“Is it that you cannot write in the book, my father?” asked the boy,
whose lips were pale.
“Yes, beloved one, it is not yet given to me to write in the book,”
said his father, with an expression of indescribable agony upon his
face. “And yet my years are now beyond three score.”
“Is it that you have never written in the book, my father?” asked the
boy in his consternation.
“I have never written in the book, Achilles,” said his father. “And I
dare not measure the failures I have made.”
“Is it the book of the Fates, my father, in which every human person
must write his destiny?” asked the boy.
“No, beloved one,” said his father. “It is not the book of the Fates.
Only the bearers of our name can write in this book. And these have
written in it for a thousand years past.”
“What is our name, my father?” said the boy. “I have been asked for it
on several occasions by the persons in the streets.”
“Our name is William Jordan--yours and mine.”
“William Jordan, William Jordan,” repeated the boy softly. A look of
strange disappointment crept into his face. “William Jordan!” he said,
“William Jordan!”
“What’s in a name, beloved one?” said his father, with his secret and
beautiful smile.
Under his father’s patient eyes the look of strange disappointment
passed from the boy’s face.
“And each bearer of our name, my father, must write in this book?” said
the boy.
“It is so decreed,” said his father. “And for a thousand years past
each of our dynasty has done so, with the exception, Achilles, of you
and me.”
The boy’s heart began to beat wildly.
“Then I, too, must write in it, my father?”
As he spoke the frail and gaunt form shook like gossamer.
“We can but fulfil our destiny, beloved one,” said the boy’s father.
“And it is written that when a bearer of our name ceases to write in
the Book of the Ages our dynasty is at an end.”
IX
One day the boy discovered that a small brown volume, the Phaedo of
Plato, had disappeared from one of the shelves in the shop.
“I bartered it yesterday, beloved one, in exchange for seven shillings
and sixpence in silver,” said his father in reply to his inquiries.
This unexpected and disconcerting answer made many anxious questions
necessary.
“Why, my father, for what reason?” said the boy.
“In order to provide the means of life, beloved one,” said his father.
“The means of life, my father?” said the boy.
“The food we eat,” said his father. “Our clothes, the roof that
protects us, the coals for the fire in the winter months.”
“Are all these things obtained with pieces of silver, my father?”
“Yes, beloved. We are called upon to pay in substance for all that we
enjoy.”
The boy grew profoundly silent for a while.
“Does that mean, my father,” he said at last, in a choking voice, “that
because we enjoy this little room of ours, we purchase the priceless
hours we spend in it by pieces of silver--you and me?”
“Truly,” said his father.
“And yet, my father,” said the boy, “I have no pieces of silver of
my own except those you used to give me when I went forth into the
streets of the great city to the school. Neither have I books of my
own to yield in exchange for pieces of silver. Can you tell me in what
manner I must gain these things? You know, my father,” he added very
anxiously, “it may befall that this little room might one day be taken
away from me, as it once was before, if I do not obtain some pieces of
silver of my own.”
“There is but one means of obtaining pieces of silver, beloved one,”
said his father mournfully, “and that is by going forth to seek them in
the streets of the great city.”
The boy was smitten with stupefaction by these words. They were charged
with an import that he did not know how to sustain. But at least they
caused a cloud to dissolve which had long pervaded his mind.
“I see, I see,” he said weakly; “now it is that I understand, my
father, what all these street-persons are doing when they walk so
furiously up and down the streets of the great city. They are seeking
for pieces of silver.”
“Yes, beloved,” said his father.
“And it is for that reason that they look so fierce and so cruel, my
father. They know that if they don’t find some pieces of silver their
little rooms will be taken away from them.”
“Yes, beloved one,” said his father.
“How unhappy they must be, my father, those persons in the streets of
the great city,” said the boy. “We ought to give them our pity instead
of our fear and our hatred. But”--his voice seemed to perish--“does it
not mean, my father, that I also must go forth once more into the great
city and become a person in the streets?”
As he framed this sinister question he peered into his father’s eyes
with a look of entreaty, as though he besought him not to answer in the
manner that he feared to be inevitable.
“You have spoken truly, Achilles,” said his father gently.
The words of his father seemed to embody a sentence of death. His
father perceived in what manner he was stricken.
“You see, beloved one,” he said, holding the slight frame against his
bosom, “nothing whatever can be obtained in this world which for a term
we are doomed to inhabit, except by the medium of pieces of silver.
The food that sustains us, the clothes that shield us, the roof that
defends us, can only be purchased by pieces of silver. Even these
heroes, whom you and I consider the first among created things, had to
collect many pieces of silver before they could acquire the materials,
and the leisure to perform their most signal acts.”
“And, my father,” said the boy, “had they not always to have their
little rooms in which to read the ancient authors and to seek their
knowledge?” He shuddered with a kind of passion. “Yes, indeed, I must
go out into the streets of the great city and find some pieces of
silver,” he said.
X
The boy was visited by little sleep that night and for many nights to
follow. The necessity of adventuring forth again into those streets,
the recollection of which ever haunted him like a diabolical vision,
was at first more than he could endure. Many were the attempts he made
to fare forth yet again, but on every occasion he would turn back all
stricken by distress after essaying less than a hundred yards. Yet
at each failure the stern need of conquering this deplorable frailty
would address him like a passion; and sometimes with a sense of dire
humiliation he would be moved to take counsel of his father.
“How, my father, can I make myself obey myself?” was a question he
asked many times.
It was not until his father had pondered deeply on this subject that
he vouchsafed a reply. And then at last he said, “I fear, beloved,
that in your present phase there is only one answer I can give to
your question. I fear it will be necessary for you to obtain a little
knowledge in the practical sciences before the power will be furnished
for you to move out in courage and security into the streets of the
great city. Beloved, we will devote a whole year to this study, and we
will conduct it together.”
During that evening, to the boy’s astonishment, his father went out
into the street and brought back a newspaper, an article the boy had
never seen in his hand before.
“This is the Alpha and the Omega, beloved one, of that strange world
whose mysteries you deem it to be your duty to penetrate,” said his
father, with his secret and beautiful smile.
From that time forward the boy’s evenings were no longer given up to
desultory readings in the ancient authors. He bestowed many painful and
irksome hours upon the newspaper; and these would have been intolerable
had not his labours had the sanction of his father’s patient
exposition. Day by day its most obscure mysteries were unfolded to him.
Yet the more knowledge he acquired the greater his repugnance became.
“I hate it! I hate it!” he cried sometimes, with tears in his eyes.
There was another means also by which his father sought to increase
his knowledge of the practical sciences. He would accompany him daily
into the streets at all hours of the morning, afternoon and evening. He
made him familiar with many labyrinths among the highways and byways
of the great city. He gave him an insight into many obscure methods of
acquiring pieces of silver. He would denote the character of individual
persons as they passed by; and above all, he strove to make the boy
familiar with the language that was in daily use about him, and with
the plane of ideas of those who used it.
In the course of one of these daily lessons his father pointed out a
boy kneeling at the edge of the pavement with a box before him, some
brushes and a pot of blacking.
“That boy, beloved one,” said his father, “maintains his place in the
scheme by removing the mud from the boots of the passers-by. Observe
him now cleansing those of the man in the tall bright hat. For so doing
he will be rewarded with a small piece of silver, and with that piece
of silver he will obtain food and a roof for his head.”
“I don’t understand, my father, I don’t understand,” said the boy in
deep perplexity. “If the man in the tall bright hat gives away to
others the pieces of silver he possesses because he is too proud to
bear a little mud on his boots, how can he obtain food for himself, and
how can he sustain the little room in which he dwells?”
“We will follow in the footsteps of that man,” said his father, “and
seek to find out the means by which he gains his own pieces of silver
in such profusion.”
For many weeks the boy’s education in the practical sciences was
conducted in this fashion; and although at first he lived in a state of
deep perplexity, and was often overcome by the feeling that he would
never find a key to these bewildering enigmas that made up the life of
the great world out of doors, which now for some inscrutable purpose
he was called upon to enter, perseverance, study and devout patience
furnished him at last with some kind of reward.
Not less than two years of concentrated effort was necessary ere the
boy began to make real progress in the least subtle of the astonishing
complexities of that potent civilization of the West as evolved in
the latter days of the nineteenth century of the Christian era. But
as one slight piece of knowledge after another rewarded his intense
application, he seemed to derive some ground of certainty from his
successes, so that by the time he was nearly eighteen years of age he
had pieced together these hard-won fragments of experience in such
numbers that they wove themselves into a kind of fabric of lucid ideas.
Endowed with this basis upon which to stand, he felt the hour to be
at hand when the courage and the capacity would be his to make some
sort of an entrance into the life of men and things, in the actual and
visible out-of-doors world.
One evening he said to his father with an almost proud air:
“To-morrow, my father, I intend to put to the test all this knowledge
that has come to me during my many days of study--that is, of course,
my father, if you think I speak the language well enough.”
“Yes, beloved one,” said his father, with a mournfulness which was in
strange contrast with the exaltation of his own mood. “I think by now
you speak the language well enough to do so.”
“And I am growing very learned in the newspaper, am I not, my father?”
he said almost joyfully, for although in his heart he still loathed
the newspaper, the sense of achievement in being able to read and to
understand the less inscrutable of its mysteries was very high.
“Yes, beloved one,” said his father, “I consider your progress is
wonderful.”
“I observe, my father,” said the boy proudly, “that according to the
newspaper we purchased this morning--no, no, that is not the true way
of speaking--no, I meant merely to say that according to this morning’s
paper, ‘a bright boy is wanted at No. 12, Webster’s Buildings in the
City.’ It is my purpose, my father, to present myself at No. 12,
Webster’s Buildings in the City to-morrow morning at the hour of nine.”
“This is indeed Achilles,” said his father. He peered wistfully at the
wan cheeks now brilliant with the excitement of resolve.
“If you will embrace me, my father,” said the boy, “I will go now to my
chamber all alone by myself. I am grown so powerful with the knowledge
I have gained that I feel as if I may do almost anything.”
The white-haired man took the frail form into his embrace.
“I beseech you,” he said, as he held him in his arms, “not to demand
too much of the strength that Nature has lent you. I would urge you
not to go out among the life of the great city if you have a single
misgiving.”
“I have not a single misgiving, my father,” said the boy. “I am able
to read and to write and to speak the English tongue. I know how to
ask the con--the conductor to stop the horses of the omnibus. I can do
sums--compound fractions. I am acquainted with most of the streets in
the great city. Have I not walked therein alone several times?”
“Well, well, Achilles,” said his father softly, “if you have really
made up your mind!”
“You do speak the language beautifully, my father,” said the boy. “If
you have really made up your mind! Why, those are the very words I
heard a woman street-person use in Piccadilly yesterday.”
The boy took a lighted candle and went up the stairs. This was the
first occasion on which he had ventured to do this unattended since
the night he had passed in the cell at the police station. But now a
new-born sense of power was upon him, the fruit of knowledge. Of late
he had made an amazing advance in his studies. He was already beginning
to move about the great world out of doors in freedom and security.
He had even begun to carry his capacity in his bearing. Only that
afternoon a small girl of ten with a basket on her arm had asked him to
tell her the time, and also the nearest way to High Holborn. And the
proud consciousness was his that he had performed both these offices
with perfect satisfaction to them both.
He lay in his pillows that night with almost the sensations of a
conqueror. Who among all the cruel and remorseless throng in the
streets of the great city, who were yet so strong and capable and
so wonderfully certain of themselves, could have done more? A year
ago such an achievement as this would have been beyond his wildest
ambitions. A month ago he could not have done it. A week ago it would
have been barely possible. As he lay in this flush of valour it
occurred to him suddenly that the light was burning at its fullest.
There and then he determined, for the first time in his life, to get
out of bed and turn it out.
He jumped from the sheets with a bound, fearing to delay. With a touch
of the finger the room was plunged in complete darkness. Like one
possessed he darted back across the floor and found his way back into
his bed. He buried his head deep down under the clothes. He lay there
shuddering among nameless horrors, and shuddering fell asleep.
That night his father never sought his couch at all. He sat below in
the little room until the daylight came, pondering the contents of
the ancient tome. In the morning at seven o’clock when the boy came
down-stairs again he found his father still in meditation.
“I have had such dreams, my father,” said the boy, and his face was
still flushed with the excitement of the previous night. “Some of them
were so hideous that they made me cry out, yet all the time I knew
myself to be one of the great ones of the earth.”
XI
At eight o’clock, after having made a delicate meal, the boy set out on
his pilgrimage into the streets of the great city. It was a delicious
morning of early spring. The sun stole through its white curtains,
playing elvishly on the traffic. The sounds and cries which ascended
from the purlieus of this vast open theatre seemed to be mellowed,
and to merge themselves in the primal harmony of the unplumbed spaces
overhead. Never before had the boy felt such an exhilaration as on this
glorious day. He crossed from one pavement to another with wonderful
valiancy, sometimes evading the heads of the horses with a feeling that
was almost akin to unconcern. He took his way from street to street
with the conviction ever re-affirming itself within him that he would
find his way to No. 12, Webster’s Buildings in the City.
In the height of this new power, which for the first time in his life
had rendered him fit to move in the great world out of doors, he gave
expression to his sense of joy by breaking out suddenly into the
reverberating, wavelike music of the Iliads. His lips moved to the
measure of those mighty cadences; they rolled out of his mouth, and
their song was louder than the thunder of the traffic. As he pressed
ever onwards through the endless, elbowing throng, he knew himself as
one with the son of Peleus.
Without once faltering, or one mistake in his course he found himself
before the façade of Webster’s Buildings in the City as the clocks were
striking nine. A moment’s reflection showed him which was No. 12. It
comprised a suite of offices on the ground floor.
Quite a number of boys of various ages and sizes were waiting on the
pavement outside the door. They had formed themselves into a queue.
First the boy stood looking at the mystic No. 12 which was painted
on the fanlight over the door, and then at the row of youthful
faces, which was already regarding him critically. After a moment of
hesitation he walked past them and plunged into the interior of the
building. As he did so, loud and angry protests arose of, “’Ere, you
come back, Barnum and Bailey!” “Take yer turn, yer young swine!” “Give
’im one for himself!”
The boy not understanding to whom this enigmatic truculence was
addressed, walked through the dark passage into the first room that he
saw, the door of which was partly open. A morose-looking man who was
biting a pen was standing just inside it.
The boy took off his hat and bowed low.
“M-may it p-please you, sir,” he said, repeating slowly but in
strangely timid accents, a speech which he had already carefully
rehearsed a thousand times, “I d-desire to offer m-myself in the
capacity of a bright boy.”
The morose-looking man took the pen out of his mouth with great
deliberation, and also with an astonishment which he did not seek to
dissemble.
“Do you, indeed?” he said. “We do want a bright boy, but we don’t want
’em too bright. You go back and wait your turn, you cheeky young imp.”
The boy stood a moment in perplexity, unable to grasp what was implied
by this answer, and what, in the circumstances, was the fitting course
to pursue. In the next, however, he had received enlightenment. The
problem was solved for him by the man with the pen. “D---- your young
impudence!” he said, taking him by the shoulders. In the next instant
the boy had been run through the passage and flung out on to the
pavement with the aid of a heavy kick.
His re-appearance and mode of egress were not lost on the select
company of bright boys who formed the queue. They seemed to accord them
a very decided approval. As the boy stood in bewilderment, with his
former morbid dread of physical violence returning upon him, loud howls
of derision arose from the queue.
At first it did not occur to the boy that they were directed at
himself. But, as he continued to stand before the door in irresolution
and surprise, the displeasure with which he was viewed personally was
brought somewhat forcibly to his notice. A boy sauntered out from the
middle of the queue and collected a handful of mud from the gutter. He
then crept up stealthily behind him, and flung it down the back of his
neck.
In spite of this not particularly delicate hint, however, and in spite
of the cries of derision all about him which seemed every moment
to increase, the boy continued to stand before the door. At last a
powerful boy, who was the first in the queue, turned to a companion and
said: “Keep my place, Nosey.” He then stepped out, and seizing the boy
ferociously by the ear, half led and half dragged him to the tail of
the queue. After having cuffed him severely, he said, “You get out of
your place again, and I’ll break your neck.”
Humiliation, terror and bodily pain were now added to the boy’s
bewilderment, but even these potent forces, mighty in combination as
they were, could not overcome the new-born strength of purpose that had
so recently sprung up in his heart. Doggedly, yet sickly enough, he
continued to stand behind the other boys, striving by every means in
his power to divine precisely what was taking place around him; and to
learn what line of conduct would consort with an immunity from personal
violence, and yet further the end to which he had pledged himself.
He stood on the pavement nearly an hour while other boys formed up
behind him. Happily none considered it to be worthy of their dignity to
visit him with further notice now that his place had been unmistakably
indicated to him and his presumption had been fittingly rebuked.
Nevertheless he hardly dared to breathe or to look to the right or to
the left lest he should again incur their notice. At last, however, an
incident happened which afforded him intense relief.
In the process of time boy after boy in front of him had passed through
the sacred door, and then after a brief interval within had returned
and had gone away disconsolate, incurring as he did so, from those
who still waited, sundry observations whose import the boy found it
impossible to fathom. But at last one of these came out wearing an air
of somewhat emphatic disgust, and said in a derisive tone to those who
yet remained in the queue: “You can all go ’ome. Cocoa’s got it. Five
bob a week, and a two bob rise every year.”
Upon this announcement, the boy was privileged to observe a strange
thing. All the other boys, not only those in front of him, but those
behind him also, melted away in silence as if by the agency of magic.
At first, so great was his relief at finding himself delivered in this
miraculous fashion of their presence that he could hardly realize his
good fortune.
For the next half-hour he stood where he was, meditating on what course
he must pursue. As he did so, there mounted still higher in his mind
the paramount necessity of speaking his carefully-rehearsed words to
those who were in need of a bright boy. For in the magic dispersal
of those ruthless and terrible youthful street-persons he recognized
clearly the hand of Providence. Whatever befell he must force himself
to obey the high resolve he had formed the previous night which had now
gained the sanction of heaven. If it cost him his life he must present
himself again before the man in the office who had already used him so
dreadfully.
With a compressed mouth and a stern face, from which he hoped all
traces of the mud had been removed by the assiduous use of his
handkerchief, although he could still feel it trickling down his back
in a most disconcerting manner, he ventured forth again into the dark
entrance of No. 12, Webster’s Buildings. The door at the end of the
passage was now closed. He tapped timidly upon the glass. There came no
answer. After waiting a full minute, in which he listened with nervous
intensity for permission to enter, he tapped again a little louder.
There was still no answer. Mustering up all his courage he tapped a
third time as loudly as he dared. Even if he broke the glass he must
obtain an answer!
“Come in,” said a voice from behind the door.
The boy opened the door and entered hat in hand. In the crowded room
was a number of men and boys seated on tall stools. The boy clenched
his hands and closed his eyes.
“M-may it p-please you, gentlemen,” he said shrilly at the top of his
voice, “I desire to offer m-myself in the c-capacity of a bright boy.”
In profound astonishment all the men and boys ceased their labours for
a moment. One of them, the morose-looking man, with whom previously he
had had dealings, gave a short laugh.
“Oh, it’s _you_ again, is it?” he said. “Kindly wait a moment until I
get to you.”
As he spoke, he picked up a heavy and long ruler and descended from his
stool. The boy waited in obedience to his request. The man took him by
the ear and led him out into the passage, and proceeded to beat him
with the ruler brutally about the head and shoulders.
“Do you think we will be plagued out of our lives by the likes of you?”
he said, as he flung the limp and breathless form into the street for
the second time. “You come here again, and I’ll have you locked up.”
Bruised, breathless and bleeding, the boy dragged himself away from
the vicinity of No. 12, Webster’s Buildings in the City. Yet it was
only in the flesh he was conquered; his spirit was still fortified
with resolve. What were his haps in comparison with those of Hector
at the Defence of Troy? Therefore after leaning against the wall of
an insurance office for a little time in order to recover some of
the physical power which had been so rudely knocked out of him, he
determined to renew his attempts to gain pieces of silver. It might be
that others besides the occupants of No. 12, Webster’s Buildings in the
City were in need of a bright boy. Indeed, it was most likely; at least
there appeared to be a large number of bright boys who were desirous of
gaining pieces of silver.
Accordingly he resolved to use his powers of observation, and to
select for himself a shop or an office which he deemed likely to stand
in need of the services of a bright boy. Yet his first choice was
not fortunate. After mustering every consideration in its favour, he
entered a small and unassuming shop in Gracechurch Street.
As he entered with a curious sensation in his heart, he was met by a
young woman with a supercilious lift to her chin and an abundance of
dark hair, who looked him up and down as though he had no right to be
there.
“What do _you_ want?” she said in a sharp tone, and hurting him with
her suspicious eyes.
“M-may it p-please you, m-madam,” he stammered, “I d-desire to offer
myself in the capacity of a bright boy.”
“Oh, d-do y-you?” said the young woman. “Go home and wash your neck and
then go and drown yourself.”
The boy slunk out into the street as though she had hit him a blow in
the face.
All through the afternoon he wandered up and down the crowded pavements
of the great city. In the course of his weary pilgrimage he entered
many shops and offices sickly yet doggedly; sickly yet doggedly he
made the offer of his services. Some of the answers he met with were
not intelligible; some of them were. Yet in spite of every rebuff,
of every conspiracy on the part of fortune, of the increasing sense
of bodily suffering, of the aches that stole over his limbs, of the
faintness that crept over him owing to these long hours of unaccustomed
physical and mental exertion and absence of food, he forced himself to
go on. What were such sufferings, such journeyings, such adventures,
such vicissitude in comparison with the ten long years in which his
beloved Odysseus was banished from the shores of Ithaca! What clay was
this that already it should begin to quail? How those great ones of
old would have mocked him had he dared to confess to them that he felt
distressed!
Yet he did feel distressed. It was almost useless to deny it. As for
the tenth time that afternoon, he was told “To take himself off, and
to look lively about it,” a formula which repetition had enabled him
to recognize, and experience had indicated the only course to pursue,
despair and humiliation, accompanied by terror, that most active of
all his enemies, crept upon him, and as the clocks of the great city
were striking five, tears sprang to his eyes. Almost in the same moment
he had dashed them away, had proudly overcome them. What if the great
Agamemnon could have seen him! How would he be able to meet those
mighty ones, how would he be able to grasp their hands, to look into
their faces, if this was the measure of his courage?
By this time he had come into Cannon Street, hard by to Saint Paul’s.
On the left side of the street, along which he passed, were great
blocks of gloomy warehouses. Flights of stone steps ran up to their
entrances; and as he limped by one of these, involuntarily he sank down
in sheer weariness upon a bottom step. He felt bitterly hungry, yet he
had no means of satisfying his pangs, for there was not a penny in his
pocket; and the only food he had had that day had been a little milk
and bread at eight o’clock that morning. Yet he still fought with all
the resolution of which he was capable against the physical weakness
which now held him so inexorably in its clutch. Again he began to
recite the Iliads under his breath, not now because the joy of battle
was in his veins, but because he sought to derive sustenance from those
high-hearted ones who looked on valour as their right.
As he sat on the bottom step of the warehouse, with his throbbing head
pressed against the cold stone, he beheld a heavy railway car drawn
by a mighty horse come up with a shattering rattle to the door of
the great building. The man who was driving it cast the reins on the
horse’s neck, and standing upon the dray shouted up into the second
storey. Thereupon a door was opened in the wall of the warehouse, and
a large box attached to the hook of a crane was swung outwards and
downwards towards the dray. As the drayman proceeded to assist it on
to the dray and to disengage it from the hook, the mighty horse grew
impatient and began to prance.
“Whoa there, you ----!” called out the drayman to the horse.
Standing on the kerb at the opposite side of the street watching these
proceedings was a small and pale urchin, whose clothes were in rags
and whose toes were bursting through his shoes. Suddenly with amazing
daring and rapidity he darted between a hansom, two omnibuses and a
covered van, and peremptorily seized the head of the great horse.
“Nah then,” he said to the horse sharply, “worrer yer at? Kim up.”
He gave the great horse a blow on the neck and backed it a yard or two.
“Good kid,” said the drayman, unhooking another box from the crane,
“hold him there a bit.”
The boy seated on the bottom step of the warehouse assimilated every
detail of these proceedings. He pondered them deeply. And as he did so,
quite suddenly a flash of meaning made his pulses quiver. Instantly
he withdrew his throbbing head from the cold stone, and rose heavily.
He approached the ragged urchin who was still holding the head of the
great horse.
“I--I b-beg y-your p-pardon,” he said, addressing the urchin with
immense politeness, “but I--I a-assume you will r-receive a p-piece of
silver for this brave action?”
“Come again,” said the urchin, who was not accustomed to this mode of
address.
The boy contrived to grasp that his meaning was not understood.
“The s-street-p-per--t-the m-man on the--on the c-car will give you a
p-piece of s-silver because you make the great horse stand still,” he
stammered, in order to make it clearer.
“Piece o’ silver!” said the urchin derisively. “More likely to gimme a
thick ear. Lucky if I git the price of a fag.”
The boy retired to the bottom step of the warehouse with this
mysterious piece of information. With infinite pains he had mastered,
as far as he was aware, all the coins in the currency; he had come to
believe that he knew the appearance and purchasing power of them all,
from the farthing to the sovereign, from the halfpenny stamp to the
five-pound note. But he had never encountered “a thick ear,” or “the
price of a fag,” in all his researches.
Timidly, reluctantly he went back to the urchin.
“I--I beg y-your p-pardon,” he said as courteously as before, “but
w-would you m-mind informing me what is the monetary value of the price
of a fag?”
“A nickel, o’ course,” said the urchin in a tone that seemed to
indicate that further intercourse was not desired. He was disposed
to resent the intrusion of a busybody into his personal and private
affairs.
“A n-nickel,” said the boy blankly. “W-would you mind in-informing me
wh-what is a nickel?”
“A brown, o’ course,” said the urchin, eyeing him sternly.
“Oh yes,” said the boy, “one of those brown coins which are called
p-pennies. I am much in-indebted to you for this in-information.”
With a grave smile of thanks the boy lifted his cap and returned again
to the steps of the warehouse. After a moment, however, in which he
stood in irresolution he limped away along the street. His progress was
carefully noted by the urchin, who watched the frail figure solemnly as
it proceeded along the crowded pavements of Cannon Street.
“Gawdstrewth!” he exclaimed, spitting with vehemence, and dealing the
great horse a further admonitory blow on the neck.
The boy, however, as he limped with his hunger and weariness through
the crowd of street-persons who were about him everywhere and who dealt
him continual buffets, was under the dominion of an idea. He had gained
yet another fragment of practical knowledge by the medium of first-hand
experience. He must turn it to account at the first opportunity. He
was hungry. That inexorable power in whose hands he was had inflicted
that salutary condition upon him in order to make trial of his quality.
And what an incomparable sense of power it would confer upon him to
feed that hunger for the first time in his life by his own personal
skill in the practical sciences!
A hundred yards along the street was another huge block of gloomy
warehouses almost identical with the others. It also was furnished with
a flight of stone steps and a crane dangling above a door in the second
storey. Their similarity, even to the smallest details, enabled the boy
to see in the appearance of this second warehouse this same indubitable
hand. He sat down as before on the bottom step, and in simple faith
proceeded to await the arrival of a second dray drawn by a great horse.
As thus he sat with an exalted patience for that which he knew must
come to pass, yet with his limbs trembling so that he could not hold
his knees from knocking together, the clock of the cathedral across
the street boomed the hour of six. Its august echoes reverberated
in his spirit; they filled it with awe; the sense of a remote yet
noble kinship overwhelmed him as he sat. He looked across the street
with dim eyes; the colossal spire was uplifted sheer, it was lost
in the lowering darkness of the sky. The sombre and vast walls of
the church seemed to proclaim themselves to his imagination like the
voices of heroes upon which it fed. Their ghostliness, for already
they were enveloped in the shadows of evening, set his lips again in
motion. Involuntarily they began to move to the familiar lines of the
Purgatorio:
Era gia l’ ora che volge il disio
ai naviganti, e intenerisce il cuore
lo di ch’ han detto ai dolci amici addio;
e che lo nuovo peregrin d’amore
punge, se ode squilla di lontano,
che paia il giorno pianger che si more;
quand’ io incominciai a render vano
l’ udire ed a mirare una dell’ alme
surta, che l’ ascoltar chiedea con mano.
The huge clock of the cathedral boomed again and yet again. His lips
still moved softly to the music they emitted. No dray and no great
horse had arrived. But his resolve was undaunted; his faith remained
inviolate. His frame was growing numb and chill. The stone had grown
very cold. The stealthy hues of the night were wrapping themselves
about everything. The lamps were now lit in Saint Paul’s Churchyard.
A serried bank of dark clouds was looming up out of the west. At his
heart was a curious sinking; he seemed to feel a little faint.
It still wanted a few minutes to seven by the stolid face that peered
at him from across the street, when his devout patience and his simple
faith met with their reward. Just as he had foreseen, a heavy dray
drawn by a great horse came rattling round the corner of the cathedral.
As it neared the warehouse on the steps of which he sat, it began to
slow up. Yes, never a doubt about it, it was coming to stand under the
creaking piece of iron above his head, the crane dangling from the
second storey.
This dray stopped precisely as the other one had done at the other
warehouse. In a precisely similar fashion the drayman cast the reins
loose on the great horse’s neck. Again the drayman stood up and called
unintelligible words into the second storey. The door opened as before;
the crane began to squeak and grunt; the box hung suspended in mid-air.
Swinging and rotating it descended to the drayman’s arms. And then just
as before the mighty animal began to prance.
With his heart beating as though it would break him in pieces the boy
rose from the bottom step of the warehouse. He pressed his hands to his
sides. “Courage, Achilles!” he muttered under his breath, “Courage,
Achilles!”
The great horse still pranced. The man on the dray shouted a horrible
oath. With flaming eyes and cheeks of death the boy dragged his faint
limbs to the kerb. As he came near the great animal, and he beheld its
scarlet nostrils and huge and wicked eyes, he knew it for a monster
of fable that could turn him to stone with its glance. A chill stole
through his veins. He extended his hands towards the great horse. His
eyes were filled with a dreadful rushing darkness. He felt himself
swaying with a kind of sick impotence; it was as though the hand of
fate had maimed him.
“Lay ’old of his head, can’t yer?” the brutal voice of the man on the
dray percolated to his ears. “What are yer lookin’ at ’im for?”
The great horse lifted its hoofs; the boy reeled back with the face of
a corpse.
“Mind he don’t eat yer,” said a quiet voice at his side.
A second small and ragged urchin, far less in stature than himself and
half his years, calmly took hold of the great horse by the near rein,
shook it, struck the animal on the neck very boldly, and proceeded to
back it just as the other urchin had done.
“Nah then, worrer yer mean by it?” he said, scolding it in a shrill
voice like a woman would an infant.
The impassive face upon the cathedral boomed the hour.
In a strange anguish of the spirit, which he had never felt before, the
boy staggered away from the warehouse into the ever-gathering shadows
of the great city. He did not know where he was. He did not know what
he did. He was in the enfolding grasp of an unknown power; he was in
the bosom of the gods.
Without apprehension, and without reason, he was borne through the
maze of cabs, vans and omnibuses to the other side of the street. He
clutched feebly at the chill iron railings that formed a girdle round
the cathedral. A bell seemed to be tolling. It filled his heart with
voices. An occult force, which had never grasped him till this hour,
began to draw this broken wayfarer seeking for sanctuary towards the
unknown.
He issued back to a frail sense of entity to find himself on the steps
of the cathedral. He saw lights; he smelt warmth; he heard remote and
strange music; he heard the hushed clamour of many voices. He was in
a vast place echoing yet domeless. He was on his knees pressing his
temples against the cold marble flags.
The deep voice of the organ filled the warmed air with a thousand
vibrations. Afar off were bright-burning candles and solemn songs. He
pressed his temples closer to the chill flags. He panted like a hunted
deer.
Hours later, when he staggered out of the enervating warmth of the
cathedral, the night was pitch dark. The chill airs of the evening
made his jaws clap together. He did not know where he was. Moving
with little tottering steps, his flesh as water, his eyes blind with
night, he followed the line of railings that engirdled the cathedral.
He clutched at them; he hugged them blindly to his bosom; he was like
a mariner in uncharted seas who has lost his compass. He followed the
course of the railings, dragging one foot after another almost as one
who is bereft of the power of volition. It took him nearly an hour to
complete the circuit of the railings, and then he found himself back
again at the point whence he had started, the steps of the cathedral.
Still clinging to the railings he started to go round them again.
Within him the instinct was paramount that if he did not keep his faint
limbs in motion he was lost. He would perish in the streets of the
great city. Passing each iron rail in its turn through his numb hands
he went on and on, and in the process of time returned again whence he
started to the steps of the cathedral.
For the third time he set out to traverse the line of the railings. He
was very cold. Yet the flesh must continue to obey, or that nameless
destination which he had ceased to remember would never be won. As
before, railing by railing, he made the circuit, and for the third
time returned whence he started. Without an instant’s tarrying he set
out again. The impassive face upon the cathedral boomed the hour of
midnight. The dark heavens looked like Erebus. A sharp cold spray of
rain was dashed suddenly upon his cheeks.
This blessed succour seemed to give him a flicker of power. “Courage,
Achilles!” he muttered faintly. He could not feel his feet as they
crept over the wet pavements; they seemed to be poised in the jaws of
an abyss. His form seemed to be disembodied in the air of the night.
But the flesh was still making its answer; the unending procession
of the railings still continued to slide through his hands. Yet his
fingers could feel nothing. How soft and vague everything was growing!
A delicious softness had begun to creep out of the sharp airs of the
night.
As his eyes were closing he grew conscious that a pair of arms were
enfolding him.
“My father,” he muttered, “my father.”
He pressed his closed eyes against a garment which was wet yet
protective. He was lying against his father’s bosom. His father had
followed in his steps as he set out in the morning, and had never been
more than fifty yards from him during the whole of the day.
XII
The next day the boy returned to the study of the practical sciences
under his father’s guidance. The brief hour of self-reliance, of actual
motive power, seemed to pass almost as suddenly as it had come. Yet
although he had been ground down into the dust again, the sap and fibre
had appeared to increase in his frame. He went alone no more into the
streets of the great city in search of pieces of silver, but the need
of obtaining them by his own address was never absent from his thoughts.
One sultry evening of midsummer, when he returned to the little room
after a dusty and stifling pilgrimage about the streets in his father’s
company in the pursuit of knowledge, he said with an air of mournful
conviction, “Each day makes it more clear to me, my father, that if
once our store of silver pieces should fail us, we shall lose this
little room of ours. Every time I walk abroad in the great city I see
numbers and numbers of these poor street-persons whose sad faces tell
me that they have lost their little rooms.”
His father, although he would have sought to deny this assertion, was
yet not able to do so.
Indoors and out of doors the boy pursued his studies with a most
vigilant constancy. He read the newspaper daily, and committed portions
of it to memory. And he accompanied his father all about the streets
of the great city. He accompanied him into the most inaccessible
places, using his ears and eyes faithfully. And at last, it occurred
to him that if there was no place for him in the universal scheme in
his capacity as a “bright boy,” a special dispensation might permit
him to enter some other sphere of usefulness. For example, in one
of the advertisement columns of the newspaper he had observed that
in addition to cooks, clerks, office boys, coachmen, commercial
travellers, hairdressers’ assistants, and laundryman’s apprentices, who
were required by various people, there was also a handy youth wanted by
Messrs. Crumpett and Hawker, Publishers, 24 Trafalgar Square. Apply by
Letter.
“Would you say, my father,” he inquired anxiously, “that I have
credentials to fulfil the capacity of a handy youth? I am eighteen
years and twelve days old; I can wash and scour the utensils in which
we cook our food; I can make the fire and polish the hearthstone, and
also the fire-grate; I can cleanse the bricks of the floor. And, my
father, I can remove the dust from the chimney-piece; and I constantly
dust and arrange the books in the shop. Would you say it would be
presumptuous to offer myself in the capacity of a handy youth?”
“I think, beloved one, you are quite competent to take this course,”
said his father sadly, “if you can find the courage.”
“I think I can find the courage, my father, if you will help me a
little,” said the boy, with his bright eyes gleaming out of his gaunt
cheeks.
They knelt together in the little room.
That evening the boy took pen, ink, note-paper and envelope, and
with infinite pains composed his first letter. In a very dainty and
delicately-written hand it ran as follows--
“To Messrs. Crumpett and Hawker, Publishers,
24 Trafalgar Square.
“GENTLEMEN,
“It is my aspiration to serve you in the capacity of a handy youth.
Should you deem me worthy of your trust, it shall be my constant aim
to render myself worthy of it.
“I have the honour to be, Gentlemen, your obedient and respectful
servant,
“WILLIAM JORDAN (the younger).”
He showed this composition to his father, who approved it in silence.
Then he stole out all alone into the darkness with an almost breathless
secrecy and confided it to a letter-box in the street.
Such an adventure as this had the power to tantalize and excite him.
When he sought the ancient authors as a refuge from the insurgency of
his thoughts, his mind could no longer feel the spell of their magic
pages.
“I pray that the postman will carry the letter to its true destination,
my father,” he said anxiously.
“It is on the knees of the gods, Achilles,” said the white-haired man.
XIII
By an odd fatality the postman did carry the letter to its true
destination, and on the evening of the following day his peculiar tap
was heard at the letter-box on the door of the shop.
Pale with excitement, the boy rose from his book.
“A letter!” he cried. “There is something here in my heart, O my
father, that tells me it is from Messrs. Crumpett and Hawker,
Publishers, 24 Trafalgar Square.”
He groped his way through the darkness of the shop, and placed his hand
in the letter-box on the outer door. Yes, there was a letter. As he
bore it to the light of the little room, it seemed to sear his fingers.
It was addressed to “Mr. William Jordan, Junior, 43 Milton Street,
E.C.” On the back of the envelope was stamped “Crumpett and Hawker,
Publishers, 24 Trafalgar Square.”
He tore the letter out of its envelope. His heart seemed to stand
still. The letter said--
“Messrs. Crumpett and Hawker will be obliged if William Jordan, Junior,
will wait upon them to-morrow (Wednesday) morning at twelve o’clock.”
After pressing his lips to this typewritten communication he gave it to
his father.
“There, my father,” he said, with a devout simplicity, “I knew it would
be so; it was written in my destiny.”
His father read the letter, and handed it back to him. He could not
find a word to speak; neither did he direct a glance at the exalted
face.
Presently they knelt again together in the little room.
That night of all nights it was not to be expected that the boy would
close his eyes. As he lay in his bed with his gaze ever reciprocating
the curious brightness of the stars, he speculated at times on what the
morrow would bring forth; at other times he reviewed the sum total of
his knowledge in the practical sciences. He composed carefully, word
by word, the phrases he must use on the morrow to Messrs. Crumpett and
Hawker; he rehearsed in a soft voice, with his rapt eyes ever fixed
on the fragment of the empyrean that shone through the curtainless
window, in spite of the gables and chimney-stacks which tried so hard
to shut it out, the manner in which these words must be spoken. In the
middle of the night, as the clocks were chiming three, he rose from his
bed, and walked about the darkness with bare feet and clad only in his
night-gown, muttering in his gentle voice as he clenched his hands,
“Courage, Achilles!”
At five o’clock he rose and put on his clothes. Descending the stairs
he cleaned the fire-grate, made the fire, whitened the hearthstone,
and scrubbed the floor of the little room. Then in a vain endeavour to
allay his excitement he read some of the pages of the ancient authors
that he cherished most. At the breakfast hour he refused a delicate
piece of bread-and-butter that his father cut for him, but drank a
copious draught of milk. At nine o’clock he requested his father to
accompany him to have his hair cut.
No sooner, however, had they come to the end of the street than the boy
suddenly stayed his steps.
“No, no, my father,” he said, with a look that was almost imperious. “I
would have you return to the shop. This day I must walk alone.”
“As you will, Achilles,” said his father, turning upon his heel.
An instant later, however, the white-haired man had turned again to
watch the frail figure cross the street and enter a hairdresser’s shop.
XIV
At eleven o’clock the boy set out for No. 24 Trafalgar Square. During
the small hours of that morning his scheme of action had been planned
to the most minute detail, but so weak is the human character even
in the highest moments of its resolve, that on the very threshold of
this enterprise, which the boy knew to be the foremost of his life, he
departed in an almost wanton manner from this programme upon which he
had spent all the powers of his mind.
His visit to the hairdresser; the triumphant effrontery with which
he had asked for his locks to be shorn; the calm fortitude with
which he had submitted to that searching and public operation;
the self-contained manner in which he had given the hairdresser
street-person a large piece of silver for his great kindness and
courtesy, all these achievements had conspired to imbue him with a
valour, which at the very outset of his venture was destined to lead
him into an unwarrantable, an almost foolhardy course.
At the corner of Milton Street, at its juncture with an extremely busy
thoroughfare which he would be compelled to traverse, there was a
recognized halting place for those wonderful vehicles called omnibuses.
At this corner it was their custom to discharge and to accept
passengers.
As he came to the corner an omnibus, painted a bright yellow, chanced
to be standing there. At the sight of it, inflamed with a valour that
was almost insolent and without pausing to reflect upon what his act
involved, he walked, almost with vainglory, straight into the ’bus.
Never before had he dared to enter one alone; such a deed was far from
being contemplated by that programme to which he was pledged to adhere;
but he had cast the die before he had reflected upon his recklessness,
and like an authentic hero in an entrancing tale he was being drawn by
two stout, but comely horses to No. 24 Trafalgar Square.
When the conductor came round for the fares he said to him in a voice
that was a little timid in spite of its boldness, “W-will y-you
p-please stop the omnibus at No. 24 Trafalgar Square.”
“Don’t go to Trafalgar Square,” said the conductor curtly. “Charing
Cross Station.”
This was dreadfully unexpected.
“W-would y-you m-mind asking the h-horses to stop, if y-you
p-p-please,” he stammered.
“Can’t yer jump off?” said the conductor sharply.
“Oh n-n-no,” said the boy.
“S-s-stop where you are then,” said the conductor.
A girl seated opposite began to titter audibly. The other passengers
were content with furtive smiles.
After the lapse of a few minutes, which seemed as long as eternity,
the driver stopped the horses of his own accord. The boy jumped out
of the ’bus. The conviction was upon him already that he would not
be at Trafalgar Square by twelve o’clock. He looked wildly about the
dense throng in which he found himself. Where was he? He had lost his
bearings completely. If he were not at 24 Trafalgar Square by twelve
o’clock his hopes would be shattered for ever. The thought of the
little room rendered him desperate. Yet what could he do? He looked up
at a clock over a jeweller’s shop. It was already twenty-five minutes
past eleven. Only thirty-five minutes more and it would be all over.
All his assurance was gone; and he did not know where he was. Yet
before he started he had planned everything perfectly. He had looked
out the way from Milton Street on a map of the great city; he had
committed every street and turning of the route to memory.
However, the street in which he stood was not unfamiliar. Yes, he had
been in it several times with his father. It was called--it was called
the Strand. Yet he did not know what was its proximity to Trafalgar
Square. He had now no knowledge of where it lay, now that by entering
the omnibus he had wantonly forfeited all the sense of locality he
had acquired. Yet he knew that Square so well. It was there that he
had spent so many delectable hours lately in a noble building, gazing
at the wonderful pictures of the ancient painters. He looked up at a
street corner, and saw the name Craven Street, and then he looked again
at the remorseless hands of the clock. How was it possible to get from
Craven Street to Trafalgar Square in half-an-hour? What could he do?
The road was a maze of obscurity. The programme had passed entirely out
of his mind.
All at once, however, he was touched by inspiration. He knew all about
cabs! And they were recalled to his mind by the sight of a number of
these vehicles standing a few yards away in a row behind some railings.
They were in a place where the traffic made a veritable whirlpool; and
he remembered that he had noted that place before, and that his father
had told him it was the entrance to Charing Cross railway station.
Yes, he knew all about cabs; his father with marvellous foresight had
instructed him in that branch of education. And he had said to him,
“Whenever you lose your way in the great city, be sure that you ask one
of those cab-driver street-persons to take you to your destination.”
There and then the boy felt in his pockets, because he knew that this
hazardous but necessary undertaking could only be accomplished by the
aid of pieces of silver.
Before he had set out on his great adventure, his father had given him
ten pieces of silver. These he now produced and counted carefully.
Then having assured himself that he was furnished with the necessary
means, he set out to reach the row of cabs. With a supreme effort of
the will he dismissed from his thoughts all the frightful risks that he
incurred, and plunged recklessly into the mighty stream that had to be
navigated ere he could reach the row of cabs. But dire necessity armed
him with strange valour.
As he emerged from the whirlpool breathless, but still alive, into the
presence of the row of cabs, he accosted with heart violently beating
the foremost of the cab-driver street-persons, who stood at the door of
his vehicle eating his mid-day meal out of a piece of newspaper.
“I-if y-you p-please, I w-will g-give you these t-ten p-pieces of
s-silver--sh-shillings, you know,” he said, sick with anxiety, “if
you will take me in your c-cab to No. 24 Trafalgar Square by t-twelve
o’clock.”
With eyes of entreaty the boy held out his hand to the cab-driver
street-person, and lying on its open palm were the ten pieces of silver.
The cab-driver street-person’s first act was to look very solemnly at
the pieces of silver, and then at the boy with equal solemnity. Then
with a solemnity which seemed to transcend either of these actions, he
transferred each of the pieces of silver without undignified haste, nor
yet with churlish reluctance, to his own somewhat grimy palm.
“C-can y-you do it?” said the boy hoarsely, “or are the minutes too
few; is the time too little?”
By this, as if attracted by the mien of the cab-driver street-person,
several of his companions had come about him.
“Can I do it, Captain?” said the cab-driver street-person slowly and
more solemnly than ever as he looked at his companions, and balanced a
large piece of cheese very thoughtfully on the end of a clasp-knife.
“We’ll make no promises, Captain, but we’ll try.”
“Oh y-yes, p-please,” said the boy, “d-do t-try.”
“The old hoss don’t purtend to be a flyer, you know, Captain,” said the
cab-driver street-person, as he wrapped up the remainder of his meal
in the newspaper in a fashion so leisurely that the boy could hardly
endure it; “at least not these days, although in his prime he ran
second in the Cesarewitch, but there’s no saying what he can do when he
tries.”
The cab-driver street-person climbed to his perch as the boy was
assisted into the interior of the vehicle by two other cab-driver
street-persons who ensconced him therein, and closed the door upon him
as though he were a pearl of price. They then stood to await the fruit
of their labours with an air of expectancy that was quite politely
dissembled.
“I suppose, Joe,” said one of the driver’s confrères, with a solemnity
that was in nowise inferior to that of the man on the box, “you’ll go
by the Suez Canal and Himalayer Mountains route, what?”
“Yuss,” said the driver as the hansom moved off slowly, “if the old
hoss will stand to the scenery. If he ain’t taking any it will have to
be _viâ_ Mentone and the Lake o’ Geneva.”
To the boy’s dismay, the hansom seemed hardly to move beyond a crawl.
It went along several narrow by-streets off the Strand which he had
never seen before. As he sat in the hansom a faint recollection
returned to him that Trafalgar Square must be “over there.” But the
cab-driver street-person seemed to be taking him in the opposite
direction.
They passed a clock. It was a quarter to twelve. Why didn’t the
horse go faster? Then he remembered with a pang that the cab-driver
street-person had said it was old. How injudicious he had been to
choose an old horse! He should have chosen a young horse when speed
was of such paramount importance. But what was the difference between
a young horse and an old horse? Had his life depended on the answer,
he could not have told. What a lot of obscure knowledge there was to
acquire in the practical sciences! Every step he took alone among the
streets of the great city some new problem confronted him--problems
which no mind could foreshadow unless it experienced them first. Less
than an hour ago, when he left the little room, after striving all
through the long night to foresee every contingency that was likely
to arise, after drawing up the “programme” with such minute care, it
had not entered his head that he would have to ride in a cab, and be
called upon to discriminate between an old horse and a young one.
The poor old animal seemed scarcely to push one leg before the other.
If only he knew the way, and he knew how to get out of the cab, he
would be able to run much faster. Yet the cab and himself and the
driver must be cruel burdens for the poor old horse. He felt a pitiless
street-person to be sitting there, preoccupied with his own affairs,
while he inflicted sufferings upon a dumb animal. But he must, he must,
he must be at No. 24 Trafalgar Square as the clocks gave the hour of
twelve!
What was that! The chimes of a clock. One, two, three, four; four
quarters of the hour! His heart sank. It was all over. The first stroke
of the hour of twelve was striking. His pilgrimage had been made in
vain. He had one more failure to record. He would never, his sinking
heart informed him, be able to retain the little room.
Then he found that the hansom had stopped altogether. The solemn face
of the cab-driver street-person peered at him through a hole in the
roof.
“Here y’are, Captain,” he said, with a pride that was finely
restrained, “number twenty-four. The old ’oss ’as done it on ’is ’ead.”
The boy was out of the vehicle at a bound. He cried to the cabman, “Oh,
t-thank you, oh, t-thank you!”
The fifth stroke of twelve had struck. No. 24 was displayed on a
door six yards away. Beside it was a brass plate inscribed, _Messrs.
Crumpett and Hawker, Publishers_.
In a state of excitement that he found it impossible to allay, the
boy entered through the swing doors. Almost immediately he found his
progress barred by a counter. Behind it a miscellaneous collection
of street-persons, whose sex was unmistakably that of the male, was
writing in books, clicking typewriters, ringing telephones, tying up
parcels.
The boy, knowing he had come to stand on the threshold of nameless
mysteries, awoke to the discovery that he was entirely divested of
the powers of speech and motion. Yet as he stood in bewilderment, not
knowing what to do now that after such infinite vicissitudes he had
come to No. 24 Trafalgar Square at the appointed hour, the occupant of
a tall stool behind a glass partition in the left-hand corner of the
counting-house left that eminence, and at a leisure that was really
remarkable sauntered up to the counter to the applicant.
The individual who had left the high stool was declared, when he
came to stand before the boy, to be no unworthy specimen of his time
and country. In age he might have been twelve or he might have been
forty; yet upon every feature of a small and wizened countenance,
which embodied all the most salient characteristics of the fox and
the ferret, was stamped a not inconsiderable intellectual quality. On
the score of physique this personage was not so well equipped. He was
undersized to the point of the stunted; but Nature, with her liberal
cunning, had granted him ample compensation for his lack of inches. He
had an air. His air had the inimitable aplomb which is the perquisite
of the few.
At first the boy could do nothing but stare in dire confusion at
this somewhat sinister figure. He was dumb, yet his lips were wide
apart, and he was trembling all over. The whole of the ritual that
had undergone such a careful preparation, in which every possible
contingency that could arise had been foreseen and counteracted, had
vanished from his mind as completely as though it had never been in it.
“The tailor’s is next door,” said the wizened boy, after a period
of thoughtful contemplation of him who stood at the other side of
the counter. As he spoke he appeared to pick his words with the cool
delicacy of a connoisseur.
Another period of silence followed this piece of information, which
was broken at last by an ineffectual stammer from the applicant.
“I--I--I d-don’t w-want the t-tailor’s, s-sir,” he said.
“Really,” said the other with a courtesy which, although quite amiable,
was in nowise expansive, “I thought perhaps you might.”
“Oh n-n-no,” said the boy. “I--I--I----”
“Perhaps you are not aware,” said the other with a bland, impersonal
pleasantness, “that this is the counting-house of Crumpett and Hawker?”
The mention of the magic name Crumpett and Hawker had a remarkable
effect. Almost as if at the beck of the wand of a sorcerer it restored
to the mind of the applicant the programme which he had forgotten so
completely. From the inmost recesses of a breast-pocket, whence it had
been carefully stowed away, he produced the letter he had received from
that eminent firm of publishers. This he handed across the counter to
the undersized and wizened boy, and accompanied the act by a low bow
that seemed unmistakably to create a favourable impression.
“M-Messrs. C-Crumpett and H-Hawker,” he said, “P-P-P-Publishers, No. 24
Trafalgar Square, have b-bestowed the honour of this c-command upon me.
I--I--I p-present m-myself in obedience to it.”
The undersized and wizened boy having successfully dissembled his
astonishment at this unconventional mode of address, read the contents
of the letter with a lively curiosity, which he dissembled just as
successfully.
“William Jordan, Junior?” he asked.
“Y-Yes, sir,” said the boy.
The undersized and wizened boy began to whistle to himself softly.
“Perhaps you’ll come this way,” he said with a reticence of which he
had every reason to be proud.
He lifted up a movable piece of the counter, and indicated to the
applicant that he might pass through. This the boy did almost
involuntarily. At first, finding himself immersed into so much
publicity, with so many pairs of eyes and strange faces all about
him, he feared that his self-command would go. Yet all this had been
foreseen in that programme that had been devised with such care.
“Courage, Achilles!” he muttered, yet so that none could hear him. And
although he felt that the back of his head was being penetrated by the
ruthless curiosity through which he passed, he followed the undersized
and wizened boy across the counting-house, looking neither to the right
nor to the left.
His mentor opened a door in a glass partition and bade him go within.
“The Chief will send for you presently,” he said with courteous
austerity. “Take a chair.”
Several street-persons, inclining to young manhood, were in the room.
One and all were sitting exceedingly upright on leather-covered chairs.
Apparently these youthful street-persons were stouter and taller and
stronger than himself. They also had that indefinable quality in
their faces that suggested that their outlook on men and things was
more mature. A complete silence was maintained by all; indeed, their
attitude seemed designed to suggest that other than themselves, no
other individual was present in the room.
At first the boy stood nervously in the centre of the room with his hat
in his hand. The other occupants contemplated him with leisurely and
impersonal aloofness. Presently it was borne in upon the boy that it
would call for more courage to stand than to sit, so he sat. He took a
chair, and poised himself upon its extreme verge, striving vainly to
control the beatings of his heart. It seemed as though they must choke
him.
In a little while the undersized and wizened boy entered with the
dignity of one who is accustomed to accept responsibility in great
issues.
“The Chief will see John Wilkins,” he said.
John Wilkins, a muscular specimen of British youth, six feet high, rose
and followed the emissary from high places with an air of slightly
bored indifference.
The boy pressed both hands over his beating heart.
The emissary from high places entered again. He carried a newspaper
that had pictures.
“Care to look at _Punch_?” he said. He handed the newspaper that had
pictures to the boy with an air of carefully defined abstraction which
suggested that he viewed this amenity in the light of a duty.
“Oh, t-t-thank you, t-thank you,” said the boy.
“What’s the screw?” said a handsome, fair-haired fellow to the emissary
from high places.
“The _salary_ is ten shillings a week.” The emissary laid a delicate
emphasis on the second word.
“Oh, is it?” said the fair-haired fellow. “What’s the hours?”
“Eight till seven,” said the wizened boy.
“Half-day Saturday?”
“On Saturday Messrs. Crumpett and Hawker close at six.”
“Oh, do they! What ’oliday?”
“During the first year there is no _holiday_,” said the wizened boy,
speaking very slowly and distinctly, and laying a delicate emphasis
on the last word. “After the first year the holiday, as a rule, is
permanent.”
The wizened boy retired from the room with a calmness that could be
felt.
“Uppish, ain’t he?” said the fair-haired fellow, speaking to nobody in
particular.
The boy turned over the pages of the newspaper. This was of a type
he had never seen before. The pictures bewildered him. He turned
them upside down to see if he could understand them better. He then
concluded that his own mental and moral disorganization had become
embodied, and the newspaper fluttered from his hands. The beating of
his heart was choking him.
The emissary from high places entered again.
“The Chief will see Calverley Brown.”
The fair-haired fellow stood up and followed the emissary with a
precise imitation of the gait and manner of his predecessor.
The emissary entered again and picked up the newspaper from the carpet.
His chin was poised at a supercilious angle.
“When one has no use for _Punch_,” he said with a slowness that made
each word valuable, “it is considered the thing to place it on the
table, or to offer it to one’s friends.”
The boy’s pale cheeks grew vivid, for the almost exaggerated
development of his courtesy enabled him to appreciate that this reproof
was merited.
“I--I--I b-beg your p-p-pardon, sir,” he stammered painfully;
“I--I--I----”
The wizened boy sauntered out without paying the slightest heed to
these apologies. However, the next moment he had sauntered in again.
“The Chief will see Cholmondeley Montgomery Mo-ly----”
“Mullynooks,” said a small, black-haired, black-eyed young man, rising,
with a yawn.
“Mo-ly-know,” said the emissary, articulating the name with great
aplomb in his own manner.
“Neux rhymes with dukes,” said the young man with black eyes with an
air of condescension. “And you got both my first names wrong, but it is
of no consequence.”
“I agree with you,” said the emissary with a devastating emphasis, “it
_is_ of no consequence. And it is not considered the thing to keep
fancy names without one is up to them socially.”
Cholmondeley Montgomery Molyneux retired with an air of such supreme
indifference, and of such inimitable _flair_, that those of his
predecessors were made to appear as but the poorest of imitations.
There was now only one other person remaining in the room, one whose
youthfulness had been merged some years in a robust and full-blooded
manhood.
“Cocky young swine, ain’t he?” said this paladin to the boy with a
great and sudden friendliness. “I should have to put it across him if I
had to do with him much.”
“I--I--I b-beg your p-pardon, sir,” stammered the boy. Under his breath
he repeated several words of the English tongue which he then heard for
the first time.
“Stow the polite, matey,” said the other with an increasing
friendliness. “A cove can’t live up to it when he’s off duty.”
“Stow the polite, matey,” the boy muttered under his breath. What a
baffling tongue was this with which he had to grapple!
The emissary from high places entered again.
“The Chief will see William Ewart Gladstone Smith,” he said. “And he
desires that each applicant will have his references ready.”
The boy was now left alone. He found it impossible to control his
excitement. He rose from his chair, now that no one else was present,
and walked up and down the carpeted floor like a wild animal in a cage.
What was meant by “references?” This was yet another new development;
it had not been included in the programme. How much he had yet to
learn in the practical sciences before he could hope to move about
the great world out of doors in freedom and security! Even a man like
William Ewart Gladstone Smith, who looked just an ordinary common
street-person, made use of a vocabulary that was quite beyond his
experience.
The wizened and undersized boy entered again.
“The Chief will see William Jordan, Junior,” he said.
Not knowing where he was, nor what he was doing, the boy turned to
follow the emissary from high places. He was led through another door
out into an ill-lit passage.
“Come in here a minute,” said the emissary.
He led the way into a small, dark room. Producing a clothes-brush, he
began to wield it upon the applicant scrupulously.
“There’s a hair-brush,” he said, “if you’d like to brush your hair.”
The applicant thanked him inarticulately. As if he were in a dream he
began to manipulate the hair-brush. All this was not in the programme.
“The Chief,” said the wizened boy impressively, “is Octavius Crumpett,
M.A., D.C.L. (Oxon.). Be careful of your aitches. Articulate your words
correctly. If your references are all right you stand an outsider’s
chance. The others were a scratch lot.”
Having uttered these cabalistic remarks, the emissary led the way up a
steep flight of stairs. The applicant followed dizzily. His eyes were
growing dark. He could scarcely see. “Courage, Achilles,” he muttered
faintly as he came to the landing at the top.
The emissary gave a smart, resounding knock upon a closed door. He then
opened it briskly and noiselessly, and in a similar fashion stepped
within. “William Jordan, Junior,” he said in his clear voice, and with
his great aplomb of manner. At the same moment he gave the boy a little
push into the room and closed the door upon him.
The boy stood upon the threshold. He could see nothing. There was a
curious singing in his ears. All about him was quite dark.
“Good-morning,” said a deep, slow, pleasant voice. It boomed like a
bell.
The boy did not speak, but bowed very low, yet he was not in the least
conscious that he did so. This act, however, restored to him the sense
of vision. He could see; although an intolerable noise of singing was
still in his ears.
A somewhat ponderous, double-chinned, exceedingly handsome and
prosperous gentleman was standing with the back of his ample form to
the fire. The skirts of his frock-coat were outspread, and two white
and rotund hands held them apart. He was dressed with a care that
was almost religious. His hair was groomed immaculately; his short
side-whiskers had been treated by the hand of a master. He wore a
glass in the right eye. Everything about him, even the pearl which
gave distinction and rigidity to his necktie, was a testimonial to
his status. And upon the countenance of this gentleman was a simper
of such an urbane expansiveness, that its function apparently was to
be antiseptic to a dignity which, without this precaution, must have
proved too much for human nature’s daily food.
“You wrote a nice letter,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, “a very nice
letter. Did you write it without aid?”
“Y-y-yes, s-sir,” said the boy. He felt a thrill of joy to know that
the power of speech had returned.
“A most creditable letter,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett with the benign
purr of an unusually well-nurtured feline. “A little unconventional,
perhaps--but no matter. May I ask where you were educated?”
“I--I--I d-don’t t-think I k-know, sir,” the boy stammered. This
question was not in the programme.
“Curious,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, purring more benignly than
ever--“Curious not to know where one was educated. Yet, perhaps it is
immaterial. One board school must be very like another. What is your
age?”
The boy’s heart gave a leap. This question was unmistakably in the
programme.
“E-eighteen y-years and f-fifteen days, sir,” he said.
“How odd,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, whose delightful simper expanded
to the region of the smile. “What a curious computation. One had no
idea that the Board School was so precise in these matters. I must
mention this to my friend Arnold. By the way, I showed my friend
Arnold your nice letter. He did not consider it typical of the Board
School. He said the style had a flavour of latinity. Do they provide
for instruction in Latin in the Board School curriculum?”
“I--I--I d-don’t t-think I know, sir,” said the boy. The question was
not in the programme.
“Then perhaps we might assume that they don’t,” said Mr. Octavius
Crumpett. “Perhaps the pleasing flavour of latinity in your epistolary
style is due to one of those mysterious side currents of descent which
continually perplex the best biographers.”
Mr. Octavius Crumpett’s manner of saying this seemed to be designed to
suggest that if his natural power of mind had betrayed him into saying
anything unusual, he hoped it would be understood that the solecism of
which he was guilty was not due to ignorance of the foremost practice,
but was rather the fruit of uncontrollable natural forces.
“You do not look very robust,” he said, looking at the frail figure
steadily through the glass that rendered his right eye so formidable.
“Are you used to hard work?”
“I have determined, sir, to inure my frame to the hardest labour,” said
the boy. This question was in the programme.
“The English they impart at the Board School,” said Mr. Octavius
Crumpett, “is sound and wholesome, if a trifle bookish. I think some
of our public schools might copy their methods with advantage. I must
speak to Arnold. I wish your chest was a bit broader, my boy,” he said
kindly, “and that your cheeks were not so pale, and your eyes were not
so sunken, because in other respects you do not seem to be unworthy of
the traditions of this house. Do you mind showing me your finger-nails?”
This request was not in the programme, but by now the boy had obtained
sufficient self-command to enable him to pluck off his gloves
nervously. Of late he had been compelled to wear gloves constantly
because he could never keep his hands warm.
In the detached but efficient manner of one accustomed to immolate
his private feelings upon the altar of duty, Mr. Octavius Crumpett
scrutinized each of the cold and fragile hands, through which shone the
delicate veins.
“They are nicely kept,” he said; “they are kept very nicely indeed.
I may say that the other applicants, notwithstanding the character
of their testimonials, had not a scrupulous regard for personal
decency. It would give me great pleasure personally to see you in the
counting-house of Crumpett and Hawker”--there was an accession of pride
to the mellifluous accents of Mr. Octavius Crumpett--“for you strike
one as an exceedingly _gentleman-like_ and _well-conditioned_ boy, but
in a physical sense nature does not seem to have been so much your
friend. However, Mr. Jordan, perhaps you will be good enough to touch
that bell.”
From his station before the fire Mr. Octavius Crumpett indicated a
bell on his table; and although Mr. Jordan had never touched a bell
before in his life, he was able to understand what was required of him,
for now all his faculties seemed to be strung up to a point of almost
perilous receptivity; and, further, he was able to reel across the
carpet, and, by a miraculous intervention on the part of providence,
was able to make the bell give forth an audible sound.
The visible and actual proof of that which he had accomplished was
furnished by the entrance of the undersized and wizened boy.
“Mr. Dodson,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, “I shall be obliged if you
will ask Mr. Walkinshaw to have the kindness to come up-stairs.”
Mr. Dodson withdrew with the air of an ambassador.
The boy’s gaze was one of intense entreaty as he looked through the
sacred mists which veiled the Olympian form of Mr. Octavius Crumpett.
That emblem of a monumental culture still stood with the skirts of his
coat outspread before the fire. Its genial warmth seemed still to make
him purr and simper in every crease and fold of his chaste portliness.
At every breath he drew he seemed to approximate more nearly to an
extraordinarily fine and handsome feline, which finds itself in
unusually luxurious surroundings.
His meditations, which must have been those of an optimist, were
curtailed by the entrance of a thin, formal, intellectual, yet slightly
melancholy gentleman, whose refined and sensitive features were yet
stamped with the simper of a large content. Perhaps this cachet of
those who take a large view of things had not always been upon that
refined countenance, but many years’ association with a foremost
practitioner of the amenities of life had had an indelible effect.
Habit had become nature. Mr. Walter Pater Walkinshaw might once have
had his modest doubts as became any other private gentleman; but he
was as fundamentally sound as the great house of Crumpett and Hawker
itself. Of the simper there could be no doubt; for in mien, in manner,
in deportment he was designed to suggest that, like the wizened boy
himself, he had been modelled carefully upon a superb original which at
this moment was standing with its coat-tails held away from the fire.
“Mr. Walkinshaw,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, “I have interviewed the
applicants; and, after giving every consideration to each candidate
among those of whom we decided to limit our choice, I have come to the
conclusion that Mr. William Jordan, Junior, is most fitted to enter the
counting-house of Crumpett and Hawker. Unfortunately he is not very
robust. Have you any views, Mr. Walkinshaw?”
Presumably in these high altitudes these very dangerous implements were
permitted to the English gentleman. Or, perhaps, it was that with his
fine instinct, Mr. Octavius Crumpett had divined that in any case the
views of Mr. Walkinshaw would be orthodox. For after that gentleman had
proceeded very earnestly to scrutinize the shrinking countenance of Mr.
William Jordan, Junior, his views concurred with those that had been
already expressed by the head of the firm.
“No, sir,” said Mr. Walkinshaw; “not very robust.”
“May I ask, Mr. Walkinshaw,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, “are the
duties of an arduous nature which are incident to the career of a handy
youth? I am afraid I have no first-hand knowledge.”
The simper of Mr. Octavius Crumpett was of a most winning character.
“No, sir, I dare say not,” said Mr. Walkinshaw, taking the extreme
course of permitting himself to lapse sufficiently from the deportment
of his model as to indulge in a hearty laugh. But the circumstances
seemed to demand it. “I think I am correct, sir,” continued Mr.
Walkinshaw, “in saying that the duties usually incident to the career
of a handy youth are not in any sense of the word light ones. But in
the counting-house of Crumpett and Hawker they may admit of mitigation.”
“Could you tell me, Mr. Walkinshaw, what would be asked of one who
sustained that character in the counting-house of Crumpett and Hawker?”
said the head of that great house with a sweetness that was a happy
mingling of the cherub and the seraph.
“His chief duty would consist, sir, in pasting labels on rejected
manuscripts,” said Mr. Walkinshaw; “and he would be called upon to fill
in his time by addressing envelopes, carrying ledgers, copying letters,
keeping the counting-house tidy, and in trying to be of general
service.”
“Do you feel that you could sustain these responsibilities?” said Mr.
Octavius Crumpett to the applicant.
“I will not fail, sir,” said the boy.
The manner in which he expressed this determination seemed favourably
to impress both gentlemen.
“I think, Mr. Walkinshaw,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, in a voice
that was charged with emotion, “in the circumstances we shall be
almost justified in introducing Mr. William Jordan, Junior, into the
counting-house of Crumpett and Hawker.”
“I concur, sir,” said Mr. Walkinshaw, in a voice whose own emotion was
attuned with supreme good breeding to that of his chief. “I concur.”
“I hope, Mr. Jordan,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, whose beautiful
and vibrant tones had acquired a paternal inflection, “that you will
contrive to maintain the excellent impression you have already created.
For let me assure you, Mr. Jordan, it is easier for the average youth
to become an Extension Lecturer than it is for him to occupy a stool in
the counting-house of Crumpett and Hawker. Good-morning, Mr. Jordan.”
Mr. Octavius Crumpett concluded by thrusting out his right hand so
suddenly and so unexpectedly, that the boy shrank away from him as
though he were expecting to receive a blow.
“Shake it,” whispered Mr. Walkinshaw in his ear.
The boy grasped the firm white hand with a timidity that would not have
been out of place had it been the fore-paw of a polar bear. However,
his trepidation seemed further to prepossess him in the favour of
both gentlemen. It was not always that those of his callow years had
this nice but lively discrimination of the fine shades of the social
cosmogony into which unsmiling Fate had projected them.
Mr. Walter Pater Walkinshaw conducted in person down the steep stairs
the latest addition to the clerical staff of Messrs. Crumpett and
Hawker. He led him into the counting-house, into the midst of that
concourse of fellow-labourers in what was now to be his vineyard
through which he had already passed.
As Mr. Walter Pater Walkinshaw did this he said, with an impressiveness
of which the occasion seemed to be worthy, “Above all, Mr. Jordan, it
behoves you to remember that the humblest occupant of a stool in the
counting-house of Messrs. Crumpett and Hawker is _ab ovo_ a candidate
for election to the Athenæum Club under the rule _honoris causâ_.”
Unfortunately, Mr. Jordan’s limited acquaintance with the practical
sciences did not permit him to realize the golden vista which thus
early in life had come to unfold itself before him.
With this exhortation Mr. Walter Pater Walkinshaw relinquished his
charge into the safe keeping of the undersized and wizened boy.
“Mr. Dodson,” said Mr. Walkinshaw, “be good enough to assume
responsibility for Mr. William Jordan, Junior. Be good enough to
inspire him, as far as in you lies, with the particular tone that
tradition exacts from all who are associated, even in the humblest
capacity, with this eminent and old-established publishing house. His
main duty, Mr. Dodson, will, as you know, consist in tying up, sealing,
and labelling rejected MSS. See to it that he observes particular care
in using black wax in all cases of rejection. In the less frequent,
the much less frequent instances of acceptance, he will, of course,
observe the rule of using red sealing wax. That is, of course, for
fiction only. For biography and travel he will, of course, use yellow,
and I need not remind you that for poetry and _belles lettres_ he will
invariably use purple.”
“Oh yes, sir,” said the wizened boy, with an air of great intelligence,
“Mr. Jordan shall be initiated into everything.”
XV
It was in this fashion that the boy entered upon a new and curious
phase of his existence. In the hours that intervened between the moment
of his entrance into that strange place and seven o’clock that evening,
when he was at liberty to return to the great world out of doors, and
thereby to his father in the little room, he walked on air and moved in
a dream.
Even when he had resigned his hat and overcoat and gloves, and had
been shown where to place them; even when he had climbed a high stool
in the mercifully secluded left-hand corner of that dreadfully public
place at the side of the wizened boy, whose name was Mr. James Dodson,
who henceforward was to be his mentor in many things, even then he
could not realize what had happened to him. He could not realize that
his prayers had been answered; that in sober truth he had become a
conqueror.
For the remainder of that strange, terrible, yet entrancing day he was
not an apt pupil, but he did his best. His thoughts were merged in a
devout sense of wonder at finding himself there. Many and surprising
were his vagaries on this first day in those interminable hours which
kept him from the little room. They filled his mentor with pain,
incredulity, and protest.
“We do find ’em, we do!” Mr. Dodson communicated in his second or
unofficial manner to one of his fellow-labourers in the vineyard before
the end of the day. “That d----d fool, Octavius, must be up the pole.
This kid has got about as much savvy as a bottle-nosed hornet.”
When at last came the hour of his release the boy returned in a state
of great exaltation to his father in the little room. A week ago it
had seemed impossible that he would ever be able to obtain pieces of
silver by the work of his hands, but now that miracle was come to pass.
However, the glamour of achievement passed all too soon.
Disillusionment began on the morning of the following day. It was then
that the full measure of nervous bewilderment at all the strange things
about him descended upon him; it was then that the sense of his natural
impotence was communicated to him first.
It called for all his fortitude to sustain that long term between eight
o’clock in the morning and seven o’clock at night. The minutes passed
so tardily that it seemed they would never admit of his release. Long
before the end of the day it was as much as he could do to refrain from
running away from it all in the horror of sheer nausea. He longed to
flee anywhere--anywhere so long as he could escape from this strange
servitude to which he had committed himself.
The clerks staring at him from their tall stools; his curious
surroundings; their publicity; the curt and uncompromising manner in
which he was addressed; and above all the many and remarkable duties
he was called upon to perform--duties which somehow did not seem to
coincide with the peculiar form of “handiness” upon which he had been
wont to plume himself--all these circumstances made calls upon his
courage as he scarcely knew how to meet. Yet not once during the day
did he allow to escape his thoughts the paramount necessity of proving
himself worthy of his good fortune. The need of obtaining pieces of
silver had grown to be as great as that of drawing the breath of life.
Only too soon was it apparent to those trained minds in whose midst
he was now placed that he was woefully deficient in natural ability.
But his intense anxiety to do all that was required of him; his innate
courtesy, which was curiously disarming to old and young alike,
although sometimes it did not save him from sharp words, and even
from tricks and hardships being put upon him; his almost ridiculous
docility; his unceasing endeavours to be of service to others,
misguided though they were; his unprecedented blindness to his own
personal interests; and above all his painfully, ridiculously obvious
mental deficiencies, which by general consensus “he could not help,”
saved him from being complained of openly to the highest quarters as
“hopelessly incompetent,” which all about him during the early days of
his servitude considered him to be.
“He is about as capable of sitting a stool in the counting-house of
Crumpett and Hawker,” said Mr. Walter Pater Walkinshaw, that august
gentleman to whose charge he had been committed in the first instance
by the head of the firm, and who occupied a low chair at a small table
in the middle of the room, and who also exuded “the traditions of the
firm” at every pore, “as he is of editing an edition of Thackeray. I
shall be compelled to make a complaint if he does not bring a little
common intelligence to bear on the most elementary duties. Here he has
actually sealed the Lady Rowena Montmorency’s prose poem--accepted
prose poem--in yellow, in spite of the fact that prose poems stand in
a class by themselves and must be sealed in pink; and further he has
omitted to stamp the parcel with the monogram of the firm, although it
expressly lays down on page four of the printed rules of procedure,
that the MSS. of the daughters of peers must in all cases be so
treated. Mr. Dodson, please have the goodness to inform him that if
this occurs again I shall be compelled to bring it to the notice of Mr.
Octavius. And if such a thing should come to the ear of Mr. Octavius I
cannot answer for the consequences.”
“I will, sir,” said Mr. Dodson respectfully.
Thereupon Mr. Dodson returned to the high stool in the left-hand
corner, which had been allotted to Mr. William Jordan, Junior. He was
engaged in trying to wrap up a novel of portentous length, which had
received a somewhat uncompromising quietus at the hands of Messrs.
Crumpett and Hawker. Mr. Dodson watched his _protégé_ somewhat grimly
as he wrestled not very effectually with the leaves of this production
and endeavoured to encase them in brown paper and string.
“Look here, lunatic, you want it tighter,” said Mr. Dodson, having
rendered him who sought to tie the parcel excessively unhappy by his
presence. “Slew it round a bit, and turn over the corners like I showed
you yesterday. Pa’s been talking about you. He says if you don’t do
better you will get the boot.”
“I--I b-beg your p-pardon, sir,” stammered the boy.
“Don’t be so d----d polite, you lunatic!”
The boy had already made the surprising discovery that his mentor
possessed two manners, _i. e._ that of public life which approximated
to the dignity of the house of Messrs. Crumpett and Hawker; and also
that of private intercourse, which was apt to be so idiomatic as
sometimes not to be intelligible. “If you’d use a little less butter,”
said Mr. Dodson, “and show a little more brightness at your work, you
and I would get on better. You know what I told you about the Lady
Rowena Thingumbob’s accepted prose poem?--well I might never have said
anything for all the notice you take. I can’t be always at your elbow.
To-morrow you had better bring your nurse.”
XVI
The boy had now been a week in the service of Messrs. Crumpett and
Hawker. And although every minute of the weary hours he passed daily at
that dread place, No. 24 Trafalgar Square, had grown already to be one
long and unceasing tribulation; although he could not sleep at night
for thinking of what the remorseless morrow had in store; although he
was nearly debarred altogether from his lifelong intercourse with the
ancient authors; although he was so weary with labour and humiliation
by the hour of seven that he could scarcely drag his limbs along the
streets, he was yet sustained continually by the thought that he was
gaining pieces of silver to maintain that sanctuary which awaited him,
in the midst of millions upon millions of street-persons, for the
purpose of affording a solace for his distress.
When the first week’s wages were put into his hand, three dull florins
and four worn shillings, the quick tears sprang into his eyes. He
placed the coins in his pocket with trembling fingers. There and then
he longed to run out into the streets of the great city to shout his
joy. Such an achievement as this was too wonderful to realize; the
dreams of his wildest avarice had been exceeded. How those pieces of
silver burnt in his pocket throughout the interminable hours of the
afternoon! How he longed for the hour of seven to strike that he might
run back to the little room and lay them before his father!
He was still more severely censured that afternoon by Mr. Dodson.
He even suffered the ignominy of being summoned to the table by Mr.
Walter Pater Walkinshaw, and of being admonished publicly for his
incompetence. He was spoken to so sternly, and he felt the position
in which he stood to be one of such humiliation, that in spite of the
frantic efforts he put forth to conquer his weakness in the presence of
others, the tears came again into his eyes.
“I--I will do better, sir,” he said, in such a tone of distress that it
seemed to soften the smiles of those who heard the words. “I--I will do
better. I am praying continually that I may do better.”
“What can one do with a fellow like that?” said Mr. Walkinshaw
subsequently, in an eloquent aside to his second in command, Mr.
Aristophanes Luff. “I suppose he suffers from a form of religious
mania; at least a child could see that he is mentally weak. I am
sure he ought to be complained of; he is not anything like up to our
traditions; how Mr. Octavius could have fallen into such an error
heaven only knows; but really I haven’t the heart to say so.”
“There can be no doubt he is a little deficient mentally,” observed Mr.
Aristophanes Luff, “but perhaps we might give him another week.”
Seven o’clock struck at last, and the clerks discarded their pens
and went home. The boy was always the last to go forth, not because
he had been told to remain; it was simply that his curiously innate
sense of the fitness of things, which was out of all harmony with his
development in the practical sciences, declared that he must never seek
to take precedence of his elders. To-night a fire was kindled in his
veins. It seemed as though the others would never close their desks and
go. He could hardly curb his desire to rush out before them all. But
at last they had all left the counting-house, and he was at liberty to
carry the treasure to his father in the little room.
Like one possessed he ran home with the pieces of silver making wild
music in his pocket. He seemed almost delirious with joy as he threaded
his way through the press with a heedlessness which seemed almost
contemptuous. It was truly astonishing with what ease and lightness he
had already come to move about the great world out of doors. To-night
he did not fear the crossings in the least. He felt no desire to shrink
from the ever-pressing crowd of street-persons who formerly had elbowed
him into the gutter. To-night he could bear his part with all who
walked abroad in that vast city.
When he reached the little room his father was still occupied in the
shop. With a remarkable suppression of his all-mastering desire, he
determined to wait until eight o’clock until the shop was closed for
the night before he laid out his treasure before his father. It must
be a solemn ceremonial. There must be no disturbing influence; his
father must be his alone when he confided to his keeping the first
pieces of silver he had won by the sweat of his brow and the travail of
his spirit.
Just as it had seemed that seven o’clock would never come, it now
seemed that eight o’clock would never come either. The pieces of
silver appeared to be playing strange tricks in his pocket. But with a
concentration of the will, which he felt to be stupendous, he set about
preparing the frugal supper for them both. If the repression of his
feeling of triumph were to kill him he must not let it gain expression
until his father had closed the shop.
Perversely enough his father, all unconscious, did not come into the
little room until a quarter-past eight. They sat down together at their
evening meal. The man looked with a curious wistfulness into the face
of the boy. The eyes were almost weird in their brightness; the pale
cheeks were strangely flushed. He rose and took from the hearth a pot
of warm broth, which he placed before the boy. Involuntarily the boy
drew away from it with a little gesture of repugnance.
His father besought him to eat the broth.
“Oh no, no, my father,” said the boy, with a shudder, “there is flesh
in it!”
By a supreme effort of the will the boy swallowed his milk and ate
his bread, and cleared the table, and trimmed the hearth before he
disclosed his pieces of silver. He even contrived to clothe his
unseemly and vainglorious eagerness with a kind of humility as he laid
each piece side by side upon the tablecloth.
“Behold, my father!” he said in a choking whisper, “I have won my first
pieces of silver!”
His father enfolded him in tender arms. The slight frame was quivering
like that of an imprisoned bird.
“Kiss me, my father,” he said, with that simplicity which his father
could only obey.
The man pressed a caress upon the gaunt cheek.
“Let us kneel, my father, together before these pieces of silver,” said
the boy.
They knelt together.
“Thou dost not rejoice as do I, O my father!” said the boy, searching
the eyes of the white-haired man. “These pieces of silver do not seem
to bring you gladness. And yet I have shouted my joy. To-night I know
the pangs of happiness that Hannibal and Cæsar and Alexander felt.
To-night I am fit to woo the priestess of Delphi.”
“We lose the Promethean fire as age falls about us,” said his father.
“We do not dance nor pipe, neither do we sing. But I salute thee,
Achilles. Ave, ave, my brave one!”
“I never thought to see this hour,” said the boy, gathering up the
pieces of silver and placing them in his father’s hand. “I know not
what they have cost me, my father, but now I would that the cost were a
hundred times more.”
“Is it not a pious thought, beloved one,” said his father, “that that
which we render is given to us again?”
“I have wrought greatly in the practical sciences during the week past,
my father,” said the boy. “My power increases hour by hour; the persons
in the streets are nothing like so mysterious to me as they were; and
yet still there are great waste places. There is, indeed, much to
learn, my father, much to learn.”
To-night his mood was one of rare expansion. He spoke unceasingly of
what the future bore. The ten pieces of silver acted like a wine of
great potency upon the too-delicate strings of the mind.
“Every day, every hour, every minute I am growing in stature,” he said.
“Every time my heart beats, my father, I am more than I was. To-night I
feel a royal courage stirring in my flesh. There is much to learn, my
father, much to learn, but one day I feel sure I shall learn it all.”
“And when thou hast learnt it all, Achilles?” his father asked.
“Why--why of course, my father, when I have learnt it all I shall
commence author,” said the boy.
That evening, for the first time in his life, he showed his contempt
for the darkness by going up-stairs to bed without a candle. His father
continued to sit at the table in the little room all the night through,
consulting one page after another of the aged tome, which was bound
so massively, until the chill morning light crept over the top of
the shutters. He then walked out bare-headed, slow of gait, into the
vapours of the dawn.
XVII
During the week which followed, the behaviour of William Jordan,
Junior, was very closely scrutinized by his fellow-labourers in the
vineyard of No. 24 Trafalgar Square. One and all were freely inoculated
with the “traditions of the house.” Each member of the counting-house
staff, from Mr. Dodson, who might be of any age and standing, to Mr.
Walter Pater Walkinshaw, Mr. Aristophanes Luff, Mr. Leslie Stephen
Sandars, and Mr. T. B. Macaulay Jenkins, who unmistakably were of one
particular period and degree, were infected by a generous jealousy
for the name and fame “of the first publishing house in London, and
therefore of the civilized world.”
“It ain’t, you know,” Mr. James Dodson communicated to William Jordan,
Junior, in his second or unofficial manner, “but Octavius thinks so,
and what Octavius thinks the staff has got d---- well to believe.”
Mr. William Jordan, Junior, was honoured with this confidence while
proceeding to a luncheon to be partaken of in Mr. Dodson’s company, and
by his express invitation, at the refreshment buffet annexed to the
Brontë Hotel, which was situated in a by-street off Trafalgar Square.
Mr. Dodson, who needless to say selected this house of refreshment and
led the way thereto, ordered of a gorgeous lady in a scarlet blouse
and large yellow earrings, whom he addressed as “Chrissie” with that
inimitable _flair_ that never forsook him on public occasions, “two
lean ham-sandwiches and two tankards of half-and-half with plenty of
top.”
The reception accorded by Mr. William Jordan, Junior, to these viands,
for which the buffet of the Brontë Hotel was justly famous, filled Mr.
Dodson with astonishment and Chrissie with consternation not unmingled
with protest.
“Your fat friend needn’t look as though he’s tasted vitriol,” said the
lady in the scarlet blouse, as the boy recoiled with horror at the
moment he was saluted by the fumes from the tankard. “That’s the best
half-and-half in London, young man, and he who says it is not is a
perverter of the truth.”
“Is--is it h-hemlock?” gasped the boy, as tragically he replaced the
tankard upon the marble slab.
With that presence of mind for which he was notorious, Mr. Dodson bent
across the counter and whispered something in the ear of the lady
in the scarlet blouse, which was not audible to Mr. William Jordan,
Junior. To lend colour to his statement, in whatever it might consist,
Mr. Dodson tapped his forehead in an impersonal and mystical manner.
“Get him a small milk, Chrissie,” said Mr. Dodson with a most engaging
air, which had long been the despair and the envy of his wide circle of
acquaintance.
When this beverage had been produced and the lady in the scarlet
blouse had been thanked profusely, but not altogether mollified by
the recipient of this signal act of condescension, both she and Mr.
Dodson gazed at him curiously while he looked nervously at the plate
containing the ham-sandwich which had been set before him.
“If you’d like a bit of bread-and-butter, you can have it you know,”
said the lady in the scarlet blouse.
“Oh, t-thank you, t-thank you, if you will have the g-g-great
kindness,” said the boy. He was relieved beyond expression; yet his
embarrassment at being addressed publicly by a mysterious kind of
creature of whom his friends, the ancient authors, had invariably
formed such remarkable opinions, caused a deep tawny blush to
overspread his pale and hollow cheeks.
“You may well look so fat,” said the lady in the scarlet blouse, with
her indignation melting. She felt that his agitation was a frank
testimonial to the impact of her own overpowering personality.
During these transactions, Mr. Dodson, having dispatched his own
ham-sandwich and “tankard of half-and-half with plenty of top” with
great success, proceeded to deal in like manner with those of his
strange companion. And further, at the conclusion of these operations
he disclosed, mainly for the information of the lady in the scarlet
blouse, the true basis upon which two such diverse elements as Mr.
James Dodson and Mr. William Jordan, Junior, were wont to co-operate.
“Luney,” he said to the boy, while he fixed the lady in the scarlet
blouse with a steady and unsmiling gaze, “you can lend me two and a
kick _pro tem._ Matchbox has gone down in the big race, and he carried
my shirt.”
“I--I b-beg your p-pardon, sir,” stammered the boy. The limit to
his knowledge in the practical sciences had presented itself rather
abruptly.
“Lend me half-a-dollar, you cuckoo,” said Mr. Dodson sternly, “and
don’t be so darnation polite.”
“I--I b-beg your p-pardon, sir,” stammered the boy, “I--I d-don’t
t-think I k-know what you mean.”
The lady in the scarlet blouse regarded him with eyes of wonder. Mr.
Dodson, however, still retained his self-possession in the presence of
an unknowingness that transcended all that had previously come within
his purview.
“He comes of a rather good family,” said Mr. Dodson in an eloquent
aside to the lady in the scarlet blouse.
“Oh, does he?” said the lady in the scarlet blouse, opening her lazy
eyes a little wider--“a gilt mug.”
“What silver have you got about you, Luney?” said Mr. Dodson.
This request was sufficiently intelligible to the boy to cause him to
produce a collection of silver pieces which his father insisted on
his carrying about with him. Mr. Dodson selected five shillings in a
leisurely and impartial manner.
“I’ll make it a dollar,” he said, “and mind, my son, that you don’t
forget to ask me for it. I’ve got such a weak memory for small things
that one of these days I shall forget to attend my own funeral.”
Upon this utterance, which the boy was fain to consider as very
remarkable, Mr. Dodson disbursed the sum of one shilling and sixpence
to the lady in the scarlet blouse, and at the same time took the
opportunity of transferring a dahlia, which approximated to the size
of a small cauliflower, from his own person to the ample bosom of this
already sufficiently gorgeous creature.
“So long, Chrissie,” he said. “See you at the Tivoli at a quarter to
nine.”
With a great air, which the lesser luminaries of his circle were apt to
interpret as swagger, Mr. Dodson made for the door.
“Come on, Luney,” said he, “let me take you back to your governess.”
This speech, delivered in a very audible manner, was not altogether for
the guidance of Mr. William Jordan, Junior, but rather for that of two
young gentlemen of a similar type to Mr. Dodson himself, who at that
moment were entering the buffet.
“’Ow are yer, Jimmy?” said one of these with a nod of easy familiarity.
Mr. Dodson gave a curt nod to embrace them both, and looked them down
with a cold, straight glance.
“Cheek,” said Mr. Dodson, in a half-audible aside to Mr. William
Jordan, Junior. “Infernal cheek!”
“Who’s Jimmy touting around with this morning?” said the first of these
gentlemen to the lady in the scarlet blouse.
“A gilt mug,” said that superb creature coldly from behind her dahlia.
“Thought as much,” said the first gentleman with a quizzical look at
his companion. “Between you and me and the mustard pot, Chrissie, it’s
my opinion Jimmy Dodson gets a bigger snob every day.”
“Jimmy’s all right,” said the lady. “If either of _you_ had got half
_his_ style, you’d do.”
“Yes, I suppose we should.”
Each of the young men gave a sigh that was so imperfectly repressed,
that it lent poignant expression to the unattainable.
XVIII
In the process of taking Mr. William Jordan, Junior, back to his
governess, Mr. James Dodson, in his capacity of an accomplished man
of the world of many years’ standing, delivered himself at large upon
certain first principles, which he considered to be indispensable to
all who sought to graduate in the severe school of worldly experience.
“I’ll tell you what it is, my son,” he said, taking the bewildered boy
by the arm, for an additional tankard of “half-and-half with plenty of
top” had provoked in Mr. Dodson an unwonted expansion, “I’ll tell you
what it is, my son, there is something wrong with you.”
The boy did not reply to this indictment. He felt that there was.
“There’s something missing,” said Mr. Dodson impressively.
The silence of William Jordan, Junior, continued to corroborate Mr.
Dodson.
“As I have already said, my son,” said Mr. Dodson, “you are just
about fivepence halfpenny to the shilling, not more, not a farthing
more. I cast no aspersions, mind, upon the maiden aunt who undertook
your up-bringing. I don’t doubt that she is a good and worthy, and
nice-minded old woman, but I blame her for one thing, my son, for one
thing I am forced to blame her.”
Who the old woman was that Mr. Dodson was forced to blame and what he
blamed her for, William Jordan, Junior, had not the courage to inquire.
“She might at least,” Mr. Dodson’s tone was one of judicial sadness,
“have seen that you had all your buttons on when she turned you out
into the world.”
“M-my b-buttons, s-sir!” stammered William Jordan, Junior, fingering
his jacket nervously.
“Yes, my son, your buttons.” Mr. Dodson’s amiability verged upon the
formidable. “When a cove starts out in life now-a-days, he’s got to
have all his buttons on, and _he’s got to have ’em stitched on with
wire_. Understand?”
William Jordan, Junior, did not understand at all, but the courage was
not his to say so.
“Stitched on with wire,” said Mr. Dodson, “but every sucking Cabinet
Minister as-sim-i-lates that at his Board School now-a-days. And there
are a lot of other little things you have got to have in these days, my
son, if you want to see your name in _The Times_ when they are handing
around the Birthday Honours. And there is one little thing you have
not got, which to my mind is fun-da-ment-ally necessary.” Mr. Dodson’s
voice sank into mystery. “Fun-da-mentally necessary. Octavius will tell
you the same. You want a manner.”
“A--a m-manner, sir?” said the boy.
“Yes, my son, a manner,” said Mr. Dodson. “And for heaven’s sake drop
the sir. I’m not a King or a Commissioner of Police or a Colonel in the
volunteers, not yet at any rate. As I say, you want a manner.”
“A m-manner!” said the boy anxiously.
“Never heard of a manner, I suppose,” said Mr. Dodson in as withering
a tone as two tankards of “half-and-half with plenty of top” would
permit. “Bright boy! As Pa says, you are about as fit to sit on a stool
in the counting-house of Crumpett and Hawker as Pontius Pilate was to
sit on the Board of Governors of Eternal Bliss. I suppose you’ll be
saying next you have never heard of Eton and Oxford.”
“E-Eton and O-Oxford,” said the boy. His desperate ignorance caused
him to take a leap in the dark. “Oh, y-y-yes,” he said anxiously,
“I--I--s-suppose, sir, they would be eminent p-publishers the same as
Messrs. Crumpett and Hawker.”
“Stars above!” Mr. Dodson so far forgot the exigencies of polite life
as to dance several steps in public. “If you go on at this rate, my
son, we shall have to have you bled for the simples. I must get Pa to
tell that to Octavius. Why, can’t you see, lunatic, that Octavius has
got Eton and Oxford written all over him, and therefore that every cove
in the counting-house of Crumpett and Hawker, from Pa himself who sits
at a table and snubs his betters to underpaid menials like you and me,
have got to have Eton and Oxford written all over them too?”
“I--I d-don’t understand,” the boy stammered feebly.
“What is there to understand, fathead?” said Mr. Dodson. “It simply
means that, like everybody else, you have got to take Octavius for your
model. Of course you needn’t keep it up out of office hours unless you
like. Only chaps with a strong constitution can keep it up all the
time.”
“I--I d-don’t understand,” said the boy.
“You Juggins!” said Mr. Dodson, whose scorn sought in vain to express
itself adequately. “The whole thing is so simple. If you are going to
keep your stool in the counting-house of Crumpett and Hawker, you have
got to show yourself up to the traditions of the house. I can’t talk
plainer. You have got to copy Octavius. Of course he means nothing, but
he is very impressive. Some of the staff say it’s Eton and some say
it’s Oxford, but Pa says it’s a blend. And you can lay to it Pa knows.
I’ll tell you what I’ll do, my son; if you are a good boy, and can only
learn to use the right-coloured wax and to paste those labels the right
side up, one of these days I will take you round into Pall Mall, and
you shall watch Octavius go up the steps of his club.”
By the time this munificent offer had been made by Mr. Dodson, with
an air of quiet patronage which became him extremely well, he and the
bewildered neophyte, whose education he had undertaken, had come to the
brass plate of No. 24 Trafalgar Square. As soon as they had entered
these halcyon portals they encountered one of the fortunate ones of
a world in which the favours are by no means impartially dispensed,
in the person of a young gentleman, who thus early in life had been
called to the high office of administering to the personal good-will
and pleasure of the head of the firm, and of whom in consequence all
the other junior members of the staff were inordinately jealous. Mr.
Dodson’s manner of addressing this luminary was in such memorable
contrast to the one he had lately been using, that even such a one as
William Jordan, Junior, who in the phrase of Mr. Dodson “was no more
than fivepence ha’penny to the shilling,” was fain to observe it.
“Davis,” said Mr. Dodson, “has Mr. Octavius gone out yet to luncheon?”
“Yes, Dodson,” said Mr. Davis. “Mr. Octavius _has_ gone out to
luncheon. He went out at twenty minutes to two, to lunch with Sir
Topman Murtle at the Marlborough.”
“Ah,” said Mr. Dodson, with aristocratic self-possession bordering on
indifference. “Is Murtle selling?”
“Yes, Dodson,” said Mr. Davis blandly, “Sir Topman _is_ selling. The
tenth enormous impression completing two hundred thousand copies, has
been called for by the Trade within twenty-four days of publication.”
“H’m,” said Mr. Dodson, concealing a yawn in a very well-bred manner.
“If he goes on he will beat Lavinia.”
“No, Dodson,” said Mr. Davis, dissenting delicately, “Miss Lavinia
Longborn Gentle once had two hundred thousand copies called for by the
Trade in twenty-four hours.”
“Going out now to luncheon, Davis?”
“Yes, Dodson, I am.”
As Mr. Davis sauntered out in a manner entirely worthy of Mr. Dodson
himself, William Jordan, Junior, with his odd and unaccountable natural
courtesy, which had already baffled many who had come in contact with
it, opened the door that he might pass through.
“Why did you open the door for that young swine?” said Mr. Dodson,
with an extremely rapid reversion to his out-of-doors manner. “If you
do it again you and I will quarrel. He is as full of side as he can
stick. He would even like _me_ to dip my ensign; he would like me to
call him ‘Mr.’--_me_, if you please, call _him_. I ought to have had
his berth; everybody in the office said I was better qualified. He got
it by a trick. I will tell you what he did. He signed his name in the
time-book, _George Eliot Davis_, and he had no more right to do so
than I have. Next day I signed myself _Matthew Arnold Dodson_, but it
was too late. Octavius had already seen his name in the book and had
promoted him up-stairs.”
With this tragical fragment of autobiography, Mr. Dodson and William
Jordan, Junior, ascended their stools in the left-hand corner of the
counting-house.
The second week of the boy’s sojourn in the high latitudes to which an
inscrutable providence had called him was as chequered as his first.
His fate was postponed; the sword, ever ready to descend, hung in
mid-air, suspended by a thread. The theory of the previous week that
the boy was deficient mentally, had received such ample confirmation
that it had come to rank as established fact. Many anecdotes were
already in circulation concerning an intellectual weakness that was now
common knowledge. Mr. Dodson was the author of the majority of these;
and owing to the fact that his superintendence of the boy’s education
permitted him to obtain first-hand evidence, he had acquired among the
staff a kind of vogue as a _raconteur_, which formerly it had not been
his good fortune to enjoy.
To the well-furnished mind of that philosopher every cloud was lined
with silver. Luney’s education cost him infinite pains and expenditure
of temper in the course of a day, but the halo cast by the mere recital
of his latest vagaries was ample compensation. Their fame had even
evoked the august notice of the occupant of the low table, Mr. Walter
Pater Walkinshaw. In his capacity of a vigilant student of the human
heart, and part author with Robert Brigstock, M.A. (Cantab.), who sat
up-stairs, of _The Fluctuations of a Discerning Spirit_, published
anonymously and now in its fourth edition, this august but benign
personage inclined a tolerant and sympathetic ear to the anecdotes so
racily narrated by Mr. Dodson.
“I don’t think you know the latest, sir, about young Jordan,” said that
eminent worldling about half-past three, as he sauntered up to the low
table with the simper of a dean at a dinner party. “I took him out to
luncheon this morning, sir, and I ask you, sir, what do you think he
ate?”
“Tell me, Dodson,” said Mr. W. P. Walkinshaw indulgently, as he dipped
thoughtfully, as he invariably did, and began a letter, “Very Reverend
and Dear Sir.”
“He ate, sir,” said Mr. Dodson impressively, “one slice of thin
bread-and-butter, and he sipped a small glass of milk.”
“Ha, ha, very good, very good!” said Mr. W. P. Walkinshaw, as he
began writing, “Messrs. Crumpett and Hawker have had the extreme
gratification of reading the MS. of your very able and deeply
thoughtful work, _The Genuflexions of a Natural Christian_.” Having
committed this sentence to paper he paused ere he shaped the next, and
said in that manner which expert criticism allowed to be almost as
“authentic” as that of Mr. Octavius himself, “Tell me, Dodson, do you
candidly consider that young Jordan is fit to occupy a stool in the
counting-house of Crumpett and Hawker?”
Mr. Dodson, whose technique was far too fine to reply off-hand to a
direct canvass of his judgment by one of the calibre of Mr. Walter
Pater Walkinshaw, notwithstanding that he was in a position to do so,
appeared to parry the question delicately.
“Well, sir,” he said, with such an approximation to the manner of Mr.
Octavius, that for a moment the luminary at the low table had the
illusion that he had presumed to catechize the head of the firm, “well,
sir,” said Mr. Dodson, “since you--ah, put the question point-blank,
as one might say, perhaps it is incumbent upon one to observe that
whatever opinion one may form, one may not always feel justified
in--ah, giving it expression.”
“One respects your scruples immensely, Mr. Dodson, they do you credit,”
said Mr. W. P. Walkinshaw, who also respected that eminent worldling’s
diction and mode of utterance immensely, although he did not say so;
“but I invite you, Mr. Dodson, to be perfectly frank. I need not say
your frankness will go no farther.”
“Well, sir, if you really _press_ the question,” said Mr. Dodson, with
a simplicity he did not feel, “I have--ah, come to the con-clusion,
reluctantly to the con-clusion that William Jordan, Junior,
idiomatically speaking, is not more than fivepence ha’penny to the
shilling.”
“That is to say, Dodson,” said Mr. Walter Pater Walkinshaw, “in your
opinion he is _non compos mentis_?”
“That is so, sir, putting it classically, which unfortunately I am not
in the habit of doing myself,” said Mr. Dodson. “In fact, sir, since
you appear to press the question, it is my opinion that, allowing for
the usual trade discount, fivepence ha’penny to the shilling is nothing
like good enough for the counting-house of Crumpett and Hawker.”
“I agree with you, Dodson, I am entirely of that opinion myself,” said
Mr. W. P. Walkinshaw, sighing deeply. “And I assume it behoves one to
convey such an opinion to Mr. Octavius.”
This suggestion, however, plunged Mr. Dodson in deep thought. Such
a verdict had only to be presented to the head of the firm, for his
extreme solicitude for the traditions of Crumpett and Hawker, to ensure
the immediate dismissal of William Jordan, Junior. And in the light of
that day’s developments, during their first luncheon together, such a
consummation was not wholly to be desired.
“There is just one point, sir,” said Mr. Dodson, “that is if one is
free to mention it.”
“Pray do so by all means,” said Mr. W. P. Walkinshaw, with a bland
encouragement.
“It occurs to me, sir,” said Mr. Dodson, “that William Jordan,
Junior’s--ah, shortness of measure may be due to _greenness_, as one
might say.”
“Your metaphor is a little mixed, Dodson,” said Mr. Walter Pater
Walkinshaw affably, “but I think your meaning is sufficiently clear.
You would say he lacks experience of life?”
“That is it, sir, exactly,” said Mr. Dodson, “that is just what I
wanted to say. My private impression is that his education has been
seriously neglected.”
“That is a serious indictment, Mr. Dodson,” said Mr. W. P. Walkinshaw
gravely. “A very serious indictment.”
“It would be, sir, in the case of another, I am free to confess,”
said Mr. Dodson, with a guile that would have embellished the
primeval serpent; “but then, you see, sir, in spite of ed-u-ca-tional
disadvantages, Nature has thought fit to reserve a point in favour of
William Jordan, Junior.”
“Ah,” said Mr. W. P. Walkinshaw, “what, pray, is the point that Nature
has reserved in his favour?”
“William Jordan, Junior, may not be a scholar,” said Mr. Dodson,
speaking with the calm humility of those who have served their
novitiate to the mysteries, “but, in the best sense of the word, sir,
he is a gentleman.”
“Ah,” said Mr. W. P. Walkinshaw, with a sudden accession of interest
to his eminently serious and somewhat melancholy eyes, “that is
interesting; one is glad to know that.”
“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Dodson with quiet confidence, for unmistakably he
was well on the target; “whatever young Jordan is, or whatever he is
not, he can’t _help_ being a gentleman.”
“One has noticed it oneself,” said Mr. Walter Pater Walkinshaw. “May
one ask, Dodson, has your knowledge been gained empirically, or are you
in the possession of data which have been privately communicated?”
“Well, sir,” said Mr. Dodson, “he has not said a word about his
family; but if it is not a good deal above the common my name is not
Matthew Arnold Dodson. I believe, sir, his mental training is entirely
due to a maiden aunt who lives in the neighbourhood of Hither Green--I
believe, sir, he was left an orphan at a tender age--but his manners
and behaviour seem to have been handed down. Personally, I do not
doubt, sir, for a single moment that Mr. Octavius was right when he
allowed him to take his seat in our midst.”
“The judgment at which you have arrived does you infinite credit,
Dodson,” said Mr. Walter Pater Walkinshaw. “It is also a tribute to a
fun-da-men-tal goodness of heart. There can be no doubt whatever that
Mr. Octavius was quite right.”
Mr. Dodson totally ignored a compliment that one of less calibre would
have felt constrained to accept with embarrassment.
“I, for one, sir,” said Mr. Dodson confidentially, “place implicit
faith in the judgment of Mr. Octavius. Personally, sir, I have never
seen it betray a sign of being at fault.”
“You are right, Dodson, you are perfectly right,” said Mr. Walter
Pater Walkinshaw with great cordiality. “I feel more indebted to your
judgment than I am able to express.”
Mr. Dodson, girt by the knowledge that complete success had crowned
his devices yet again, and fortified also with the feeling that
once more he had laid an unerring finger on the pulse of that great
establishment, sauntered back to his stool in the left-hand corner with
that somewhat sinister nonchalance which must so often clothe natural
eminence when it has been brought into contact with an eminence that is
merely official. In his own phrase--out of office hours--“Pa had not
half as much about him as the back of a coster’s dog.”
On the other hand, Mr. Walter Pater Walkinshaw, unlike so many
whose intellectual attainments are merely of the second class, was
uncommonly susceptible to the impact of those of the first.
“Luff,” said he, “do you know who I think will one day be the head of
this world-famous house?”
“Who?” observed Mr. Aristophanes Luff.
“Matthew Arnold Dodson.”
“Surely, surely that is a remote contingency,” observed Mr.
Aristophanes Luff with a purr of mild protest.
“Yes, Luff, that is my deliberate opinion. For breadth of view, aplomb
of manner, maturity of judgment, knowledge of the world and of the
human heart, there are few youths in all this great metropolis to
compare with Matthew Arnold Dodson.”
Inferiority of station and mildness of disposition prevented Mr.
Aristophanes Luff from controverting what he felt obliged to regard as
an extravagant judgment. He was content to wipe his spectacles, and to
blow his nose in as clear a key of dissonance as an innate weakness of
character could compass.
In the meantime, the subject of this remarkable eulogium, seated on his
high stool dispensing wisdom, instruction and stinging rebuke to the
bewildered and trembling recipient of these commodities, had no such
exalted sentiments for its author.
“I tell you, Luney,” said Mr. Dodson, with an expression on his wizened
countenance that would not have been unbecoming to that of Voltaire,
“I can’t make up my mind whether Pa is a bigger ass than Octavius,
or whether Octavius is a bigger ass than Pa. Octavius is a pompous
ass, and Pa is a sentimental ass. Octavius has a bit of sentiment in
his pomp, and Pa has a bit of pomp in his sentiment; so I suppose
one takes the cruet and the other takes the casters. Bah, it makes
me sick to think that you and I have to keep dipping the ensign to a
couple of amateurs who don’t know they are born! They have about as
much knowledge of the game they are trying to play as a sucking-pig
has of brown sherry. But you must promise me, Luney, to let this go no
further.”
“Oh, n-n-no, sir, I will not,” said the boy, not knowing in the least
what it was he must let go no further.
“Look here,” said his mentor truculently; “if you say ‘sir’ to me
again I shall smack your head, and I shall smack it hard. This is the
third time to-day I have warned you. Pull yourself together. You are
not now with your Aunt Priscilla at Beaconsfield Villa, Hither Green.
You are in the counting-house of Crumpett and Hawker, my son, and the
sooner you understand that the better it will be for everybody. I
shall not show you how to tie a double knot any more. The next time I
shall put my hand round your ear; and it will hurt. If I had not been
the best-hearted chap that ever swaggered round the second circle at
the Empire on a Saturday night, you would have got the boot this very
afternoon. Pa wanted to report you to Octavius. But I stood firm. ‘No,
Father,’ I said, ‘the youth is off his filbert, but so was Blair Athol
when he won the Derby.’ There, over goes the paste! Don’t stand gazing
at it, you lunatic, but get some back numbers of _The Athenæum_ and mop
it up.”
XIX
It is not to be surmised that William Jordan, Junior, was in any
sense _persona gratissima_ in the distinguished society in which he
was called upon to move between the hours of eight and seven. In the
eyes of Mr. James Dodson, who, apparently, had annexed the entire
zone of practical wisdom as his province--at least, his range of lore
was amazing, his tactics on all occasions, in the office and out
of it, were masterly in the extreme, while his consummate address
and fertility of resource had long been the despair of all who had
been admitted to the honour of his intercourse--in the eyes of this
considerable scholar in the stern school of experience, William Jordan,
Junior, was no more than an object of contemptuous compassion. At the
hands of this austere master of “hard-shell” practicality he was the
daily recipient of much profound advice which probed the depths of
human wisdom, tempered by more or less severe personal chastisement to
help him to assimilate it.
“They say Nature gives one talent to every cove gratis,” Mr. Dodson
would say as he proceeded thoughtfully to administer reproof and
correction, “but this talent of yours takes a deal of finding, my son.”
During the first weeks of the boy’s servitude he had much to endure.
After the first flush of his triumph had faded, and it burnt itself out
almost as soon as it was born, there was nothing but dogged patience
and continual prayer to sustain him in the course of life which had
been marked out as his own. All too soon the exaltation that attended
the triumph over the apparently insurmountable was succeeded by a
profound dejection. A new and very poignant terror was added to an
existence which, from its first hour, had been over-freighted with
suffering.
He gained surprisingly in the practical sciences in the course of those
first weeks, as his father in the little room was forced to confess,
yet at what an expenditure of spirit, none--not even himself--might
estimate. And almost the first piece of vital knowledge that he
acquired in regard to the relation of that profoundly surprising
and deeply inscrutable enigma, William Jordan, Junior, to its own
surroundings, was that William Jordan, Junior, had a total lack of the
primary essential to a life in the great world out of doors. It was
necessary to act, to do; and as he lay in his bed through the long
watches of the night staining his pillow with a silent and bitter
anguish, he had to make the confession to himself that the capacity for
action was not his.
Sometimes when left quite alone, his hands and limbs and thoughts
would obey the dictates of his will; but at the behest of the cruelly
critical and unsympathetic street-persons, by whom he was encompassed,
he was unable to command his faculties. The simplest acts, the mere
carrying of a book from one desk to another, the addressing of an
envelope, the counting of a pile of letters, all such elementary duties
as these frequently lay beyond his power.
It was not that he did not strive to overcome his own contemptible
shortcomings. Every hour he passed in the counting-house of Crumpett
and Hawker he exerted his will to its fullest, yet the result only
brought down an ampler meed of censure, ill-temper, stern reproaches,
and what, as his knowledge increased and he came to understand it, hurt
him the most cruelly, wounding satire upon him. After he had spent a
fortnight at No. 24 Trafalgar Square, the long room with the clerks
on their high stools, and the quiet, bald-headed gentleman at the low
table in their midst, dominated his thoughts like a hideous dream.
Sleeping and awake this dreadful place darkened his mind. He would
lie all the night through living again all the tragic transactions of
the past day, or foreshadowing in his intensely vivid imagination the
doubtless more tragic transactions of the morrow.
As a rule, about an hour before it was imperative he should rise from
his bed if he were to be at No. 24 Trafalgar Square as the clock
struck eight, he would be worn out by sheer fatigue, and would fall
into a light, fitful doze. Then as the hour for rising came, he would
shudder with horror, although his brain was still half-dazed with the
pangs of weariness it could not satisfy, and he would creep with his
too-sensitive limbs from the grateful warmth of the blankets into the
bitter inclemency of a new and dreadful day.
The unremitting diligence he was called upon to exercise every day
of the week between the hours of eight and seven, to which was added
a degree of mental travail which none of the remorseless task-masters
about him could even suspect, began, ere the first month had run its
course, to tell visibly upon his physical powers. As night after night
he crept back silently into the little room, with his cheeks paler and
more hollow, his forehead more scarred, his eyes more sunken, and at
every one of these joyless returns a heavier hue of tragedy upon his
face, a keener pang would be born in the heart of the aged man who was
there to await him.
“You ask no questions now, beloved one,” his father would say
mournfully. “And you read no longer in the ancient authors. Can it be,
Achilles, that already you are well enough found in knowledge?”
“I begin to believe, my father,” said the boy, “that my knowledge is
already too great.”
His tone was such that his father had never heard before from his lips.
“I seem to know already, my father, that I am not of the blood royal,”
he said, with his speech falling thick; “I begin to feel that I shall
never be admitted into that most high company that holds festival with
Zeus. I am the craven-hearted one, my father; for such as me there is
no place in the great world out of doors.”
The boy laid his tired eyes to the wood of the table with a gesture of
despair.
“Courage, beloved one,” said his father, laying his hands about his
shoulders with a woman’s tenderness. “Every strong soul now in Hades
had its moment of repining. These mighty ones were often in tears.”
No words, however, would bring consolation to the boy.
“There is no place in the great world out of doors for the
craven-hearted,” he would say continually at this time.
Upon the evening of the last day of the fourth week his father
proposed to him that he should spare a frame that by now seemed no more
than a reed.
“I think I must tell you, Achilles,” he said, “that our little room is
in no immediate danger of being taken from us. I have been thinking
that perhaps it were better that you rested from your too-great labours
for a while.”
“No, no, my father,” said the boy almost fiercely for one of such
strange gentleness, “I was fearing that you would speak to me thus.”
“Other labours might be found for you,” said his father; “labours, my
noble Achilles, more consonant to your quality.”
“No, no, my father,” said the boy, “I would not have you speak thus to
a flesh that is frail with its weakness. And pray mock me with the name
of Achilles no more.”
“Is it a mockery, beloved one, to call a hero by the name he has always
borne?” said his father.
The boy rose from the table with haggard cheeks.
“I have no right to bear so great a name,” he said. “I usurped it upon
no better pretext than a false and beguiling ignorance. I pray you, my
father, do not mock me with that name. It is the badge of other clay
than this. My valour is too little. I am the constant sport of the
great world out of doors.”
“Art thou the first hero who has been despised, beloved one?” said his
father.
“I can wear no proud name,” said the boy, refusing all consolation,
“until I have won it at the point of the sword. In this little room of
ours I am Achilles; but in the great world out of doors I am another,
and him the great world out of doors accounts as less than nought.”
About the time the sixth week of his labours passed, he said one
evening to his father, when overcome with despair, “I think, my father,
I have learned too little or too much. I find that the great world out
of doors is not at all as the ancient authors have depicted it in
their writings; yet I cannot believe that they would play me false.
But it is all most strange. The world of men and things is not in the
least as rendered to me by the books in the shop. I cannot comprehend
it; and yet sometimes I seem to comprehend it beyond the measure of my
strength.”
“I think, beloved one,” said his white-haired father softly, “the time
is now at hand when you may be permitted to look into the volume yonder
upon the shelf. Who knows that it may not melt a little of the darkness
from your heart?”
Weak and spent as the boy now was, at these words his pulses thrilled
with expectation. From his earliest childhood this high moment had been
in his thoughts. And now it had come upon him suddenly in an hour when
least anticipated, and when the least merited. It was the evening of
Saturday of the sixth week, and it had seemed as he had crept over the
threshold of the little room that any prolongation of the term through
which he had passed would break him in pieces. To live through another
week like the one from which he had just emerged would be beyond the
strength of his frame.
But this proposal of his father’s, just as he felt his strength to be
failing, had endowed his veins with new life. How many times had he
feasted his imagination on that mysterious tome which was bound so
massively, wherein his father read! Would it ever be his happiness to
read in it too? And now the hour was at hand!
“Canst thou raise the volume from the shelf, Achilles?” his father
asked.
“If Achilles cannot, my father,” said the boy, “he is fit neither to
live nor to die.”
Yet the next moment, in dire anguish, he had made the discovery that
his frame was so weak that it could not lift the massive volume from
the shelf.
“It is as I feared,” he gasped; “I am fit neither to live nor to die.”
Three times he essayed to raise the mighty tome; three times he failed.
“I will raise it for thee, beloved one,” said his father.
“No, no, my father,” he cried wildly, “I am not fit to read in the book
until I have the strength to bear it in my arms.”
Totally vanquished in mind and body, he crept up the dark stairs to
his room. Without sufficient strength to remove his clothes he flung
himself down, burying his eyes in the pillows of the bed; and the next
day being Sunday, he slept deeply, dreamlessly, with entire abandonment
until six o’clock in the evening. He was awakened by the metallic
tinkling of bells.
When he awoke and walked down the stairs into the little room it seemed
that a pall had been lifted from his spirit. He discovered his father
to be reading in the mighty tome.
“First I will eat, my father,” he said, “and then I will try again.”
His father replaced the great book upon the shelf, and then set before
him a basin of food he had prepared with his own hands.
“There is flesh in it,” said the boy, making a gesture of repugnance.
“It may enable you, Achilles, to raise the book from the shelf,” said
his father.
It cost the boy infinite distress to swallow the gross food, but he
did so at last. For now he felt strong in mind and body, owing to the
wonderful refreshment of sleep. And having supped more resolutely than
for many weeks past, he said, “And now, my father, if it is the will of
the Most High I will bear the great volume in my hands.”
To his unspeakable joy the power was rendered to him to lift it from
the shelf. He placed it upon the table, and unlocked it with a curious
key his father gave him.
“Perhaps it were well to invoke the Most High, my father,” he said,
“that my eyes may prove faithful unto me.”
They knelt together in the little room.
The boy opened the volume at the first page of vellum. He could
scarcely breathe because of the beating of his heart. Yet the faded
red characters, a thousand years old, proved beyond the power of his
understanding. His learning was such that it could comprehend the
curious words that they formed; it could surmount the antique spelling;
but when with consummate skill he had rendered what was there written
into strange phrases, they bodied forth no meaning.
“Oh, my father, what is this?” he cried in consternation. “I see, but I
do not heed; I behold, but I do not understand.” The tragic hue of his
countenance grew deeper. “I beseech thee, gentle-hearted One,” he cried
aloud, “do not make me also the sport of the Most High!”
“Patience, Achilles,” said his father, with a smile of strange beauty.
His father himself turned over the crinkling parchments of the massive
volume. He turned to a middle page in the strange old book, and ever
smiling softly, placed his finger upon a particular passage.
“Look again, beloved one,” said his father.
The boy bore again his fearful eyes to the faded yellow page. Slowly he
spelt out the words and represented them to his mind. Then he paused
and gathered himself to his full height. His chin was upheld, his
hands were clenched, his eyes were closed, his slow-drawn breaths were
audible. Quite suddenly the ineffable look of his father’s appeared in
his face.
“Yes, yes, yes, I understand, I understand!” he muttered to himself.
“My father,” he broke out with a wild little cry, “these must be the
words of the first author in the world!”
He flung his arms about his father’s neck.
“How shall I ever requite thee, my father,” he cried, “for teaching me
to read in a book such as this!”
“Is it not meet, O Achilles,” said his father, “that thou shouldst read
in the book that the ages have wrought for their child?”
Like those of one entranced, the eyes of the boy sought the yellow page
again and again. He spelt out the antique words of all that was there
written, and pondered them with his finger raised to his lips. He then
saluted the parchment devoutly, and again he knelt.
“I am indeed Achilles,” he cried; “the magic page of the gods is spread
before me!”
“Wilt thou forswear thy birthright again, O Achilles?” said his father,
whose eyes were quick with many tender, yet grave, questionings.
“Never, never, O my father,” cried the boy, “lest it should not be
given to me to read in the Book of the Ages again!”
XX
“Luney, my son,” said Mr. James Dodson one afternoon, “young Davis’s
days are numbered. This morning Octavius found him smoking in his room.”
Notwithstanding the manner in which Mr. Dodson imparted this item of
news, it failed to promote the curiosity of which it was undoubtedly
worthy.
“Yes, Luney,” Mr. Dodson proceeded, “young Davis has numbered his days.
He’ll come down from up-stairs. He is not geared up to a position of
that kind. He hasn’t got the--the intellectual quality. You can get
anything by a fluke; but you can keep nothing without you’ve got this.”
Mr. Dodson laid a finger on the centre of his forehead with a
significance that was almost sinister.
“And whom do you suppose, Luney,” Mr. Dodson continued, “will succeed
that young upstart when he comes down from up-stairs? Give a guess, my
son.”
William Jordan, Junior, did not accept his mentor’s cordial invitation,
for the sufficient reason that the point involved was too abstruse for
his knowledge of the practical sciences.
“Between you and me and the paste-pot, my worthy lunatic,” said Mr.
Dodson, “there is only one candidate in the running at present. And
he is the deadest of dead certainties. And the name of that dead
certainty, my son, is Matthew Arnold Dodson, known familiarly out of
office hours as Jimmy.”
Even this announcement, although it exacted William Jordan, Junior’s
courteous attention, as every announcement did, failed to stimulate his
feeble faculties to divine all that it implied.
“There is also another dead certainty, my son,” said Mr. Dodson, “and
that is that William Jordan, Junior, will never rise in this world,
whatever he may do in the next.”
However, upon the following morning, during the luncheon hour,
this drastic opinion underwent a modification as serious as it was
unexpected. It occurred in the following manner. Of late the boy had
refrained from going forth to seek his luncheon in public places,
being content with a few pieces of bread-and-butter which he brought
from home in his pocket, and with a glass of water which he obtained
on the premises. From this method of procedure, although it exposed
him to the scorn of Mr. Dodson, and others eminent in the world, he
derived several advantages. Foremost, and beyond all things, he was
spared actual contact with the ever-surging crowd of street-persons,
and from the necessity of plucking, as it were, his food from the
cannon’s mouth of shops and restaurants, a feat which, if attempted
by himself, invariably ended in total failure and annihilation; and
if undertaken in the company of Mr. Dodson, as it sometimes was by
an act of condescension on the part of that gentleman, was apt to
prove expensive. Again, it enabled him to bestow more time on his
duties, which seemed to demand so much; while again, so far had he
been initiated already into the meaning of “what two and two made”--in
the phrase of Mr. Dodson--that he divined that the less he went out
to luncheon the more pieces of silver would there be for the service
of the little room in the grave hour which he felt that Fate was so
inexorably devising. Further, it happened in the days subsequent to
his first entrancing insight into what he called “the Book of the
Ages,” he occasionally took the courage to carry in his pocket a small
volume of the ancient authors, that he might receive sustenance in the
thrice-blessed hour between one and two, when he was left to his own
devices in the counting-house of Crumpett and Hawker.
It was this habit that so unexpectedly shattered the faith of the
eminent worldling in whose charge he still was. It befell that he was
immersed in a small black, time-stained, musty-smelling volume, with
his hands over his ears, as he sat on his high stool, and his eyes
pressed close to the page, when all of a sudden, he received a smart
blow on the cheek which made him start with surprise and wince with
pain.
“None of that,” said the stern voice of Mr. Dodson, who had crept up
behind him, he having returned by a special dispensation on the part of
providence, which took the form of a lack of means, some twenty minutes
before his usual time. In consequence, the philosophic calm, upon which
Mr. Dodson justly prided himself, was a little ruffled. “If Pa sees you
there’ll be trouble,” he said, taking his charge by the ear for due
admonishment. “_Dick Deadeye, The Adventures of Jack Sheppard_, and
that sort of truck, doesn’t do in the counting-house of Crumpett and
Hawker. I am surprised at you, Luney, I really am.”
Each of these sentences was punctuated by a solemn blow on the ear,
which made the recipient gasp.
“Why, what the dooce is it?” said Mr. Dodson, as his eye fell on the
curious old black volume. “It looks like a Bible for the blind, or a
privately printed copy of Magna Charta. Give it to me!”
The boy, oppressed with a dreadful sense of guilt and humiliation that
he should be detected in the act of reading in the ancient authors
almost on the first occasion he had attempted to do so outside the
little room, yielded his treasure with a sinking heart into the
ruthless grasp of his mentor.
“I k-k-knew it was w-wrong, wicked,” he gasped, “to b-b-ring the
ancient authors into the great world out of doors, but--but they give
me such a great s-s-strength in my veins that----”
“What are you burbling about, you lunatic?” said Mr. Dodson
truculently. “Stow it; and tell me the name of this very fishy-looking
volume. Is it a Russian hymn-book, or a bit of Chinese, or a copy of
the last will and testament of Omar Khayyam, or what the dooce is it? I
hope there is nothing in it there shouldn’t be, that’s all.”
“It is the _Adventures of Odysseus_,” said the boy, with the blood
springing to his cheeks. Even as he spoke he speculated as to what
dire fate would overtake him for having dared to expose his sacred
intercourse with heroes to the scorn of the great world out of doors;
yet he was fain to marvel also that one such as his mentor should not
recognize at a glance the nature of his crime.
“Who’s he?” said his mentor sternly. “Who in the name of thunder is
Odys---- Stars above! I never saw such rum-looking stuff in my life. I
should say it is a pretty fair imitation of a bad dream.”
“I k-k-know it is an offence against the gods,” said the culprit, with
a scared face, “to bring the sacred words of Homer into the great world
out of doors; but you do not know how he sustains me in my heavy tasks.”
“Homer, did you say?” inquired his mentor incredulously. “Homer; why
then, that’s Greek!”
“Oh y-y-yes,” said the boy, his fear yielding somewhat to bewilderment
that one of his mentor’s attainments should ply him with a question so
unnecessary.
“You are not going to come it over James Dodson, my son, that you read
Greek,” said that gentleman, renouncing his own magisterial air for one
of protest and astonishment.
“I b-b-bear every word of all the sacred writings of Homer imprinted
in my heart,” said the boy, with only a partial understanding of Mr.
Dodson’s very visible surprise. “P-p-perchance after the callow days
of our childhood have passed, when the mind is like sand, it is a
violation of the dream knowledge that has grown up all about our hearts
to turn yet again to those pages in which the great wonders were first
revealed to us. But even to this hour I love to gaze on the printed
pages which these long years have lain in my soul.”
Mr. Dodson paid no heed to the strange and incoherent phrases which
proceeded from the lips of William Jordan, Junior. He was too greatly
preoccupied with an examination of the curious volume that was now in
his hands. After turning it over and inspecting it inside and out a
look of immense perplexity settled upon his wizened countenance.
“My aunt!” he said, “it _is_ Homer.”
He looked from the book to the boy, from the boy to the book.
“Luney,” he said, with slow-drawn solemnity, “you beat cock-fighting,
you do.”
The boy quailed under a gaze, whose blank surprise he misinterpreted as
some more truculent emotion.
“Why, do you know, my son,” said Mr. Dodson, “it takes Pa himself all
his time to read Homer without a crib.”
This contribution to national biography awoke no response in the breast
of the boy.
“And yet, Luney,” said Mr. Dodson, in a voice that had a thrill
of emotion in it, “here are you in your dinner hour reading it as
naturally as I read the _Sporting Times_. Let me look at you, you
lunatic.”
Mr. Dodson grasped his _protégé_ by the chin in the manner in which a
veterinary surgeon grasps a horse, and peered somewhat aggressively
into the gentle and pale countenance of William Jordan, Junior.
“Well, all I can say is, my son,” said Mr. Dodson, after he had
conducted his researches with a thoroughness which made the subject of
them tremble, “all I can say is you can’t be such a blighter as you
look.”
William Jordan, Junior, could frame no reply to this profound judgment.
“How old are you, Luney?” Mr. Dodson inquired.
“E-eighteen years and f-fifty-nine days, sir,” stammered William
Jordan, Junior.
“My aunt!” said Mr. Dodson, with incredulity, “you don’t look a day
more than twelve and a half. You might travel half-fare on the District
Railway.”
Suddenly Mr. Dodson clenched his hands.
“Luney,” said he vehemently, “do you suppose if _I_ were you _I_ should
be sitting down-stairs on a high stool? Not me. You ought to go far, my
son, you ought. But you never will. You haven’t got it about you; and,”
concluded Mr. Dodson grimly, “it is a good thing for some of us you
ain’t.”
Having permitted himself a freedom of speech which he felt to be highly
injudicious, Mr. Dodson returned Homer to the boy without seeing fit to
administer further physical correction, and retired to the fire-place
to stand with his back thereto and his coat-tails outspread, that
favourite attitude of so many searching intellects, and proceeded, in
his own phrase, “to take his bearings.”
Mr. Dodson’s first and most natural instinct was to heighten his
already considerable reputation as an after-luncheon _raconteur_, by
advertising this new facet to the character of him upon whom he had
bestowed the title of “The Marvel.” But however great his thirst for
the notoriety of a little brief applause, the mature outlook of the man
of the world was soon able to correct it. “Mum is the word, my son,”
said the philosopher, as the warmth of the fire communicated itself
pleasantly to his being. “Mum is the word. If it should come to the
ears of Octavius that that kid reads Greek in his luncheon hour for his
own amusement, he will go up-stairs and no earthly power can prevent
it. And,” he added, “if that kid does go up-stairs where will you be,
Matthew Arnold Dodson?”
The philosopher did not deem it necessary to frame a reply to these
reflections, but sauntered across the room to the high stool on which
was seated the subject of them.
“Luney,” he said, slowly and impressively, “you are a highly-educated
youth, I quite recognize that, but it is not considered the thing to
read Greek in the counting-house of Crumpett and Hawker. I have only
one word of advice to give you. If by any chance you should _ever_ let
Pa catch you reading it, it will mean serious trouble for you, my son,
for you must not forget that it is as much as Pa himself can do to read
Homer in the original.”
It reassured Mr. Dodson’s sense of propriety to observe that the boy
had already returned the opprobrious volume to his pocket. “Let us hope
he will keep it there,” he said under his breath piously.
That evening, as the clock told the hour of seven, William Jordan,
Junior, was honoured by the most signal act of condescension on the
part of his mentor that had as yet been vouchsafed to him.
“Luney,” said Mr. Dodson, “your best way to Milton Street, E.C., is to
go down the Strand and to take a ’bus from Ludgate Circus. I am going
down the Strand myself; if you like we will toddle down together.”
A few minutes later William Jordan, Junior, might have been discerned
walking down the Strand in association with his mentor. The eminent
worldling had his arm within that of his _protégé_.
“Luney,” he said, “out of office hours you can call me Jimmy.”
As they went their way, with the whole of the conversation furnished
entirely by one only of the parties to it, Mr. Dodson produced an
elaborate silver case.
“Smoke?” he said.
“Oh n-n-no,” said the boy, startled in much the same way as he would
have been had he been asked whether he committed murders.
“Pity,” said Mr. Dodson, as he selected a cigarette from the silver
case with the unmistakable air of the connoisseur. “Ought to. Great
thing for the nerves. Though perhaps you are not troubled with ’em. I
shouldn’t say myself that you lived at very high pressure.”
At the end of Fleet Street master and pupil parted company.
“Ta ta, old boy,” said Mr. Dodson, with a genial wave of the hand. “I
go round the corner to the station. Nice time for the 7.50 to Peckham.
That’s your ’bus--the green one. Ta ta; one of these days we will do a
music-hall together.”
Mr. Dodson stood to watch the frail figure enter the green ’bus.
“Absolutely the rummest kid I ever struck,” said he. “Fancy a thing
like that able to read Homer in the original! Well, I will say this--he
don’t put on side about it like most chaps would.”
With this reflection the philosopher turned the corner, immediately to
engage in a war of words, in which he did not come off second best,
with the driver of a “growler,” who nearly ran over him as he stepped
somewhat unwarily off the pavement.
XXI
In the course of the following week an announcement was made which
marked an epoch in the history of the great publishing house of
Crumpett and Hawker.
However, before this event had burgeoned forth upon the counting-house
staff, Mr. M. Arnold Dodson, with whose individual destiny it was
concerned, continued to live in that condition of soul-distraction, to
which it would seem even the most philosophic minds are susceptible,
which is known as hope deferred.
All the week Mr. Dodson had waited in vain to be summoned into the
presence of authority, to receive the seal of official recognition
to which he felt his mature talents were unquestionably entitled. He
had set his heart upon the dethronement of young Davis. To that other
accomplished worldling, who in mere point of age was a year older
than himself, he never referred without the prefix “young.” But the
misdemeanour of which that successful adventurer had been convicted, of
smoking in the room of the head of the firm, had not as yet borne the
fruit that Mr. Dodson had confidently predicted. Mr. Davis was still
enthroned in high places, triumphant still in his original deceit;
every morning he appended his signature in the time-book, G. Eliot
Davis, 9.15, not the least among the Olympians whose seat was on the
second storey; while Mr. M. Arnold Dodson, in every way his superior
in moral and mental attainment, still languished in the comparative
obscurity of the counting-house below.
On two occasions during that week had Mr. Dodson walked into the Strand
during the luncheon hour, and had purchased an extremely pungent
cigar, for which he had disbursed the sum of one penny. Armed with this
implement he had stolen up-stairs in the absence of the staff during
the hour of luncheon, and had smoked it grimly and relentlessly in
the middle of the sanctuary of Mr. Octavius Crumpett. Melancholy to
relate, however, in spite of the physical pangs endured by the heroic
Mr. Dodson, who in the very act of informing William Jordan, Junior,
that “that young Davis had been smoking again in Octavius’s room,”
had to make a sudden and somewhat undignified exit to the back of the
building--in spite of such tribulations as these the wicked, in the
person of G. Eliot Davis, continued to flourish in that time-honoured
fashion which has been celebrated by Holy Writ.
“Luney,” said Mr. Dodson, with an unaffected pathos in his voice, when
the second of these heroic efforts to dethrone the unrighteous had
been fraught with no other compensation than that of suffering of a
purely physical kind, which is too often the reward of human nature’s
disinterestedness, “Luney, it fairly turns me sick to see that young
Davis walk up those stairs. I shouldn’t mind, you know, I shouldn’t
mind at all if he had played the game. But he got where he is by a
trick, and it is doing him no kindness to try to gloss it over.”
Upon the delivery of this altogether admirable piece of morality
touched by emotion, Mr. M. Arnold Dodson, for the second time that
afternoon, retired to the back of the building with a haste which
scarcely harmonized with his natural dignity.
As he returned with an unwonted pallor upon a countenance which as a
rule bore evidence of being soundly nourished, whom should he meet, as
if by the irony of circumstance, but Mr. G. Eliot Davis descending the
stairs. For once the eminent philosopher and man of the world seemed to
lack the moral strength to encounter one whom he could only regard in
the light of a successful adventurer. Therefore he strove to escape
without attempting to outface a demeanour, which in his view was flown
to an exaggerated degree with the insolence of office. This afternoon,
however, he was not able to control the fates.
“Dodson,” said Mr. G. Eliot Davis, in the tone which Mr. Dodson made
a point of describing as “insufferable”; “Dodson,” said Mr. Davis,
“perhaps it may interest you to know that Mr. Octavius’s personal
translation of Homer’s Odyssey will be issued to the Trade on Monday
next.”
“Thank you, Davis,” said Mr. Dodson, with the self-command that the
great display on great occasions. “I am glad to know that, very glad
indeed.”
Mr. Dodson’s official duties should have led him there and then into
the counting-house of Crumpett and Hawker; but as he stood to watch
the small but stout, erect, and prosperous form of Mr. G. Eliot Davis
saunter out of the front entrance of No. 24 Trafalgar Square, an idea
flashed across that Napoleonic brain.
Therefore, instead of returning to admonish William Jordan, Junior,
for omitting to inscribe the courtesy prefix to the name of a peer’s
daughter in returning the manuscript copy of her verses, Mr. Dodson
also sauntered forth of No. 24 Trafalgar Square. He turned the first
corner and entered the refreshment buffet of the Brontë Hotel.
Presiding over that hall of public entertainment was the lady of the
scarlet blouse and yellow earrings. This afternoon the blouse was
heliotrope, and she wore no earrings.
“Chrissie,” said Mr. Dodson, “I want something to pull me together. It
must be up to proof, but it must leave no odour.”
“I always say you can’t do better than brandy,” said Chrissie, with
the assured yet quiet air of the unmistakable expert. “Of course, some
prefer a John Collins, or an American, or a Dog Toby, but I am not
partial to so much fancy work myself.”
“Same here,” said Mr. Dodson. “But there must be no odour--none
whatever.”
“You shall have a toothful of the Waterloo, as your face seems
familiar,” said Chrissie benignly.
“You are a good sort, Chrissie,” said Mr. Dodson, with a small display
of emotion that became him perfectly. “I shall not forget you.”
“My size is nine and a quarter,” said the lady, as with extreme
precision she measured out a small quantity of a curiously-coloured
liquid from a very mysterious-looking bottle. “Jimmy, I must say you do
look a bit below yourself. Has the moon come up yet?”
“Not yet,” said Mr. Dodson in a tone of amiable deprecation. He was
greatly indebted to the kindness of the lady in the heliotrope blouse,
but her question was alien to his dignity, as was also the situation
in which he found himself. Even at this period of his career all those
attributes were clearly developed which in after years brought him so
much distinction in political life.
“Well, if you will smoke El Destinkers at one and fourpence a hundred,”
said the lady in the heliotrope blouse.
“Chrissie,” said Mr. Dodson impressively, after swallowing the brandy
at a single gulp, “you _should_ know that I am physically incapable of
doing anything of the kind.”
“I can smell it from here,” said the lady in the heliotrope blouse.
“I know it is not considered the thing to contradict a lady,” said Mr.
Dodson, withdrawing two steps from the buffet, “but you appear to have
paid me the compliment of forgetting the commercial traveller who has
just gone out. So long. Be good.”
Mr. Dodson sauntered out of the refreshment buffet of the Brontë Hotel
with the inimitable nonchalance of bearing which many, besides the lady
in the heliotrope blouse, never failed to admire.
Before returning to his official duties at No. 24 Trafalgar Square,
Mr. Dodson went in quest of a chemist, whom he found a few doors up
the street. Of him he purchased a pennyworth of pungent pink lozenges,
which immediately he proceeded to suck. He then re-entered the premises
of the eminent publishing house; but instead of going forthwith to
admonish William Jordan, Junior, he proceeded to wash his face, to part
his hair in the middle with much care, and to re-adjust his necktie.
These preliminaries accomplished, Mr. Dodson walked very slowly and
erectly up to the second storey. He entered the small ante-chamber at
the head of the stairs, which was dedicated to the sole use of the
vigilant guardian of these Olympian altitudes, one G. Eliot Davis.
“Davis,” said Mr. Dodson, peering within, “is Mr. Octavius in his room?”
“Yes, Dodson, he is,” said Mr. Davis.
“Alone, Davis?”
“Alone, Dodson.”
“Thank you, Davis.”
“Don’t mention it, Dodson.”
Upon the conclusion of this exchange of courtesies, which an impartial
observer might have considered as a trifle elaborated on both sides,
Mr. Dodson knocked smartly and boldly, yet withal respectfully, upon
the portals of Mr. Octavius Crumpett. Mr. Dodson entered the august
presence briskly, but closed the door after him with delicacy and with
self-possession.
Mr. Octavius Crumpett was seated at the table in close proximity to
the fire. Every letter and document, every book, every small article
was arranged upon it with scrupulous nicety. The head of the firm was
enjoying the academic pleasure of running a paper-knife through the
close-pressed leaves, within a chaste and scholarly binding, of his
personal translation of the Odyssey, which was to be issued to an
expectant world upon the following Monday.
Mr. Octavius Crumpett looked up urbanely from his insidious and
alluring occupation. A slight frown of perplexity almost seemed to
cloud for a moment that serene brow. In his boundless conscientiousness
Mr. Octavius Crumpett conceived it to be his duty to be able to
remember the name of each individual member of his staff, however lowly
or obscure his station. For an instant he almost feared that he had
forgotten the name of the individual before him. But this moment of
doubt, of almost tremulous perplexity, which did him such credit as a
man, as the head of a house of eminent publishers, as an enlightened
patron of labour, passed almost as soon as it appeared, for a weak wet
glint of the afternoon sun suddenly illumined the wizened countenance
of the young gentleman who stood before him; and as if touched by
inspiration Mr. Octavius Crumpett remembered that the name of the young
gentleman was Matthew Arnold Dodson.
“Well, Mr. Dodson?” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, in that tone and manner
which were ever the despair and admiration of his staff.
Mr. M. A. Dodson, who had already shown his consummate breeding by
waiting for his chief to speak first, as though he were a royalty
incarnate, bowed slightly from his full height, which was hardly more
than four feet ten inches, and said in a very carefully modulated
voice, “I apologize, sir, for my intrusion, but I learn that your
personal translation of the Odyssey is to be issued to the Trade on
Monday next.”
“That is in accord with existing arrangements, I believe,” said Mr.
Octavius Crumpett, with a masterly implication that his well-cut
diction dealt merely with human nature’s daily food.
“Well now, sir,” said Mr. M. A. Dodson, whose mellifluous accent might
have sounded a little ingratiating had it been used by a less able
practitioner, “I am taking the freedom of asking _you_, sir, whether
I might purchase my own private copy this evening. The fact is, sir,”
Mr. M. A. Dodson added, in a burst of humble yet half-whimsical
self-revelation, “I can hardly possess my soul in patience until Monday
next. May I ask, sir, would it be _infra dignitatem_ if I were to
obtain my own copy this evening? I am particularly anxious to have the
opportunity of studying the entire achievement--I feel sure, sir, I
am justified in applying beforehand that much-abused word--before the
journals of professional criticism, which are very excellent in their
way, which I needn’t tell _you_, sir, I read every week, have had the
opportunity of swaying my private judgment.”
Mr. Octavius Crumpett paused, with his solid silver paper-knife
suspended in the air, to listen to this masterful piece of elocution
on the part of Mr. M. A. Dodson. As the delicately enunciated phrases
fell from those gently simpering lips, quite as they would have
proceeded from those of the listener himself, an emotion of pleasure
and gratitude percolated through the entire being of this good and
benign gentleman. That portion of his being which was arrayed in a
waistcoat of immaculate whiteness rose and fell in visible accord with
the internal harmony. The traditions of the house of Crumpett and
Hawker were never so secure as in the keeping of even one of the latest
additions to its clerical staff. By some mysterious means the rarefied
air of that establishment had wrought already upon one of the least
considerable of its members.
“Mr. Dodson,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, speaking with obvious
emotion, “it will--ah, give me _immense_ pleasure if you will accept
the first copy of my--ah, little book.”
“It will delight me, sir, of course, to accept the first copy,” said
Mr. M. A. Dodson, speaking with a quiet dignity and a mature reserve
which became him superbly; “it will _overwhelm_ me with honour, but if
my acceptance of the first copy could in any way be misconstrued--that
is, sir, I mean to say, the freedom I have been guilty of in coming
here this afternoon to speak to you on the subject could be
misconstrued--I should greatly prefer to obtain the first copy by
purchase in the usual manner. And after all, sir,” Mr. M. A. Dodson
concluded, with an arch smile, “if you will permit me to say it, sir,
the labourer is worthy of his hire. If this custom, sir, became in any
sense general of an author giving away his own works, every author,
sir, would either have to become his own publisher, or every publisher
would have to become his own author.”
The glow behind the immaculate waistcoat of Mr. Octavius Crumpett was
heightened to such a degree by these scruples, and by the cultivated
terms in which they gained expression, that the good man was fain to
embody it by beaming like a seraph.
“Pray, my dear Mr. Dodson,” purred his august employer, “do not vex a
nice conscience with scruples that are not in the least necessary. I
shall be _charmed_ if you will allow me to present you with the first
copy of my--ah, little book. Will you kindly ask Mr. Davis to give you
one of the copies set apart for review? and if, Mr. Dodson, you will
take an early opportunity of telling me _precisely_ what you think
about it I shall be honoured indeed, for I perceive, Mr. Dodson, that
you have a real and deep love of letters.”
The manner in which Mr. M. A. Dodson took leave of Mr. Octavius
Crumpett was entirely worthy, in the amplest sense, of two such
ornaments of their age. As the head of the firm watched the close-knit
figure of Mr. M. A. Dodson recede through the door of his room, he
said for his own private delectation: “This house undoubtedly has an
atmosphere of its own. It seems to exude an aroma. That is a very
remarkable youth; a youth of precocious attainment. He talks like a
book.”
Mr. M. Arnold Dodson, with his hand on the door of Mr. G. Eliot Davis,
said to himself, “I never talk to Octavius without wanting to run
straight out into the street to beat out the brains of a little boy in
a sailor suit.”
“Davis,” said Mr. Dodson, entering modestly the sanctum of that worthy,
“Mr. Octavius’s compliments, and will you have the kindness to give M.
Arnold Dodson a review copy of his translation of Homer?”
“Have you a signed order, Dodson, to that effect?” said Mr. Davis, who
cloaked his profound astonishment somewhat ineffectually in a display
of officialdom.
“As you appear to doubt my bona fides, Davis,” said Mr. Dodson, with
leisurely dignity, “perhaps you will have the condescension to verify
them for yourself.”
“Very good, Dodson,” said Mr. Davis, who by now had regained his own
natural self-possession, which was not inconsiderable. “Excuse me for
one moment. Take a chair. Make yourself quite at home.”
“I shall make myself quite at home a good deal sooner than you think,
you young swine,” said Mr. Dodson through clenched teeth, as Mr. Davis
betook himself to the presence of Mr. Octavius Crumpett. “Jack in
office! But your days are numbered, my son, your days are numbered!”
The bewildered Mr. G. Eliot Davis returned and handed a copy of Mr.
Octavius Crumpett’s translation of the Odyssey to Mr. M. Arnold Dodson.
“Davis,” said Mr. Dodson, placing the handsome volume ostentatiously
under his arm, “you are a youth of intellectual gifts, but
unfortunately, like many others of your type, your gifts don’t take you
quite far enough. You will understand a little better what I mean about
this time on Monday. Good afternoon, Davis.”
“Good afternoon, Dodson. Mind the stairs!” said Mr. Davis, as Mr.
Dodson picked his way delicately down them.
“What does Octavius mean, I wonder, by giving _him_ an advance copy?”
mused Mr. Davis, pale with anger. “He knows what two and two make, does
James Dodson. I shouldn’t mind a bit if only he played the game. I wish
Octavius was not such a d----d old fool.”
With this reflection, which it must be conceded was in somewhat
questionable taste, upon the mental attainments and general calibre of
his august employer, Mr. G. Eliot Davis put on his hat, and went his
virtuous way to that hall of public entertainment, the annexe to the
Brontë Hotel, and accepted a cup of tea from the hands of the lady in
the heliotrope blouse.
“Chrissie,” said Mr. Davis, stirring his tea apprehensively, “that
young cad, Jimmy Dodson, cut me out with you, and now he’s trying to
cut me out with Octavius.”
“Well, Percy,” said the lady in the heliotrope blouse, “if that is so
you can go home to mamma. Whatever Jimmy Dodson tries to do he does.”
XXII
“Luney, my son,” said the mellifluous accents of Mr. M. A. Dodson,
ascending upwards to the high stool on which was perched the assiduous
form of William Jordan, Junior, “I want you to do me a personal favour.
I’ve got here an advance copy of Octavius’s translation of the Odyssey.
Now, my good and virtuous boy, I want you to take it home with you
to-night, read it carefully, and criticize it for all you are worth.
Just make a note, like a good chap, of any particular points that
strike you. If any of his truck strikes you as better than the truck of
the other johnnies, you had better underline it. Or if you think some
of his truck is worse than the truck of the other johnnies, put a bit
of blue pencil round it. If you can suggest any improvements, so much
the better. I want an expert like yourself to handle this by Monday
next, before the reviews come out, see? Do this for me, Luney, old boy,
and about the end of next week we’ll do a music-hall together.”
The brand new volume that the boy carried home reverently under his
arm, was a source of great bewilderment to him that evening in the
little room. Again and again he scanned the virgin pages with wondering
eyes. Great names were there, great events, things and men who had
been his constant companions all his life long, but one and all were
envisaged in an alien tongue. A strange metamorphosis had taken place.
He was filled with despair. An acute sense of mystery oppressed him. He
compared this new and shining tome with the old black volumes that were
his priceless treasures. The mystery deepened. The letter was there
in almost its original integrity; but an incommunicable something had
passed away.
On the following day during the luncheon hour, William Jordan, Junior,
resigned the new volume to the care of Mr. M. Arnold Dodson.
“It has not taken you long to go through it,” said that gentleman,
with a light of admiration in his eye, for he himself was prosecuting
researches into the subject which were fraught with pain. “Let me see
your notes, my son. They will help me a good deal.”
William Jordan, Junior, was fain to confess that he had not thought fit
to commit to paper the result of his own researches.
“You had better do so at once,” said Mr. Dodson, whose stern
countenance showed plainly that it would brook no trifling. “I want to
take ’em to-night to the British Museum. They will help me no end.”
“B-b-but,” said the boy nervously, “it is n-n-not Homer.”
For the moment the attitude of horror adopted by Mr. M. Arnold Dodson
seemed designed to suggest that the heavens were about to fall.
“Not Homer!” exclaimed Mr. Dodson. “Not Homer!”
He appeared to gather up each particular unit of his four feet ten
inches, to lend emphasis to a reply which somehow refused to come forth.
“Not Homer!” he said after a pause whose length had ceased to make it
dramatic. “Now look here, my son, I have only one word of advice to
give you. You have only to let that come to the ears of Octavius, and
you will be fired out of this old-established publishing house with one
week’s salary and no character.”
In spite, however, of the total failure of this source, to which
he looked chiefly for sustenance and inspiration in his arduous
undertaking, Mr. Dodson was of far too considerable a mental and moral
calibre to relinquish his self-imposed task. Thus early in his career
he had adopted the saying of a compatriot, for he too, like so many of
our national heroes, claimed the blood of Caledonia stern and wild,
upon his mother’s side, “genius is an infinite capacity for taking
pains,” and had made it his own. Therefore in a crisis where one of
other clay would have been daunted indeed, Mr. M. A. Dodson girt his
loins like a veritable giant, and re-addressed himself to his labours
with the greatest possible valour. Luney had failed him, as it was only
reasonable to expect such a lunatic to do. It was a Napoleonic visage
that crossed the threshold of a monumental building in Bloomsbury
Square, immediately opposite the Hotel Thackeray, on three consecutive
evenings at the hour of seven-thirty, and stayed there with its nose
pinned to unaccustomed documents until it was turned out.
Upon the afternoon of that Monday which was made memorable in the
national life by the fact that upon that day, Mr. Octavius Crumpett’s
version of Homer was issued to the Trade, towards five o’clock on that
epoch-making afternoon, the calm and self-contained right hand of Mr.
M. A. Dodson smote the portal of the sanctum sanctorum of Mr. Octavius
Crumpett, while in his equally calm and self-contained left hand he
bore the sacred volume upon which he had been concentrating the whole
of his critical faculty, which was not inconsiderable, for three days
past.
“Ah, Mr. Dodson, good-morning,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, with a
benign beam in his mild eyes, as he looked up from the perusal of the
list of books received by his favourite _Journal of English and Foreign
Literature, Science, the Fine Arts, Music and the Drama_. It is to be
observed _inter alia_ that the seeming inconsistency of which this
great and good man was guilty of ascribing the name of morning to five
o’clock in the afternoon, was in strict accordance with the higher
usage.
“Good-morning, sir,” said Mr. M. Arnold Dodson, with a slightly austere
but perfectly amiable self-possession.
“Is it to be my privilege, Mr. Dodson, to hear the first verdict which
has been passed upon--ah, my little book?” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett,
with the expansive pleasantness of one who had received already that
morning, at his favourite hall of physical and mental refreshment, the
sonorously-tendered compliment of a stalwart of the Episcopal Bench,
upon its long-expected-and-eagerly-looked-for appearance.
“Well, sir,” said Mr. Dodson, opening at a leisure which conferred an
adventitious weight upon an utterance which stood not in the least need
of it; “well, sir, it is not my intention to enter into petty details
nor into the minutiæ and fine points of scholarship. I think, sir,
those can be resigned with every propriety into more competent hands.
But what I would like to do, sir, with your kind indulgence, is to
view this work as a whole. I do not know, sir, that I have any special
claim to do this, but I would like to say just in what manner your--ah,
achievement strikes me----”
“Pray proceed, Mr. Dodson, pray proceed,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett,
as Mr. M. A. Dodson inserted one of those masterful pauses in his
oratory which in after days were likely to stand him in such good stead
in both houses of parliament, and on political platforms in the United
Kingdom far too numerous to mention.
“My survey of your achievement as a whole, sir,” Mr. M. A. Dodson
continued at a forensically magnificent leisure, “can be summed up in
one word. That word is the word _consummate_. To my mind, sir, the
word consummate alone envisages in any adequate sense that which you
have achieved. I say, sir, I do not propose to go into fine points of
scholarship, which even under the most favourable auspices are apt to
be vexed and over-nice. I speak merely as an amateur, sir, as a humble,
but ardent lover of letters. And in that capacity, sir, and in no
other, as I hope, sir, you will please understand, I have been unable
to refrain from underlining certain passages of your--ah, rendering
which to my mind are in-comparably fe-lic-i-tous.”
Mr. M. A. Dodson paused to take from his pocket a slip of paper on
which was set forth a collocation of mystic numerals. Mr. Octavius
Crumpett lay back in his revolving chair with closed eyes, and with his
hands folded over that portion of his being that was embellished by his
waistcoat of immaculate whiteness; and he seemed to vibrate internally
with that large content which it is only given to the good and great to
feel.
“Page sixty-four, the line beginning, ‘Behold the deep-shaking
thunder,’” Mr. M. A. Dodson continued as he ran his fingers through
the pages with that precision which is the fruit of a long and loving
intercourse with books. “Now, sir, to my mind, the whole passage as
far as ‘all-fostering Zeus’ could not be improved. To my mind, it is
an incomparable advance upon Pope and upon Chapman, and even upon the
extremely skilful version of the late Lord Derby. If I may be permitted
to say it, sir, to my mind, the manner in which you have surmounted
the well-nigh _in-superable_ difficulties of metre is worthy of the
highest praise; and yet, sir, you do not appear to have sacrificed one
iota of the sense or the spirit of the peerless original. Then, sir,
page seventy-two, beginning with line eighteen, ‘Treads the waves of
the many-tremulous seas.’ Or page ninety-one, that matchless rendering
of---- But I must not pause to enumerate.”
As Mr. M. A. Dodson ran his fingers with extreme rapidity through
one after another of these underlined passages, a kind of generous
enthusiasm communicated itself to his wizened countenance. His
diction, ever touched by Attic grace, seemed presently to glow with
a little of the Promethean fire. Yet never for a moment did it fall
into incoherence, nor lapse from the ideal of style in spoken diction,
however rapidly uttered, which was ever before him.
“In fact, sir,” Mr. M. A. Dodson concluded as he came to the last
passage he had underlined, “language fails me, as, sir, it has failed
me from the first, to say in precisely what manner your consummate
achievement has addressed my critical sense.”
With this striking peroration, Mr. M. A. Dodson made as if to withdraw,
but suddenly he appeared to think better of his resolution, for he
returned again to the near proximity of his great and good master,
and said in a modest voice, from which all traces of his infinitely
creditable mental excitement had been removed, “If I dare, sir, I would
ask of the author one small boon. I feel, sir, I have no right to ask
it, but if it were granted to me, it would mean the overflowing of the
cup. I should cherish beyond expression, sir, and I think I can vouch
for it, that in after life my children also will do the same; I should
cherish beyond expression, sir, the autograph of one who is at once the
author of this great book, and who is at the same time the head of this
great house.”
Immediately Mr. Octavius Crumpett dipped his pen in the ink and
inscribed upon the first page of the volume, _Mr. Matthew Arnold
Dodson, with the Author’s good wishes_.
“Mr. Dodson,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, after handing back the
volume to that gentleman, and curtailing in some measure a gratitude
that already had been choicely expressed; “Mr. Dodson, when you go
down-stairs, I shall be obliged if you will have the goodness to ask
Mr. Walkinshaw to have the kindness to come and see me.”
As Mr. M. A. Dodson pursued his meritorious way towards the basement
of the famous building, he took occasion to knock at the door of the
adjoining room.
“Enter,” said a clear official tone.
“Mr. Davis,” said Mr. Dodson, with a formidable politeness as he
entered, and laying an unmistakable stress upon the prefix, “I have the
honour to inform you that your goose is already cooked. Perhaps you
will have the condescension to look at this.”
With immemorial calm Mr. M. Arnold Dodson disclosed for the edification
of Mr. G. Eliot Davis, the fly-leaf of the volume he carried. A short
exclamation of surprise and incredulity escaped the lips of that young
gentleman, which Mr. Dodson did not pause to elucidate.
As the thin, tall, melancholy but intellectual form of Mr. Walter Pater
Walkinshaw wended its way up-stairs, Mr. Dodson turned to William
Jordan, Junior, with a Napoleonic air.
“Luney,” he said, “you can fetch me the time-book.”
William Jordan, Junior, descended from his stool obediently. Mr.
Dodson, with the aid of a ruler and some red ink, crossed out the name
of M. Arnold Dodson from the current page of that work, and wrote
thereunder, _G. Eliot Davis 8.30, vice M. Arnold Dodson gone up-stairs_.
No sooner had Mr. Dodson performed this operation than Mr. W. P.
Walkinshaw returned to that sphere over which he presided with so much
distinction, and said in his kind but cultivated voice, “Mr. Dodson,
Mr. Octavius will be glad if you will go up and see him.”
“I will, sir,” said Mr. Dodson in a tone which, subdued as it was,
resounded through the counting-house.
As for the second time within a very short period Mr. Dodson took his
meritorious way up the familiar stairs to Mount Olympus, he knocked
again on the door of Mr. G. Eliot Davis.
“Mr. Davis,” said Mr. Dodson, thrusting in his head, “prepare to
receive cavalry.”
Before Mr. Davis could demand the meaning of this enigmatic injunction,
Mr. Dodson had entered the august presence yet again.
Mr. Octavius Crumpett was seated _in pontificalibus_ with the glass in
his benign right eye, and the tips of his white and beautifully-kept
hands pressed together.
“Mr. Dodson,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, “I learn from Mr. Walkinshaw
that during the four years you have been associated with this house,
your conduct has been exemplary in the highest degree. I learn that
your attainments are entirely worthy of the--ah, traditions of this
house. It gives me more pleasure, Mr. Dodson, than I can express to
ask you to accept an increase of honorarium from £90 per annum, which
I understand you enjoy at present, to the sum of £200 per annum, which
will date from to-day. Further, it is my intention to ask you to take
up your duties to-morrow morning in the next room, which at present
is in the occupation of Mr. Davis. I think I may say that I concur
entirely with Mr. Walkinshaw in the opinion to which he has given
recent expression, that your considerable natural talent marks you out
for a higher destiny than that which you enjoy at present. I shall be
obliged, Mr. Dodson, if you will ask Mr. Davis to come here.”
“Mr. Davis,” said Mr. Dodson, projecting a somewhat sinister
countenance into the ante-room, whose accomplished occupant was
studying the _Sporting Times_, “Mr. Octavius will be obliged if you
will have the condescension to go next door.”
XXIII
As the weeks passed it was as if by a miracle that the young William
Jordan found himself still deriving pieces of silver from his
mysterious association with the counting-house of Messrs. Crumpett and
Hawker. Yet for some occult reason the impending sword never fell.
Perhaps it was that after a while he learned to assimilate his painful
and slow-wrung experience; at least in the process of time his growth
of knowledge in the practical sciences intervened to save him from some
of the dire pitfalls to which he was exposed.
Twelve months went by, twelve months fraught for the boy with infinite
vicissitude, but he still retained the occupation of the stool at No.
24 Trafalgar Square. There could be no doubt that he owed much to the
early supervision and the sagacious counsel, diversified on occasion
by the eminent practice, of Mr. James Dodson. Even after the elevation
of that accomplished worldling and philosopher to a higher sphere of
influence, he retained an almost paternal interest in his humble pupil.
It is true that the association of William Jordan, Junior, with one
of Mr. Dodson’s calibre was apt on occasion to diminish the number of
pieces of silver which he was able to dedicate to the cause that was
never out of his thoughts. But on the other hand, there can be no doubt
that William Jordan, Junior, gained a first-hand acquaintance with the
practical sciences that he could never have hoped otherwise to obtain.
At the end of his first year of servitude his pieces of silver were
augmented to the number of fifteen shillings per week. When he first
carried home this increase to his father in the little room, he was no
longer delirious with joy as was the case a year ago.
He spread them out on the table after supper with a curious melancholy.
During the few months previous to this event, his chief characteristic,
his eager, almost infantile, simplicity, had become tinged with a
quietude which seemed to be a foreshadowing of a sombre ripening to
maturity. He had been strangely silent and thoughtful of late. He had
given up in a great measure, even on Sundays, those thrice-blessed
days, his habit of reading constantly in the ancient authors.
“My father,” he said, as he arranged the pieces of silver upon the
table, “it is hard to believe that the same heart propels these fingers
that first laid these pieces of silver upon this table before you,
a long, long year ago. I think that year must have been an age, an
epoch. Or is it that during that time, my father, I have been reading
over-much in the Book of the Ages?”
“Ah, my beloved Achilles,” said his father, “may it not be that your
existence is entering upon a new phase? You know that the mortal life
of heroes has three phases. May not this be the second phase upon which
you are now entering?”
“Yes, my father,” said the young man thoughtfully, “I believe that to
be true. Things are not so mysterious to me as they once were. During
the past year I seem to have won knowledge that is great and strange
and rare.”
XXIV
“Luney, my son,” said Mr. James Dodson in one of his moments of
expansiveness, as they walked together one evening down the Strand,
“there are only two rules to remember for this life, whatever there may
be for the next. The first is to know what you want; the second is to
see that you get it.”
“Have you yet discovered that which is necessary to yourself?” his
companion ventured to inquire.
“I have, my son,” said Mr. Dodson. “I have discovered that it is
necessary to myself to marry a little money. You see, my son, I have
come to an understanding with Chrissie. And between you and me and
the lamp-post, my son, I might go a deal farther and fare a good deal
worse. She knows her way about the earth, does Chrissie; she knows what
two and two make; she wasn’t born yesterday. She has an eye to the main
chance, has Chrissie; and that’s the wife for me. She has nearly a
hundred quid laid by, and her mother’s brother has a beer off-license
in the Borough. Literature is all right, Luney, and so is Art, and so
is Law, and so is the Army, and so is the Church, but give me Trade, my
son, vulgar and sordid Trade. I am about tired of Culture, my son; I am
about tired of the Office Manner. I was only thinking this afternoon
what I would pay down in hard cash to be able to cut the throat of
Octavius with a blunt razor a bit jagged at the edges.”
It was to be divined from the expression of this somewhat unchristian
desire, that even the eminent philosopher and man of the world from
whose lips it proceeded was approaching a crisis in his own mental
history. Yet it was hard to believe that one whose attitude towards
life was of a calm and all-seeing unconcern, could also be entering
upon his phase of _sturm und drang_.
Within a few days of being honoured by these confidences, William
Jordan, Junior, received a letter at 43 Milton Street, E.C. It
contained a piece of cardboard upon which was written, _Police-Sergeant
and Mrs. Dodson At Home, 21 February. 8 Gladstone Villas, Midlothian
Road, Peckham, S.E. Music and Progressive Games, 7.30. R.S.V.P._
This mysterious communication proved a source of great bewilderment
to its recipient, who for the first time during the twenty years that
comprised his terrestrial history, found himself approaching the magic
portals of social life. During the luncheon hour of the morning after
the arrival of this mandate, Mr. James Dodson, who had anticipated his
perplexity, was fain to enlighten it.
“You’ve got to turn up, you know,” said that gentleman. “We are having
a party of sorts to introduce Chrissie to a few old pals. You’ve got
to turn up, my son; we can’t do without you. It won’t be large, but it
will be select. There will be you and me and Joe Cox, who plays for
Surrey Second Eleven; and we are expecting John Dobbs, who plays the
third fiddle in the orchestra at the Alcazar Theatre--that is if he
can get a night off; if not, he will come on after the show--and then
there will be Chrissie, and her cousin Hermione Leigh, who is a stunner
and no mistake. She is engaged for the new ballet at the Alcazar. Then
there will be one or two quiet unassuming people who don’t much matter.
It doesn’t do, my son, to have a party that is all celebrities, any
more than it does to have a pudding that is all plums. I have half a
mind to ask young Davis, just to show that I bear him no ill-will for
being so tricky--his manner is a good deal above the average, and he’s
a bit of a vocalist--but he knows it, like the cocky young swine that
he is, and there’s no saying that he mightn’t get uppish and put on
side with the pater and mater. No, Luney, I don’t think it would be
safe to risk it. Oh, and then there will be my old Aunt Tabitha, my
guv’nor’s sister. The old girl is a corker, and no mistake. She was
lady’s-maid for years to the Dowager Lady Brigintop. She’s seen a bit
of life, I can tell you. It will make your hair curl to hear what she
has got to say about the British Aristocracy. I tell you, Luney, this
is going to be no mean affair. Evening clothes, of course.”
The enumeration of the ingredients which were to make up the evening
party to which William Jordan, Junior, had been bidden, and from whom
no refusal would be taken, filled him with consternation, surprise,
and dismay. Such an undertaking was so far outside his _milieu_, that
for the time being, a journey to the moon or a distant planet seemed a
light thing by comparison.
Yet at first, he had not the courage to damp the ardour of his friend,
Mr. Dodson, by explicitly stating that he had no wish to be present.
That innate courtesy, which the rebuffs to which he was subjected
hourly in the stern school of experience, did nothing to lessen, nor
a steadily ripening judgment to minimize, forbade the unhappy young
man from exposing his craven’s fears to his mentor. All the same, the
problem of how to escape from so dread an ordeal without wounding the
feelings of his friend, was never absent from his thoughts.
“I--I am afraid, Jimmy,” he plucked up the courage to confess on the
evening of the following day, “I--I cannot come to your p-p-party.”
“You have got to come to my p-p-party, my son,” said Jimmy Dodson, with
an amused absence of compromise. “I can take no refusal.”
“Oh, n-n-n-no!” said the young man in blank despair.
“Oh, y-y-y-yes! you old lunatic,” said his mentor indulgently. “They
all know you are coming, and you don’t know how keen they are to meet
you. When I told Joe Cox you could speak Greek like a native, you
should have seen his face.”
“Oh, b-b-but,” said the young man desperately, “I--I--I am not what you
call--I--I am not what you call ‘up’ in these things!”
“Up, be blowed!” said Mr. Dodson. “You have got to develop your social
instinct a bit. You old lunatic, what have you got to be so serious
about? Haven’t you ever been to a party before?”
“Oh, n-n-no,” said William Jordan, Junior, with a scared face.
“Then it is time you broke the ice,” said his mentor sternly. “Every
chap has got to go out into society. You can’t get on in the world
without you do.”
“Oh, n-n-n-no,” protested the young man feebly.
“It will be good for you, my son,” said his inexorable mentor; “do you
a power of good. You want bringing out badly. You are a regular D’Orsay
to what you were; when I knew you first, I never met your equal for
greenness. Of course you are not very bright now; but if you only form
the habit of going out into society a bit, you are quite likely to walk
away from one or two of the more fancied performers who are making the
running at present. The other day when I told young Davis that you
could speak Greek like a native, he as good as called me a liar. I’ll
tell you what it is, my son; if only you could be got to think a bit
more of yourself; if only you would cultivate the habit of putting on a
reasonable amount of side; if only you would pull up your socks a bit,
you might easily, in your small way, make a bit of a mark. Of course
you will never be Number One in anything; you will never see your name
in large type; you’ll never be a James Dodson, my son, if you live to
be as old as Methuselah, for the very good reason that you haven’t got
it in you. But my advice to you is, form the habit of going out into
society and see what it will do for you. I’ll guarantee that in one
year your old aunt at Hither Green won’t know her own nephew.”
William Jordan, Junior, however, was not to be shorn of his terrors by
words so suave as these. Yet Mr. James Dodson had quite made up his
mind that the party to be given in honour of his _fiancée_ should not
be baulked of its chief lion, whose surprising attainment in a dead
language Mr. Dodson had published abroad to an equally surprising
extent.
However, as the young man continued to persist in his unreasonable
attempts to evade his responsibilities, a ray of meaning suddenly
suffused the already sufficiently bright intelligence of Mr. James
Dodson.
“Of course, my son, I see, I see!” he exclaimed; “if you have never
been to a party before, you are wondering about your kit. I think I
know you well enough by now, old boy, to ask whether you have got an
evening suit?”
Mr. Jordan was fain to confess that although he was not thinking about
an evening suit--whatever such an article of attire might be--he did
not think he had got an evening suit.
“Own up, if you haven’t,” said Mr. Dodson. “It is nothing to be ashamed
of. Some chaps might think so, but I am not the least bit snobbish
myself. Own up and I shall not think the worse of you.”
Upon this encouraging assurance the young man inquired if there was
any substantial difference between an evening suit and an ordinary
night-gown in which one went to bed.
When in all good faith the young man sought this information, he
and his mentor chanced to be passing the brightly-illumined window
of a Fleet Street tailor. Mr. James Dodson stopped abruptly. With
great earnestness he peered into his companion’s wan and troubled
countenance. For the first time in their intercourse the _bona fides_
of William Jordan, Junior, were seriously called in question.
“If I thought you were trying it on with me, Luney, my son,” said Mr.
Dodson, with that truculence which he always seemed to hold in reserve
for instant use; “if I thought you were pulling my leg, I should hit
you as hard as I used to before I knew you spoke Greek. But no, Luney,”
Mr. Dodson added, with a sigh of relief, as he continued to peer into
that strange and pale countenance, “you haven’t got it about you to
try it on with _me_.”
In an admirably practical fashion Mr. James Dodson proceeded there and
then to demonstrate what an evening suit really was by pointing out
that article of attire as displayed on a dummy in the tailor’s window.
“There you are, my son, there it is, all complete with a white tie and
patent leather shoes,” he said, indicating this mirror of fashion and
mould of form.
William Jordan, Junior, confessed without shame or confusion that he
had neither an evening suit, nor a white tie, nor a pair of patent
leather shoes in his possession.
“If such is really the case,” said Mr. Dodson, “your up-bringing has
been disgracefully neglected. I don’t know what your people can have
been about; but it can be remedied. My young cousin Harry is about
your size, although he is a good deal fatter; I shall get him to lend
you his. Fortunately he has not been asked to the party; he is only a
junior clerk in the insurance, and I thought he could be kept until the
eleventh hour in case any of the swells dropped out. I expect he will
be only too proud to lend you his suit, although you will have to get a
couple of tucks put in the waistcoat and trousers.”
The next day, however, Mr. Dodson had to confess that as far as his
cousin Harry was concerned his expectations were disappointed.
“The confounded youth has arranged to go to a subscription ball on the
same night,” said Mr. Dodson, with an aggrieved air. “Like his cheek
when he knew that I was having a party. I don’t know what we shall do
now, my son. We might have tried young Davis, only unfortunately in a
weak moment I have asked him to come to the party.”
After a brief period of contemplation, in which Mr. Dodson thoughtfully
reviewed the situation from every point of view, he said, “I am afraid,
my son, there is only one thing to be done. You will have to get an
evening suit of your own. It will be money well invested if you take to
going out into society a great deal.”
That evening Mr. William Jordan received an introduction to the
gentleman who had the felicity of providing Mr. Dodson with his own
immaculate outfit.
“Something neat, you know, Mr. Mosenthal, but not gaudy,” said Mr.
Dodson, as this artist approached his subject in his shirt sleeves,
with a piece of chalk in his mouth and a tape measure in his long
slender fingers. “You have got a difficult subject, Mr. Mosenthal,
but with a bit of tact I expect you will be able to turn him out a
gentleman.”
Mr. Mosenthal assured Mr. Dodson very earnestly that he had not the
least doubt on that score. Armed with this assurance Mr. Dodson
accompanied William Jordan into the shop of the haberdasher next door
for the purpose of buying him a white evening tie.
“If you were left to yourself, my son, I would bet a penny,” said Mr.
Dodson, “that you would buy one of those ties that are tied already;
and if you did, my son, I don’t mind telling you that socially you
would do for yourself at once.”
Having by the exercise of this highly commendable foresight delivered
William Jordan, Junior, from the toils of this imminent and deadly
peril, Mr. Dodson fortified this social neophyte with further sound
advice in regard to his deportment on the devious and narrow path he
was about to tread, and finally committed him to the care of his green
’bus in Ludgate Circus.
“It is a dangerous experiment,” mused Mr. Dodson, as the ’bus was lost
amid the traffic; “but that young fellow wants bringing out badly. It
will do him no end of good. But how it comes about that he can read
Greek like a native beats me entirely.”
As the fateful twenty-first of February drew near, William Jordan’s
agitation became so great that he would lie sleepless at night, imaging
the ordeal that lay before him in the multiform shapes of a nightmare.
During the last few months he had gained so much knowledge and hard-won
experience that he was no longer so susceptible to the terrors which
had seemed to render his childhood one long and intricate tissue of
horrors. He had begun to understand that the hordes of “street-persons”
were his fellow creatures. He had gained an insight into their ways,
their speech, and even to some extent into their modes of thought.
Such knowledge had rendered an incomparable service to his sense of
security. He was even gaining a measure of self-confidence. He could
even frame whole sentences of their language on the spur of the moment,
and utter them in such a fashion that they were intelligible to those
with whom he had to consort.
Yet his anticipation that he would be cast among a number of strange
people in a strange place, all of whom would be engaged upon a
business in which he also would have to engage without in the least
comprehending its nature, re-summoned a good deal of his former state
of mind. It was clear from his friend’s attitude towards it, that “a
party” was an affair of some peculiar and special significance. He
divined from his friend’s manner that this was something far removed
from the routine of tying brown-paper parcels with double knots of
string, pasting labels upon them, and dabbing them with splotches
of coloured wax. No, the duties that would be exacted of him were
evidently far other than these, in which he felt he had already
attained to some measure of proficiency.
It was not until the eve of the dread ordeal, when the tailor delivered
his mysterious parcel to 43, Milton Street, E.C., that he took the
white-haired man, his father, into his confidence. Then it was that,
worn out with a distress that he knew to be contemptible, he asked that
guide and comforter to whom he was wont to repair in all emergencies,
whose wisdom was never at fault, whether he could escape from his
ordeal with his own honour inviolate and without giving pain to one
among the street-persons to whom he owed a debt of gratitude, and
towards whom he already felt himself to be linked in a curious bond of
affection.
The white-haired man, his father, did not repress a faint smile, which,
however, was melancholy.
“Thou wilt cease to be Achilles, beloved one,” said his father, “unless
trial is constantly made of thy quality. Thou canst retain thy nobility
only at the point of the sword. Wert thou not Achilles I would say to
thee, shun all such ordeals as these. Being Achilles I would say to
thee, follow in the steps of thy guide wheresoever they may lead thee
through the many and devious purlieus of the out-of-doors world.”
“Thy wisdom sustains me, my father,” said the young man. “It searches
my veins and exorcises the coldness of my faint spirit almost like
the living breath of the great book itself. I would beseech thee, my
father, to reveal to me a passage that is proper to my pass.”
The young man took down the mighty tome from the shelf, and the aged
man his father opened it at a page worn thin by the intercourse of many
generations. After the young man had perused it in deep silence for a
little while, he knelt for many hours with his scarred forehead bent
upon the faded vellum.
XXV
During the next day, which was so big with fate, Mr. William Jordan,
Junior, was the recipient of further instruction from his mentor for
his guidance at the forthcoming ceremonial.
“Mind you don’t tuck your napkin into your collar,” said this authority
in the ways of the polite world; “and don’t eat your cheese with your
knife; and don’t drink out of the finger bowls. And mind you turn up
without a speck of dirt on your shoes. I should recommend you to take
a ’bus to St. Paul’s Station; and you had better arrange with young
Davis, who will be on the train, to split a hansom from Peckham Station
to Midlothian Avenue.”
By the intervention of this practical mind, which, of course, by this
time wielded a considerable influence in high places, both G. Eliot
Davis and William Jordan, Junior, were allowed to relinquish their
official duties at six p.m. in order to prepare for the festivities of
the night.
As William Jordan, Junior, tied up the last parcel and stepped down
from his high stool immediately prior to stealing home to array himself
in fear and trembling and a brand new evening suit for the dread ordeal
that awaited him, he heard, for the twentieth time that day, the voice
of his mentor in his ear.
“By the way, Luney, my son,” it said, “I forgot to tell you to wear a
white muffler in the train to keep the smuts off your shirt front.”
With this final injunction in his ears, Mr. William Jordan, Junior,
took his fearful way to 43, Milton Street, E.C., while Mr. James Dodson
“looked round” into the annexe of the Brontë Hotel to inquire of his
_fiancée_ for the third time that day, “what sort of fettle she was in?”
It is not the business of this biography to estimate the precise
quantity of blood and tears that it cost William Jordan, Junior, to
clothe himself in his evening suit and to embellish the same with a
necktie which had to be arranged by his own very inefficient fingers,
and also with a pair of new and excruciatingly tight shoes. It must
suffice to say that when at last, in a state bordering on mental
derangement, he had by some means contrived to array himself in these
articles of civilized attire, to reap as the immediate reward of a
somewhat frantic perseverance a measure of sheer physical discomfort
that he had never before experienced, he utilized the few minutes that
remained to him before he obeyed the decree that sent him forth to
Midlothian Avenue, Peckham, S.E., upon his knees in the little room by
the side of the white-haired man his father.
XXVI
Upon the wind-swept platform of St. Paul’s Station in the City, while
awaiting the arrival of the 7.7 to Peckham, he was accosted by the
erect and immaculate form of Mr. G. Eliot Davis. The nonchalance of
bearing and air of supreme self-possession of this gentleman were
hardly inferior to those of Mr. Dodson himself.
“Hullo, Luney,” said Mr. Davis, looking up from the precincts of an
inordinately high collar to the face of a gaunt figure which, somewhat
to the annoyance of Mr. Davis, was considerably taller than his own;
“arrayed, I see, like Solomon in all his glory. Feeling pretty cheery,
eh, and full of parlour tricks? I must say these functions don’t amuse
me at all. Music and progressive games!--I like more knife and fork
work myself. Come on and have a sherry and bitters before we start.”
Mr. William Jordan had already acquired that rudimentary wisdom of the
“out-of-doors” world, that “when you are in Rome you must do like the
Romans.” He had also on his way in the omnibus determined to follow out
this fundamental truth, as far as in him lay, to the letter. Therefore,
with great docility he accompanied Mr. Davis to the buffet to have a
sherry and bitters. It is not necessary to state that even in the act
of swallowing that mysterious compound he had ample cause to rue his
superhuman resolve.
It was with a sensation of being poisoned that in the wake of
his mentor for the time being he invaded a second-class smoking
compartment, already overcrowded with emphatic street-persons, smoking
equally emphatic tobacco.
Upon their arrival at Peckham, the young man recalled Mr. Dodson’s
injunctions and very timorously advanced the suggestion that they
should take a hansom to Midlothian Avenue. Mr. Davis received the
suggestion with loud-voiced derision.
“Not likely,” said that gentleman. “I am not a bloated plutocrat. You
should have sported a pair of goloshes the same as me.”
William Jordan, Junior, was confronted accordingly with the extreme
course of having to take a hansom for himself, and of inviting Mr.
Davis to accept a seat therein. Mr. Davis’s tone of unmistakable
rebuff, however, had quelled him so effectually that he could not find
the courage to do either of these things. Accordingly he was obliged to
pick his way with great trepidation along divers unclean thoroughfares
to the frank amusement of his companion, who, in bringing to his notice
innumerable pools of water and stretches of mud upon the route, abjured
him earnestly “to be careful of his ‘pumps.’”
Upon the stroke of half-past eight Mr. Davis executed an ostentatious
tattoo upon the knocker of No. 8, Gladstone Villas, which was situate
amid two narrow rows of ill-lighted, meagre, lower middle class
respectability. They were received with great cordiality by Mr. Dodson
himself, who in immaculate evening attire appeared to considerable
advantage.
“Hullo, Luney, old boy,” said Mr. Dodson, “so here we are! Give me your
hat and coat and then come in here, and I’ll introduce you to Coxey and
John Dobbs.”
With a dull terror in his soul Mr. William Jordan, Junior, resigned
himself implicitly into the care of his mentor, so that almost without
being aware of how he came there, he found himself in an exceedingly
small room in the presence of several other immaculately attired
gentlemen; and these, although entire strangers to him, were of an
extremely critical cast of countenance. He could understand nothing of
what was taking place, although presently he awoke to the fact that
these gentlemen were grasping him by the hand.
“You’ll have a finger before we go up-stairs to the ladies?” said Mr.
Dodson, pouring a coloured liquid into a tumbler, to which he added an
even more mysterious liquid that went off with a hiss. “Say when.”
“Oh n-n-n-no, please!” gasped Mr. William Jordan; for a bitter
recollection still abided within him of his misadventure at the railway
station buffet.
Hearing this note of somewhat exaggerated appeal the other gentlemen
could hardly repress a guffaw, particularly when incited thereto by a
knowing wink from Mr. Davis.
“Never mind them, Luney old boy,” said Mr. Dodson, who as he spoke
smiled archly at his guests. “They don’t know any better. They are not
accustomed to mix with men of intellect on equal terms.”
“That is the truest word you’ve spoken this week, Jim Dodson,” said Mr.
John Dobbs of the Alcazar Theatre, a heavy and sombre young man with
very long and thick black hair and a voice that seemed to proceed from
his boots.
“Close it, Jimmy,” said Mr. Joseph Cox, a small and dapper young
gentleman with a very easy and cordial manner.
“One of these days he will be the best slow left-arm bowler in Surrey,”
said Mr. Dodson in an impressive aside to Mr. William Jordan, and in a
voice sufficiently audible for Mr. Joseph Cox to hear.
Mr. Dodson, having to the frank amusement of those gentlemen assembled,
exercised his blandishments in vain to induce Mr. William Jordan “to
have a finger before going up-stairs to see the ladies,” at length
proceeded to conduct the young man thither without this aid, which he
and his friends deemed most essential to the accomplishment of so grave
an ordeal.
“Don’t be nervous, old boy,” said his mentor kindly, as he took him
firmly by the arm; “at the worst they can’t do more than eat you, and
if they do they will wish they hadn’t.”
“Are--are my--my sh-shoes all right?” stammered Mr. William Jordan in a
hoarse whisper.
“Right as rain, my son,” said his mentor. “And Mosenthal has turned you
a treat. You look a regular poem in blank verse. It wouldn’t surprise
me a bit if they _do_ want to eat you.”
As Mr. Dodson placed his hand on the drawing-room door the terrible
sensations of that long year ago when the same hand was on the door of
Mr. Octavius Crumpett again assailed the young man. Only to-night these
emotions seemed to be more intense. And of late he had come fondly to
imagine that never again would he become the prey of weaknesses so
pitiful.
His brain was dazed and his eyes were almost dark when bright lights
and colours and a pageant of female loveliness was first unfolded to
his gaze. It is true that the first of these ladies whom he had to
encounter was not very beautiful: a fat, elderly, unemphatic kind
of lady whose clothes looked odd, and who wore a kind of irrelevant
dignity which somehow did not seem to fit her.
“Mater, this is Mr. William Jordan, the young sportsman I am always
telling you about,” said Mr. Dodson in a cheery voice.
“Pleased to meet you, young man,” said this lady, shooting out a fat
hand as a highwayman might shoot out a horse-pistol. However, Mr.
Jordan had the presence of mind to grasp it, and at the same time to
bow low.
Beside her was a lady dressed severely in black. She sat very upright,
and held a pair of glasses in front of her which she used with
devastating effect. In mien she was aged and severe; in manner she was
sharp and staccato, and with no more geniality than a piece of ice.
“Aunt Tabitha,” said Mr. Dodson, “Mr. Jordan. Mr. Jordan--Aunt Tabitha.”
This very formidable lady turned such a cold and resolute gaze upon the
young man that sharp little shivers seemed to envelop him. It seemed to
congeal the half-formed words on his lips. All the same he was able to
go through the formality of almost bowing to the ground.
The next lady to whom his attention was directed was extremely
resplendent and also extremely _decolletée_. In spite of her air of
magnificence, her blazing jewels, the gorgeous texture of her skin and
her clothes, there seemed to be something curiously familiar about
her. The mystery was solved, however, almost before it had had time to
become one.
“Chrissie,” said Mr. Dodson, “what price our fat friend?”
“Ain’t he just utter,” said the gorgeous creature, giving Mr. Jordan a
playful flick with her fan. “I am sure mother ought to be proud of her
boy to-night.”
As Mr. Jordan bowed very low before her, the gorgeous lady made a very
remarkable and visibly distorted “face” at another gorgeous lady who
sat by her side.
In sheer splendour and profuse magnificence all paled their ineffectual
fires before that of this fourth lady who sat by Chrissie’s side. When
the young man first ventured to look at this apparition of female
loveliness, the power of breathing was almost denied to him. In beauty
she was ravishing; divinely tall apparently, and most divinely fair.
She had the look of a goddess: young, brilliant, queenly, with a
noble fire in her glance. Her clothes in their ample majesty and her
jewels in their lustre made those of Chrissie appear almost tawdry
by comparison. Never until that moment had William Jordan divined,
not even in that remote and ill-starred adventure of his childhood,
that actual authentic goddesses still walked the earth, clad in their
ravishing flesh and blood. As this vision burst upon his gaze William
Jordan could scarcely repress an exclamation of awe and wonder and
delight.
“Miss Hermione Leigh,” said Mr. Dodson, “Mr. Jordan; Mr. Jordan--Miss
Hermione Leigh.”
To the exaggerated deference of which she was the recipient on the part
of Mr. William Jordan, this divinity returned a curt and aloof nod,
which might hardly have been interpreted as a nod at all; and at the
same moment she made a gesture to Chrissie which partook of the nature
of putting out her tongue.
“Ain’t he marvellous?” said Miss Hermione Leigh to her friend Chrissie
in an eloquent aside. “Where did Jimmy dig _him_ up? Has he taken out a
licence for him?”
“A gilt mug,” said Chrissie in the matter-of-fact tone that never
forsook her.
“Oh, oh!” said Miss Hermione Leigh, as if sudden light had suffused her
robust intelligence; “that explains it.” She turned an arch glance upon
Mr. William Jordan. “Not going to run away, cocky, are you?” said the
divinity. “Ought to be room for you and me on the same settee.”
She patted the sofa on which she sat with a white-gloved paw.
Mr. Jordan felt his ears to be burning. A fiery haze was floating
before his eyes. He was trembling in every limb. With a supreme effort
he managed to take a seat on the sofa, and as close to the goddess as
he dare.
Three minutes of tense silence passed. Both ladies appeared to expect
him to say something. Of this fact, however, Mr. William Jordan was not
at all conscious. His excitement, his nervousness, his self-conscious
effacement had yielded place to a kind of religious awe. He, William
Jordan, was slowly beginning to realize that unawares he had had the
unspeakable temerity to enter the presence of the white-armed Hera. As
far as he was concerned, the occasion was not one for speech, even had
he been in a physical condition to indulge in such an act of vandalism.
He had quite enough to do to glance at her furtively, sideways, and to
try to catch the sound of her breath.
At last the goddess looked at him very boldly and directly, right into
his shy and bewildered eyes that were set so deep.
“Well?” she said.
By a wonderful effort of the mind, which was yet purely involuntary,
and was only rendered possible by his almost occult faculty of a
never-failing courtesy, the young man grasped the fact that the goddess
was under the impression that he had dared to address a remark to her.
“I--I b-beg your p-p-p-pardon,” he stammered painfully. “I--I d-don’t
think I--I s-said a-anything.”
These words and particularly the mode of their utterance caused the
goddess to titter in a very audible and unmistakable manner. Her
companion followed her example.
“He d-doesn’t t-think he s-said a-anything,” said one lady to the
other, “he d-doesn’t t-think he s-said a-anything.”
Miss Hermione Leigh then turned to Mr. William Jordan.
“You _are_ funny,” she said.
Before Mr. Jordan could find a fitting rejoinder to an indictment which
seemed to baffle him completely, his friend Mr. Davis sauntered up
to the sofa. His hands were in his pockets; his demeanour was one of
inimitable nonchalance.
“Hullo!” exclaimed Chrissie, “look what’s blown in! How’s Percival?”
“So, so,” said Mr. Davis, with an air of polite weariness.
“I s’pose you know Hermione?”
“Only on Saturdays,” said Mr. Davis, with a humility that seemed to be
finely considered, “when I draw my screw.”
“Oh come, Percy,” said Miss Hermione Leigh, with amiable protest, “I
reckon to know you at least two days a week since you have had a rise
in your salary.”
“Not you,” said Mr. Davis, with quiet good nature. “One supper at the
Troc of a Saturday with a half-bottle of Pommery, and it is all blewed
bar the washing money. You know very well, Hermione, you cut mugs like
me dead when we come sneaking out of Lockhart’s all the rest of the
week.”
“Not quite so much of the mug, Percy,” said Miss Hermione Leigh, “and
not quite so much of the Pommery. You don’t average three bottles a
year.”
Before Mr. Davis could deny this impeachment in adequate terms, the
voice of Mr. Dodson was heard proclaiming from the piano at the other
end of the room that Mr. Percival Davis, the celebrated tenor, would
sing the no-less celebrated song, “I’ll sing thee songs of Araby.”
“I will do so,” said Mr. Davis, with great promptitude. “This is where
I get my own back.”
Mr. Davis rendered that song in a quite admirable manner. When the
deserved applause which greeted it had subsided, and Mr. Dodson had
informed the company that owing to the unparalleled length of the
programme, and the unprecedented quantity of talent that was present
that evening, no encores would be granted in any circumstances
whatever, Miss Hermione Leigh informed her companion that “although
Percy was dirt mean, he _could_ sing,” a judgment to which Chrissie
accorded her imprimatur.
Mr. Dodson then announced that Mr. John Dobbs of the Alcazar Theatre,
and of the London and Provincial Concerts, would render that
heart-rending melody, “The Lost Chord,” which Mr. Dobbs immediately
proceeded to do. As this melancholy-looking and large-eyed and
profuse-haired young man drew marvellous strains from two pieces of
wood and a few strings Mr. William Jordan’s thoughts strayed a moment
from the thrall of the goddess. He sat with his hands clasped, his
gaunt form as tense as an arrow drawn to the string. In his eyes was a
dreamy rapture, and in the centre of each was a large stealthy tear.
His whole being was entranced. The two ladies in whose vicinity he
was, nudged one another furtively and together perused that strange
countenance with great satisfaction to themselves.
Upon the subsidence of the enthusiasm which Mr. John Dobbs’s effort
called forth, Mr. Dodson announced that Miss Hermione Leigh of the
“Peace and War Ballet” of the Alcazar Theatre, would render that
touching melody, “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay,” with dance accompaniment,
as performed by her before most of the bald-heads of Europe, not to
mention those of Bethnal Green. This announcement was received with
such favour by the gentlemen present that immediately they broke into a
cheer.
With immense good nature Miss Hermione Leigh swept across the room to
the piano, and with the aid of the variously accomplished Mr. Dodson
himself, who “scratched the ivories” by request, and also with the aid
of Mr. Davis, who turned over the music after, as he expressed it, “he
had cleared the course for the big race” by driving back the company,
regardless of age and sex, from within an area of at least eight feet
of the piano, and in spite of the fact that Aunt Tabitha, who was
compelled to move her chair, stared at Mr. Davis through her glasses
with a stony glare, and said at the top of a loud harsh voice, “That
is a very unmannerly young man”--a remark which set the remainder of
the company in roars of laughter, in which Mr. Davis joined more loudly
than anybody else.
Yet what can describe or even remotely indicate the emotions which
surged over Mr. William Jordan, Junior, when through eyes dim with
ecstasy he beheld the divine form of the goddess, who, as she rose to
her full height beside the piano and broke into a not particularly
melodious warble, approximated more nearly in physique and appearance
to his Olympians than any creature he had looked upon hitherto. It did
not matter to William Jordan what strange and fantastic words fell from
that full, white throat, or what fantastic gyrations that divine form
subsequently went through; it was not for such as himself remotely to
comprehend the speech and gestures of those immortal ones of whom she
was a daughter. He sat entranced, unable to move, to think, or even to
realize the wild emotions of which so suddenly he had become the prey.
When the goddess, a little out of breath, and also flushed, and
therefore looking more brilliant than ever, swept back to the sofa to
his side, a kind of religious awe mounted in Mr. William Jordan as he
peered upwards into that beautiful, smiling, good-natured face.
“O-o-oh!” he exclaimed softly.
Hearing the exclamation, both Chrissie and the goddess looked towards
the source of it in unconcealed amazement. They then looked at one
another. As the goddess sank upon the sofa somewhat heavily she broke
out into a loud laugh.
“Too funny!” she said, and proceeded to fan herself with great vigour.
Mr. Dodson then informed the company that Mr. James Dodson, of the
St. James’s Restaurant Bar, Piccadilly, would admit any member of the
audience into the mysteries of the three-card trick free of charge, yet
made an exception in favour of Mr. Percival Davis, who was not in need
of instruction.
“Jimmy,” said his _fiancée_ in an authoritative tone, “sing _I Want One
like Pa had Yesterday_.”
When Mr. Dodson had rendered this ballad with immense success, he
called upon Joseph Cox, Esquire, of Surrey Second Eleven, and also
of the leading public-houses within a mile radius of Kennington Oval,
to give his world-famous imitation of a white mouse walking upon its
fore-paws backwards.
Mr. Joseph Cox, with great natural modesty, disclaimed any special
aptitude for a feat of this delicate nature, but, rather than be a
source of disappointment to the company, he would undertake either to
give an imitation of a hen laying an egg, or, if preferred, he would
stand on his head while any member of the audience counted thirty.
Upon the proposal by Mr. Joseph Cox of these two extremely honourable
alternatives, Mr. Dodson proceeded, as he phrased it, “to put it to the
meeting.” With surprising unanimity “the meeting” decided that Mr. Cox
be called upon to attempt the hazardous feat of standing on his head
while Miss Tabitha Dodson counted thirty. After a little delay, which
was caused by Miss Tabitha Dodson declining in most uncompromising
terms to be associated in an official capacity with “such a piece
of tomfoolery”--which resulted in the hostess, Mrs. Dodson, being
nominated for this onerous duty--Mr. Joseph Cox, with a solemnity of
mien which filled the audience with the greatest possible delight,
proceeded to poise himself upon his apex.
When the enthusiasm which this feat excited had subsided in some
measure, it was restored almost to its original fervour by Mr. Dodson’s
announcement of the event of the evening. Mr. William Jordan, the
distinguished scholar and England’s future poet laureate, would recite
the first book of Homer’s Odyssey in the original Greek.
When Mr. William Jordan discovered that he was the source of some
almost hilarious enthusiasm, he cried in tragic accents, with a kind of
horror in his deep-set eyes, “Oh n-n-n-no, I c-c-c-c-couldn’t! indeed I
c-c-c-c-couldn’t!”
In the midst of the shrieks of laughter which his words and the
distraught expression of his countenance provoked, and after Mr. Dodson
had ministered thereto by the assurance “that it was not because Mr.
Jordan couldn’t, but because Mr. Jordan wouldn’t,” he allayed any
feeling of disappointment that might have arisen from Mr. Jordan’s
obduracy--which he assured Mr. Jordan “was not the thing”--by proposing
that they should go down to supper.
It was in the process of marshalling this “small but select” assembly
that Mr. Dodson found a further opportunity for the display of that
administrative power of which he was the fortunate possessor. At least
three of the gentlemen present were aspirants for the favours of Miss
Hermione Leigh. However, Mr. Dodson, who even upon the threshold of his
career had nothing to learn in the elements of social practice, chose
to assume a demeanour of impregnable innocence towards all the covert
signals that were directed to him, and informed Mr. William Jordan that
his was the honour of “taking down” the divinity who reclined by his
side.
It must be admitted that Miss Hermione Leigh accepted this ruling
somewhat ungraciously.
“I shall ask Jimmy what he means by this,” said the goddess to
Chrissie. “He might at least have taken that stuffed owl out of the
glass case on the chimney-piece, so that I could go down with that.”
“It is only his fun,” said Chrissie.
“I sha’n’t sing after supper,” said Miss Hermione Leigh, bridling.
“You have not been asked, my dear,” said Chrissie imperturbably.
“Anyhow, that cuckoo is better than Percy Davis,” said Mr. Joseph Cox
to Mr. John Dobbs, with the resignation of one who has swallowed most
of the formulas.
“Better that crackpot than Joe Cox,” Mr. John Dobbs confided to Mr.
Percival Davis.
In the dining-room of No. 8, Gladstone Villas, which was a more
commodious dwelling than any this rising family had previously
occupied--a contingency that was due to the recent rise in salary of
its eldest scion--was seated Police-Sergeant Dodson, in his best and
very highly furbished official uniform. The lustre of his hair outshone
the candelabra.
Police-Sergeant Dodson rose from his seat at the head of the
highly-decorated table, which he had occupied with heroic patience
for the last half-hour while he waited for the real business of the
evening to begin, and shook each person who entered heartily by the
hand--beginning with “Mother”--and hoped earnestly that one and all
would make themselves quite at home.
“What do _you_ think, old cock?” said Mr. Dodson _fils_, placing his
_fiancée_ at the right hand of his hearty, yet majestic parent.
“No sparring for places,” cried Mr. Dodson _fils_ in a voice of large
authority. “You’ve got to tackle the ham, Percy, my son; and Joe Cox,
you set about those ducks. You ought to be used to ’em by this time.”
In spite, however, of the airy and invincible good humour of Mr. Dodson
_fils_, it called for no particular acuteness of observation to detect
that a gloom had suddenly overspread the company. Mr. Dodson _fils_
may even have been conscious of it himself; but, even if he was, his
gay courage and inimitable _flair_ would admit no check; and, further,
it was his boast “that he had a mind above trifles.” But, in spite of
this, it was apparent to all that a gloom had overspread the company.
“I call it an insult to me,” said Chrissie across the table to the
goddess in a defiant undertone. “Jimmy will hear of this again.”
“Poor form, I must say,” said Mr. Davis to Miss Sparhawk, an agitated
but voluble young lady who had arrived late. “I should have thought
Jimmy’s old man would have known better.”
In spite of the indefatigable exertions of Mr. Dodson _fils_, who
took upon himself the somewhat exacting duties of “head waiter,”
the vigorous manipulation of knives and forks, and the revivifying
influence of what Mr. Dodson _fils_ facetiously termed “the
gooseberry”--a yellow, fizzing liquid which Mr. Jordan, with a lively
recollection of a recent experience, tasted very warily, and found
almost nice--in spite of all these circumstances, it was only too clear
that something had passed from the gay assembly that could never return.
Mr. Jordan ate very little of the robust foods that were spread before
him in such profusion; but the goddess, who so miraculously had been
confided to his care, behaved before these viands with wonderful
vigour, resolution and success. It was far from Mr. Jordan’s province
to marvel that a goddess should eat so much, or with such an absence of
delicacy, but marvel he did at the catholicity of a taste that could
deal so faithfully with meats of this sort, which in no sense seemed to
compare with her native nectar and ambrosia.
A spasmodic flicker of gaiety was imparted to the company by the toasts
and speeches. Police-Sergeant Dodson, in referring in appropriate terms
to an event which concerned the scion of his house very nearly, “hoped
Jimmy, who was a good boy, would make a better man than his father.”
“Taken as read, old cock,” interposed Mr. Dodson _fils_.
In the course of the reply made by Mr. Dodson _fils_ to the toast
of his own health and that of his _fiancée_, he testified with a
_bonhomie_ that was most engaging, and in terms of great felicity, to
the pleasure derived by all present from the presence of everybody else.
By the time the feasting and toasting had been conducted to an issue
that was more or less happy--in spite of the pall that still hovered
over the assembly--and after the ladies had gone up-stairs, and after
Mr. Jordan had been exhorted in vain by each of the gentlemen who
still lingered around the board to “try a weed”--an invitation which
he declined in such alarmed accents as to cause them all to become
hilariously merry--the bewildered and feverishly excited young man,
without knowing how he came to be there, found himself standing again
in the drawing-room in the presence of the goddess.
In the process of time the fact invaded his mind that his place on
the settee by the side of the divinity was now in the occupation of
another. That other was Mr. Percival Davis.
“He may be very clever,” Mr. Jordan overheard the penetrating accent of
the goddess, “but I don’t think much of his conversation. Do you?”
“I call it rotten,” said Mr. Percival Davis, as he transfixed the young
man with a smile that was full of meaning. “I suppose his brain is so
subtle that when he says something it is just the same as though he had
said nothing at all.”
“Must be,” said Miss Hermione Leigh.
Mr. Davis and the goddess laughed so loudly and so directly at Mr.
William Jordan that he gave a little gasp of dismay and yielded a step
in dire confusion.
“Run away and play,” said Mr. Davis.
“Like a good boy,” said the goddess.
“You are sure you got permission from mother to be out so late?”
Chrissie inquired languidly from the head of the sofa.
While Mr. Jordan continued to stand in this irresolution, and in his
distress at finding himself publicly mocked by others, not knowing
which way to turn or what to do, he became aware that across the room,
which was enveloped in a kind of red haze, the elderly and angular old
lady with the glasses, the severe mien, the austere black dress, and
the loud, harsh voice, appeared to be in the act of beckoning to him.
“Yes, go and sit with auntie,” said Mr. Davis, as the unhappy young
man, with all his liveliest fears returning, approached this old lady
of most formidable aspect.
“Sit here,” said the old lady, placing her hand on the vacant chair at
her side.
Mr. Jordan obeyed with great docility.
“By the way, what is your name?” inquired the old lady in a much softer
tone than that which she seemed habitually to use.
“My n-n-name is William Jordan, ma’am,” said the young man, overawed a
good deal by her demeanour, yet at the same time already beginning to
feel much more at his ease than he had done in the presence of Chrissie
and the goddess.
“Well, Mr. Jordan,” said the old lady, with a subacid precision which
yet did not seem unpleasant, “you are in the unhappy position this
evening of being the only gentleman present.”
The significance of this pregnant assertion was not at first rendered
to Mr. Jordan, but the old lady, observing his bewilderment, deigned to
make it clear.
“My nephew,” she said, “is a very able young man, but he is far removed
from being a gentleman. His friends are not able young men, and they
are still further removed from being gentlemen. I call them cads, Mr.
Jordan; I call them cads. And those women! I have no words for _them_.
I doubt whether the Dowager Lady Brigintop would have had words for
them either. It is a singular fact, Mr. Jordan, which you may have
observed, though I doubt it, that in all grades of society the women
are either better than the men or they are worse. But they are never on
the same level. I consider it an outrage, Mr. Jordan, for a Christian
gentlewoman to be asked to meet women of that type. I am sorry to say,
Mr. Jordan, that my nephew is like his father, he is deficient in the
finer shades of feeling. To think that my brother Charles should appear
at an evening party in the uniform of a police constable! A man who is
capable of such a breach of taste is capable of anything. I would blame
his wife Maria, but, unfortunately, she was ever too poor a creature
to be worthy of blame in anything. Mr. Jordan, you are entitled to
sincere sympathy. I cannot conceive of a harder fate than to be born a
gentleman in your present rank of life.”
This monologue, delivered in a sharp and stinging staccato, was so much
over the head of Mr. Jordan as to be completely unintelligible.
“I speak with authority,” the old lady continued in a manner that made
the proclamation superfluous. “It has been my ill fortune to occupy
your position for many years.”
Before Mr. Jordan could comprehend what the position was that this
majestic old lady had occupied for many years, she rose from her chair
in a very grave and stiff manner, and said, “Mr. Jordan, you may
conduct me to my omnibus.”
Taking an impressive leave of Mrs. Dodson, who was a very florid and
indecisive kind of lady, and of Police-Sergeant Dodson, who was a very
stolid and imperturbable kind of man, the old lady left the room with a
demeanour of marked hauteur, humbly followed by the abashed form of Mr.
William Jordan.
“What price Luney and Aunt Tabitha?” said Mr. Dodson _fils_ from the
seclusion of a card-table that had been set up in a corner. “I expect
he will cut me out in her will, but if he does I sha’n’t begrudge it
him.”
As Mr. Jordan conducted the majestic old lady to her omnibus, she had
the condescension to inform him that there was something about him that
engaged her curiosity.
“I suppose it is,” she said in her ample and uncompromising manner,
“that even when a Christian gentlewoman gets to be as old as I am she
does not lose her taste for a gentleman. I have had to live without the
sight of one for many years now. I loathe my nephew. Yet he is a young
man who will make a mark in the world. You, Mr. Jordan, will make no
mark in the world, but I hope I may have the pleasure of meeting you
again.”
It was with this odd combination of tenderness and ferocity, of
clear-sightedness and sentiment, that the austere old creature, with a
smile for her cavalier that was almost gentle, ensconced herself in a
dark corner of the omnibus. On the way home to her lonely hearth, at
No. 5 Petersfield Terrace, Brixton, she muttered, “There is no place
in this world for that young man. I would like to know his history; I
would like to know his history!”
Mr. Jordan finally quitted No. 8 Gladstone Villas, Midlothian Avenue,
that evening a few minutes before midnight. He found himself again
committed to the charge of Mr. Percival Davis. They managed to catch
the last train to the City.
“Mark my words, Luney,” said Mr. Davis, with a prophetic fervour, as
they sat opposite one another in the train, “Jimmy has done for himself
with Chrissie. She will never forgive his governor sitting down to
supper in his rozzer’s kit. J. Dodson knows most things, but the weasel
was sleeping that time. I think, my worthy Lunatic, this is where one
P. Davis goes in again himself.”
* * * * *
It was a feeble, weary, limping figure--for the new shoes were
excruciatingly tight--that crept into the little room during the small
hours of the morning. The white-haired man was conning the pages of the
great book.
“Ah, my beloved Achilles,” he said, “so you have found sanctuary again.
I know that your adventures have been far too marvellous to relate. But
would you say, beloved, that your infinite pains have borne a fruit
adequate to that which they have cost you?”
“Yes, my father,” said the young man humbly, “I think I may say that.”
The young man’s thoughts were of the goddess. As he lay in his
pillows, with his dazed brain reverting for the thousand and first time
to that rare and strange glamour and all that it implied, he fell into
a troubled sleep that was fraught with dreams.
XXVII
On the following day, during the luncheon hour, William Jordan, Junior,
was complimented upon his bearing at the party.
“I don’t mind telling you, Luney,” said Mr. Dodson, “that you were the
best-looking chap there. Young Davis thinks he was, but if he went to
the levée at Buckingham Palace he would think the same. No, Luney,
you were easily first; and if you could only get that mark off your
cheek you might marry money. And your behaviour was quite nice. If you
would only learn to hold your own a bit more, and not let chaps like
young Davis come it over you, you might do very well. You would never
be a shining light, you know; you haven’t got it in you; but you will
improve as you gain experience.”
Before that day was out, however, Mr. Dodson’s discourse was pitched
in another key. This occurred immediately after Mr. Dodson had paid a
visit to the refreshment buffet of the Brontë Hotel.
“What do you think, Luney?” said Mr. Dodson, with an air of whimsical
indignation which yet had a touch of the tragic; “Chrissie has taken
the hump. She says she regards it as a personal insult that my governor
should have sat down to supper in his uniform. She has broken it off.
She has returned this.”
“This” was a ring which Mr. Dodson exhibited with a countenance of
humorous rue. His mien was at once curiously enigmatic, yet quietly
comic. It seemed to imply that this true philosopher was not only
resigned to fate’s decree, but also, after the manner of the best
practitioners, he was prepared to derive profit and instruction
therefrom.
“I am in luck,” he said cheerfully; “it is a good and cheap get-out.
I ought to have known better, with all my experience. Yet I have got
a bit more, without having to pay for it either. Women are no good to
a rising man. I suppose young Davis will go in again now; I spoilt
his game, you know, my son. Well, he is welcome to her as far as I am
concerned. If he lands her he will have my sympathy.”
Having reviewed the situation with this wholly admirable breadth, the
eminent philosopher dismissed the subject from his thoughts with a calm
detachment that was not the least among his gifts.
Mr. James Dodson continued to extend his patronage and kindly interest
to that hopeless neophyte in the ways of the world, Mr. William Jordan,
Junior. On Easter Monday he took him to Margate, “to get a whiff of the
sea.”
It was with indescribable sensations that the young man beheld, for
the first time in his life, that free expanse, the eternal boundless
theatre of wondrous adventure and high-hearted enterprise. As upon
this historic day he came down to the seashore, swept by the shrewd
winds, yet bathed in the noble sunlight, and he saw the highway of the
gods that was spread before him like a waving plain of green jewels,
he astonished his companions by breaking forth into a curious cry of
rapture.
“What a lunatic he is!” they said, “to make all this fuss over the
sight of the sea.”
“A bit loose in the flats,” said Mr. John Dobbs, of the Alcazar Theatre.
When his companions chartered a boat, and he came to entrust himself to
it, he diverted them infinitely by the lively fear he displayed. Yet,
once abroad on the great green bay, his misgivings left him. He plucked
off his hat, that his temples might be bare to the shrewd salt airs
and the yellow-shining light of the sun, and his eyes beholding nothing
but the lapping waters and the wonderful sky which had never seemed so
near, he forgot for one glorious hour that he was the inhabitant of
cities, that an inexorable destiny had doomed him to be a street-person
all his days.
“This is the life of Odysseus,” he muttered; “this is the life of
Odysseus!”
As he dabbled his hands in the water his eyes were flooded suddenly
with strange, stinging, indescribable tears. His lips moved to the best
remembered passages in his favourite authors. His pulses throbbed with
rebellious violence. Each of his wide-stretched senses began to exult
as his eyes, his lips, his nostrils, and the dilated pores of his skin
absorbed the pungent draughts of sunshine and air. Suddenly, without
knowing what he did, he broke into a grotesque kind of song, which was
born within him as he uttered it. The odd, thin, quavering treble rose
above the lappings of the water against the sides of the boat.
“Well done, Luney, old boy,” cried his companions with their loud
shouts of laughter; “well done, old man.”
Incited by his example, one of them produced a concertina. He proceeded
to play a music-hall air. It was then that a strange incident occurred.
To the profound astonishment of the others, William Jordan, who had
been sitting in the prow, gazing out to sea, rose and came aft to one
Benjamin Sparks, who was manipulating the concertina. Without a word
he plucked that instrument out of his grasp and flung it away into the
water.
Mr. Benjamin Sparks vented his incredulous anger in a volley of oaths.
“There goes five quid,” he cried savagely. “I’ve a mind to chuck you in
after it, you blighted lunatic.”
Benjamin Sparks was a very powerfully-built young man, with red hair,
and uncompromising manners. In anger he was known to be formidable.
One and all awaited with a lively curiosity, not unmingled with
trepidation, the treatment that would be meted out to the aggressor.
“You puny, half-begotten rat!” roared Benjamin Sparks. “I’ve a good
mind to throw you into the sea.”
Yet the other occupants of the boat marvelled to observe that William
Jordan did not yield a step to so much power and truculence. The young
man stood bare-headed, with his white face uplifted. His hands and
teeth were clenched. He was deadly pale, but not a trace of excitement
was in his bearing.
“We will perish together,” he was heard to mutter.
Without waiting to be attacked, William Jordan uttered a cry like that
of a wild animal, and flung himself headlong upon his adversary. As
their clenched forms grappled to one another, and swayed from one side
of the boat to the other, shouts of anguish and terror rose from their
companions.
“They will have her over!” they cried wildly. “They will drown us all.”
In a moment they were stricken with panic. Helpless, yet half wild
with terror, they clutched the sides of the frail boat. It was by a
miracle that it regained an even keel. It was also due to a further
dispensation of an inscrutable providence that both combatants did not
find themselves in the water.
They put back to the shore with all speed. It was with true devoutness
of spirit that they found themselves once again on dry land.
“I shall never take you on the sea again, my son,” said Mr. Dodson,
with a very white face.
“He ought to be ducked,” was the opinion freely expressed by the others.
Mr. Benjamin Sparks took off his coat with a businesslike deliberation.
“Now then, you d----d lunatic,” he said, “we will have it out.”
“I--I d-don’t know how to fight,” stammered William Jordan, all of
whose spirit had fled, “but you can throw me into the sea if you w-want
to.”
“If we don’t get him away,” said the others apprehensively, “Ben Sparks
will murder him.”
Whereupon Mr. James Dodson linked his arm through that of his singular
companion.
“Come on, Luney,” he said, “I don’t want to have to give evidence
before a coroner’s jury. What a lunatic you are! Whatever possessed you
to do it? You have quite spoilt the day for everybody. I shall never
bring you to Margate again.”
William Jordan and his mentor walked in dead silence in the direction
of the town. But after they had gone some distance, William Jordan
stopped abruptly and said, “I--I must go back to the sea. I--I
cannot leave the sea. I--I will return to the railway station at a
quarter-past six.”
“Promise me,” said his mentor earnestly, “that you will be up to no new
mischief. I don’t know that you are fit to be left alone with the sea.
It seems to get into your brain.”
William Jordan gave this promise, and returned to the sea. For hours
he walked up and down the shore, his eyes ever upon that wonderful,
endless expanse. When at last he grew very weary, and his unaccustomed
limbs began to fail, he offered an old fisherman some pieces of silver
to row him again out to sea. Until the sun dipped behind the line
of the coast, he sat at the helm of the boat drinking long and deep
draughts of the free and noble life that lay all about him.
Men and cities were far from his thoughts during these enchanted hours.
His mind became beautiful with fantasies and copious with ideas. As
he reclined on the bosom of this great and mysterious wilderness,
with the fowls of the air flapping over his head, the strange craft
ever tossing from side to side, and a hungry waste all about him,
capable of devouring him yet incomprehensibly refraining from so
doing, his life acquired a texture which it had never had before.
Even the ancient authors, with all the subtle aromas and the powerful
essences their mighty imaginations had distilled through the ages,
could not concentrate into their magic ink this relentless, yet elusive
spaciousness which this dweller in cities now beheld.
The caged bird began again to croon its odd, wild, undeveloped
melodies. Fragments of curious, haunted, half-remembered phrases came
upon his lips. The stinging tears crept again to his eyes. Through the
haze of their blindness the waters were no longer to be seen. But he
could hear them gurgling against the sides of the boat. There was a
boom of distant breakers, the creak of oars, the voices of the four
winds and of the winged inhabitants of the air.
The mists of the evening slowly overspread the wilderness. Silently,
stealthily, they came unperceived. They were all part of the Idea. He
did not resent their appearance when he saw them there, veiling all
things with their subtle presence. He was still crooning his queer
songs. Men and cities, street-persons and pieces of silver had long
vanished from his consciousness.
After a while, with an involuntary deference to the chill of the night,
he lay down on the floor of the boat on the inhospitable rough boards,
which yet were as soft as feathers. His hands were clasped about his
head, as if to support the delicious fantasies that were in his brain.
He seemed to swoon with the rapture of his new and brave identity.
“This is the life of heroes, O Achilles!” the familiar voices of the
night and the sea were constantly murmuring.
Presently he seemed to waken to the fact that he was looking upwards
far into the sky. Through the soft white mists he could discern a
single speck of silver gleaming frostily. Suddenly, with a cold
vibration in his veins, he recalled how in his tender infancy he had
seen that particular orb shining above the shutters of the little room.
In an instant the crooning song upon his lips had changed to a moan of
anguish. Yet it passed immediately. Peering at the star he seemed to
recognize it as the symbol of his kinship with this immensity; as the
pledge of his correlation with the universal order. With a sense of
exultation his thoughts reverted to that sanctuary from whose precincts
he had beheld it first. It was with him still. And was not a benign
spirit ever there to bestow consolation upon a hapless wayfarer whose
journeyings were hopeless, endless, fruitless, fraught with cruel
degradation?
He still lay in the boat, not feeling hunger nor susceptible to the
cold of the night. Time and space had lost their significance. He would
only ask to lie where he was, on the bosom of the waters, that he might
croon his strange songs for ever. But as his gaze was still fixed on
the only star that was abroad in all the vast canopy, the recollection
of the little room and of him who dwelt there, shaped itself more
definitely. He must return; he was being drawn thither by irresistible
forces. His destiny must be fulfilled.
The keel of the boat began to grind on the sand. He listened to the
melodious yet uncouth tones of the old boatman--the old ferryman, who
had piloted him across the bosom of eternity.
“We’ve been out six hours,” said the old boatman. “It is nigh half-past
eight.”
The young man stepped ashore with cramped and stiff limbs.
“What is half-past eight, Father Charon?” he said, with a hoarse, happy
laugh.
Hardly had the returned voyager uttered these irrelevant words when a
voice of curious import came on his ears. He shuddered as though he had
felt the impact of a knife upon his flesh.
“Luney, Luney!” cried the voice, “I have been looking for you for
hours, all along the shore. You were not at the station, so I made sure
you had drowned yourself. What a madman you are; where do you suppose
you have been? As long as I live I will never bring you to Margate
again.”
“Oh yes,” said the returned voyager, with a weary shiver, “I know that
voice--that voice is as familiar to me as the stars of the night.”
XXVIII
William Jordan’s startling misconduct on this historic day was not
lightly passed over by that distinguished circle of which Mr. James
Dodson was the natural leader. They made rather a point of insisting
that their accomplished friend should forego the society of the culprit
for the future.
“As long as we thought he was a mere harmless lunatic, Jimmy,” said Mr.
John Dobbs, “we didn’t so much mind your taking him up, although we all
thought from the first that for a chap like you to do so was coming
down a peg. But now that we find out that he is not a harmless lunatic
at all, but a downright dangerous one, we think you owe it to yourself
that you should give him the cold shoulder altogether.”
To which expression of well-meaning wisdom Mr. Dodson rejoined
tactfully, “I dare say you may be perfectly right, John. I shall have
to think it over.”
All the same in the inscrutable recesses of Mr. Dodson’s heart there
was no clearly defined intention of acting upon this disinterested
advice. Mr. James Dodson was preeminently a man of the world, “a
two-and-two-makes-four” man, in his own phrase, yet a stealthy
feeling had already taken root within him, which somehow forbade the
philosopher to follow the dictates of pure reason with the implicit
fidelity that was his wont. He had nothing to gain by association
with such a person as William Jordan, Junior, for even his faculty
of speaking Greek like a native, had by this time become a theme for
derision among Mr. Dodson’s intimates; yet when the eminent worldling
and philosopher came closely to scrutinize his own personal dealings
with this very odd specimen of humanity, it began to appear that he was
no longer his own master.
“I feel, you know, Luney,” he confessed, in one of his moments of
expansiveness, “I am behaving like a fool in taking you up like I do. I
am acting against my own interests. You will never do anything; you are
d----d unpopular with all my pals; you are not a bit bright or clever;
you never drink or smoke or bet or make love to the ladies; you can’t
hold your own even with a chap like young Davis; even when your leg is
being pulled you haven’t got the sense to notice it; in short, Luney,
and in a word, you are just a worm; but, somehow, there is an odd sort
of something about you that I feel I can’t do without. What it is I
don’t know. If you were a girl I should say it was love; and yet, my
son, I’ll swear to you on my solemn oath that I don’t believe there is
such a thing as love. All the talk about it, all the plays and penny
novelettes about it, are the biggest bunkum imaginable.”
However, in spite of many speeches as uncompromising as this, Mr.
Dodson could not bring himself to relinquish his patronage of his
strange companion. Seldom can a more incongruous pair have walked
together along the perilous paths of the great nowhither, since the
far-off days of the Knight of La Mancha and his faithful squire. And
it chanced that on the eve of the very next Bank Holiday, which befell
on a stifling day in August, when the town lay choked in dust and
seemed to swoon with the arid air, Mr. Dodson made the proposal to his
singular friend that they should go forth on that festal day and “see a
bit of life” together.
“No more Margate, my son,” said Mr. Dodson, “never again, as long as I
live, will I go with you there. But we will spend a day at the Oval, my
boy--they are giving Joe Cox a trial for the first eleven, and we must
see what he does. Then we will get a bit of dinner somewhere, and round
up the evening at the Alcazar. You have never seen Hermione in full war
paint, have you? Off the stage she is a bit of all right, but on it, my
son, she beats anything you ever saw. When you see her she will knock
you.”
To this carefully devised programme William Jordan assented
submissively. During this phase of his existence, when every day that
he passed brought a further largesse of knowledge, the overpowering
curiosity to see, to know, to understand all things seemed to return
upon him. His mentor had taken him already into divers and strange
places. He owed it to that friendly but mysterious guidance that the
curtain was rolled back from many hidden recesses of the life about
him, which otherwise could never have been revealed.
On that burning August forenoon he mingled with the throng about the
gates of the cricket-ground, and passed through its portals and came
to stand on the parched grass under the pitiless sun. All about him
was a close-packed and vastly excited multitude. Yet to the young man,
who was sandwiched within the very heart of the perspiring crowd of
street-persons, with the skin being frizzled upon his neck, the solemn
rites, of which occasionally he caught a glimpse, had no meaning for
his eyes.
“Surrey’s fielding,” said his mentor, in a voice that was by no means
as calm as was its wont. “See, there’s Joe standing at mid-on. Why
don’t they put him on to bowl?”
“Not his wicket,” said Mr. Dodson’s neighbour, an enthusiast in a straw
hat with a yellow ribbon, and dirty white flannel trousers.
“Then why do they play him?” demanded Mr. Dodson.
“The Committee have had private information of a thunderstorm to-morrow
night,” said Mr. Dodson’s neighbour, who appeared to be extremely
well-informed.
To Mr. William Jordan, however, these technicalities and a thousand
others, which were even more recondite, proved very baffling indeed.
“I suppose, Jimmy,” said the young man at last, in sheer desperation,
driven by the inflexible rules of politeness to speak, yet not knowing
in the least what to say, “that those street-per--those gentlemen in
the white suits are what you call Surrey?”
“You are positively brilliant this morning, Luney,” said his mentor.
“You sparkle. Upon my word, you are nearly as bright as the sun.”
After standing two hours in that broiling heat, and as he was growing
somewhat dizzy, owing to the effects of that concentrated fireball
upon the back of his neck, the players trooped off the field of play
in search of refreshment, whereupon Mr. Dodson solemnly instructed him
to sit on an adjacent mound of withered grass to await his own return,
assuring him “that he was not half smart enough to forage for himself
at the Oval on August Bank Holiday.”
In the course of half-an-hour Mr. Dodson did return, bearing two
corkless bottles covered with oozing white froth, and four substantial
and extremely indigestible-looking pork pies.
“Catch hold,” said Mr. Dodson, handing Mr. William Jordan, Junior, his
share of these delicacies.
“The pies are topping, ain’t they?” said Mr. Dodson, after his teeth
had met therein with immense satisfaction to themselves.
Mr. Dodson then applied his mouth to the neck of a bottle.
“There is nothing in this world,” said Mr. Dodson, after having sucked
an immoderate quantity of froth, “whatever there may be in the next, to
compare with a bottle of Bass.”
Mr. Dodson returned with renewed vigour to the pork pies.
“Buck up, Luney,” he said, as he masticated the last succulent morsel.
“The players will be out again in five minutes. Why, man, what the
dickens are you up to! Your Bass is all over the grass, and your pies
are underneath it. Luney, you idiot!--’pon my word, I do believe the
wretched lunatic has fainted.”
Mr. Dodson’s diagnosis of his friend’s condition proved to be a correct
one. He had to lay him upon his back and to obtain water before the
eyes could be induced to re-open, and the blood to return to the hollow
cheeks. Play had begun, Mr. Dodson was hot and irritable, and he was
vowing freely that if he valued his self-respect he must break himself
of the habit of dragging round this hopeless subject to acquaint it
with “life”; yet in spite of all this, when the young man at last
opened his eyes, his mentor said, quite kindly, “Was it the heat, old
boy?”
“Yes--the heat,” said William Jordan faintly.
Mr. Dodson conducted his friend to the shade that was afforded by
the back of an immense stand, upon which several thousands of human
beings--wedged as tightly together as dried figs in a box--braved
the broiling heat of the airless afternoon, craning and tiptoeing to
witness a trial of skill of a curiously inconsequent and macabre kind,
with whose niceties the vast majority were very imperfectly acquainted.
“You will be all right here, old boy,” said Mr. Dodson, propping up
his friend, and taking off his own coat to form a pillow for his head.
“You will be nice and cool here. Lie quite still, and I will get you a
drop of brandy.”
As Mr. Dodson made his way through the crowd to an awning, upon which
was displayed the word “Refreshments,” there was a demonstration of
approval from many thousands of pairs of hands.
“What’s up?” demanded Mr. Dodson, as he passed along. “Is Gunn out?”
“No,” said a spectator, who was perspiring freely in spite of the fact
that he wore a halo of cabbage-leaves under his straw hat. “They are
putting on young Cox.”
“Time they did,” said Mr. Dodson.
For a moment a Titanic struggle was waged in the bosom of the
philosopher. He could not forbear to pause a moment to watch how his
friend Joe Cox fared in his hour of trial, yet even before he beheld
him deliver his first ball, he bent his neck again to the stern yoke of
duty. Hurriedly he went on his way for the brandy.
As he returned bearing this stimulant, he stayed again for an instant
to inquire of his informant of the cabbage-leaves, how young Cox was
bowling?
“Can’t bowl for nuts,” said the gentleman of the cabbage-leaves. “Gunn
has just hit him out of the ground. I could bowl better myself.”
It was with a sinking heart that the philosopher handed the brandy to
William Jordan, who, however, could not be induced to taste it.
“How are you feeling, old boy?” said Mr. Dodson; and he added eagerly,
“Joe Cox is bowling. I wish he would get a wicket.”
“M-my m-mind is now quite clear,” said his strange companion. “P-please
l-leave me to lie here. I would have you join your friends who are
so--so active and powerful and high-hearted. Go to look at--at the
cricket game, I entreat you. Whenever we go forth together I make you
unhappy. I--I spoil your day. I would have you leave me altogether,
kind and honest friend; I am no fit comrade for such as you. I--I begin
to understand that I am one of other clay.”
After Mr. James Dodson had turned away his face in order that he might
register the enigmatic aside, “I am afraid it is quite true that the
poor cove is absolutely balmy,” he said to the pallid figure in a voice
of cheerful kindness, “Rot! Rubbish! You are talking through your hat.
It is only in fun that I call you Luney. I tell you candidly, my son,
that if I could speak Greek like a native, the same as you do, I would
see a chap like James Dodson d----d before I would even nod to him in
the street.”
“You cannot deceive me, Jimmy,” said William Jordan, with a forlorn
smile. “Fate has not made me the equal of you and your friends. I--I
b-begin now to understand that I am one of other mould and texture. All
these myriads of street-persons whose loud voices are all around me,
whose seed is as profuse as the leaves of the forest, have received
some high gift from Fate which has been withheld from me. I entreat you
to leave me, good friend; such as I can only make you contemptuous; I
would have you consort with your kind.”
It was not, however, at the behest of William Jordan that his mentor
left him, but in obedience to a mighty roar that arose from twenty
thousand parched throats.
“It is a wicket, I’m certain,” cried the philosopher, with an
excitement of which few would have suspected him to be capable.
“Who’s out?” he demanded, of the nearest group of spectators.
“Gunn.”
“How?”
“Caught at the wicket.”
“Bowler?”
“Young Cox.”
The philosopher returned to the pallid figure upon the grass, with
a demeanour that was curiously out of key with the dignity of his
natural character.
“Luney, old boy!” he cried, flinging his hat in the air, “Joe Cox has
got out the great Gunn.”
Although this thrilling announcement had no significance for him whose
head was propped upon a coat against a brick wall, a gentle smile crept
across the gaunt features.
“I am sure that must be--must be very nice, Jimmy,” he said, “very nice
indeed.”
“Nice!” exclaimed the philosopher, almost fiercely, “what a word to
use! To say, Luney, that you set up to be a scholar you do use the
rummest lingo. Joe Cox gets out the great Gunn, and you call it ‘nice’!
James Dodson don’t pretend to be a scholar, my son, but he knows better
than to call Homer ‘nice’!”
William Jordan suffered this rebuke in a melancholy silence. He seemed
to understand how thoroughly it was merited.
He lay for the better part of that stifling August afternoon propped up
within the shade of the brick wall. In spite of his earnest entreaties
Jimmy Dodson could not be induced to forsake him. His mentor would
climb up on to one of the neighbouring coigns of vantage, and standing
on tiptoe would snatch a few brief, but inexpressibly sweet glimpses
of the solemn ceremonial that was being enacted. But ever and anon he
would return to see how his stricken companion was getting on.
Rest, and the mellower influences of the late afternoon served to place
William Jordan on his legs once more; and although his brain roared as
though it contained the waves of the sea, and his limbs ached, and his
whole frame shook so violently that it was as if he had been smitten
with a palsy, he declined to admit that he was other than restored
completely to health and vigour. He was fearful lest he should wreck
the plans of his mentor more completely than he had already done;
therefore summoning every spark of resolution to his aid, he vowed,
even if he were to perish in the effort, that he would accompany his
kind friend to the restaurant; and thereafter to the Alcazar Theatre.
He dined in state at a gorgeous house of polite eating, yet it
was scant justice he did to the sumptuous fare. Mr. James Dodson
was frankly disappointed at this further manifestation of his
companion’s shortcomings, yet he dissembled his feelings in an elegant
preoccupation with six courses. To the repeated inquiries as to how he
felt, Mr. William Jordan returned assurances which, if allowed to pass
muster, could not in any sense be said to carry conviction. And at last
Mr. Dodson was fain to exclaim, “Look here, my son, if you don’t eat
something soon, you can’t possibly go to the Alcazar.” And although Mr.
Jordan was not in the least desirous of going to the Alcazar, he made
quite suddenly a superhuman attack on a banana in order to save himself
the humiliation of being a source of further disappointment to his
mentor.
The young man felt himself to be a little more resolute, and a trifle
more composed by the time he found himself seated in a balcony of the
Alcazar Theatre. In spite of the circumstance that the great garish
building was thronged with many hundreds of street-persons, the
majority of whom appeared to be emitting most acrid and penetrating
fumes from their mouths, the air was much cooler there than it had been
anywhere else that day.
The curtain was up, the band was playing, the stage was a blaze of
light, and a lady of Amazonian proportions was singing a song, not a
word of which was intelligible to William Jordan. But as he lay back in
the purple velvet cushion of his fauteuil, reclining almost pleasantly,
and looking up at the ceiling, upon which, in crude tints, somewhat
obscured by the all-pervading fumes of tobacco, was a not particularly
reticent presentment of the Muses. In a circle round these was painted
in large and unmistakable letters the following names: Shakespeare,
Jonson, Milton, Spenser, Dryden, Tupper, Wordsworth, Macready.
“We can hardly see John Dobbs from here,” said Mr. James Dodson, who
reclined by the young man’s side. “He is the third chap playing the
fiddle down there in the well, but I can only just catch the top of his
head.”
William Jordan continued to recline in reasonable surcease from bodily
pangs for several hours. Further, he was able to evade Mr. Dodson’s
repeated and pressing invitations to accompany him to the refreshment
buffet. And at last, towards the hour of ten, the chief event of
the evening, the War and Peace Ballet, was heralded by a fanfare of
trumpets and loud crashings of music.
“Now then, my son, sit tight,” said Mr. Dodson. “We are going to see
Hermione.”
The curtain rose slowly to reveal Hera, the white-armed goddess.
She was clad in dazzling robes of mail and a massive helmet, with
ear-pieces dangling about her golden locks. William Jordan gave a gasp
of bewilderment; pain and pleasure contending for mastery swelled his
veins with intolerable pangs. This was the goddess, this was she. His
eerie pilgrimage to the evening party flooded back into his thoughts.
Yes, this was the goddess whose hand he had touched. And now, as she
stood clothed in her robes of mail and bearing her sceptre, with
wonderful lights playing around her majestical calm, she appeared to
the young man’s rapt gaze the first of the goddesses, and, therefore,
the most beautiful, the most chaste, the most exalted creature, of
which fact or fable was cognizant.
“Ain’t she a stunner!” said the voice of Mr. Dodson, breaking upon his
reverie. “If I hadn’t decided that all women are alike, as far as a
rising man is concerned, I’m hanged if I wouldn’t have a cut at her
myself. She is a bit of all right though, Luney. I think we’ll trot
round to the stage-door and see her after the show.”
Such words as these, however, were unintelligible to William Jordan.
Who shall say to what magic clime his thoughts had been transported!
It had been given to him to touch the hand of this divinity, to hear
the words that fell from her lips. The subsequent clashings of the loud
music, the feasts of garish colour, the undulations of the swaying
forms, the bursts of applause, the laughter and gaiety, excited the
young man to a fierce happiness that was almost intolerable.
He seemed to lie in a swoon of pleasure on the purple cushions in that
vast music-hall. For one brief but enchanted hour he knew strange joys
that he had not thought the great world out of doors could offer.
There had been a time when he had almost ventured to despise the
dreary existences these street-persons led, which he conceived to be
so remote from the life of heroic freedom as depicted in the pages
of the ancient authors. But how great had been his ignorance! These
street-persons, who spoke such a curious language, who ate such queer
foods, who performed such odd acts, how reticent they were in regard to
those incomparable pleasures to which they could always turn, and how
chastely they enjoyed them!
These street-persons, whom he had almost ventured to despise, could
go to the sea in the course of an hour, that sea which in its noble
reality so far transcended the most wonderful descriptions in the pages
of the ancient authors. They had their exquisite landscapes, whose
sweet yet accessible grandeur almost made Virgil seem harsh and lacking
in dignity; they had their goddesses who walked their streets in a
frank admission of their kinship, who rejoiced with them, who sat with
them at meat. Yet all these things which were so much rarer, so much
holier, so much more explicit than all the wonders the ancient authors
could contrive, how calmly they took them! To them they seemed the
commonplaces of every-day life.
He had never realized so clearly as now that he lay in these delectable
cushions feasting his intense imagination on the peerless and
chaste beauty that made his eyes grow dark, that these millions of
street-persons, whom, in his incomprehensible blindness, he had come
so nearly to despise, were the true Olympians. And he himself, he whom
he had presumed to identify with the proudest name in Elysium, was the
common and spurious clay who had walked the bountiful earth with a
closed heart, a veritable groveller in the gross mud of the dreadful
chimera-city, which was no more than the embodiment of his craven
fears. He had not understood that the fair mountains, the multitudinous
seas, the divine heroes, the ravishing goddesses were all about him;
he had not understood that their presence was a fact so common to the
experience of all these millions upon millions of true Olympians who
were their peers, that they were received without comment and even made
to serve their needs.
When the curtain descended again and the great audience began to
disperse, and that incomparable hour of existence was at an end,
he said as he moved through the doors with his mentor, “I--I am
marvelling, Jimmy, how w-wonderfully you have kept the secret of my
birth.”
“The secret of your birth, my son,” said Jimmy Dodson, “the secret
of your birth! Why, you cuckoo, it is you, not I, who have kept the
secret. You never told me, you know, although I think you ought,
because my old aunt Tabitha is always questioning me about you every
time I see her. The old girl declares you come of a county family.”
“No no, Jimmy,” said the young man, “you must have known from the first
that I was not--not of the blood royal.”
“Not of the blood royal, my son!” said Mr. Dodson, with frank
astonishment. “Not of the blood royal! Why, what will you be saying
next? I don’t mind telling you I should have been mighty surprised had
I known you were. I don’t think Octavius would have had you long on
that stool, wielding that pot of paste. At the very least he would have
had you under a glass case in his private room.”
“I mean, Jimmy,” said the young man, “of the same blood royal
as yourself, and all these happy and vigorous and beautiful
street-persons--I see now, Jimmy, that they are all beautiful--who are
walking forth into their native air.”
“I give you up, my son,” said Mr. Dodson, with an indulgence born of
three whiskies and sodas. “I can only say one thing, and that is that
a mere vulgar commoner, like James Dodson, is simply incapable of
following you at even a respectful distance.”
“But you are not of the vulgar at all, Jimmy; it is I, William Jordan,
who have considered myself to be of the kin of heroes, who am the
plebeian.”
“Have it as you please, my son,” said the eminent philosopher. “You are
altogether beyond me to-night, you are altogether over my head.”
He linked his arm through that of his excited companion.
“Come on, old boy,” he said, “round to the stage-door. We might be able
to get a word with Hermione Leigh.”
“Y-you m-mean Hera, the white-armed goddess.”
“Yes, my son, I mean Hera--or Diana--or Joan of Arc--or Jane
Cakebread--or Mother Hubbard, or any other bit of skirt.”
“Yes, he is a true Olympian,” muttered the young man, “he is so
imperturbable. And I--and I, who would run and shout with the fever in
my veins, O pious gods, what misbegotten carrion am I?”
“I never saw the poor chap so absolutely balmy as he is to-night,” said
Mr. Dodson, also speaking his thoughts aloud. “The poor cove is not
used to a day in the sun.”
At the stage-door they waited patiently for the apparition of the
goddess. Various divinities, whose immortal qualities were effectually
dissembled by straw hats and tailor-made costumes, came forth and went
their way. Some of these had a nod for Mr. Dodson, whose finished
manner, general air of friendliness, and openhanded liberality “when
he was in brass,” made him a welcome addition to any society which he
chose to enter.
“Did you notice the fairy who nodded, my son?” said Mr. Dodson, with
an air of pride, which his companion felt to be natural. “That was Vi
Nicholson. A bit of mustard is Violet. She will be on at the Hilarity
soon.”
“You mean Briseis?”
“Yes, my son, I mean Briseis--or Mother Brownrigg--or Lady Jane Grey.
Hullo, here’s Hermione.”
As the divinity approached, with her straw hat tilted with serene
indifference over her eyes, and her skirt sweeping the dust of the
narrow alley which led to the stage-door, William Jordan clutched the
arm of his mentor fiercely. He felt his excitement to be overcoming him.
“Hullo, Jimmy,” said the divinity, with the particular wave of the hand
that then happened to be fashionable.
“Is the Bart about?” inquired Mr. Dodson.
“No,” said the divinity. “He has gone to Cowes with his ma.”
“Well, I can’t spring more than stout and oysters,” said Mr. Dodson.
“Don’t get many winners these times. Are you taking any?”
“Don’t mind,” said the goddess, with easy condescension.
“Come on then, round the corner.”
“Why,” said the goddess, “if that ain’t our poet, our own live little,
tame little pet poet. What will mother say that her boy has been out so
late? Been to a naughty place, too.”
“How--how--how do you do?” stammered William Jordan hoarsely, as he
removed his hat and bowed low.
“Oh, chuck it!” said the goddess, “or the crowd will think you are
doing it for money.”
As they entered the saloon, in which they proposed to partake of
supper, Mr. Dodson said to the goddess, “Kid, I’ll lay you a shilling
you can’t make the poet tackle stout and oysters.”
“A bet,” said that good-natured divinity.
On the appearance of these robust delicacies, Mr. Dodson laid a dozen
oysters, a pint of stout, and a plate of brown bread-and-butter before
Mr. William Jordan.
“Now then, my son,” said Mr. Dodson, with a wink at the goddess, “show
Hera what you can do.”
A shudder of horror invaded the young man’s frame as he cast a glance
of appeal at that stern deity.
“Not a bit of use, Mr. Tennyson,” said the relentless one, “you don’t
leave this table until you have taken your whack.”
Although unable to comprehend the precise terms in which the goddess
embodied her mandate, the despairing young man understood its
purport only too well. In spite, however, of a sustained effort that
approximated to real heroism, he had only swallowed half an oyster,
two pieces of bread-and-butter, and sipped a small quantity of an
ink-coloured beverage, of which the goddess availed herself freely, by
the time Mr. James Dodson and the white-armed Hera had concluded their
own exertions, which had appeared to afford them immense satisfaction.
Thereupon the goddess conceived it to be her duty to hold each oyster
in its turn on a fork and compel, by the exercise of her own imperious
will, “the poet” to swallow these delicacies. When this task had been
fulfilled she said, “Now, Alfred, set about that stout as if you meant
it, and then I’ll touch Jimmy for a bob.”
XXIX
The reveller who crept back to 43 Milton Street, E.C., towards the hour
of one was a dishevelled, bewildered human fragment in sore distress of
mind and body. His head throbbed, and dreadful qualms oppressed him,
but these were as nought in comparison with that which had already
taken a sinister shape in his brain.
Fate had made him a mock. He, to whom life was a sacrament, was
unworthy to participate in this full-blooded, heroic, many-sided
existence that was all about him. To what monstrous perversion of the
faculties had he been subjected? The sea, the sky, the birds, the green
fields, the wisdom and poetry of past ages, the intercourse with heroes
and goddesses, could cast spells upon him which not even prayer could
appease. Yet, what was this exaltation by comparison with that lusty,
high-hearted genius which accepted all these incomparable things as
neither more nor less than an immemorial right; a native arrogance that
could defile the bosom of the sea, mutilate the fairest landscapes,
poison the sky with the smoke of cities, wantonly destroy the glorious
life that enriched the very air it breathed.
He had been living his days in the midst of the true Olympians, and
he had not known it. Well might they torment him in spirit and body.
He was nought but the weakest of charlatans, who sought to dissemble
the poverty of his nature with dreams of the life he was too puny to
embrace. But this ignoble self-deception had been only too clear to
others. From the first, those whom he called “street-persons” had seen
him for what he was. And they had not failed to requite him with every
indignity. Yet surely there was irony in the decree that withheld from
him the true facts of the existence of which he was born to partake.
He, the tired wayfarer who had strayed from Olympus, had conceived
that on a day, after a sojourn upon the dark, inhospitable earth, he
would be permitted to return to his immortal peers and companions.
But how strangely had he deceived himself! He was no Olympian; he had
no right to consort with the heroes and gods. For he was dwelling in
Olympus now; the persons who thronged the streets of the great city
were those shining ones of whom he constantly dreamed. And in their
transcendent greatness they made a jest of their condition. And they
amused themselves by tormenting this impostor who presumed to ruffle
it among them: by perverting his ears, that their noble speech should
appear uncouth; by perverting his eyes, that their sacred exercises
should seem meaningless; by perverting his taste, so that it came to
loathe the choice foods by which they were sustained!
“O my father,” he cried as he staggered into the little room with his
throbbing brain, “I pray you show me that passage in the Book of the
Ages in which the deluded earth-mortal, having presumed to consider
himself of the kin of the gods, is borne to Olympus secretly, without
his own knowledge; and its inhabitants, in order to mock him, force him
to believe he is still on the earth.”
His father regarded him with a wistful patience.
“O why did you call me Achilles, my father? Why did you permit me to
call myself by that proud name?” cried the young man. “I am one of
other stature. I have deluded myself miserably; I am the sport of those
with whom I would claim kin.”
“We are neither less nor more, O Achilles, than we deem ourselves
to be,” said the white-haired man, peering towards the distressed
wayfarer with an ineffable compassion in his eyes.
To this hard saying of his father’s the young man devoted many hours
of scrutiny. He turned again and again to the pages of those ancient
authors he had made his own. But even these in their wisdom could
shed no light upon the dark path upon which he was now entered. When,
having overcome his first dismay that these friends of his youth,
having connived at his self-deception, should now play him false,
and, pale with conflict, he turned sternly to confront the crisis of
his fate, he strove to make himself familiar with the writings of the
later schoolmen, those authors of modern growth at whom his instinct
shuddered as abortions, or perverted births.
He burnt the midnight lamp full many nights. He attended the ignoble
duties of the day as formerly, rendering his service scrupulously in
return for the pieces of silver he received. But, in the little room,
he spent the long watches of the night in profound intercourse with
himself and with the modern spirit. Never before had he addressed
himself to the study of natural objects in their relations to their
surroundings. The wondrous subtleties of these modern authors repelled
him constantly, for with all their faculties, which were trained to a
perilous point, they were often inept, and inclined to be gross. Yet
there were many things pertaining to his own condition which he was now
beginning dimly to perceive, which they taught him how to appraise in
the scales of his reason; but often in the midnight hours they caused
him to shed tears.
“Dost thou forget the Book of the Ages, my beloved?” said his father
one night, as he was immersed with a countenance of despair in these
remorseless pages.
His father took down the massive tome from the shelf, and laid it open
at a familiar passage, which his own eyes were never weary of conning.
“Let us not forget the rotations of the circle, beloved one,” said his
father. “Must we not ever return by the path that we went upon?”
It brought unspeakable joy to the young man that, in spite of many
months of intercourse with the modern authors, his father’s great tome
still retained the power to afford him consolation.
“These dread speculations which come no-whence and return no-whither,”
said the young man, “appear to cast a green haze, as of putrefying
flesh, upon the minds of these modern authors, who strive to fill
eternity itself with the laughter of Bedlam.”
* * * * *
One day of autumn the young man walked abroad with his father until
they came to the woods. Here in a sombre and quiet glade, which the
winds had already stripped, he gathered flowers.
“I think, my father,” he said as his slender fingers wove them together
with a piece of grass, “I shall now have the courage to offer these
beautiful creatures of the fields to that goddess who is always in my
dreams.”
Upon the evening of the next day the young man discarded his books for
the first time for many weeks. Hastening homewards from his daily toil,
he arrayed himself in that uncomfortable garb in which he had been
first privileged to behold the goddess, and betook himself, devout of
heart, to the garish music-hall. He was able to make his way to the
chair he had previously occupied, and here, waiting patiently, but
this time alone, he again beheld the object of his worship. In all
their sanctity the raptures of that former hour returned upon him.
How chaste, yet how ravishing seemed this goddess in the shape of a
human animal! How was it possible to doubt of her affinity with the
immortals? One glance at her noble radiance sufficed to counteract the
poison that was distilled by the pages of the modern authors.
They openly mocked at the incarnation of divinities. They even denied
an existence to a higher state. They even declared that the very life
in his veins was but the expression of a coarse jest, in questionable
taste, on the part of One who was old enough to know better. And yet
these modern authors knew how to clothe their levity with a witty
and bitter shrewdness which could counterfeit universal truth. How
he could recall the cynical language of one of the chief among them:
“What a stupid and tasteless farce is this, my dear friends. Here are
we pierrots and harlequins, we betasselled clowns and buffoons, with
many a score of other harmless, mad fools, whose names I forget, yet
all have the same meaning--here are we, I say, with our silly grimaces,
which make us sweat blood mixed with salt tears, here are we ruffling
it in cockades and gold lace, and orders and what not; strutting about
like turkeys, so that we may delude ourselves into forgetting that
the whole business in which we are engaged is a harlequinade of such
vile grossness that only an unpardonable oversight of some obscure and
malicious Authority obtained for it a licence to be performed publicly.”
With what diabolical cunning had this modern expressed himself! How
true it was of that vapid farceur, William Jordan! For how many years
had this poor dolt in the farce kept up his courage by pretending
to kinship with the immortal ones? And here he sat to-night, poor,
stupid charlatan! the derided of heaven, in his evening suit and
excruciatingly tight shoes, cherishing the idea that he was about to
bestow a votive offering upon one of the divinities. Yea, that master
of mockery had caught the features of this William Jordan as neatly
as though he alone were the archetype of poor deluded human nature!
There he sat in his black coat and white tie, this stupid dolt in the
farce, solemnly pretending to thoughts of goddesses. And yet this
mocking modern assured him with a pretence of equal solemnity that even
goddesses did not exist outside the portals of Bedlam.
At the conclusion of the performance the young man passed out with
the careless throng of street-persons, those Olympian _blasés_ who
were half-sick of goddesses, and yawned in their faces. Remembering
his former pilgrimage, he betook himself, with the bunch of flowers
in his hand, to the narrow alley leading to the stage-door. It seemed
a miraculous coincidence that one of the mightiest of the earth-poets
should have written in his book, “All the world’s a stage,” and that
the word “Stage-door” should now loom before his eyes, above the magic
portal out of which the divinity was to issue, clad in flesh and
blood. And yet it seemed still more miraculous that these sovereign
intelligences could bring themselves to utter such poor commonplaces as
these, which must be so plain to the meanest minds that they did not
call for expression!
He beheld the noble form of the goddess emerge from the stage-door.
To-night she affected no humble straw hat and trailing, dusty skirt.
She was attired as became her quality in a fine cloak and jewels. Her
head was borne loftily, her eyes shone. This was the goddess, this
was she. He clutched the bunch of flowers convulsively. Was such an
offering meet for a goddess? Yes, they were creatures of the honest
woodland pastures, even as herself. Even if she spurned them underfoot
they should be offered to her.
Already he had his hat in his hand, that it might sweep the earth;
already words of homage had formed upon his lips. She was almost
touching him with her fine raiment, and he was beginning to speak, when
a splendid, handsome street-person, clad in furs, strode between her
and his offering. In an instant she had passed. Yet the goddess had
seen the bunch of flowers, for as she went by she looked steadily into
the eyes of him who had dared to proffer them. She gave a little laugh,
which made him draw in his breath as though he experienced the stroke
of a knife.
He went back into sanctuary to the little room, tormented into fever by
a distress which he knew to be the measure of his weakness. Yet surely
it was fitting that a goddess should despise him for having pretended
to be what he was not.
From this tragic evening he was unable to kneel in the little room.
Like a barque that the fierce tempest has cast from its moorings into
the trough of the merciless waves, he was tossed hither and thither
among the deep waters, so that he lost all faith in his own power.
Sometimes in his anguish he could not forbear to complain against
Fate, as had so often been recorded of weak mortals in the pages of
the ancient authors. Yet an act so ignoble was one proof the more
of his inferiority. He heard the accent of earth’s lowliest in his
own lament. He began to envy the persons in the streets of the great
city, those thrice-blessed Olympians who were unvisited by doubt and
by constant repining. These did not doubt of their own divinity. Even
that clay which at first he had thought so common, that of his mentor
James Dodson, who in his heart despised him utterly, but who in his
contemptuous clemency forbore from rejecting him, even he made no
secret of the fact that, had he not learned to experience a profound
distrust of the female sex, he would have claimed the hand of the
goddess in marriage. Yet one of the clay of William Jordan was not
permitted to prostrate himself in the earth before her.
Research among the modern authors afforded him neither light nor
healing; and in this dark hour he did not dare to carry his plaint to
those of older growth. Indeed, his desertion of them for these lesser
spirits had come to seem like an act of sedition. But soon a darker
tragedy was to divert the channel of his thoughts.
XXX
One night, long after midnight had passed, the white-haired man, his
father, said to him, “My beloved Achilles, hast thou the strength to
contemplate a woeful calamity?”
The sound of the aged voice, as sorrowful as the autumn winds among the
chimney-pots, caused the young man to lift his sunken eyes from the
page upon which they lay.
“Is it, O my father,” he said, “that we are threatened with the most
dire of all catastrophes?”
“Yes, my beloved,” said his father. “Indeed, the most dire of all
catastrophes is consummated already. This is the morning of Monday.
If--how shall I reveal it to thee, Achilles” (the anguish in the eyes
of the old man was insupportable)--“if by Friday at noon we cannot
obtain twenty pieces of gold for the price of our roof, we shall be
driven forth of our little room, thou and I, beloved one, into the
gross darkness of the streets of the great city.”
At first the young man’s mind was like a blank page, but all too soon
it became susceptible to the words his father had uttered. “O my
father!” he cried, “I have known these many days that Fate was devising
some cruel and bloody trial for this craven’s heart.” And then, as a
passionate horror swelled his veins, he cried, “This is the untold evil
which all my life has lain upon my heart. I have such a bitter horror
of the streets of the great city, my father, that I would prefer to
embrace death.”
The face of the old man was like that of a corpse.
“Do I not know it, my beloved?” he said. “Was it not these loins that
imbued this horror in thy tender veins? Yet Fate has spoken; only one
thing remains unto us.”
“What is this thing, my father?”
“We can but pray for a miracle to happen.”
“Ah, my father,” said the young man in a hoarse, croaking whisper,
“miracles do not happen.”
“The modern authors have declared it thus in their books,” said the
white-haired man, his father, “but in the Book of the Ages is it not
recorded otherwise?”
“Reveal to me the written words, my father, I beseech thee,” said the
young man, with the eagerness of one who thirsts.
The aged man, his father, lifted the mighty tome from the shelf, and,
opening it at a page that contained no writing, placed his finger
thereupon.
“See, beloved one,” said the aged man, with a meek triumph in his faint
eyes, “it is there written.”
The young man turned to the passage with the frenzy of one devoured by
pangs.
“Why, my father,” he cried out, “there is nothing there. The page is
empty. It is all dark to my gaze.”
“Nay, beloved one,” said his father. “It is written there in sober
verity. I have conned the page a thousand times. Look again, beloved
one, I beseech thee.”
Again the young man traversed the page with his gaunt eyes.
“Oh, gentle Zeus,” he cried in a terror that was piteous to behold,
“the page is blank; it contains no writing. I am to be cast into the
streets of the great city.”
The wretched young man sank to his knees in the little room, biting at
his nails.
XXXI
Many hours passed ere the young man dared to meet this great
horror that had come into his life. From the dawn of his earliest
consciousness this dark shadow had lain in his thoughts. Yet never had
they had the resolution to contemplate it. All his life he had seemed
to know that such a contingency, should it ever befall, would be beyond
his strength to endure.
As during this week of mental and moral eclipse he sought to prefigure
what an existence upon the earth would mean without that sanctuary for
the broken wayfarer, reason itself seemed to decline to accept the
alternative. One night in the depths of his despair there crept into
his brain a vision of the dark and mighty Thames, that noble symbol
upon which he had so often gazed; and had the power of prayer remained
to him, he would have sought the resolution to terminate within its
cold bosom his vicissitudes upon the earth.
In the height, however, of this gross terror, his eyes beheld the
aged man, his father, at the other side of the table, that guide and
protector and strong hand in his youth. What was his own pass in
comparison with that of one so frail and venerable? He himself, by
virtue of the youth in his veins, was fitted to cope with the cruel and
licentious hordes that thronged the streets of the great city; but this
aged man, whose sap was dry, whose vigour had burnt itself out, in what
manner could his white hairs accept the last stern decree of Fate?
He, too, throughout all his days had been sustained by that sanctuary.
And now he was old he was to be cast into those remorseless streets
which would deride his feebleness, assault his white hairs. The vision
of his father, alone and without shelter in the streets of the great
city, seemed to complete his own degradation. What manner of a man was
he to give his thoughts to the river, when circumstance had made its
first imperious call upon him? He who had lain under the protection of
a father all his days, must, now that he had obtained the estate of
manhood, become himself the protector of one who was old.
It was with the hurry of a great cowardice that he turned to the
ancient authors to ask his course. Their reply was unanimous and
uncompromising; yet to one of his cast of nature it was almost cynical.
He must act. He who could hardly thread his way through the crowd of
street-persons, whose lightest utterance, whose smallest resolve was a
pretext for the mockery of all who pressed around him and trampled him
with their feet, must gird his loins.
When he recalled what he had already endured in his strivings to
fulfil the simplest offices, which his Olympian companions performed
automatically, the blood within him flowed as water. Yet if he failed
to procure twenty pieces of gold by next Friday at noon, his aged
father would be cast to the mercy of the streets.
Every instant that he passed now seemed to increase his impotence.
He should be doing, acting; yet he was pasting labels on parcels, or
he was sitting in frantic self-communion in the little room. He was
wasting hours of ineffable price. “Action, Action, Action!” cried the
ancient authors eternally in his ears; “if you fail to act immediately,
O Achilles, you will commit the most sacred and venerable form in the
world to the pavements of the great city.” Yet there he still sat in
the little room with the pall still upon his heart and his brain.
At the other side of the table sat the aged man, his father, ever
reading in the Book of the Ages. With the childlike simplicity of his
many years on the earth, he had sat him down to wait for a miracle to
happen. What a heroic resolution and fortitude was required to do that!
Yet those faint eyes could read all that was written in the Book of the
Ages--perhaps as the reward of their heroic constancy, or perhaps as
the cause of it.
Yet it was not for him to sit down in simple faith and wait for a
miracle to happen, for the once potent belief of this craven’s heart
had been plucked out ruthlessly. It was not for him to summon that
ineffable courage, which, as the frail barque is engulfed in the
waves, can regard the cold sea as though it were the dry land. During
the phase upon which he was now entered he had no belief in himself.
Formerly when he resolved to accomplish the most trivial tasks, yet
failed lamentably to do so, he was ever Achilles. But now--what was he
now? He was less than a worm writhing through mire.
No, miracles did not happen to those like himself. On the evening
of the Wednesday in that fatal week he felt he could not return to
the little room to stretch his faint resolution once more upon the
rack. Therefore he wandered aimlessly up and down the streets of the
great city. And in the course of his wanderings he came at last to
the river. As he came to the quiet bridge on which the lamps were
flickering through the chill, rainy darkness, the Thames at full tide
gurgled beneath. Gazing down at these stealthy, all-effacing waters,
an irresistible impulse overcame him. It became essential that one who
was less than nothing should return to nothingness. By what right did
such impotence breathe the noble mountain airs of Olympus? The sun,
the rain, the sweet earth, the clement skies were for those who could
outface the tempest. The dreadful dark water, which he feared so much,
was drawing him. It was exercising an occult power upon him.
Almost involuntarily, almost without realizing his act, he began to
climb out on to the parapet of the bridge. There was a faint vision of
his aged father at the back of his thoughts, but now the rudderless
vessel was caught by the forces of nature.
As with a mechanical reluctance his feet left the pavement of the
bridge, the sight of the water caused him to shiver dismally. But the
magnetism lurking in its dark, yet lustrous surface, was a hundred
times more powerful than that will which was so inert in his flesh. It
was ordained, however, that his feet should not descend to the parapet.
For as they were still poised in mid-air, the first stroke of the hour
came booming across the way from the cathedral.
It was a calm voice, before which even the darkness seemed to yield.
In the same involuntary fashion in which he had climbed out on to the
parapet, he returned to the security of the pavement. The sense of his
destiny had been restored to him. He was again Achilles. Shuddering
in every vein, he staggered through the mire of the roadway to the
precincts of the national Valhalla, in which reposed the souls of
heroes.
As in the days of his childhood he crept into this great cathedral.
Again were his temples pressed to the chill flags; again he panted like
a hunted deer. As he lay prostrate upon the stones of the sanctuary, a
voice, lurking amid the dim columns, addressed him. “Zeus,” it said,
“will give us immortal ones the strength to fulfil our destiny.”
It was late at night when the frail and haggard figure returned again
to the little room. The aged man, his father, was still sitting at
the table, with his faint eyes perusing the magic pages in which his
profound faith was expressed.
“I will look at the page again, my father,” said the young man, whose
heart was no longer as water in his flesh.
To his infinite joy he saw that the writing, which formerly had not
been apparent to his eyes, had now gained a visible embodiment.
“My eyes have grown bright again, my father,” he cried. “And see, it
is here written that if a miracle be desired, such as wish it must go
forth personally in quest thereof.”
“It is not wholly thus that I construe the page, O Achilles,” said his
father simply; “but then my eyes are those of one who is old.”
“One day only is left to us now, my father,” said the young man. “And
although my fibres are as bread, to-morrow, come what may, I will go
out to seek for the miracle.”
XXXII
For the remainder of that night the young man committed himself to the
much-dreaded darkness of the streets. He was endeavouring to harden
his heart to seek for the miracle. And in the course of that day upon
which he was now entered the power was vouchsafed to him miraculously
to obtain that which he sought.
* * * * *
William Jordan, Junior, presented himself at the counting-house of
Crumpett and Hawker at the usual hour. Throughout the forenoon he
performed his duties with that intense, but incompetent assiduity for
which he had long been notorious. About twelve o’clock Mr. Walkinshaw
summoned him to his table, and requested him to carry some papers to
the room of Mr. Octavius Crumpett.
William Jordan proceeded to do this. Knocking at the closed door, he
received the assurance from James Dodson, who was ensconced near by,
that Mr. Octavius had gone out. Thereupon the young man entered the
empty room and placed the papers upon the table of his master.
In the act of so doing he beheld, with surprise and bewilderment, and
with a start of horror, that upon the table were two piles of gold
pieces. With trembling fingers, yet with horror increasing its grip
upon his heart, the young man took up the pieces of gold and proceeded
to count them. With a sense of stupefaction the idea percolated slowly
through his being that the miracle had happened. The pieces of gold
were twenty in number, no more, and no less.
The miracle had come to pass. The presence of twenty gold pieces could
have but one interpretation. It only remained for him to act. Muttering
words of despair and terror, he placed the twenty pieces of gold in his
pocket and left the room.
All through the afternoon William Jordan assiduously fulfilled his
duties. Yet his whole being was enveloped in a kind of entrancement. He
scarcely knew what he did or where he was.
When at last the hour came in which he was relieved from the labours of
the day, he returned to the little room. Within him was the exaltation
of one who ascends the scaffold for an idea. The miracle had become
consummated. In his pockets he bore twenty pieces of gold. The white
hairs of his aged father would remain inviolate. Yet as soon as he
crossed the threshold of the little room, he was met by the joyous eyes
of the old man. A miracle had happened to him also.
It seemed that in the course of that eventful day an infrequent
purchaser had made his appearance in the shop. And when he had come to
examine the musty old tomes upon the shelves, had discovered one among
them for which he had paid the fabulous sum of three hundred pounds.
Therefore the little room was now doubly secure. Yet both these
occurrences left the young man untouched by gratitude. Even that which
made his father’s eyes so radiant could not release his mind from
the thrall of an indescribable torment which made it bleed. Better a
thousand times to have lain in the streets of the great city, better a
thousand times that his father and himself had been trampled lifeless
by the relentless hordes of street-persons, than that he should have
hardened his heart for the consummation of such a miracle as that.
As he paced the darkness that night in the throes of newer, and more
sinister, and totally undreamt-of torments which his ill-starred
attempt at action had imposed upon him, he could discern only one
course to pursue. He must derive the power to make restitution.
Still, the mere act of restitution could not efface the deed. In
whatever form he made amendment, there was still the foul stain that
nothing could expunge. However, on the following morning, as he
entered the counting-house of Crumpett and Hawker, the determination
was strong within him to make all the reparation that lay in his power.
As he crossed the threshold of the outer office he was surprised to see
the undersized figure of James Dodson ascending the staircase, although
the time was a full hour before his usual appearance at the office. His
mentor looked back over his shoulder.
“Morning, Luney,” he said in a rather forlorn manner, and passed on his
way up the stairs.
William Jordan, in his bewilderment, in his strange self-amaze, in his
dim uncertainty of the course of action he must now pursue, passed
half-an-hour in the counting-house below. In that time he not only
indulged in desperate, terrified self-intercourse, but, further,
he sought the resolution to walk up-stairs, to enter the room of
his confiding master, and to restore that which he had stolen. The
conviction was being slowly evolved in his heart that some ampler form
of reparation was demanded of him, yet the precise shape it must assume
was not as yet vouchsafed to him. At last, spurred by the knowledge
that if he let the hour of action pass it could never return, he slowly
ascended the stairs.
Stealthily he crept up them, hardly knowing why he walked so softly.
As he came noiselessly to his master’s door, and proceeded to open it,
it suddenly gave a loud creak. It was as if it sought to rebuke his
unworthy fear that it should do so. Before the young man could enter
the room his friend and mentor had come out of the room adjoining, and
was standing at his side.
“Come in here,” he said forlornly. “I was expecting you would give
yourself away.”
James Dodson led the way into his own small room, and as William Jordan
entered he closed the door.
“I don’t know what to say about it, Luney, I don’t indeed,” said Dodson
dismally. “I have been thinking about it all night; and I don’t seem to
get any nearer towards the wise and the straight thing.”
“I--I intend to make all the reparation that lies in my power,” said
the young man, whose face was that of a ghost.
“Yes; somehow I expected you would do that,” said his mentor, “but if
you do you will be found out.”
“I think I would choose to have it so,” said the young man, with gaunt
eyes.
“No, my son,” said his mentor firmly, “that is just what you can’t
afford. If you are found out there is no saying what will happen to
you. You see Octavius is a very good chap; makes a god of what he
calls honour, and so on, and that makes him a bit of a fanatic in some
things. I really don’t know where this would land you if you were found
out. I’ve lied about it already; I am absolutely up to the neck in
lies. I dare say he half suspects me; and in any case I am quite likely
to lose my billet. But one thing he can’t do, Luney, he can’t bring it
home to me. And now, my son, we have got to take care that he doesn’t
bring it home to you.”
“I--I think, Jimmy, the courage will be given to me to accept the
entire responsibility of my action,” said the young man.
“Well, you see,” said James Dodson, with an odd look in his face,
“you are such an extraordinary chap altogether, that I’m thinking the
consequences might be too much for you. In any case you would have to
go from here; and if you once go from here you will never get another
billet--not as long as you live will you ever get another billet. And
Octavius being, as I say, a bit of a fanatic in some things, it might
even be worse for you than that.”
“But,” said William Jordan, “I--I think the power will be furnished to
me to submit to the consequences of my action.”
“I don’t quite know what you mean,” said James Dodson, “you have such
an odd way of expressing yourself. But I am going to give you my advice
in plain English. Mum is the word. I defy anything to be proved against
you if you keep your mouth shut. If you do I won’t deny that James
Dodson may lose his billet. But in any case he has it about him to get
another; while, as I say, if you come to lose yours you are done for
altogether. No, Luney, whatever you do you must not appear in this.
The consequences may be so much more than you know; and you are not a
chap who can stand up against them. If you will give the money to me
I will restore it; but I shall use my own judgment as to how and when
to put it back. You see I have already half persuaded Octavius that he
has left the money somewhere else; that he has mislaid it, or that he
has never had it. You see he is such an absent-minded sort of blighter,
that by a bit of firm and judicious handling he might be persuaded
that the money never existed. And I will do him this credit, my son;
he would far rather it never had existed than that a thing like this
should have happened in the house of Crumpett and Hawker.”
The immediate result of this curious and unlooked-for intervention
was that the unhappy young man, although declining to incriminate
his mentor by handing the money over to him to be restored at his
discretion, also refrained, for the time being, from replacing it
himself, because such a course, in Jimmy Dodson’s opinion, would tell
heavily against himself.
“You see I’ve told such lies to Octavius,” said Jimmy Dodson, “that he
might easily come to believe that the money was not there at all. But
if it returns to the exact spot where he thinks he left it, he will
naturally come to suspect me as having some sort of a hand in it, and
he will know then--like the d----d old fool that he is--that I have
been trying to argue him clean out of his own reason.”
“T-the p-power will be furnished to me to make reparation,” the young
man muttered, “t-the p-power will be furnished to me to confess my
crime.”
“There must be none of that talk, my son,” said his mentor sternly.
“This is not a case for high falutin’! It will not help at all. Either
the money was there or it was not there. _I_ believe it was not there;
Octavius is going to believe so too. You see a chap like Octavius
doesn’t care a bit about the brass. It is the principle he cares about;
and he is such a fanatic in some things, if he found you out there is
no saying to what lengths he might go.”
The frail barque, chartless, aimless in mid ocean, was obedient to
the will of the wind. William Jordan crept again down the stairs, his
resolution unfulfilled. The pieces of gold were still in his pocket;
his crime was still unconfessed.
During the luncheon hour, as he sat in the empty counting-house,
with his paper of bread-and-butter untouched, and his head buried in
desolation in his weak and nerveless hands, he was startled back to
sensibility by feeling a hand laid suddenly upon his shoulder. It was
that of James Dodson. His mentor’s forlorn aspect, of a few hours
before, had yielded place to a kind of jubilation.
“What do you think, my son?” said this consummate man of action, “what
do you think, old boy? I have positively persuaded that silly old
cuckoo that he never left the money there at all.”
William Jordan gave a gasp.
“I--I d-don’t think it m-matters,” he stammered.
“You don’t think if matters!” said Jimmy Dodson. “Why, my good
Christian boy, you must be up the pole. Don’t you realize what an
escape it has been for us both? But I must have the devil’s own tongue
on me; if J. Dodson doesn’t end his days with a peerage in Grosvenor
Square, I don’t know what two and two make, that’s all. I never
understood, until to-day, how easy it is to argue some chaps clean
out of their own reason. I’ve always despised the old fool; but even
I never realized what a nincompoop he was until this blessed morning.
He arrived about ten, as he always does, and when he rang for me and I
came in, I thought, ‘Hullo, old friend, you look uncommonly sorry for
yourself, you do.’ Well, the old boy blew his nose very violently, and
cocked his glass in his right eye very fiercely, and he bleated like a
kid of three, ‘Mr. Dodson, this affair is preying upon me. This great
establishment was founded by my ancestor, Octavius Crumpett, in 1701.
This house has published Dryden and Pope, Swift and Fielding, and all
the foremost names in the literary history of this country until the
present time. And I think, Mr. Dodson, I am justified in saying that an
incident of this kind is quite without precedent in its annals. Such a
reflection as is cast upon its personnel by this deplorable occurrence
is--is, well, Mr. Dodson, more than I can contemplate.’ And that is
where I came in again, my son. ‘Well, sir,’ I said, ‘you must forgive
me if I repeat what I said yesterday afternoon, that you have not made
it ab-so-lutely clear to my mind that the money was actually there. I
don’t know whether you have noticed it, sir, but what you might call
hallucinations are constantly occurring. How often, sir, do we persuade
ourselves that we have not done a thing when we have done it, and _vice
versa_! And you’ll pardon me, sir, but these scientific people say it
is the same with disease. You can think you have got a disease until
you get it; or, again, if you can persuade yourself you have not got a
disease you have got, why, sir, in the course of time you find you have
not got it after all.’
“Well now, my son, I could see I was pressing with both feet on the
loud pedal. ‘Mr. Dodson,’ said the old mug, ‘I would pay a thousand
pounds to a charitable institution if I could really persuade myself
that I did not leave that wretched money upon my table.’ Well, after
that, Luney, I went in to win. Since I buttered him up over his
Homer--the d---- silliest production, I understand, that ever was
perpetrated--he has always listened to me with what he calls ‘respect.’
He considers me ‘a scholar and a gentleman’; he likes to consider
everybody in this old-established house, from Pa to the ex-caretaker’s
widow, who feeds the cat, to be ‘a scholar and a gentleman.’ Well, I
went for the gloves; I gave him five minutes of regular John Bright,
and wound up with a bit of dissertation on self-deception. And, would
you believe it, Luney? the silly old cormorant wrung me warmly by the
hand, and said if only for his own peace of mind he must admit that he
had deceived himself. The money could not possibly have been there; he
must have left it in his hansom; it must have fallen from his pocket
in Saint James’s Square; in fact, there must be a hideous mistake
somewhere; on no account must I mention it in the office. I must treat
all the circumstances exactly as though they had never occurred.
“Now, what do you say to that, my son? Of course it was all pretty
useful work on the part of J. D. You see I guessed from the first that
like all these ultra-pious church-and-chapel coves he was forcing
himself to swallow that which he knew he had no right to swallow; and
in the end he was able to convince himself it was ‘the right thing’ to
swallow it rather than to admit the cold-drawn truth.”
To the surprise of the triumphant Mr. Dodson, this description of the
further miracle that had been wrought in his favour brought no kind of
relief to the unhappy William Jordan.
“T-there is still my shame,” he muttered.
“You just put that out of your mind, my son,” said the philosopher.
“Throw the money down a drain, and pretend, like Octavius, that the
whole thing never occurred. Of course, if Octavius or any other of
the ultra-pious sect were to overhear me, they would swear I was as
guilty as you are. And so I am; I expect I am far the worse of the
two. Because I don’t call you guilty. You are odd, weak, you have a
tile or two loose, but I could never look on a chap like you as having
deliberate guile. And I mean to stand by you, although I don’t know why
I should. I have nothing to gain; in fact I have everything to lose by
taking up with a chap like you. I don’t recognize J. D., who intends
to get on in the world, no matter what it costs him, in my dealings
with you. But there they are. As I say, my son, you are against my
principles altogether; but the fact remains, Luney, that since I have
come to take up with you, I don’t seem, somehow, as though I can let
you go.”
“I--I f-foresee the hour when you will have to deny me,” said the young
man, in his difficult speech.
“You must get out of this habit of being low-spirited,” said James
Dodson, to whom this speech was incoherent. “It might help to give you
away. And I can’t impress it upon you too strongly that if Octavius
should ever come at the truth--kind-hearted old duffer as he is--he
will be only too ready to do what he calls his duty. As for me, I say
right here, that whatever you did, Luney, having known you so long, and
having come to know you so well, James Dodson could never look upon
you as a wrong ’un. I’ll tell you, my son, in what light I have come
to regard you, although it has taken me years to come at the truth.
You are one of those fine mathematical instruments which can register
things that ordinary instruments know nothing about. You are no earthly
use for straight-forward, common, practical, two-and-two-makes-four
sort of life, but it has begun to dawn on me lately, that you must
have a wonderful mind for some things. It is only lately that I
have begun to notice it. But now and then you seem to come out with
something that is--well, that is downright marvellous for a chap like
you. In odd out-of-the-way subjects, that are not a ha’porth of use to
anybody, you have a knack of saying things that chaps like John Dobbs
and Joe Cox can’t even understand. My own private opinion is that you
_can’t_ be such a fool as you seem. I believe, Luney, that you ought
to be kept under a glass case in a box lined with felt, because the
slightest thing, even a change in the weather, is enough to throw you
off your balance.”
Having thus delivered himself, and at an unexampled length, Mr. Dodson
left his distracted friend to continue in that phase of remorse whose
effect upon him was so dire.
Throughout the long hours of the afternoon the need for immediate
action never left his mind. Already he had let the golden moment pass;
every hour that followed would increase the likelihood that he would
fail to derive the courage for his task. Even his brave, but misguided,
friend, whose counsels were so subtle and so specious, had come to seem
in his power to put a gloss on the cruellest of temptations, to be
neither more nor less than the embodiment of evil.
Worn out in mind and body he went back that evening to the little room.
Yet here there was no surcease to be had. Wherever he carried his guilt
he could find nought to assuage it. When he turned to the ancient
authors their unceasing demand of Action, Action, Action seemed to make
his vacillating weakness turn to a gangrene in his flesh. Yet was not
this dreadful shibboleth of theirs the rock upon which the frail vessel
had been shattered! With the modern authors he fared no better. Their
cynicism became a callous mockery that had no power to heal. And when
he turned to the Book of the Ages, his mind was coloured by so dark
a horror that he failed to decipher a single word inscribed upon its
leaves. They were as so many red blurs void of form and meaning.
During the long hours of the night the aged man, his father, sat with
the passage before him in which was expressed the deep truth that
miracles would continue to happen to those who had the courage to be
credulous.
“Tell me, my father,” cried the young man at last in his despair, “what
must happen to those who are too frail for action, too craven for
belief?”
“Even these must fulfil their destiny, beloved one,” said the
white-haired man.
XXXIII
Pale with conflict William Jordan took himself yet again to No. 24
Trafalgar Square on the following day. He still carried in his pockets
the twenty pieces of gold. His guilt was written in his mien, yet the
little world about him could not read.
“Mr. Jordan,” said Mr. W. P. Walkinshaw with great kindness, “it has
seemed to me lately that all is not well with you. You have not been
looking yourself. I would like to suggest that you take a fortnight’s
rest; I think I can answer for it that the firm will raise no
objection. I would like to suggest that you run down to Margate to take
a breath of the sea.”
“You are k-kind, sir,” said the young man, with the simplicity that the
good Mr. Walkinshaw had long come to recognize as part of him, “but my
m-malady is of another nature.”
Mr. Walkinshaw shook his head solemnly, and subsequently observed to
Mr. Aristophanes Luff, “That young man is suffering. He ought to seek
medical advice.”
“One can imagine that Hamlet looked like that,” mildly observed Mr.
Aristophanes Luff.
As William Jordan sat on his high stool in the left-hand corner, he saw
through the glass partition that divided the counting-house from the
exit into Trafalgar Square, Jimmy Dodson pass out of the door into the
street. At the moment this apparently unrelated circumstance addressed
his mind with no especial significance. But soon it began to produce a
kind of vibration in it, as though it were charged with a meaning that
his faculties had not the power to seize. Quite suddenly, however, the
young man discarded the paper and string he was manipulating and came
down from his high stool.
“Oh, yes,” he muttered to himself softly, “I understand now, I
understand now.”
Again his limbs, in their weariness, mounted those well-remembered
stairs. He passed the ante-chamber wherein his evil genius was wont to
reside, but who, at this moment, all unconscious, was taking his way
across the square. He tapped softly upon the door of the head of the
firm. He entered silently, but without vacillation.
Mr. Octavius Crumpett was reading, with an occasional chuckle of
audible pleasure, the manuscript of the latest polite fiction of Sir
Topman Murtle, K.C.B., “the Queen’s favourite novelist,” and his own
cherished and familiar friend.
“What an insight that man has into the human heart!” he kept exclaiming
at intervals, as some uncommonly illuminating flash of intuition
lighted his own sympathetic intelligence. At last this august gentleman
chanced to pause in his labour of love. He looked up. And looking up he
beheld the outline of a silent figure standing at the far end of the
room with its hand still on the door it had closed so softly.
“Good-morning, Mr.--er--er--er--dear me!” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett.
How trying it was that he should actually fail to remember the name
of one who rendered faithful service to that house! Really such an
untoward incident had not occurred to the august gentleman for years.
But in a sudden unmistakable ray of inspiration the name of the
youthful clerk entered his mind.
“Good-morning, Mr. _Jordan_,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, almost
proudly, almost triumphantly.
At the sound of that amiable and pleasant voice the strange-looking
young man came forward to the table, and taking a handful of gold
pieces from his pockets, placed them in a heap upon the table before
Mr. Octavius Crumpett’s astonished gaze.
“I wish to submit myself, sir, to the consequences of my action,” said
the young man, in soft yet self-contained speech.
At first Mr. Octavius Crumpett was powerless to give expression to
his bewildered astonishment. But slowly, solemnly, mournfully the
manuscript pages of the polite fiction of his distinguished friend
fluttered from his grasp; and placing the palms of his beautifully-kept
hands, with their delicately-trimmed nails, together, he murmured,
“This is calamitous!”
Minutes seemed to pass in which the head of the firm appeared to
resign himself to the fervour of a moral trepidation, which was yet so
chastened that its only outward manifestation was that of gentle sorrow.
“This is ineffably calamitous!” murmured Mr. Octavius Crumpett.
William Jordan stood placidly with his hands by his sides.
“I would have hailed the opportunity,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, “of
paying a _substantial_ sum of money to a charitable institution had it
been possible by that means to prevent such a thing happening to this
house. Mr. Jordan, I feel I must ask you to have the kindness to go
down-stairs for a short time, while I--ah, I--ah, earnestly deliberate
as to the right course to adopt.”
The young man bowed and withdrew. As he was passing out of the door,
Mr. Octavius Crumpett said, “Do--ah, I understand, Mr. Jordan, that
you have no palliation to offer, no words of contrition to express?”
“None, sir,” said the young man. His voice was precise; his absence of
gesture was that of a statue.
At the top of the stairs William Jordan encountered James Dodson, who
was ascending them.
“My God, Luney, you must be mad!” cried his mentor, giving one
half-tragic glance at the face of the young man.
William Jordan passed down the stairs as though he had neither seen nor
heard him.
For a considerable time Mr. Octavius Crumpett meditated upon his
course of action. He was a humane, enlightened, high-principled,
liberal-minded gentleman; a notable product of that which a
long-established society had achieved in the way of civilization. In
respect and solicitude for his kind he yielded to none. But he was now
face to face with the most sinister problem that a sheltered experience
had ever been called upon to confront.
As he sat revolving the matter in his thoughts, he seemed to feel that
sterner and more forcible clay was required to grapple with an issue so
momentous. In his enlightened desire to keep abreast of the foremost
practice upon the subject, he rang his bell and summoned one upon
whom, whose youth and subordinate rank notwithstanding, he had already
learned to lean.
“Mr. Dodson,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, with unmistakable horror and
distress in his kind brown eyes, “I was justified in my conjecture.
The money was left upon the table; it was abstracted--and--and by one
employed in this house.”
Mr. Dodson stood in a solemnity that paid homage to the occasion.
“Mr. Dodson,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, after a long pause, which
was fraught with embarrassment for both gentlemen, “I find myself upon
the horns of a dilemma. I desire to be just to this great house whom a
grave public scandal threatens; I desire to be just to my own humane
feelings; yet above everything, Mr. Dodson, I feel that I ought to act
in accordance with the best and latest modern opinion; in a word, Mr.
Dodson, one is desirous of consulting the public welfare.”
“I understand perfectly, sir,” said Mr. Dodson, with an air of weight
that engaged the respectful attention of his good and large-minded
employer. “I understand _perfectly_, sir, the position in which you are
placed. It is one of great delicacy. One of great delicacy. I may say,
sir, it is one of the--ah, _greatest_ possible delicacy. But if, sir, I
might presume to speak----”
By the decree of Fate, however, it was not given to Mr. Dodson to
presume to speak, for at that moment the door was opened, and one
scarcely less in distinction than Mr. Octavius Crumpett himself was
announced. It was Sir Topman Murtle, K.C.B.
Mr. Dodson withdrew in a respectful silence, in which much was
expressed.
The pen of the devout historian approaches warily and with awe the
momentous task of delineating the outline of the Queen’s favourite
novelist. He was in his mature, full-blooded, middle period; the period
of his most flamboyant successes; the period of the most memorable and
appealing portraits. As they or their replicas adorn the walls of every
self-respecting gallery in the United Kingdom, modelled upon Millais in
his second manner, the faithful are with confidence thereto referred.
It is only necessary to say for the purposes of this biography that
Sir Topman Murtle, K.C.B., was a small, stout, middle-aged gentleman
of a consummate English type--the type that is found in England, and
nowhere else. In point of attire he was no less prosperous than Mr.
Octavius Crumpett himself. His manner was cordial yet consonant with
true dignity; his fine bearing and white gaiters were pregnant of
unmistakable distinction.
When these august personages had greeted one another with a cordial
frankness that was very pleasant to witness, said Sir Topman Murtle, in
a smooth, high-pitched voice, “Before we approach the subject of _The
Angel’s Bride_, I should value your advice, my dear Crumpett, upon a
subject which is giving me, at the present moment, some little concern.
I feel myself to be on the horns of a dilemma.”
The word “dilemma” touched a responsive chord in the bosom of Mr.
Octavius Crumpett, M.A., D.C.L. (Oxon.).
“My dilemma is this, Crumpett,” said his distinguished visitor. “It has
recently been suggested to me by my friend, the Prime Minister, that I
should allow myself to be nominated to the Privy Council.”
“I congratulate you unreservedly, Murtle,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett,
M.A., D.C.L. (Oxon.), with unfeigned emotion.
“But, Crumpett, the problem shapes itself in my mind,” said Sir Topman
Murtle, “will the acceptance of that which one is bound to consider as
an undoubted honour, be wholly consistent with that reverence for the
dignity of letters which I hope I don’t exaggerate?”
“I am sure, Murtle,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, with a conviction of
singular depth, “one feels that whatever you did it would be impossible
for you to degrade the position in the world of letters to which your
talents have called you.”
“I have a profound faith in your judgment, Crumpett,” said Sir Topman
Murtle, “I am always stimulated by your clearness of thought and your
depth of conviction. But, in a manner of speaking, would it not be
possible to betray the higher tenets of one’s calling by giving one’s
assent to official recognition, however honourable and however greatly
to be cherished by a private individual? You will remember that Carlyle
refused a baronetcy?”
“No, Murtle,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, with a conviction that
seemed to grow deeper than ever, “there is not a shade of doubt in my
mind that your sensitiveness upon this point is over-nice. Carlyle
refused a baronetcy, but Scott accepted one; and Joseph Addison, one of
the earliest names upon our books, accepted office in the government of
his day.”
“All the same, Crumpett,” said Sir Topman Murtle, “I feel qualms.”
“They are uncalled for, I assure you, Murtle,” said Mr. Octavius
Crumpett, with splendid finality, “wholly uncalled for.”
“One can hardly fancy the Right Honourable William Shakespeare, P.C.,”
said Sir Topman Murtle, with an air of grave perplexity.
“Had Shakespeare been an educated man,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett,
thoughtfully balancing his paper-knife of solid silver on the point
of his forefinger, “I believe it is generally recognized that there
is no honour to which he might not have aspired. And let me say this,
Murtle,” continued Mr. Octavius Crumpett, warming to his theme with an
energy of which few would have suspected him to be capable, “let me say
this. It is due to your sense of the higher citizenship that such a one
as yourself should allow the welfare of the public to be paramount.”
“Ah, the public,” said Sir Topman Murtle, “the public; upon my word for
the moment I had nearly forgotten the public!”
“No representative man must ever forget what he owes to the public,”
said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, with a sententiousness in which he seldom
permitted himself to indulge.
The impact of Mr. Octavius Crumpett’s irresistible conviction began to
have its effect on Sir Topman Murtle.
“Yes,” said Sir Topman Murtle, “for the moment I had almost allowed
myself to forget the public. It is a merciful thing, Crumpett, that you
recalled it to my mind in time. I agree with you that we ought not to
allow a sentiment, which some might consider high-flown, to override a
sense of duty.”
“And now, Murtle,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett with gently heaving
bosom, “I must expose the horns of my own dilemma.”
With profound emotion the chief of the house of Crumpett and Hawker
unfolded the tragic and sordid story.
“I am a humane man, Murtle, as I hope, and trust and believe,” he
concluded; “and I do not know how I could face anything in the nature
of a scandal in regard to this house, but--but----”
“Crumpett,” said Sir Topman Murtle, “no one appreciates more fully
than do I the painfulness of your position, but scruple may become
vacillation, and vacillation may become weakness. Can it be possible,
Crumpett, that you also are about to forget the duty you owe to the
public?”
“No one has a profounder reverence, Murtle, than have I for those who
make a practice of rendering unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s,”
said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, who, unhappy as he was, spoke with the
humility of a Christian gentleman; “but--but the misguided young man
restored the money himself, and I have every reason to believe it is
his first deviation from the path of strict rectitude.”
“Crumpett,” said Sir Topman Murtle, placing his own white and fleshy
hand, whose finger-nails were carefully trimmed, upon the shoulder
of his friend with a firmness that was remarkable, “your scruples do
honour to your good heart, but I feel sure they are misplaced. Whatever
it may cost you, you must discharge your duty to the State. That duty
must necessarily be distasteful--to the sensitive mind it always is;
but pray remember, Crumpett, that you will not be the only martyr to
the inexorable cause of the public. And it has always seemed to me,
Crumpett, that the greater the pain we incur in following a given
course of action, the more imperative, the more sacred the need for
that course of action becomes.”
Mr. Octavius Crumpett heaved a profound sigh.
“Yes, Murtle,” he said, with the meekness of one at the feet of
Gamaliel, “you have worked out that beautiful idea in _The Angel’s
Bride_; but really I would that this question were one that a stronger
and wiser and more competent nature had to decide.”
“The question, Crumpett, decides itself,” said Sir Topman Murtle in
a manner that seemed to imply that a stronger and wiser and more
competent nature had already decided it.
And indeed, as Sir Topman Murtle said, the question did decide itself,
for at this moment William Jordan, wearing his overcoat, and carrying
his hat, entered the room. He was accompanied by a stalwart police
constable.
“It is my wish, sir,” said the young man, speaking in a calm and clear
voice, “to place myself in the hands of justice.”
Mr. Octavius Crumpett heaved a sigh of relief. He, too, had passed
through his mental crisis.
XXXIV
On the following morning, within the precincts of a stuffy,
drab-coloured, malodorous building, which was so seldom visited by
daylight that the gas was already lit, Mr. Octavius Crumpett, looking
grave and perturbed, accepted by the invitation of the presiding
magistrate and a fellow-member of his club, one Mr. Ashmole Pursglove,
C.B., Q.C., a seat on the bench.
The prisoner, worn and pale, was already standing in the dock. Below
him was a solicitor engaged by Mr. James Dodson at the suggestion of
Mr. Octavius Crumpett. Mr. Dodson himself was beside him. A close
observer would have said that his own composure was considerably less
than that of the accused.
The case was of such a trivial character that it was disposed of
immediately. The accused, upon his own confession, was charged with
abstracting the sum of twenty pounds, the property of his employer.
The accused’s solicitor spoke very earnestly as to the excellent
character the prisoner had always borne; he had been seven years in the
prosecutor’s employ; and he insisted upon the fact that the theft would
not have been brought to light had not the accused himself restored
the money and confessed his action. To this the prisoner’s employer
added an earnest request that the unfortunate young man be dealt with
leniently, as he had given every satisfaction to the house of Crumpett
and Hawker, and they had no desire whatever to press the case.
“William Jordan,” said the magistrate, in the tone of a somewhat
petulant male parent, “having regard to the fact that your employer,
whose goodness of heart and philanthropy of disposition are well known,
has himself interceded for you, and having regard also to the fact
that since the commission of your act you appear to have done all in
your power to repair it, I should be inclined to feel that the ends of
justice would be met by a nominal sentence upon you. But unfortunately
I learn that this is not the first occasion upon which you have been
before this court; and as you have already enjoyed what I may say I
am inclined to consider the questionable philanthropy of the First
Offenders’ Act, upon a charge similar to this present, although upon
the former occasion it involved theft from the person, I now feel
that I have no alternative but to deal with you in a salutary manner.
William Jordan, you must go to hard labour for six months.”
The young man stood erectly to receive this sentence. About his lips
was a smile which was proud, humble, yet almost happy.
XXXV
After the prisoner had bowed with a self-possession and an ample
courtesy to the presiding magistrate, and to his late employer--which
both gentlemen thought in the circumstances were very remarkable--and
he had stepped down from the dock, Mr. Octavius Crumpett said to his
acquaintance and fellow-clubman, Mr. Ashmole Pursglove, “Pursglove,
this affair has cost me much pain. That man has been in the
counting-house of Crumpett and Hawker seven years, and I understand
that in all that time his conduct has been exemplary. Yet his career
reveals a depth of depravity that is truly shocking. Not one of his
companions in the office had suspected it.”
“I can only remark, Crumpett,” said Mr. Ashmole Pursglove, “that in my
judgment that man has the air and demeanour of a finished criminal.
I am afraid there is nothing to be said for a man of that type. Our
social system makes no sort of provision for him. If I could have my
way he would be detained as a hopeless lunatic. He would not be given
back to society again.”
“It is curious, Pursglove,” said Mr. Octavius Crumpett, “what an
insight into the human heart is given to some men. You know Murtle.
Well, Murtle said to me, after having witnessed the man give himself
into custody, ‘There is not the least doubt in my mind, Crumpett, that
that man is capable of anything.’ And I little thought when Murtle said
this, upon, as I considered, very insufficient data, how amply his
judgment was to be confirmed.”
After Mr. Octavius Crumpett had shaken hands very cordially with the
presiding magistrate, had also thanked him for his disinterested
services, and further, had subscribed five pounds to the funds of the
court, he entered a hansom and requested to be driven to his club. In
the course of the journey he continually made the observation: “Murtle
was right! Murtle was quite right! What an astonishing insight that man
has into the human heart!”
XXXVI
In the meantime Mr. James Dodson had hurriedly left the precincts of
the court. He had made his way headlong to the refreshment buffet of
the Brontë Hotel.
“Chrissie,” said the eminent philosopher, “I want something that in the
quickest possible time will make me blind to the world. And as soon as
I am blind to the world I want you to put me in a cab and send me home.”
“What’s up, Jimmy?” said the lady at the buffet, betraying a lively
curiosity. “It isn’t love, because I know by experience that you are
not built in that way.”
“A lot you know about it,” said the philosopher hoarsely. “You think
because you have thrown me over twice and I have not said a word about
it, I haven’t got any feelings at all. You are wrong, Chrissie. If you
touch me in the right spot I have to squeal just like anybody else.
I want to knock my head against that beer-engine until I can’t feel
anything more. And why do you think I want to do that?”
“Ask me another, James Dodson,” said the siren. “But for whatever
reason you want to do it, I know very well it is not love.”
“Well, if it is not love,” said Mr. Dodson, “I don’t know what the name
is for it. Here is a chap I have known seven years, who was nothing to
me at first, who was not the kind of chap a fellow like me would take
up with, who has been found guilty of doing things--not one thing mind
you, but two--and although he has been found guilty, I say--and he
owns up himself--and he has just been put away for six months’ hard
labour--the whole business makes me feel--makes me feel, Chrissie, as
though I want to commit a murder.”
“Whatever you do, Jimmy,” said the siren, who was genuinely alarmed,
“you must keep off brandy. You are absolutely off the square. I can’t
make out what is the matter with you; I should have said you would have
been the last chap in the world to let go like this.”
“So should I, old girl,” said Mr. Dodson. “I don’t recognize J. D. in
this affair at all. The fact is, J. D. never has recognized himself in
his dealings with that poor lunatic. But there has come to be something
about that chap that is more to me than my own flesh and blood. If
it isn’t love I don’t know what it is; yet why it should be love I
don’t know. As you know, old girl, I don’t believe much in religion
as a general thing, but it has seemed to me lately that that chap was
just a saint in disguise. And now they have taken him from me--put
him away in gaol--to hard labour--and he deserves it too--and--and,
old girl, it has kind of knocked the bottom out of my little world
altogether--and--and I feel that I shall never be able to believe in
anything again.”
“Steady, old boy,” said Chrissie with an ample yet robust sympathy. “I
don’t like to see you let go.”
“I don’t like it either,” said the philosopher whitely. “But I feel
just now that I must either let out a little or go mad. One thing is
dead sure; I mustn’t go back to the office at present. If I do I am
certain to murder Octavius.”
“Jimmy,” said Chrissie, with matronly reserve from behind the buffet,
“if you like to bring that ring back again to-morrow I’ll wear it.”
“You give me something that will put me to sleep,” said the philosopher
hoarsely and with wild eyes. “Anything--I don’t care what--as long as
it does it soon.”
XXXVII
One misty but pleasant morning of the early autumn, a four-wheeled
cab was drawn up against the kerb immediately opposite the portals of
a London penitentiary. A wizened and undersized young man with black
hair, a short bristling moustache, and his hands in his pockets, stood
with his back to this vehicle. Upon his not particularly agreeable
countenance was a curious air of expectancy.
Ever and anon the young man might have been seen to take out his watch.
By the manner in which he regarded it, it was to be surmised that he
was growing impatient. He began to pace up and down the pavement in
front of the prison. Already he had been waiting more than an hour. It
began to seem that he whom he awaited would never appear.
At last there stepped through the sombre portals of the gaol an
extremely slight figure, rather above than below the middle height.
It was that of a young man. His hands were remarkably slender and
delicate; his eyes were large and deep yet extraordinarily luminous;
his hair was shaved close to his head. The tardy beams of the sun which
were beginning to creep over the great city declared his gaunt face to
be suffused by a somewhat curious pallor. In the centre of the right
cheek was a slight yet almost hideous natural disfigurement.
Scarcely had this fragile figure emerged from the portals of the gaol,
than the wizened and undersized young man, who had been pacing the
flags of the pavement for some little time past, turned and beheld it.
At once he made towards him. Quite suddenly, however, he stopped, as
if in the throes of a profound bewilderment. An expression of pain and
confusion overspread his face.
In the next moment, however, he had gone forward again. It was as
though an irresistible impulse had driven him.
“Why--why,” he said, peering into the great and luminous eyes of the
man who had issued from the portals of the gaol, “can--can it be Luney?”
He who was addressed in this singular manner replied by taking a hand
of the speaker’s in each of his own, and by saluting him upon the
forehead.
XXXVIII
When he had ensconced William Jordan in the interior of the cab Mr.
James Dodson before entering the vehicle himself turned to the man on
the box.
“Cabby,” he said, “as it is a nice morning you can just throw back the
flaps of your machine and take us for a drive round Brixton.”
The cabman interpreted these instructions by uncovering the roof of the
vehicle, and by driving away from the penitentiary at a regulated pace.
Its two occupants were seated side by side.
“Why, Luney,” said Jimmy Dodson in a voice of bewilderment, “I hardly
knew you.”
“Is it surprising?” said his companion.
“And your voice,” said Jimmy Dodson, “I hardly recognize your voice as
belonging to you either. Something seems to have happened to you.”
“As you say,” said William Jordan softly, “something seems to have
happened to me; but,” he added as he laid his delicate fingers
upon those of his friend, “I can never forget those to whom I owe
everything.”
Dodson already felt a curious susceptibility to the new and strange
manner of his companion.
“But, you know, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson, whose joy in their meeting
was suddenly tempered by the things that were, “all this must be kept
from my people all the same. You see, my father--well, my father is in
the Force, and--and, well naturally, it would not be professional. And
of course you are done for socially--it is no use my disguising it, is
it, old boy? It is only kindness to tell you. And I should be done for
socially too if any of my set knew that I had taken up with you again.
And I should get sacked from the office--my screw is now three hundred
a year--and of course nobody would be to blame but myself. I suppose my
taking up with you again is all very weak and wrong; yet if I must tell
you the truth, Luney, I have come to feel that I would rather not go on
living if I have to do without you.”
The last few sentences of Jimmy Dodson’s remarkable speech, the whole
of which was uttered in a very rapid, mumbling, somewhat incoherent
fashion, far other than the one he was wont to affect, caused a
poignant expression to flit through the large and bright eyes of
William Jordan.
“I have no counsel to give you, Jimmy,” he said. “I can only leave you
to go out alone into the wilderness.”
Jimmy Dodson looked at his friend with wonder and bewilderment, taking
a firmer hold upon him.
“Luney,” he said, “I can’t think what has happened to you. But somehow,
as I say, you are not the same. Your looks are so different--you
have no idea how wide and bright your eyes are. And your speech is
different--it is so much clearer and stronger, and you don’t seem to
stammer at all. But you were always beyond me, old boy, and now you
seem to have got farther and farther away.”
“Yet never was I so near to you, Jimmy, as I am this day,” said William
Jordan. “You are no longer a street-person, nor an Olympian, nor one
of other race and texture. You are just yourself, your own baffled,
bewildered, arrested self--my own half-developed younger brother who
one day may come to flower.”
“I don’t understand you, Luney,” said his mentor; “you have altered so
much that I don’t understand you at all. And yet, when I hear your
voice and I look at your eyes, you make me feel somehow----”
XXXIX
When William Jordan returned again to the little room his father
greeted him in silence. The aged man whose hair was now snow-white,
whose eyes were dim, whose limbs were enfeebled, looked upon the
returned wayfarer without speech and without question.
“I observe, my father,” said the young man, peering into the failing
eyes, “that you were of good faith.”
“I had your assurance, Achilles, that you would return,” said the aged
man.
“You have no curiosity, my father,” said the young man. “You do not ask
whether my journeyings, like those of Odysseus of old, were fraught
with hazard and great vicissitude.”
“With that measure of sight that still remains to me, beloved one,”
said his father, “I observe that to be the case.”
The young man smiled with a kind of submission.
“I am entered upon the third phase,” he said, “the third and the
last. The time is brief. I hear already the first faint lappings
of the waters of oblivion in my ears. But I have acquired a store
of knowledge. I went out in anguish and bewilderment; I return in
self-security. If only the strength be given to my right hand in these
last days I shall commence author.”
“Will you write in the book, beloved one?” said the old man, whose
enfeebled frame had now scarce the power to lift the great volume from
the shelf.
The young man looked the pages through with a patient scrutiny.
“There are many blank pages,” he said. “There are many to be filled.”
“Their number is infinite,” said the old man. “As long as our dynasty
continues there will always be a page to be filled.”
“Yet he who fails to write therein,” said the young man, “places a term
to the dynasty, does he not, my father?”
“Verily, beloved,” said his father, “it is written so.”
“I must go out into the wilderness again, my father,” said the young
man with the new glamour in his large bright eyes. “It may then be
given to me to write in the book.”
From this day forth the young man spent his outdoor hours in many and
strange places, without pain, without trepidation, without his previous
hurry of the spirit. He walked fearlessly among the crowded streets,
reading the faces of those he found therein. Sometimes he would go
afield and enter the country lanes and the woodland places and read the
face of Nature.
Under the cover of the darkness his friend Dodson would sometimes tap
upon the shutters of the shop. The young man would immediately leave
his books, for he had returned to those companions of his early days,
and would go forth with his friend into the streets of the great city.
On the side of each there was an odd fear: James Dodson would never
venture abroad upon these excursions without turning up his coat collar
and pulling down his hat over his eyes, and he earnestly besought
William Jordan to follow his example.
“If it leaks out that we still walk out together,” said Jimmy Dodson,
“I am done for socially, and I shall lose my three hundred a year.”
On the other hand William Jordan’s constant fear was lest his friend
in a moment of unguarded impetuosity should pass through the shop and
penetrate over the threshold of the little room.
“Jimmy,” he said, with that directness of speech which was his recent
possession, “I would urge upon you never to pass beyond the threshold
of the little room in which I and my father dwell, until that hour
should come wherein you are told to enter.”
“I promise, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson, assenting readily, “and I ask
you not to breathe it to a living soul that we still walk out together.
Really I don’t know why we do. I seem to be taking my life in my hand,
yet I feel as though I haven’t the power to help myself. The fact is I
can’t do without you, Luney.”
However, the time was at hand when these evening excursions were much
curtailed. In the course of his daily wanderings abroad, the young
man in his new and high courage, found himself on one occasion in a
dreadful slum in the eastern part of the great city. Once before in the
early days of his childhood when, holding the hand of his father, he
was wont to go forth to seek knowledge, he had found himself in this
dismal place. And such was the terror it aroused in him that his dreams
were haunted for many nights. But this day he traversed these regions,
which he had never thought to dare to enter again, calmly, fearlessly
and alone.
And in the middle of the most noisome part of the slum, he observed a
stalwart man in a shabby black coat, and a very old hat, and trousers
frayed at the end, and ugly and misshapen shoes with their strings
hanging loose, talking to two ragged and filthy urchins whose bare legs
were plastered with mud, who were revelling in the gutter.
The young man stood a little apart watching these three until the
boys went away, and then he approached the man and said as he took
off his hat: “I beg your pardon, sir, but I would like to help you in
your labours. I would like to instruct those children in reading and
writing, and in other simple arts in which they seem to be deficient.”
The man was frankly pleased by this address.
“Come to-night to the mission at half-past eight,” he said brusquely,
“and we will find work for your hands. See, there is the mission.” He
pointed across the street to a grimy building of mean exterior, with a
lamp over the door.
Accompanied by James Dodson, who left him at the door, the young man
came to the mission at half-past eight that evening. Thenceforward
every night of the week, he came there at the same hour and in the same
company. At the end of a month, the stalwart man, who was somewhat
grim of aspect, and rather rough of manner, and who was spoken of as
“The Boss,” said: “I don’t know whether you are aware of it, Jordan,
but already you have made a difference to us. We other fellows will be
getting jealous. You have something that has been given to none of us.”
“I think it is,” said William Jordan, “that I am come among my own
people.” And he added wistfully, “I would that the time was not so
brief.”
In the little room he was now saying to his father constantly, “My
knowledge has such increase, my father, that now it begins to bear upon
me. If only the strength were given to my right hand I would commence
author immediately.” And sometimes he would add almost with petulance,
“This delay begins to press upon me like a stone. The time is so brief.”
At this period he seemed to have journeyed far from the high-wrought
excitement and terror which had made his early years so dark. As
he said to his father one day: “I walk now upon the seas and the
mountains. I live by the light of the sun.”
Yet now and again the excitements of his former days would return upon
him, not perhaps in the same degree, but in such a manner as to shake
and wear a frame which every day appeared to grow more frail.
One evening when he returned from the mission the fever of his youth
seemed to be burning in his veins. His pallor was intense; his eyes
had never looked so eerie in their lustre.
“My father,” he said in a strange voice, and his gaunt form quivered
like gossamer; “to-night I looked upon my mother’s face.”
His father peered at him with eyes of almost horrified perplexity.
“I saw,” said the young man, “a wretched unhappy woman, all bent and
bedraggled, creep from a gutter, and pass through a narrow and filthy
alley leading to the darkest of the slums.”
His father’s bewilderment changed to an expression of singular
poignancy.
“Do you ask, Achilles, for the history of your birth?” he said.
“Yes, my father,” said the young man. “I will hear that wonderful
story. Perchance it may help me to inscribe my page in the book.”
His father took the hands of the young man within his own.
“It happened, O Achilles,” said his father, “that I was sitting in this
little room one bitterly inclement winter’s night, in which the rain
and sleet came down in a flood, and I was reading that page in the
book wherein it says we are to cherish the weak, when I heard a faint
knocking upon the shutters of the shop. It was a very late hour, yet I
went forth to open the door; and a poor ragged woman, all bedraggled
and unkempt, and with great eyes haunted by fear, flung herself upon my
kindness, crying that she was faint with hunger and that she had not
known food and security all that day.
“I allowed her to enter the shop; but in a moment of unwariness, in the
excitement that her strange coming had provoked in my veins, I turned
and entered this little room to procure a box of matches to obtain a
light, never dreaming that so poor a creature would have the temerity
to follow upon my steps. But as I took the box of matches off the
chimney-piece where, as you know, they are always kept, and as I turned
again, I beheld to my horror and consternation that the poor creature
had entered the room.
“There was only one thing then that I could do, Achilles; it was to
permit her to sit and eat and learn the warmth of this little hearth.
And no sooner had she done this than she fell asleep, and leaned
her youthful head upon this little table, which for so many years
has supported the burden of the mighty book. And as she lay there,
Achilles, sleeping the grateful sleep of weariness, her breathing
presence appeared to expand the walls of this small apartment, and as I
looked again into the book, full many a page which previously had had
no purport, gave up its secret to my bewildered eyes.
“It was not until it was broad noon that the poor creature awoke, and
she said in almost the voice of a small child, ‘I like this little room
of yours; it is a sweet and pleasant room; I think I will stay in it
for ever.’
“‘This room can have only one occupant,’ I said to the woman.
“‘It is so nice,’ she said, speaking in the strange tongue which you
have heard in the streets of the great city, ‘it is so nice.’ Yet she
shivered so dismally that I was driven again to the Book.
“And from one of the pages that had been newly revealed to me, I saw
that he who would write in the book must first continue the dynasty;
and he who would continue the dynasty must not live to himself.
“Now, Achilles, already the passion had been long in my veins to write
in the book of my fathers, where all the primal wisdom of the ages
had been garnered; and as it was revealed suddenly to my gaze in what
manner I must equip myself for the task, I let the woman stay.
“For a whole year the delicate and youthful creature stayed in this
little room; yet all through those wonderful months her great eyes were
ever haunted by fear. Sometimes in the midnight hours she would listen
there against the shutters, as so many times, Achilles, you have also
listened, at the wind in the chimneys and the great roar of London, and
she would say in a voice that thrilled with terror, yet half-choked
by the beatings of her heart, ‘I am thinking of that night in which
the streets of the great city will call to me. For I was born in the
streets of the great city, and my blood must ever obey their cry.’
“To myself, Achilles, that year in which the woman remained with me in
the little room was crowded with an experience that was rich and rare,
which my mind, widely furnished as it was with the ancient and modern
authors, and fortified also with the infinite wisdom of the Book of
the Ages, had never known before. But as the months passed, and the
delicate and frail creature grew beautiful in my sight--so beautiful
that I would pray sometimes that I might die before her beauty faded--I
began to understand that it was not in the power even of this little
room of ours to retain the possession of a thing so exquisite.
“I would lie with her all night with her hand in mine, fearful lest
all unknown to me she should hear the cry of the streets in the
never-ceasing voice of the great city, and that I should awake in the
morning and find her gone. And many times did I turn to the Book for
solace and counsel; and the Book declared that he who would retain his
treasure must first write his page therein.
“Now although I kept my knees unceasingly to the floor of this little
room, polished smooth by many kneelings, it was not given to me to
write in the Book. And the fear mounted in my heart that when the
streets of the great city uttered their cry, this little room would not
be able to resist it. And the frail and delicate creature knew it also;
for she would sit there in that old chair in which you, my beloved
Achilles, have been wont to sit so long at the ancient authors, and I
have seen the grey tears course down her thin and pale cheeks. ‘The cry
of the streets of the great city will soon be heard now,’ she would
say mournfully, ‘it may summon me at any moment now.’
“As her time came near, in my despair and my anguish I took a
vainglorious vow. I swore upon the Book of the Ages that my child
should be born here in this little room. Night and day I kept vigil
over that frail and beautiful form, lest it should be spirited away
with that cry which it could not resist. As each new day seemed about
to herald the pangs of her labour, only to postpone them ere it was
out, I sought by all the means in my power not to fail for a single
instant in my vigil. I took potent drugs to banish sleep from my eyes.
For I came to know that the instant sleep overpowered me, the streets
of the great city would utter their cry.
“And so it was. For more than a week had I with my frantic vigilance
kept my weariness at bay, when one night as I was still conning the
Book for the sustenance in which I had never stood in such dire
need, and the frail, unhappy creature sat there in the chair weeping
softly, with her eyes haunted by an ever-deepening terror, she cried
out despairingly, ‘Hark, I hear the voice of the streets rising above
the roar of the great city. I must go, I must go; I can never bear a
man-child in this little room of yours. It is written in my heart that
I must bear it in the streets.’
“The wildly terrified creature rose from the chair. Her eyes were such
that I dare not look upon.
“‘The streets are calling to me,’ she wailed piteously. ‘I must bear my
man-child in the streets of the great city.’
“And as I rose to take her in my arms, and to withhold her by main
force from her purpose, for her slender fingers were already upon the
door, I was overcome by the decree of nature. Stupefied by the fatigues
of many days, I sank back in my chair, with my head sunk upon the open
pages of the Book, asleep.
“When I awoke the sun was high in the heavens of a bright and
beautiful winter’s day. There was a thick mantle of snow on the tiles
and the chimney-stacks, and the untrodden pavement of the little yard
without the door. I found myself to be shivering in every limb; the
fire had passed many hours from the grate in the little room; but the
chill that was upon everything was as nought to that which bound the
strings of my heart. For the unhappy creature had gone forth into the
snow of the streets of the great city, so that her man-child might
there be born.
“I never looked to see her again, for when I turned to the Book of the
Ages I found it written therein that I should not do so. But further it
exhorted me to be jealous of my man-child, for it was written therein
that he would be one of the great ones of the earth.
“And so hour by hour I went out to search the streets of the great city
for that which had been born to me, but for many days my labour was
vain. Yet once, as I returned at midnight from my fruitless search,
dejected in mind and weary in limb, my feet touched a soft bundle that
had been deposited upon the threshold of the shop. You, Achilles, were
that bundle, but it has never been given to me to look again upon her
that bore you.”
The young man listened to the story of his birth with the calm
passiveness which is the crown of great knowledge. He yielded to none
of the emotions that so strange a recital was likely to arouse. When it
was at an end he said softly, “I think you have done well, my father,
to defer the recital of my birth until I have entered upon my third
phase. Much that had otherwise been dark now stands revealed.”
“I would cherish the assurance from your lips,” said the white-haired
man, with a look piteous to behold, “that I have done well to reveal
this history unto you. Canst you forgive, my brave son, the frail and
blind agent of Destiny?”
With a swiftness of answer that caused the eyes of the old man to brim
with tears, the young man took him to his bosom.
“This is indeed Achilles,” said the aged man, “this is indeed Achilles.
And yet--and yet, although this is he whom I begot, it has not been
given to me to write my page in the Book.”
“And should you fail to write your page in the Book, my father,” said
the young man, “is it not that our dynasty is at an end?”
“It is written so,” said his father.
The young man stood with bowed head and close lips.
“I read your thought, valiant one,” said the old man, with a dull
anguish in his eyes.
“Perchance it is not my final thought,” said the young man. “I am not
yet through the third phase.”
XL
As the days passed all too soon, the young man’s former sense of the
need for action returned upon him.
“The minutes melt,” he was saying constantly, “yet the strength has not
yet been given to my right hand.”
Once he cried to his father, almost in despair, “Soon my veins will
open and the life within me will melt, and yet my labours are scarcely
begun. I have already gathered rare and great knowledge for my
authorship, yet alas! I cannot lift the pen.”
“In this matter, I am barren of all counsel,” said his father, “for my
right hand also, although nurtured in wisdom, has never received the
strength to grasp the pen.”
“The swift minutes speed headlong away,” cried the young man anxiously,
“yet I tarry over-long upon my path.”
Day by day the dire need of achieving his destiny burned in his veins.
Yet the fleet hours sped, and his mighty task was no nearer to
fulfilment. All day he would traverse the streets of the great city,
and when the evening came he would labour in its slums. But at last as
the spring of the year came again, and the sky grew more clement, and
the trees and the earth began to shine with green, a new passion came
upon this labourer even as he toiled.
It happened that one evening, just as the fœtid little mission-room
had been cleared for the night, the young man turned abruptly to his
co-worker, that stalwart, the sight of whom had first drawn him there.
“Farewell, my kind friend,” he said, “I pass from among you to-night.”
“My dear Jordan,” said his fellow-worker, “you will be wise to refrain
from working among us for a while. You are one who burns the candle too
freely. You will do well to learn to husband your strength.”
“In order,” said William Jordan, with his secret and beautiful smile,
which many had learned to watch for, but none to understand, “that I
may achieve that which lies before me?”
“That is true,” said the chief of the mission. “You must know that you
are a worker of miracles in this parish.”
“And yet,” said William Jordan, “this is the last time the worker of
miracles can enter this parish of yours.”
His stalwart and somewhat grim companion seemed to stagger at these
words.
“Why--why, Jordan,” he said, “does this mean that you are going to
desert us altogether?”
“I fear so,” said William Jordan. “To-night as I sat among you I heard
a voice in my ears. To-morrow at dawn I go upon my way.”
“But, Jordan,” said his fellow-worker, “I beg you, I beseech you to
return to us. We cannot part from you; we cannot do without you down
here.”
“Alas!” said William Jordan, “I heard the voice as I worked among you
to-night. A term has been placed to my days; it has almost expired; and
yet my destiny is only half complete.”
The chief of the mission took the frail hands of the young man in the
grip of a giant.
“We cannot possibly let you go from among us,” he said sternly. “We
shall not; we need you; we need you. You have a touch of the magic; you
are a born evangelist; you go into regions where none can follow.”
“Nature has spoken,” said William Jordan softly. “At dawn I obey her
decree.”
“No, no, no!” cried his comrade, “your work lies here. You were born
for this. Nature formed you to labour for your kind; and you must
labour for them all your days.”
“You speak truly,” said William Jordan, “but then my labours are not
yet begun.”
“Are not these your labours?” cried his fellow-worker. “Can you not
wield your power upon those whom we others know not how to approach?
Have you not worked wonders among us during the few short months in
which you have laboured?”
“Wonders,” said William Jordan, with a tender melancholy in his voice.
“Can you tell me what are these wonders in comparison with those that I
have still to perform?”
“I do not understand you, I do not follow you,” said the other.
“No,” said William Jordan, “you do not understand, yet perhaps it is
well.”
“But I swear to heaven,” cried his fellow-worker, with hoarse passion,
“you shall not go from among us like this.”
The passion of this stalwart man was such that all unthinkingly he
seized the frail form of the young man, and in the might of his
conviction shook it fiercely.
Immediately William Jordan, for the first time in that place, was
attacked by a violent frenzy of coughing. A spray of bright red blood
was cast upon his lips. He spat it upon the floor.
His fellow-worker recoiled from the sight of it with a cry of dismay.
“Arterial blood,” he gasped.
“Nature’s mandate,” said the young man, with his secret and beautiful
smile.
His fellow-worker in the noble prime of his manhood, gave a low cry and
sank back against the wall of the room.
“Oh,” he cried wildly, pressing his hands across his heart, “I wish now
you had never come among us at all!”
XLI
Outside the mission-hall in the gently-raining April night, James
Dodson, with his coat collar turned up over his ears and his hat pulled
down over his eyes, lay in waiting for his friend. Upon beholding this
woe-begone figure William Jordan gave a start of surprise.
“Why, Jimmy,” he said, “why do you come here now?”
“As I was half-way through the performance at the Alcazar,” said Jimmy
Dodson apprehensively, “I had a sort of presentiment. Something seemed
to tell me, Luney, that after to-night I might never see you again.
Something seemed to tell me that you were going away.”
“Nature has certainly spoken to me,” said William Jordan.
“That doesn’t mean, Luney, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson in a voice not
the least like his own, “that you intend to desert an old friend?”
“To-morrow at dawn I obey her decree,” said William Jordan.
“You don’t mean to say you are going away!” cried Jimmy Dodson.
“Yes--for a little while.”
“But--but,” said Jimmy Dodson, “I don’t think I could bear it if you
were never to come back. You see, Luney, old boy--well, you see--well,
somehow, I can’t explain it--_but--if--you--were--never--to--come
--back_!”
The voice of Jimmy Dodson was slow-drawn like a wail. It pierced
William Jordan to the heart. Tears leaped to the eyes of the young man,
but in the darkness his stricken companion could not see them.
“Luney,” said Jimmy Dodson, “will you promise that you will come back?”
“I promise,” said the young man.
“Honour bright, you know, honest Injun,” said Dodson anxiously.
“Honest Injun, Jimmy,” said William Jordan, with a strange smile in his
eyes.
“Give me your hand on it, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson; “although I am
sure you wouldn’t play it low down on an old pal.”
William Jordan yielded to his friend’s importunity.
Dodson shuddered.
“Why, old boy,” he said, “it is so cold--so cold. Ugh, it is like ice.”
William Jordan kissed his friend in the darkness.
“And--and,” cried Dodson, “your lips burn like a fire.”
The two friends walked along in a silence. After they had proceeded a
long distance in this fashion through the wet midnight streets, the
thin and high-strung tones of Jimmy Dodson were heard again in the
darkness.
“Luney,” he said in a voice that seemed to over-tax his powers of
utterance, “I always used to wonder what made me take up with a chap
like you; but since you came out of prison I have done nothing but
wonder what made you take up with a chap like me.”
“You are one of the links in the chain,” said William Jordan, “one of
the stages in the journey.”
“I don’t understand you at all,” said Jimmy Dodson.
“Perhaps it is well,” said William Jordan.
“And yet you know, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson, “when I first knew you,
I didn’t understand you then. But I always accounted for it by the
fact that you were not quite all there. Well, I don’t understand you
a bit better now, although I have come now to account for it by the
fact that I am not quite all there. I don’t know why I have come round
towards you like I have. At first I thought you were rather less than
the ordinary, and that you didn’t count at all; but now I consider you
to be the finest chap I’ve ever known, and that you have got something
about you that more than makes up for what you lack.”
“May you not have entered upon another phase?” said William Jordan.
“I don’t quite know what you mean, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson, “unless
you mean that I’ve changed. At least I had that kind of thought as I
sat this evening at the Alcazar. The wrestling bored me, the songs were
rotten, and I didn’t think much of the ballet. And I thought the band
was out of tune--all except John Dobbs. In fact, I began to wonder why
I came. And then suddenly I thought of that night, old boy, when you
sat at my side, and I took you round to see Hermione----”
“Ah, the goddess!” exclaimed William Jordan softly.
“I have often thought since,” said his friend, “that it was not
right to play it on you as we did. And what Hermione said about
you afterwards, old boy, rather turned me against her. But she was
pretty low down, was Hermione; yes, she doesn’t dance in the ballet
now-a-days. All the same she rather knocked you, old boy, didn’t she?”
“I thought her to be divine,” said William Jordan simply.
The two friends stayed their steps under a flickering gas-lamp in the
City. The steady rain continued. The clock of a neighbouring church
told the hour.
“It will be a long and wet walk to Peckham, Jimmy,” said William Jordan.
“It will, old boy,” said his friend; “but what do you suppose I care,
now that you have given me your promise to come back? By the way, old
boy, do you think it would be asking too much, as a special favour, for
you to write me a line now and then just to say that you are alive?”
The gaze of William Jordan grew heavy with a darkness that was veiled
from his friend.
“You must forgive me, Jimmy, if I don’t,” he said.
“As a special favour,” pleaded his friend. “You know, old boy, I have
never had a line of yours. I have always been meaning to ask you for
your autograph--that is before the trouble came--and--and now the
trouble has come I intend to ask you for it. Send me a line, old boy,
to say you are alive.”
“I cannot promise to do that,” said William Jordan, “because the
strength has not yet been given to my right hand. But I do promise
to return; and when I do return I shall listen for your tap upon the
shutters; and then I will let you in as far as the threshold of the
little room.”
The friends said their last farewells as the clocks chimed the hour of
two.
XLII
When in the middle of the night, William Jordan regained the little
room, he found the aged man, his father, seated there. The Book was
on the table open. The dagger, the chalice, and the stylus were also
displayed. But in the face of the aged man was the mute despair which
was ever upon it when these articles came to be brought forth.
The chalice was half-full of the red blood; the quill was dipped
therein and held in the hand. But not a stroke had been committed to
the virgin page of vellum.
“Will it never be done?” said the old man tremulously, “will it never
be accomplished? Answer me, Achilles.”
“I know not, my father,” said the young man. “I am not so learned in
the Book as I once was.”
“Yet our knowledge of the Book increases with our years and our
stature,” said the old man, as if in amazement. “Answer me, Achilles,
is it not so?”
“Yes and no,” said the young man. “The Book of the Ages, my father,
is an expression of the invisible forces of nature. And I am unfit to
discourse thereupon until I have spoken with my mother the Earth, who
is wise and of their kin. As my veins rapidly devour this third and
last phase upon which I am entered, they draw me nearer and nearer to
her. Never have I been so near to her as I am to-night. As soon as the
bright east announces the dawn I go to lie at the soft brown bosom of
my mother. If she will give suck to the first of her children, perhaps
it may be that the strength will come into his right hand.”
As the young man spoke these words, he walked to the window of the
little room and drew back the shutters.
“I see a faint light in the east,” he said, with a subdued excitement.
“The hour is at hand when I go upon my way.”
“You will return, O Achilles?” said his aged father apprehensively. “I
am lonely and my hairs are white.”
“Yes, my father, I will return,” said William Jordan, “I will return
to our little room. When I have gone out and lain at the breasts of my
mother the Earth; and I have walked in her wildernesses, and I have
traversed her seas, and I have surprised the last of her secrets, which
may be no secrets at all, I will return, my father, to our little room.”
“That is well, beloved one,” said the aged man, pressing his pale lips
to the forehead of the young man.
Yet in the emotion generated by his words of farewell, the young man
was seized again with a paroxysm.
“What--what do I see upon your lips, Achilles?” cried the aged man, his
father, peering with a curious horror in his dim eyes.
“Nature’s mandate, my father,” said the young man, with his secret and
beautiful smile.
XLIII
As William Jordan went forth of the little room and took his ways,
the east had still no more than a few faint grey flecks, which were
hardly more than vaunt-couriers of the hues of dawn. Into the ruck of
the streets he took his way. He plunged into them headlong, without
calculation, without attempting to discriminate. Yet there was neither
hurry of the flesh nor of the spirit; both were rational, temperate,
responsible.
The rain had ceased; but the black pavements were slippery and
unwholesome, and there was the stench of a thousand drains. Street
after street he passed through at the same regulated pace, which was
neither slow nor fast. Rows upon rows of houses which he had never seen
before came into view; and at last, as all the sky was bright with the
new day, he saw the green lanes, and began to taste the pure woodland
airs.
As soon as he knew himself to be free of the great city, he left the
highways and struck a direct course across the green fields. Over the
hedgerows and across the pastures he bent his steps; across morasses
and through tangled places, not knowing nor desiring to know whither;
past hamlets with thatched roofs, and crooked rustic churches; past
farm steadings; past stately mansions; over upland and fen, until
the sun had reached its zenith in the heavens. He then sat on the
hospitable earth, and for a space rested his weariness on the fringe of
a green wood, in a dry warm place, under a splendid tree, alive with
sap and the melody of birds.
When again he went his way the sun was still high in the April heaven,
though pursuing a steady track towards the west. The wayfarer followed
it in a straight line, over hedgerow and pasture, sometimes crossing a
brook with his naked feet; at other times leaping a ditch, or breaking
through barriers of thorn and timber which seemed insurmountable.
The wayfarer paid no heed to the miles that he made. As the light of
the sun began to fail, he found himself upon the wealds and uplands,
with the generous sweet-smelling earth ever beneath him. The evening
airs seemed to blow with a sharper sweetness; the houses and hamlets
grew fewer, yet nature’s spontaneity grew ever richer and more rare.
When it was almost dark he reached a little and solitary house on the
edge of a great wood. It seemed to be interminable, and full of pungent
yet delicately odorous trees. He knocked at the door of the little
house. His summons was answered by an old woman in a grey shawl; and
for a penny she gave him a cake of bread and a cup of water. He drank
the water like one who thirsts; and then he bore his limbs, which now
ached with weariness, into the gloomy precincts of the wood. Groping
about in the darkness, he found a dry and sheltered place amid the
fresh flowering furze; and here, with his head propped against the bole
of a young pine, he ate his food slowly, and then straightway fell into
a profound sleep.
When he awoke the sky was alive with beautiful stars. With all of
these he was familiar. He rose; and by the delicate light of the
heavens, which melted the dark canopies above him, pressed through
the brakes and thickets into the heart of the forest. Many were
the nimble-footed wild creatures that crossed his path, and in the
darkness startled him; he was sensible all about him of weird cries
and wonderful voices; they came upon him from every side; but he still
pressed on and on into the untrodden darkness of the wood. In his
progress his garments were rent and his hands bled freely.
In the process of time, the pathlessness which confronted him
everywhere grew less impenetrable. The dawn crept again into the east,
the birds took up their loud songs, and flowers and herbs and all the
wild things of nature were spread before him in the morning light.
Pressing ever on and on, he came out at last upon the fringe of this
great wood, and by now the sun had risen to warm his veins. The
wayfarer was now come to the breast of the mighty mother; and on this
second day he reposed many hours on the green, dry earth of the forest,
looking all about him into its dark recesses, and observing in a kind
of secret joy the ways of the rich, wild life of whom he claimed
kinship.
Towards evening he came upon another little house in the heart of the
great wood, and then he remembered that he was hungry. Here he obtained
from another aged woman a hunch of white bread and a bowl of delicious
milk. And then for the second time he lay down and slept in the heart
of the great wood.
Days and days did he pass in his wanderings. Sometimes he was in the
woodland places, sometimes upon the weald. He would lie in the fallows
in the burning afternoon sun; and now and again in the chill of the
night, if he could not find warmth in the thickets, he would enjoy the
protection of a barn or a cowhouse, or, if these were to seek, he would
walk in a joyful silence through the long hours, until the morning was
again in his eyes.
One day in his ceaseless journeying he suddenly beheld the sea. It was
at noon upon a delicious day of midsummer. He ran down to the beach,
with a noble rapture in his veins, and, flinging off his clothes, he
waded out into the cool water. For many days he kept ever by the side
of the sea. He could not forsake that marvellous companion; and on
several occasions, when he found old men in boats upon the beach, he
persuaded them to row him out upon the many-smiling wilderness.
Even after the summer had waned his wanderings continued. They bore him
into all kinds of wonderful and unexpected places. Sometimes he found
himself in the high and mountainous country; and here the grandeur, the
solitude, and the marvellous hues and the deep-breathing silences would
endue him with the awe of his inheritance. And wherever he was borne by
the irresponsible passion of his steps, he beheld infinite wonders. He
saw great pits sunk into the bowels of the earth; he saw curious and
grimy peoples, yet it cost him no pang to admit them into all-embracing
kinship with himself, and with the Earth, his mother.
When as the tints of autumn fell about the quiet earth, and he felt the
shrewd airs of the tall mountains of the west, he heard their voices in
such wise in his ears, as never before had addressed them. With a loud,
fervent cry, he flung himself down upon the fruitful brown soil, and
pressed his lips rapturously to the bosom of Earth, his mother.
The wonderful hues of the autumn deepened in their silent rapidity,
until the ruthless winter was come. Then the wayfarer persuaded an
old shepherd to give him his shawl, and clad therein, and moving ever
upon the peaks of the mountains, he came into the north. And there he
learned many of the cunning but simple arts of these wise mountain
peoples--those hardy children who wrested but a reluctant nourishment
from the bare ground.
It was here that, driven by the stress of winter, the wayfarer shared
the hospitality of the fisherman’s hut, the ploughman’s byre, and the
rude hearth of the crofter and the shepherd. It was in these altitudes
that he renewed the garments for his back and the shoes for his feet.
His scant store of pieces of silver had been consumed long ago, but,
like one of his kin in a remote age, he did not fear to beg his bread
from door to door. Now and again he would requite his hosts, who asked
nought in return, as he sat in the chimney-place, warmed by a fire of
peats and a basin of food, with wonderful tales out of the past, and
glorious stories of the youth of the world. And these he would clothe
in such wise that the simple hearts of his friends would swell with
gladness.
He did not fear the snow in the dales, the ice in the burns, nor the
barren and implacable wastes which confronted him everywhere. Many and
curious were the deeds he performed, strange were the sights that he
witnessed. He made acquaintance with the red deer, and the mountain
sheep, and the fowls of the moorland; he learned to speak every man in
his own tongue; and never once in all these vicissitudes, although he
had no piece of silver in his coat, did he suffer denial.
He was ragged and unkempt; he was almost as frail as a phantom; his
skin was coloured a deep brown by exposure to the weather; his hair,
thick and matted, came down to his shoulders, and his large and bright
eyes seemed to envelop the whole of his face. By the time the spring
came round again, and the cycle of the seasons had completed itself, he
found his feet again upon the yellow shores of the loud-sounding sea.
Yet now he did not linger within its magical thrall. For a long dormant
passion had again begun to stir within him, and he knew that the hour
was near when he must return to the aged man, his father, and to the
little room.
Through the brakes of the green woods through which he passed the
notes of each bird as it sang were as familiar in his ears as the
many and subtle voices of the wind. He could now read the face of the
fruitful Earth, his mother, like an open page. All her sweet little
mysteries he could decipher; he knew the shapes of her trees, the
odours of her flowers, the habits and tracks of all her nimble wild
creatures. Yet in his veins the passion was ever rising; he felt it was
no longer meet for him to tarry. No more did it beseem him to while
away the glad hours with this old gossip. Ere the winter came again
he must return to the streets of the great city, and thence to the
sanctuary in which he was wont to kneel; and to the white-haired man,
his father; and to that other faithful friend who loved him tenderly.
In the gorgeous heat of the midsummer he found himself again upon the
mountains of the west. But now the passion was mounting hourly in the
veins of the wayfarer, and soon he was to know that it had claimed as
its fuel a portion of his vital power. His frame had never been so
dauntless and so full of a divine vigour; his brain was like a crystal;
but he seemed to know that his power of sight was not what it was.
Upon these heights of the west he brought his power of vision to the
proof. He found himself again in those altitudes, which previously
he had trod when the hues of autumn were upon them. At that time he
was able to discern clearly the adjacent peaks by which they were
surrounded; yet on this day of midsummer, although the bright sky was
like a mirror of opals, he knew not even their outlines. And he seemed
to divine, by a clear foreknowledge, that all about him would soon be
dark.
Without hurry, and without fear, although the passion was ever mounting
in his veins, the wayfarer turned his eyes to the east, towards the
little sanctuary within the heart of the streets of the great city.
Mile by mile he retraced the well-remembered steps. Although he could
not now discern all that lay about him, as when a twelvemonth since he
trod these ways, for his eyes were no longer faithful to him; yet, as
his unfaltering limbs overcame the brakes and the thickets, the downs
and the pastures, the new and puissant sense of kinship with the Earth,
his mother, endued his veins with the strength of heroes.
He could hardly see as he walked through the woodland places, but the
joy and the music by which Nature celebrated her noble freedoms, the
pæans of his ever-youthful mother filled his ears. The loud and deep
voice, that was so clear and so heroical, made the wayfarer nod and
smile at her as he took his way. Pressing ever on and on over hill and
dale, through impenetrable fastnesses, by marsh and stream, he rejoiced
aloud in her noble fecundity. “Sing, goddess, sing,” he chanted
continually, “and I will sing to thee!”
The heart of the wayfarer was entranced with gladness as he begged
his bread from door to door. And as he came nearer and nearer to the
streets of the great city, he began to sing to the Earth, his mother,
in a wonderful kind of speech which he knew was pleasant to her ear.
And she requited him with her own resonant and golden music, those
strange, rapt cadences of her own childlike voice; and these cradled
him in sleep, and he dreamed by the wise and gracious light of the
stars.
“Kiss me, ever young and gentle one,” he whispered to her, as one
evening he lay down on the dry mosses of an autumnal wood. “I can
scarce see thee now, my mother,” he said as he turned his eyes towards
the bole of a great tree, under whose wide-spreading branches he lay;
“but thy ample speech was never so great in my veins. To-night I shall
dream of thee constantly, sweet and gentle virgin which hath had
strange issue.”
As he lay that night asleep under the great tree, the voice of the
Earth, his mother, breathed in his ears. “Return, O Achilles,” it
said, “to the streets of the great city, without another instant of
tarrying, for in my tenderness for thee, thou brave one, I have endowed
thy right hand with strength.”
These words awoke the wayfarer. He arose and knelt before the gnarled
trunk of the great tree which had been the pillow of his dreams.
Pressing his eyes to the green moss over which the ages had passed,
he said joyfully, “I heed thee, my mother. Thou who hast lain with
the stars in their courses, I will bear myself as the fruit of thy
caresses.”
The wayfarer drove the pains of sleep from his limbs, and turned his
dim eyes towards the east.
“Achilles, thy son, heeds thee, my mother,” he said as the bracken
began to yield to his steps; “he will not tarry until he has made the
streets of the great city, so that when he returns into sanctuary he
may find the strength in his right hand.”
With bold and quick steps, as light as those of a deer, the wayfarer
went his way through the chill dawn. When he came out into the
beautiful expanse of the fields, the east shone with morning.
His feet unconsciously sought the well-remembered tracks of his
previous way. The will seemed not to direct the steps of the wayfarer,
yet not once did they stray from the path upon which formerly they had
come. At noon the weather turned bitterly inclement. The winds blew
piercingly from every quarter, and presently the first flakes of the
winter’s snow were shaken out of the adverse heavens. But the wayfarer
pressed on and on into the very teeth of the gale. Asking neither
shelter nor refreshment, his frame, in its puissance, consumed the
miles, for he feared lest the sight of his eyes should desert him ere
he could cross the threshold of the sanctuary that awaited him and the
strength he bore in his right hand.
As the sombre light of the afternoon was waning his feet were once
more upon the pavements of the streets of the great city. The wind
whistled round the corners of the gaunt houses; the air was thickened
by gusts of sleet, which pierced his skin, and stung his frame to new
endeavours.
He recalled all the objects he passed with a strange kind of
exaltation; the houses and shops that he could so indistinctly see; the
hurrying crowds of people in the streets--the “street-persons” of his
childhood, who were “street-persons” no more. The roar of the traffic
filled his surprised ears, yet only to enkindle them with a high and
grave joy; for it was another manifestation of that to which his whole
being owed its entrancement, the universal voice of the Earth, his
mother.
XLIV
The lamps were being lighted in the streets, yet he could hardly see
them. Not once, however, did his feet stray from the path of his
well-remembered way.
With the autumnal sleet ever beating upon his bared head, he found
himself again in the streets of the great city. On the threshold
of a public-house, flaring with many garish lights, he saw a boy
selling matches. He was whimpering with the cold, and his teeth were
chattering, for he had neither shoes nor stockings; indeed, his only
garments were a pair of ragged trousers and a shirt. As the wayfarer
discerned this unhappy figure he stayed his steps, and, pulling off his
own broken boots and threadbare stockings, bade the boy sit down and
put them on. When the boy had obeyed, the wayfarer took from his own
shoulders the shepherd’s shawl which he wore, and wrapped it about him.
Thereafter it was in the scantiest of raiment that he took his way. Yet
ere he had come to the threshold of the little room, which he seemed
only to have left the day before yesterday, he was destined to take
part in a curious adventure.
It happened as he turned into a familiar thoroughfare, a street long
and narrow, and wondrously busy with a great press of people and
traffic, that he suddenly became aware of a strange clamour that was
arising before him. Cries of consternation resounded on every side;
they overcame the shrieks of the piercing winds as they swept round the
houses and shops. With his dim eyes the wayfarer could perceive the
drivers of the vehicles make frantic efforts to escape from an oncoming
danger that threatened them.
Suddenly there came through the failing light of the afternoon the
great form of a horse, a huge animal attached to a heavy railway van.
There was no driver, the reins were dangling loose; with tossing mane
and wild nostrils, the mighty horse was devouring the roadway with
furious strides. It escaped a tramcar as by a miracle; it crashed into
a milk-seller’s cart, and sent milk-cans with their contents rolling in
all directions. Yet still it kept its course unchecked, a menace to all
whom it passed.
The passers-by, huddling together as far away from the kerb as they
could squeeze themselves, were then astonished by a strange sight.
A ragged, half-naked beggar, hatless, coatless, without shoes and
stockings, and with long, matted hair which fell down upon his
shoulders, moved off the pavement. He appeared to turn his back upon
the mad thing that was approaching him, and then, with a leap of
superhuman courage and address, seemed to fling himself at the head
of the infuriated brute as it grazed his bare ankles with its hoofs.
He was seen to take the reins in his grasp, and, leaping along at the
side of the horse, began an attempt to control its furious speed that
was little short of miraculous. In the struggle he was several times
carried completely off his feet, and borne yards at a time without
touching the earth. And though man and brute and vehicle swayed and
rocked in all directions, no obstacles intervened to shatter them;
and at almost every yard he was borne the man seemed to gain a firmer
purchase on the brute.
For half the length of the thoroughfare the titanic struggle was waged
between the man and the brute on the slippery, circumscribed and
narrow road. At times it seemed that the man must be hurled away from
the brute altogether; at other times it seemed that he must be flung
beneath the hoofs of the brute and trampled lifeless; while, again, in
the frantic efforts of the animal to be rid of its burden, it seemed
that they must both be hurled through the windows of the shops.
Ere long, however, the fury of the horse began to spend itself. And as
it did so, with the man still retaining his grasp of the reins, two
policemen, stalwart and hardy, and finely-grown men, stepped from the
pavement, and, lending their aid at a timely moment, the poor animal
was brought under control.
“Well done, my lad,” said the policemen to the half-naked beggar in a
kind of generous wonder. “Well done, well done! Are you sure you are
all right?”
Among the witnesses of the incident was a tall, bronzed man, with
closely-cropped hair, who was dressed with remarkable care, and whose
bearing was that of a soldier. At his side was a slight, youthful,
handsome woman, who was breathless with excitement.
“Upon my word,” said the man, “that is the best thing I ever saw. That
chap deserves a medal.”
The woman, with a strange, dancing brightness in her eyes, looked up
wistfully into the face of her companion. “Get him one,” she said.
Stimulated by their generous curiosity, they walked up to the spot
where a small crowd was rapidly collecting around the unkempt and
extraordinary figure that was almost naked.
“Better take his name and address,” said the tall, bronzed man to the
two police constables in a slow and calm voice which caused them to
touch their helmets.
The tall, bronzed man then proceeded to survey the circle of interested
bystanders at a dignified leisure, and said in the same tone, “Suppose
we send round the hat?”
Removing his own immaculately-ironed silk head-gear, he proceeded with
an air of exaggerated self-possession, which the conspiracy of the
circumstances rendered bizarre, to drop several pieces of gold into its
interior, and then, standing bare-headed, so that the sleet glistened
upon the pomatum of his hair, handed his hat to a man near to him, who
was of a similar type to himself. However, while this gentleman, also
with extraordinary nonchalance, was adding further pieces of gold to
the hat, this somewhat impressive munificence was frustrated.
The half-naked beggar appeared suddenly to realize that he was the
cynosure of all eyes. He gave a gaunt look all about him, and then,
with a motion of indescribable rapidity, he passed through the ring
that had been formed. With a swiftness so great that his flight could
hardly be followed, the mists of the evening received him.
The bare-headed man gave a glance of courteous deprecation, which
almost took the form of a personal apology, to the man who was placing
pieces of gold in his hat.
“Rather a pity,” he said; “rather a pity to let him go.”
“Yes, a pity,” said the other, wiping a speck of sleet off the brim of
the hat very carefully with his glove, and handing it back.
As with an air of disappointment the crowd dispersed reluctantly, the
slight, youthful, handsome woman turned with an eager gesture to the
owner of the hat. Her cheeks, under their powder, were the colour of
snow.
“Did you--did you see his face?” said she in quick, nervous accents. “I
shall carry it to my grave. It was--it was the most beautiful face in
the world.”
The owner of the hat gave the woman a little smile of affectionate
indulgence, in which, however, pride was uppermost, and handed her very
carefully into a hansom.
XLV
As the bare-footed beggar passed away into the traffic, far from the
circle of the curious, before they could impede him, he was able to
discern that his thin hands had been lacerated by the reins during the
struggle he had waged with the horse. The blood was flowing freely from
his torn fingers, but at the sight of it a flush of gladness overspread
his cheeks.
“I thank thee, Mighty One,” he said, “that thou hast given the strength
to my right hand.”
It was with bruised and numbed feet that the returned wayfarer came at
last to the threshold of the little room.
The aged man, his father, gave a cry of joy when he beheld the
apparition that had entered, for, dim as his eyes were, he knew it for
the form of one.
The old and the young man embraced one another.
“I have been desolate, Achilles,” said the old man with the
plaintiveness of age; “I have been desolate. But I knew, O Achilles,
that thou wouldst return.”
A brave fire was burning upon the hearth, the candles, also, were
bright of lustre in the little room.
The young man stretched his wounded hands to the warmth, and then, with
a kind of composed passion, he spread them out before his father.
“Dost thou see, my father?” he said. “Earth, my mother, has given the
strength to my right hand. I think now, my father, I shall be among the
English authors.”
As he spoke the secret and beautiful smile crept across his wan lips.
“Thou wilt write in the Book, O Achilles?” said the old man, pointing
to the table where the mighty tome lay open.
“First, I must write my little treatise upon human life, my father,”
said the returned wayfarer in the simple accents of his childhood.
“And, perchance, my father, when that is written, if the strength is
still given to my right hand, I may, or I may not, write in the Book.”
“I myself have not yet written in it, O Achilles,” said the aged man,
his father, with a look of despair. “And I begin to fear that it may
not be given to me to write therein. I am old, Achilles; I am old.”
The young man appeared hardly to heed the words of his aged father.
“I will eat,” he said, “and then until midnight is told upon the clocks
I will repose, and then I will write my little treatise upon human
life.”
Half-naked and unkempt and bare-footed as he was, the returned wayfarer
ate and drank; and he then fell asleep in a chair at the side of the
bright hearth with his feet stretched out before the embers.
While the returned wayfarer slept profoundly, the aged man, his father,
heaped up the fire with coals. Then he went forth into the shop, and
took from its recesses the materials for writing.
As the old man was conveying these articles, with every precaution that
he might not disturb the sleeper, to the table of the little room, he
heard a stealthy knocking, with which he had grown familiar, upon the
outer shutters of the shop.
Therefore, as soon as the old man had discharged his burdens, he went
to the door of the shop and opened it. Upon the outer threshold was a
small, wizened man with a shrewd countenance and a short, bristling
moustache.
“Has he come back?” asked the man with an eager whisper.
“Yes, he has returned,” said the old man; “but he now sleeps.”
“Let me see him,” said the other in a voice of anguish. “I will not
disturb his sleep, and I will not try to cross the threshold of your
little room.”
“You may follow,” said the old man, leading the way through the shop
to the threshold of the little room, “but I would entreat you not to
proceed beyond this.”
“Yes, I will bear it in mind,” said the other in a voice of curious
excitement.
When the man from the street came to stand upon the threshold of the
little room, and to peer within at him who lay there asleep, the cry of
joy that he could not repress was mingled with an intense consternation.
“Why, where has he been?” he whispered in tones of horror. “See--see,
he is all in rags! His feet are bruised and cut and quite bare. And his
hair hangs down upon his shoulders like a mane. And his ragged shirt
exposes his chest. And his fingers are all covered with dried blood.
Tell me, why has he returned like this?”
“He is about to communicate the story of his wanderings,” said the old
man, pointing to the materials for writing that were spread upon the
table of the little room. “He is about to make them into a treatise;
when the clocks tell the hour of midnight he will commence author.
Therefore does it not behove us to be patient? When his task is
accomplished, I doubt not that we shall be privileged to learn all that
has befallen him.”
“Ah, yes, I remember,” said the man from the street. “I always
suspected that one day he might set up on his own account as an author.
He has a lot of out-of-the-way knowledge. He looks in a dreadful state
to-night, and I shouldn’t wonder if he didn’t write the better for it.
He’s evidently been out and seen a bit of life; and you’ve got to see a
bit of life to be an author. At least, Murtle says so; and Murtle ought
to know.”
“Yes, yes,” said the old man softly. “We shall doubtless be informed
of all that has befallen him when he comes to take the pen in his right
hand.”
The man from the street bade good-night to the old man, and begged to
be allowed to return the next evening to the threshold of the little
room, that he might have speech with him who slept.
XLVI
The returned wayfarer, ragged, bare-footed, and dishevelled, continued
in his profound sleep by the side of the fire. Not a sound escaped
him, not once did he change his posture; and as the hour of midnight
approached, the old man, his father, began to have a fear that he
would not waken again. But at the first stroke of the clocks, as they
told the midnight hour, the wanderer opened his eyes to the full, and,
rising immediately from his chair, without pain, and without weariness,
sat down exactly as he was before the materials for writing that were
spread upon the table, and commenced author.
At first, as he dipped the pen in the ink, and it sought the virgin
sheets of white paper, his face was calm and untroubled, and about
his lips was a happy smile of peace. Lightly, easily, deftly at
first, his right hand, that was now so strong, ran across the paper,
without a moment of hesitation, without a single pause, or any kind of
uncertainty.
Page upon page was traversed by his strong right hand. Not once did
it falter, no fault did it commit; and neither blot, nor erasure, nor
substitution of one word for another, defiled the fair copy that grew,
minute by minute, under the slender, blood-stained fingers. Hour after
hour passed; and the aged man, his father, sat by the side of the fire
with his dim and incredulous eyes fixed upon him who wrote. In them was
a kind of entrancement.
The beams of the morning stole through the top of the shutters of
the little room, but the author did not look up an instant from his
labours, and not once did he change the attitude in which he wrote.
Neither did he ask to have the shutters thrown back, and the bright
lamp removed, even when it was twelve o’clock in the day. From time to
time the old man plied the hearth with fuel, and also he procured a
second lamp, newly replenished with oil.
In the afternoon the old man went forth of the little room, and making
no sound, so that his movements might not be regarded, he penetrated,
candle in hand, to a deep cellar below the shop.
In a corner of this chill vault, all covered with cobwebs and grime,
was a bottle of a great and aged wine. This the old man removed from
the place it had occupied full many years, and bore it, with a care
as nice as a woman bears a sleeping infant, up the dark stairs to the
little room.
The old man placed the wine near to him who wrote; but, as though
unconscious of the action, the returned wayfarer pursued his labours.
The old man, his father, then returned to his place beside the bright
hearth. The hours passed. All that day the shutters were not taken down
from the shop, which was shrouded in complete darkness in the broad
light; while in the room behind it a lamp was burning continually, even
when the sun was high at noon.
As page upon page was traversed by the strong right hand of him who
wrote, and they began to form a delicately-written heap on the table
before him, the mood of the author, which at first was so serene and
of such a calm assurance, began to change. In those large and bright
eyes, whose lustre seemed to vie with that of the ever-burning lamp,
the inward fire, the controlled passion, the noble self-possession,
began, towards afternoon, to yield to the hue of terror. The large and
bright eyes began to roll in a strange kind of frenzy. Great beads of
perspiration came upon the forehead of the author; they rolled in a
stream down his cheeks.
Not once, however, did he pause in those labours which added steadily
to the pile of his writings. Although the author appeared to be
suffering a more than mortal agony, and that even as he wrote he sought
the merciful respite of death, he never once faltered, nor looked up,
nor refrained an instant from his task.
Towards the hour of eight in the evening, the listening ears of the
aged man, his father, heard a loud tapping upon the shutters of the
shop. He rose at once from his place beside the hearth and went forth
of the little room, and opened very softly, yet with a kind of despair
as he did so, the outer door of the shop.
“Who is he who beats upon the ears of us in our little room?” he asked
of him who stood out upon the threshold of the night.
“Has he awakened?” asked the anxious visitor. “I have been fearing all
day lest he should not wake any more.”
“He is awake and he is writing his treatise,” said the old man devoutly.
“I must see him,” said the man from the street. “You must let me see
him. I will not go beyond the shop. And I will not disturb him as I
walk across it.”
“He is writing his treatise,” said the old man in a tone that would
seem to deny him.
“Oh!” cried the man from the street piteously, “I must see him, if only
for a moment, now that he is awake.”
And so great were the entreaties of the man from the street, that the
old man, enjoining many earnest restrictions upon him, led him at last
with infinite caution through the dark shop, to look upon the face of
him who wrote.
However, no sooner had the man from the street looked upon the face
of him he had craved to see than he uttered a suppressed cry of
dismay and terror. For the face of the returned wayfarer seemed to be
convulsed with a mortal agony.
Creeping away with the silence in which he had come to the threshold,
without revealing his presence to the returned wayfarer, or causing him
once to refrain from his labours, the man from the street returned in a
kind of despair to that outer element of darkness out of which he had
emerged.
“Oh,” he muttered, as the scalding tears sprang out of his eyes as he
traversed the inhospitable pavements of the streets; “I wish now that I
had not seen him. It is just as I thought it would be.”
Yet the next evening at the same hour the man from the street tapped
upon the shutter again; and again his summons was answered by the old
man within.
“How is he now?” asked the visitor breathlessly. “I hope there is no
change for the worse.”
“You may enter and look upon him,” said the old man.
“I don’t think I want to do that,” said the visitor with fear in his
eyes. “I think I would rather not do so.”
“Perhaps,” said the old man, “you may find a change for the better.”
“No, I don’t think I will come in,” said the man with weak
tremulousness; but this he seemed suddenly to discard in a kind of
disgust, and he followed the old man through the darkness of the shop.
As he came to stand again upon the threshold of the little room he saw
that the returned wayfarer had scarcely changed his posture from the
previous evening, and was writing still. The mass of papers before him,
covered in a fine and delicate writing, were an ever-increasing pile.
Yet the man from the street hardly dared to look at the face of the
writer. At last, however, he summoned the courage to do so, and in the
act of beholding it almost revealed his presence by a cry of surprise.
For the face was no longer transfigured with terror: it was as calm,
serene, and peaceful as that of Nature upon an evening of summer.
Again the man from the street returned to his element; and this time
in lieu of his previous despair was a sort of bewildered gladness. The
face he had looked upon that evening was one of such wisdom and beauty,
that even eyes such as his own could not misread its meaning. “Oh, how
beautiful he is! How beautiful he is!” he exclaimed as he walked along.
The next evening the visitor returned once more and knocked upon the
shutter; again he was received by the old man who led him within. The
returned wayfarer still sat at the table writing his treatise. Again he
appeared scarcely to have changed his posture. The pile of writing had
grown greater and greater. In mute bewilderment the man from the street
gazed upon him. The worn and haggard countenance of him who wrote was
convulsed with tears. Yet although they dripped upon the white paper,
even as the pen traversed it, he refrained not an instant from his task.
As the unhappy man from the street again sought the outer darkness, he
said with a sinking heart: “When he stops writing I am sure he will
die!”
On the next evening he presented himself at the shutter for the fourth
time.
“How is he now?” he cried to the old man. “Does he still live?”
“You may enter,” said the old man; and in the darkness the man from the
street could not observe the secret smile that was about his lips.
Ever writing as before, the returned wayfarer had now a face that was
radiant with joy. As he continued to fill one page upon another, his
lips began to move in a kind of low crooning chant. When the watcher
from the threshold caught the first sounds of his voice, he remembered
with one of those pangs with which reason confronts that which lies
beyond it, the day upon which he and his boon companions had taken him
upon the sea in a boat.
“I don’t know how it will end, I don’t know how it will end!” cried the
man as he entered the streets. His emotion was wrought so highly that
he walked the streets until dawn.
Yet again on the evening of the fifth day he returned, and with secret,
fearful steps he came to the threshold of the little room. He who sat
there was writing still. His cheeks had now sunk into his jaws; his
eyes that formerly were so large and bright lacked lustre; the slender
fingers were moving painfully; the gaunt face had almost the composure
of death.
The watcher crept forth again to the streets, and walked them in a kind
of madness. “I begin to wish he would die,” he said as he took his way.
“It is dreadful, it is dreadful! Yes, I wish he would die.”
Yet on the evening of the sixth day the man came again and knocked upon
the shutter.
“I hope he is dead,” he said bitterly as the old man confronted him.
“It is dreadful, it is dreadful!”
“He sleeps now,” said the old man simply. “Is it not wonderful that the
strength should have been given to him to complete his task? But he now
sleeps.”
They stole together to the threshold, where this superhuman labourer,
bare-footed and unkempt, and in his rags lay fast asleep. His face was
buried amid the great bulk of his writings.
“Oh,” said the man from the street with a harsh sob; “he is dead at
last.”
“Oh, no,” said the old man, “he breathes softly.”
“Can it be possible?” said the other. “Can he have done all this and
yet remained alive? I must see for myself before I can believe it.”
The man from the street made as if he would cross the threshold of the
little room.
“Beware,” said the old man almost sternly. “Did you not promise that
you would not go beyond this?”
“Yes, I did,” said the other mournfully, “but I am sure he is dead.”
“Return to-morrow, my friend, at the same hour,” said the old man, “and
be of good hope. He ate and drank before he slept and he promised to
awaken.”
The next day the man came back again to the threshold of the little
room, but the writer still slept with his face buried within his
labours.
“He will never awaken, he will never awaken!” said the watcher.
“Be of good faith,” said the old man softly. “Return to-morrow again.”
The man did as he was bidden, but he who had laboured was still asleep.
“Why do you deceive me?” cried the man from the street, almost beside
himself with his passion; “you know he will never wake again. And you
dare not tell me the truth. I will enter and see for myself.”
The old man pushed him back with his feeble strength as he made to
cross the threshold. His face had a tragic consternation too dreadful
to behold.
“If you cross the threshold,” he said, “while he still sleeps he will
never, never awaken.”
These words and the countenance of the old man convinced the man from
the street that such was the truth.
“I will return to-morrow and see if he sleeps still,” said the man,
returning to the street.
“This passes all understanding,” he muttered constantly as he took his
way.
XLVII
On the following evening, when the man knocked again upon the shutter,
and the door of the shop was opened by the old man, he was informed
joyfully that the sleeper had awakened. And further, he was told that
he had bathed, and had partaken of food, and that now in the little
room he sat beside the hearth in the full enjoyment of his mind.
“Do you remain here while I ask him if you may approach the threshold
of his little room,” said the old man in a glad voice.
The man from the street waited in joyfulness. In spite of his
incredulity he seemed to know that the darkness of the night had passed.
“He desires to see you,” said the old man as he returned.
The man from the street, scarcely daring to breathe, followed the old
man to the threshold of the inner room. Seated beside the hearth, which
was ever brightly burning, was the frail figure of his friend, with
the great pile of his writings clasped upon his knees. The lustre was
extinguished from his worn and beautiful face; his eyes were no longer
large and bright, his cheeks were sunken; yet all about him was a high
and calm serenity, an inexpressible peace.
“Faithful one,” said a voice whose strange quality was hardly more than
a reminiscence of that which had once been familiar to the ears of
the man from the street, “now that my task is done I will reward your
constancy. You shall cross the threshold of my little room. Will you
not embrace me, honest friend?”
Speaking these words, the returned wayfarer stretched out his hands to
his visitor. Thereupon the man from the street crossed the threshold
of the little room and flung his arms about the form of him he had not
hoped to clasp again.
XLVIII
The two friends sat long hours together, conversing of many things.
William Jordan, now that his task was accomplished, had never seemed
so accessible, so human, so near in sympathy and perception to those
things that lay immediately about him. Jimmy Dodson, entranced by the
new power and richness of his friend’s discourse, gave expression again
and again to the delight that he felt.
“Luney,” he said, calling him again by that name with which he had
always addressed him, “you have always been beyond me, but you have
never seemed quite so far beyond me as you do now. Your actions prove
you to be out of your mind, but the odd thing is that never in all
the years I have known you, have you talked to me as you have talked
to-night. You talk to me now, old boy, just as I should expect some
of those wise old Greek Johnnies to talk to their pals. And yet you
give yourself no airs of saying anything out of the common; and the
way you listen to what I say to you and the way you draw me out,
gives me the kind of feeling that I myself am a sort of chap like old
What’s-his-name. Words have never come to me so easily as they have
to-night; and as for my mind, I am sure it has never been half so
bright. You seem to make me feel, old boy, that every word you use has
a kind of inner meaning; and I understand enough of the meaning inside
to know that there is still another meaning inside of that. I don’t
know where you have been, or what you have done, but I am sure the
change that has taken place in you is very wonderful.”
“The Giver of all good has at last given the light to your eyes and
mine,” said William Jordan. “And speech to our lips, and hearing to our
ears.”
“And the most wonderful thing about you, old boy,” said his friend,
“is that with all your strangeness I know what you mean. You sit there
talking for all the world as if nothing had happened to you. And yet
if you don’t mind my saying it, a week ago you were up so high that I
thought you could never come down again.”
“Perhaps it was,” said William Jordan, “that I was then besieged by
strange spirits. Perhaps it was, Jimmy, that my little treatise could
not have got itself written without their aid.”
“And now you have written it, old boy, or now, as you put it, it has
got itself written, what do you intend to do with it?” asked Jimmy
Dodson eagerly.
“It is my intention to give it to the world,” said William Jordan.
The calm assurance with which the author announced this intention
appeared to startle his friend.
“Yes--of course,” said Jimmy Dodson nervously; “yes--of course.”
A sequel so natural to the strange labours of which he had been the
witness, had, somewhat curiously, never shaped itself in his mind.
“Yes--of course,” he reiterated, “of course you will give it to the
world. That is to say, you will have it published by somebody. Have you
thought which firm you will try first?”
“It is my intention,” said William Jordan, “to place it in the good
hands of our friends.”
“Indeed,” said Dodson; and then he added nervously, “Yes, I suppose so.
What is it all about?”
“You may speak of it as a kind of treatise on human life,” said the
author.
“A treatise,” said his friend. “I hope, old boy, it is not too
scientific and not too long.”
“In some respects it is ‘scientific,’ I am afraid,” said the author.
“You see, it was impossible to keep out ‘science’ altogether.”
“Oh, then,” said his friend with an air of relief, “the treatise
as you call it is not all pure science. I hope, old boy,” he added
anxiously, “you have had the forethought to cast it into the form of a
novel.”
“Yes,” said the author, “you might almost say it is a kind of
novel--and yet it is a kind of poem too.”
“Ah,” said his friend hopefully, “that is better. A treatise in the
form of a novel may be all right, although much depends upon the
length. And a novel in the form of a prose poem; that may be all right
too, that is if it is not lacking in dramatic interest. I have heard
Octavius lay it down as a fixed rule that in a prose poem you must have
dramatic interest.”
“I think I may promise,” said the author, with a simplicity that passed
beyond the understanding of his friend, “that it is not lacking in
dramatic interest.”
“Good!” said Jimmy Dodson. “Things are shaping better than could have
been expected. Yet you know, old boy--if I must tell the truth--I never
quite thought you had it about you to write a really good novel. But
you never know, old boy, do you? Some of the smartest writing chaps
of the day don’t at all look the part. Yet I don’t quite know, old
boy--you won’t mind my saying it--whether you have had quite enough
experience of life. I’ve heard Murtle say that a chap wants enormous
experience of life to write a really good novel. I’ve heard him say to
Octavius that he couldn’t possibly have done what he has unless he had
dined out every night in good society for twenty years. But the novel
may be a romance. Of course that would make a difference. A fellow
doesn’t have to know so much, Octavius says, to write a romance. Yet
don’t forget, old boy, that other things being all right, grammar,
style, dramatic interest and so on, much will depend upon the length.
Whatever else it may be I hope it will not be more than eighty thousand
words.”
“I am afraid,” said the author, “the question of ‘length’ has not
occurred to me. But now you speak of it I should not say the length is
great.”
“Good,” said Jimmy Dodson. “Well, I must leave you now, old boy,” he
added, “to catch my train to Peckham. I can’t tell you what a relief it
has been to find you quite well again. But I will come back to-morrow
evening, and I will look at this novel of yours, and we will talk over
the question of offering it to the firm, although if you do that,
old boy, you will be obliged, you know, to adopt what they call a
pseudonym.”
“I intend that the poem shall be published anonymously,” said the
author.
“Poem!” said Jimmy Dodson. “Why, I understood you to say just now that
it was a kind of novel. A poem, you know, would make a difference.”
“No,” said the author, “I think it would be more accurate to define
it as a poem. It is cast in a kind of hexameter which yet is hardly a
hexameter at all--at least it is not the metre of Homer and Virgil.
You see, Jimmy, this noble and beautiful English speech which you and
I use, differs greatly from those other beautiful tongues that the
ancient authors worked in. At first I had thought to write this little
treatise upon human life in the language of the Iliad, the language of
heroic wisdom; but when I came to reflect that this noble modern speech
of ours is familiar to more than a hundred million persons, I yielded
my desire. Hence you will understand, Jimmy, that to modern eyes and
ears the metre may at first appear strange.”
“The deuce!” said Jimmy Dodson with a lively consternation. “A poem!
That will make a difference. You see, Octavius declares that it is
impossible for poetry to pay now-a-days--his pays, of course, but
then he sticks to translations of Homer and the classics--and for
years the firm has given up the publication of original verse. But
it is too late, old boy, to go into it to-night. I will look at your
novel--poem--better call it novel in any case--to-morrow evening, and
then I may be able to give you some advice about it.”
XLIX
When at last Jimmy Dodson had gone to catch his train to Peckham,
William Jordan, who still held the large pile of manuscript upon his
knees, proffered it to his father, saying: “My father, I would have you
read to me this little treatise upon human life.”
The old man, who had not as yet looked upon the labours of his son,
received the mass of papers from his hands; and in his peering,
half-blind eyes was an extraordinary concentration. His feeble frame
possessed by tremors, he sat down at the opposite side of the hearth to
peruse that upon which he hardly dared to gaze.
In the face of William Jordan, although there was a remarkable
composure and self-security, there was also an expectation amounting
almost to anguish, and in the great eyes, which no longer had lustre,
there was the intentness that is seen in the eyes of the blind.
As soon as the old man began to read in his weak quavering voice, his
face, which was so bloodless and ascetic, broke out into a suffusion of
stern and almost uncontrollable joy. The poet, who could not discern
this remarkable expression, bent his head to listen; and as the roll
and cadence of the lines he had wrought came upon his ears he drew in
his breath sharply with half a sob and half a sigh.
All through the night the aged man, his father, read aloud the poem in
his weak quavering voice. As he did so, not he only, but the author of
it sat with the inanimation of statues. They seemed neither to breathe
nor to move; yet sometimes the tears would flow from the eyes of both.
At other times every kind of emotion would pass across their faces:
terror, joy, pity, laughter, bewilderment, protest, acceptance.
Hour after hour sped, and the passion engendered by the reading seemed
to mount in the veins of each. At last towards the afternoon the old
man’s voice failed him, and through sheer physical weakness he could
read no more.
“Pray continue, O Achilles,” said the old man. “I am now old, and
Nature fails me.”
“Nay, my father,” said the poet, “Nature has failed me also. I would
have you repose a little, and then I would have you continue in your
task.”
In obedience to the poet’s request, the old man laid his reading aside
for a while, yet a few hours hence he resumed. And thus it befell
that when Jimmy Dodson knocked upon the shutters of the shop at eight
o’clock, no heed was paid to his summons. He knocked again and again;
his blows were so loud that they echoed all about the street; yet
although he could discern a thread of light stealing from the room
behind the shop his demand met with no answer.
He tried the door of the shop, but it was secure. However, his
imperious need armed him with resources; for climbing up by means of
a niche in the shutters, he peered through an aperture at the top. He
owed it to an infinite good fortune that the door of the little room
was open wide; and he who looked was able to observe its two occupants
sitting either side of the hearth. The white-haired old man with a
great pile of papers upon his knees was reading aloud to his son; and
as revealed by the shadows of the lamp the faces of both were suffused
by a most singular emotion.
The evening following at the same hour Dodson returned again to the
shop; yet again to his profound astonishment admittance was denied
to him. Climbing up for the second time to peer over the top of the
shutters he found the cause of his exclusion to be the same.
On the third evening, however, when he knocked upon the shutters he was
admitted by the old man.
When Jimmy Dodson crossed the threshold of the little room, William
Jordan, who still sat by the side of the fire with the great pile of
his writings once more upon his knees, lifted his dull eyes towards
his friend, and said with his lips yielding in a smile of exquisite
mobility, “Embrace me, my dear friend, embrace me!”
In the gestures of William Jordan was a calm authority that his friend
did not seek to withstand. With a somewhat disconcerted bewilderment he
deferred to the poet.
“Luney, old boy,” he said nervously, “I have been making a few
inquiries about the publication of poetry. Octavius says there is not a
publisher in London who would touch your--your poem, unless it happened
to be something quite out of the way.”
The faces of father and son seemed to embody a single yet occult
meaning, yet the eyes of the poet now held no lustre.
“Fear not, good friend,” said William Jordan in his soft, clear speech,
yet in a tone of such curious sombre irony as Jimmy Dodson had never
heard upon his lips before. “I do not think you need fear to carry my
little treatise on human life to the house of Crumpett and Hawker at
No. 24 Trafalgar Square.”
The poet laughed a gentle laughter which caused his friend to look at
him in bewilderment.
“Luney, old boy,” he said, “what has happened to you lately? I always
used to say, you know, that no power on earth would cause you to laugh.
You always used to be so serious.”
“I laugh now, Jimmy, because I am so happy,” said the poet.
“And what has made you so happy, old boy?” said his friend.
“The knowledge, Jimmy, that I am a prince of the blood.”
Jimmy Dodson gave a gasp of bewilderment. In mute astonishment he
gazed at him who made this inordinate statement; who sat so grave and
so composed, and whose singularly clear voice uttered the words with
a sincerity which made them seem rational. “I can’t understand him,
I can’t understand him!” muttered Jimmy Dodson in dismay. “His words
and his acts are totally wrong, yet I never saw a man who seemed so
marvellously right.”
Jimmy Dodson turned to the father of the poet in an incredulous aside.
“What _does_ he mean?” he said. “He says he is happy because he is a
prince of the blood.”
“Would he be of that estate if he were not happy?” said the old man,
with a quietude that increased Jimmy Dodson’s dismay.
“Ye-es, I suppose not,” said Jimmy Dodson in a kind of despair. He
looked from the father to the son, from the son to the father, yet in
vain he sought to read the riddle of their words.
The white-haired man laid his hand on the great pile of writings which
the poet held upon his knees.
“You would not doubt,” said the old man in a tone of mild
expostulation, “that the creator of this was of the blood royal?”
Jimmy Dodson did not know how to dissemble his surprise. Yet even as he
stood confronting the silent, but almost stern interrogations of the
father and the son, he knew that an answer was necessary; and further
it was borne in upon him what the nature of that answer must be.
“Oh no,” said the young man, and with an assumption of carelessness
that sat upon him ungracefully, “I should not doubt it for a moment--of
course not, not for a moment, because--well, because, you see, I happen
to know the author. But some chaps--some chaps who don’t happen to
know the author might doubt it unless they had the proof.”
“Here, O friend, is the proof of the infinite power of my right hand,”
said the poet, caressing almost proudly with his frail fingers that
which he had wrought. “You yourself shall examine it; and then as I
know you to be worthy of trust you shall carry it to the house of
Crumpett and Hawker; and you shall desire them to print it, but of
course, as I say, you will not divulge the name of the author.”
“Yes, yes, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson faintly, “of course I will
not divulge the name of the author. But suppose Crumpett and
Hawker--suppose, old boy, Crumpett and Hawker take it into their
heads--take it into their fat heads--you never know what publishers
will do, old boy, do you?--suppose they take it into their fat heads to
refuse your novel, or your poem, or your treatise, or whatever you call
it?”
The poet smiled.
“Courage, faithful one,” he said. “You have yet to read this little
treatise, have you not? You have yet to learn the infinite power of
this right hand. And those worthy street-persons, Messrs. Crumpett and
Hawker, will not their eyes glow with a proud joy when they learn it
also?”
Jimmy Dodson did not dare to look upon the rapt gaze of the sightless
poet.
“Ye-es, old boy,” he said miserably, “ye-es, old boy, I suppose they
will.”
“Their eyes will dazzle,” said the poet, “when they behold that which
has been wrought for them and theirs, and for ages unborn. A man-child
has been wrought out of the soul of Man. Once more the cycle has
completed itself. Fact and Speculation, Reason and Imagination stand
together in a more intimate relation. In all humility I say to you,
dear friend, a new dignity has been given to human nature.”
With an ineffable gesture the poet gave the first pages of his poem
into the hands of his friend.
“I--I really, old boy,” stammered Jimmy Dodson, “I--I am nothing like
good enough scholar to have an opinion about it.”
A divine self-security overspread the gaunt features of the poet.
“It is its merit,” he said, “that it is not food only for the proud. It
is wrought in the simple English speech that is the birthright of the
humblest of our countrymen. It is not wrought for him who sits only in
his little room; it is wrought for all those dear and sweet people who
throng the pavements of the great city. Earth, my mother, issued her
mandate; I obeyed it; many days I sojourned in the soft brown bosom
of the mighty one; I communed with her children; I walked with all
the fair things she had wrought from her own bowels; and in her good
pleasure she touched my lips with speech, and she gave the strength
to my right hand. All who are simple and gentle of heart will take
sustenance from this little treatise upon human life. Scan the first
lines, faithful one, you who are simple and gentle of heart, and then
the pressure of your hand shall tell me that my labours are not vain.”
With indescribable pangs, Jimmy Dodson deferred to the insistence of
the glazed eyes, which, although as lifeless as those of a statue,
seemed to possess the power to hold him in thrall.
Dodson yielded a mournful obedience. In spite of the firm conviction
that his poor friend was now hopelessly overthrown, such an imperious
power seemed to reside in a face that was formerly the mansion of
an exquisite gentleness, that he could not summon the resolution to
resist. But even as the unhappy young man took the first page in his
hand and his eyes met the ordered rows of firm but delicate writing
with which it was covered, he knew how correct was his prophecy. Hardly
a phrase, hardly a word that there was written addressed his reason in
any aspect of coherence or good sense.
There was a long pause, a crucifying silence, in which the poet, his
aged father, and the unhappy reader confronted one another in passive
bewilderment.
The poet seemed to devour the face of his friend with his sightless
eyes.
“W-what shall I tell him?” said Dodson to the old man in the extremity
of anguish.
“Speak only the truth,” said the old man. “Let nought be concealed.
Nature who has vouchsafed to him all things, will preserve the first of
her sons from the stroke of joy.”
“Oh, I can’t speak the truth,” said Dodson. “It would be worse than
hitting him in the face.”
“Can it wound Achilles to receive the affirmation of his quality?” said
the old man, whose voice was like a knell.
Dodson’s veins felt a sharper chill.
“They are both mad,” he muttered, “hopelessly mad!”
The old man took Dodson’s arm in a grip of which none could have
suspected him to be capable; and his pale and wasted features had now
become as imperious as those of the sightless poet.
“You must tell him the truth,” said the white-haired man, whose
countenance was so strangely transfigured, “you must deny nothing to
one who is consumed by the divine hunger for recognition. It is meet
that the creator should be told that his work is good. It is the crown
of his superhuman labours that they should receive the sanction of
those for whom they have wrought.”
“You do not speak to me,” said the poet, in a voice that was rare and
strange. “Is it, friend, that you are no longer----? No, I will not
doubt one whom I love.”
“Speak,” said the old man in the voice of a raven. “The days of
Achilles are now few. Speak, that the faithful may render that which
he needs.”
Dodson felt his own silence to be destroying him.
“I will speak,” he said in terror and despair. “I--I am no scholar,
old boy, as you know. I don’t understand Greek; I know hardly a word
of Latin; but I’ll just say this----” The unhappy Dodson clenched
his hands in desperation. “I’ll just say this--to my mind there is
nothing--there is nothing in the whole of the world----”
The dying poet, whose eyes were sightless, quivered like a stricken
bird.
“Courage, Achilles!” he muttered faintly, pressing his frail hands to
his heart. Then, stretching them forth, he turned his gaunt and grey
face upon his friend. “Give to me those honest hands which I know to be
trembling violently,” he said.
Dodson yielded his hands to those of the blind poet.
“How they tremble, how they tremble!” said the poet. “They have a rarer
eloquence than your lips, my friend. Let them embrace me; let them
embrace me.”
As the unhappy Dodson clasped the frail broken form in his strong arms,
he seemed to learn quite suddenly why those once so lustrous eyes had
the hard glare of stone.
“Oh, Luney, Luney!” he cried in a kind of wail as the truth revealed
itself, “do not tell me that you have been blind all these days and
that I have not known it!”
“A man’s blindness is no affliction,” said the dying poet, “if only
he be secure in his friends. The sight of his eyes is as nothing in
comparison with that which is given to his right hand. My great labours
are near to their fruition, and I have a friend. And I am very happy,
O my friend, and it is in this: the gentle and beneficent Earth, my
mother, who has smitten her son with her caresses, bids me commit to
your care the little treatise I have wrought on human life, on the
life of man, on the life of the proudest of her children. Faithful
friend and servant, I ask you to be the good angel of the public need.
These eyes of mine are now void, as were those of my peers long ago;
and the aged man, my father, is infirm and white-haired and unlearned
in the ways of men--therefore, I confide to your care this which I have
wrought. I ask you to take it away and print it immediately, and spread
it broadcast among all the streets of the great city; and when all the
street-persons have looked on what a lost soul in Hades has fashioned
out of blood and tears, in order that they may find new sustenance,
this weak and frail implement which has revealed the will of the Most
High, shall return again to Earth, his mother, and weary with his great
labours, she shall take him gently upon her breasts.”
The blind poet uttered these strange words with a noble simplicity
which yet filled his friend with dismay. As the great bulk of writing
was committed by the poet into the care of the unhappy Dodson, the
young man, powerful and materialistic as he was, seemed almost to faint
under their intolerable burden.
“Take it, friend,” said the dying poet. “Keep it jealously; it is a
thing without price. And remember that I now count my days. And further
remember my task is not accomplished until your own is fulfilled. Take
this treatise straightway to that great house of publishers, which is
the first of this country, wherein I, a slave, spent seven years of my
existence upon the earth; and see that it is printed and bound with all
the haste possible, and further that it is spread broadcast among all
the persons in the streets of the great city, because until that is
done, I cannot lie at peace.”
The unhappy Dodson stood as one all broken with pain.
“Y-yes,” he said feebly, “I will take them to the office
to-morrow--and--and, old boy, I will tell them to set it up at once.
I--I will tell them that the author is impatient--that he has not much
time--that--that his time is nearly up--and--and that he wants to know
that others know what he has done for them before he goes.”
With a sinking heart the unhappy Dodson made the great pile of
manuscript into a parcel with the aid of brown paper and string,
in precisely the fashion that in former days he had instructed his
_protégé_. As suddenly he recalled his demeanour towards one who had
now acquired a transcendent sanctity, his own eyes grew blind with
their tears. Yet over and above his intolerable emotion, that which
dominated his thoughts, was the knowledge that the mission to which he
was pledged was foredoomed to fail.
“I don’t know much about literature--don’t pretend to,” said the
unhappy young man, as he slipped the string round the parcel in a kind
of dull anguish, “but it wouldn’t surprise me at all, old boy, if this
doesn’t turn out to be the longest poem in the English language.”
“I believe it is a little less than three times the length of the
_Paradise Lost_,” said the poet, with absolute composure, yet touched
by that curious irony that his friend had never understood. “And I am
reminded that I would have them print it with great clearness in three
honest tomes. Each volume should coincide with a phase of the poem;
you will observe that there are three phases to our little treatise,
which correspond with those of human life--three phases through which
the soul of man must pass in its terrestrial journeyings. On the first
page, only the name of the poem must be set forth; the name of the poet
must not appear. And further, good friend, I urge you to observe the
profoundest secrecy as to the authorship of this treatise upon human
life. The identity of the author must never be disclosed.”
“Why must the identity of the author never be disclosed, old boy?”
asked Jimmy Dodson, whose bewilderment and consternation were ever
increasing.
“I am fearful,” said the dying poet, with that curious smile that was
at once proud, gaunt, and melancholy. “I am fearful lest my countrymen
should incur the mockery of future ages by seeking to re-embody the
life of the first among their authors.”
L
Days passed ere Jimmy Dodson returned again to the little room. They
were fraught with dire anxiety for the blind poet and the aged man, his
father. In his heart the old man was filled with despair, and he knew
not how to obtain the strength wholly to conceal his fears. What if he
to whom they had entrusted their priceless treasure should never return
to them again! He had neither the devotion nor the blind faith of the
dying man.
“They are printing it, they are printing it!” the poet would exclaim
many times in the day as he kept the chair beside the hearth.
“What if that strange street-person were never to return to us?” the
old man was moved to ask in his despair on the evening of the sixth day.
“Ah, thou dost not know that brave and faithful one, my father,” said
the dying poet. “He will overcome fire and the sword rather than his
ministry should fail in these last hours of our necessity.”
And on the evening of the seventh day there came a gentle tapping upon
the shutters of the shop. With a cry of eagerness the old man opened
the door in response, and the forlorn figure of Dodson was seen upon
the threshold, his face all drawn with suffering.
“Welcome, welcome,” cried the old man in tones that were thin and
overwrought. “Have you brought back the printed book?”
Dodson recoiled from the old man in a kind of harsh rage. He laid one
hand upon his coat, and said in a morose whisper, “You will have to
know the truth!”
“The truth,” said the old man, with an unsuspectingness which seemed to
exasperate the man from the street. “The truth! Why fear to tell it?”
“The truth is this,” said Dodson. “There is not a publisher in London
who would print poor Luney’s poem.”
The old man fell back against the door of the shop with a little cry.
“But--but the first mind of the age lies at the point of dissolution!”
he exclaimed. “They owe it to themselves that they cherish its fruits.
Do they not know that death itself respects his labours, and awaits
some token of homage from those for whom he wrought?”
“Yes, yes,” said Jimmy Dodson mournfully. “I know all that, my good old
man; I have heard it all before; but you and I must not be high-flown.
We must look the facts in the face. We must deal with things as they
are. A week ago I carried it to Octavius--Octavius, you know, is the
head of our firm, which is the chief, in fact the _only_ publishing
house in London, and therefore, you know, in the world. Well, as soon
as Octavius saw the first page he said, ‘I am afraid, Mr. Dodson, this
will never do,’ I am giving you the precise words he used; it is no use
for you and me to deceive ourselves, is it?”
“Oh, oh,” said the old man incredulously. “But that is the verdict of
only one man, a single street-person, an ignorant man who is neither
gentle nor simple.”
“You may be right,” said Dodson, “and yet again you may be wrong. But
I must tell you, old man, that the house of Crumpett and Hawker has
nothing to learn. What they think to-day, the trade thinks to-morrow.
What they don’t know is not business. And you must understand that
I did not rest content with the opinion of Octavius. I took it
down-stairs and showed it to W. P. Walkinshaw, a highly cultivated
man. And although he does sit down-stairs, he has had a large and
varied experience. And as soon as I had told him what it was, he said,
‘Really, Dodson, one has no need to look. A poem in blank verse, three
times the length of _Paradise Lost_--why, really, my good fellow, there
is not a publishing house in this country who would take the string off
the parcel.’”
“No, no, no,” said the old man, beating his fingers upon the counter
of the shop. “These unbelievers must not be permitted to speak in
ignorance. Is it possible that the human soul can remain insensible to
the nobility of its god-like power?”
“Well, as it happens,” said Dodson mournfully, “I did ask Pa to be kind
enough to pay particular attention to it. But as soon as Pa cast his
eyes over it, he used the identical words that were used by Octavius.
‘I am afraid, Dodson,’ he said, ‘this will never do.’”
“Can it be possible,” cried the old man, “the noblest achievement of
the modern world to be thus discarded!”
“And I didn’t stop at Octavius, and I didn’t stop at Pa,” said the
mournful emissary. “I went up-stairs again to Robert Brigstock, who
gives Octavius a hand with the _belles lettres_, and who is on the
staff of the _Journal of Literature_. And as soon as Robert Brigstock
read that accursed first page, he said, ‘May I ask, Mr. Dodson, has the
writer of this an established reputation?’ ‘Oh, no,’ I had to confess,
‘he is quite a young chap who has never published anything at all.’
‘Well, then, Mr. Dodson,’ said Robert Brigstock, who as I say is on the
staff of the _Journal of Literature_, ‘no one deprecates more firmly
than I do the amazing presumption that is here revealed. The writer
sets out to write a treatise on human life--a somewhat timeworn theme,
Mr. Dodson--which is three times the length of _Paradise Lost_’--I am
telling you word for word what Robert Brigstock said--‘and he does
this in a metre which Homer and Virgil would certainly not have used
had they had to deal with the English language. Can anything be more
presumptuous, than that an unknown writer--who surely has been to
neither of our universities, or most certainly he would never have
proposed to perpetrate such a gratuitous piece of effrontery--that a
man who has not received a regular education should attempt that which
would give pause to all the foremost of our English poets, from Chaucer
to the Poet Laureate, poets, Mr. Dodson, whose reputations have long
been established beyond the range of controversy?’ And if you had seen
Robert Brigstock, who as a rule is the mildest and most amiable and
most polite of all fellows imaginable, who is a bit of a poet himself,
begin to work himself up into a kind of frenzy over that first page,
you would have understood, old man, far more clearly than I can hope to
make you understand, how hopeless it is to get any publisher--I don’t
care who--to undertake poor Luney’s effort on his own responsibility.”
The aged father of the dying poet gave a groan of despair. He lifted up
his feeble arms, which seemed to be smitten with palsy, and uttered a
high quavering cry of imprecation.
“Are these the tidings we must bear to the dying Achilles!” he cried.
“Must we thus affront that mighty warrior who lies all spent and broken
from his great labours!”
“Well, old man,” said Dodson, who could not forbear to pity such a
distress as this, yet whose robust common-sense in the crisis they had
reached had never been so valiant, “well, old man, there is only one
thing we can do if we are to bring poor Luney’s poem to the public
notice. We must print it and publish it at our own expense.”
“Yes, yes,” said the old man eagerly, “of course we must do that. And
we must do it immediately because the sands of life are running out.”
“Yes, I have thought of all that,” said Dodson, “and I have made some
inquiries of the firm. But of course it is going to cost money.”
“Money!” said the old man.
“A lot of money. I have talked to Octavius about it. I am on very good
terms with Octavius, and as a sort of special favour to me, Octavius
says Crumpett and Hawker will break through their invariable rule of
not publishing on commission; and they are prepared to place their
imprint--their very valuable imprint--on poor Luney’s poem, providing
it is written grammatically--you know Crumpett and Hawker would not
publish the Laureate himself if he failed to write grammatically--and
also, providing that its tendency is not too agnostic, that is to say,
agnosticism impinging on paganism, that is to say that it contains a
definite idea of God--these are Octavius’s own words I am using--and
further that it is not open to the charge of immorality in any shape or
form, in other words, as Octavius says, that it is the kind of thing
that any young girl may place in the hands of her grandmother. Well,
now, everything being all right, Crumpett and Hawker are prepared to
put it in hand at once, and to print two hundred and fifty copies--they
won’t do less--and to issue the poem in three volumes at one guinea
net. The cost, however, will be two hundred pounds, which must be borne
by the author. For this sum they will use good paper, clear type, and
they will bind it in superior cloth, and they will send out fifty
copies for review to the leading London and provincial journals; but
Octavius assures me that Crumpett and Hawker will touch the book only
on these terms, and on no other.”
The old man gave a gasp of consternation.
“Two hundred pounds,” he said weakly, “two hundred pounds!”
“Yes,” said Dodson, “two hundred pounds is a lot of money; but it will
have to be found if poor Luney is to hold his book in his hands before
he dies.”
“I have not a tithe of that great sum among the whole of my worldly
possessions,” said the old man forlornly.
“Nor I,” said Dodson. “I have hardly a red cent. laid by, because you
know I have now to support my people; but if I could lay my hands at
this moment on two hundred pounds, poor Luney’s book should be through
the press before he hears his name called.”
“Come into the shop,” said the old man feebly, “and tell me if you
think some of the venerable tomes on the shelves might produce
that--that large sum.”
Dodson entered the shop and the old man struck a match and lit the
gas. A very brief examination of what Dodson conceived to be a useless
mass of lumber, for all the volumes were very black, faded, dusty, and
stained with time, sufficed to enable him to form a verdict.
“I don’t suppose,” said he with a candour which numbed the old man’s
veins, “the whole lot together would fetch two hundred pence. I never
saw such a collection--never!”
“I must pray for a miracle to happen again,” said the old man. “One
happened to us on a day.”
“Did it indeed?” said Dodson.
“Yes,” said the old man. “The great Achilles was threatened with
expulsion from his little room. Unless I, his custodian, could obtain
the sum of twenty pounds by a certain day, it was ordained that he
should be cast out into the streets of the great city. Yet on the eve
of that day, when all hope had been abandoned, a man out of the street,
a street-person, walked into this shop, looked upon all these shelves,
and took down one after another of these venerable tomes, and paying
over to me the sum of two hundred pounds, walked out of the shop with
one of these old volumes in his care.”
“What was the old volume?” said Dodson, with an air of keen interest.
“A Shakespeare of the first folio,” said the old man.
Dodson gave a low whistle.
“Oh, was it?” he said. “Then I should think that that street-person
was not such a bad judge after all.” James Dodson turned his attention
again to the shelves, in which were many gaps, with a livelier
curiosity. “There don’t appear to be many first-folio Shakespeares left
now,” he said in a tone of keen disappointment. “But it is no good
supposing that there would be; these things have been pretty well gone
through. Some street-person has picked all the pearls these many years,
I expect. All that is left is hardly worth carting away. As I say, all
that remains on your shelves, old man, would barely fetch two hundred
pence.”
“Can we do nothing to obtain the sum of two hundred pounds?” said the
old man. “Surely in this extremity a miracle must happen to us again.”
“I am no believer in miracles myself,” said James Dodson. “I have no
faith in ghosts, spiritualism and sea-serpents either. But it is clear
to my mind that that two hundred pounds has got to be found somehow;
yet it looks as though a miracle _will_ have to happen before it turns
up.”
“And the hours are so brief,” said the old man in his impotence. “Each
day is beyond price; the great Achilles grows frail.”
For a space Dodson was plunged in deep thought. He was not of the
mettle that yields lightly to despair.
“By the way,” he said, “what was that very funny-looking old volume I
saw on the table in your little room--you know, the funny old volume
that seemed to have its pages scrawled over in red ink? Well, now it
has struck me that those pages--I didn’t look at them carefully--were
of the finest vellum of the sort they don’t make now-a-days. If that is
the case a dealer might be willing to pay a good price for it, if the
red scrawl was nicely cleaned off.”
At these words, uttered with singular carelessness, the old man
staggered back against the counter of the shop. He trembled in every
limb, his face was piteous to see.
“You mean the Book of the Ages,” he said. His voice seemed unrelated to
anything in nature.
“I don’t know what you call it,” said Dodson, “but it looks very heavy
and well-bound, and I dare say it is valuable in its way. Vellum of
the old monastic sort fetches a rare good price now-a-days if you know
where to take it. I shall send a chap with a handcart for it to-morrow,
and he shall take it to Temple and Ward, the dealers in Bond Street,
and we will see what can be raised.”
“The Book of the Ages!” said the old man hoarsely; “the Book of the
Ages!”
“Yes,” said Dodson indifferently, “the Book of the Ages--rather a good
name for it. If that vellum is as old as I think it is, and that red
scrawl is nicely got off, and the edges are trimmed, and the surface
is cleaned up a bit, there may be money in it. People do buy such rum
things now-a-days by way of curios, and they don’t seem to mind paying
fancy prices for them either.”
“The Book of the Ages!” the old man repeated. In his peering eyes were
a horror and a consternation that were truly dreadful, yet they were
totally unnoticed by his visitor.
“Of course, you know,” Dodson continued, pursuing this new idea, which,
remote as it was, seemed to afford the only prospect of obtaining two
hundred pounds, “I shall have to pitch a tale about it to the dealers.
I must fix up some sort of a history, you know, about its being found
in the tomb of the Pharaohs, or its being the very identical sheepskin
upon which the Scriptures were written. But you must leave that to me.
I shall go round and see Temple and Ward to-morrow, and you can lay to
it, old man, that I shall have thought of something by then. But, in
the meantime, if you really do believe that miracles happen--I wish I
could believe it myself--you had better think about it, old man, as
much as you possibly can, for I’ve read somewhere that when you do want
a thing to happen, it is a good plan to keep your mind on it all the
time.”
Before the old man could consent to a suggestion which he did not know
how to derive the power to sanction, the voice of him who sat in the
little room was heard to summon James Dodson.
“Why don’t you come to me?” said the voice from within. “I can hear the
voice of my friend. Why don’t you come to me with the printed sheets?”
In some trepidation Dodson obeyed a summons, which sounded almost
imperious upon the lips of him from whom it proceeded.
“The printed sheets,” said the dying poet, stretching out his hands.
“Please place the printed sheets into my hands. I would have my father
read what is printed there, because this little treatise must go forth
without fault or sully.”
“They have not started to print it yet, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson
dismally.
“Why--why is that?” cried the dying poet, with a consternation that was
almost petulant. “Do they not know that a term has been placed to my
days, that the sands of life are running out in the glass?”
“Yes, old boy, they know all about that,” said Jimmy Dodson; “they know
all about that, and--and----”
“And--and!” said the stricken poet with an imperiousness that was
regal. “Are these the words that are brought to me by one whom I love?”
In a controlled excitement, that was almost stern, the stricken man
raised himself in his chair. “Your arm, Jimmy,” he said, with a look
of such authority that it filled the unhappy Dodson with dismay. “Lead
me to the printers. I must speak to them myself.”
The poet sank back in his chair in the tender arms of his friend. The
little strength that remained to him was no longer sufficient to bear
his frame.
“Yes, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson, “be quite calm, and sit there
quietly. There is no need for you to excite yourself. I--I will go
round to the printers early to-morrow and--and I--I will tell them just
what you say. I will see that they hurry, although by nature, old boy,
printers, as you know, are dreadfully slow.”
“So be it,” said the poet, with an expression of noble magnanimity upon
his beautiful face; “do not think that I reproach you--it would break
my heart.”
At these words Dodson, who, throughout his interview with the father,
had remained so calm and self-secure, now turned away hastily from him
who was sightless, with a half-strangled sob.
“You do not tell me in what manner Crumpett and Hawker received our
little treatise,” said the poet.
Dodson found it a great matter to recover his wise self-possession, but
by the time the poet had repeated the question he had regained it.
“Why--why, in what manner could they receive it, old boy?” said Jimmy
Dodson. “What _could_ they say to it? What does a religious chap say to
the Bible? What does a scholar say to Homer? What does everybody say to
Shakespeare?”
“It is almost more than I can realize,” said the poet, with a look of
rapture that seemed to sear the veins of his unhappy friend.
LI
Dodson promised bravely, recklessly, despairingly that the next time
he entered the little room he would bring the first printed sheets
of the book. For the poet’s insistence that each line must undergo a
rigorous scrutiny before it was given to the world was reiterated again
and again that evening with an imperiousness that, in one formerly so
gentle and timid, astonished its witness beyond measure.
“Luney, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson in a rather bewildered manner
after several of these austere reminders, “I am not accustomed to move
in royal circles, I have never been spoken to by a king, but if ever
I was, old boy, I should expect him to speak to me just like that.
You make me feel, old boy, that I have no right to call you Luney any
longer--it seems almost like an act of presumption--you make me feel,
old boy, that I ought to address you as ‘my lord,’ or as ‘sire’.”
The poet laughed a strange, rarefied note of laughter.
“Ah, dear Jimmy,” he said, “in the presence of the faithful we will not
insist on our royalty too much.”
Dodson could frame no reply. Such words appeared to transcend those
bounds indicated by human intelligence which the speaker had seemed to
overstep so many times already. But, to the amazement of the beholder,
the white-haired old man, who all this time had sat at the table with
his eyes pressed devoutly to the Book of the Ages, rose at these words
of the dying poet, and with a grave deliberation sank upon his knees
before him who was blind.
“My liege,” said the old man humbly, “I would not have you consider
your servants to be insensible of your quality if they do not address
you in the fashion which it would seem to demand. Sire, your servants
do not esteem your royalty to be the less because they do not wear its
livery upon their lips.”
Smiling his secret and beautiful smile, the dying poet extended his
right hand, so white, so fragile, and so transparent towards the aged
man, his father, with the sweet air of a great prince, and the old man,
still kneeling, bore it to his lips.
Ever smiling in the same manner, the dying poet then extended the
fragile hand again, this time towards the astonished Jimmy Dodson,
whose every faculty seemed to be atrophied by so strange a situation.
“We would have thee also make obeisance, faithful servant,” said the
poet gently. “It is not for this insignificant flesh that we seek thy
homage; it is not to appease an unworthy pride, which too often devours
princes, that we would crave thy vassalage. Rather it is that we would
have all who are gentle and simple offer their devotion to that which
alone makes the life of man comprehensible, of which this broken clay
is the too frail custodian.”
With a shamefaced trepidation, which only recently he had been taught
to feel, James Dodson sank to his knees before his dying friend, and,
in the fashion of the white-haired old man, he bore the fragile hand to
his lips. He then rose, and, without venturing to give a look to either
of the occupants of the little room, he made a headlong flight through
the shop into the all-enfolding, ever-welcome darkness of the streets.
LII
The poet and his father passed that night together, as they had passed
so many others, in the little room. The blind man, seated by the fire,
alternately dreamed and mused, while his father conned the book which
was spread open on the table. For the last time he conned it with the
blood like water in his veins. Yet in him now was the mute acceptance
of those who have passed through the whole gamut of their suffering,
upon whom experience has nothing more to confer.
In the dead of the night, while the dying poet was murmuring strange
words in his sleep, the old man took for the last time from their
receptacle the chalice, the bistoury and the stylus. A hundred times
had his flesh been pierced in vain by that inexorable point, yet again
this night he made trial of it, and for the last time.
And now his trial was not without reward. No sooner had he dipped the
stylus in the red blood of his veins than it began to traverse the
page. For the first time since those fingers had grasped the pen, the
fruit of eighty years of vicissitude upon the wonderful earth flowed
to the parchment. Line by line grew the writing. That which he had
laboured these long years to express, that for which he had prayed,
fasted and kept vigil, was now born without a pang in this brief but
magic hour.
Faint with joy, yet also filled with a nameless fear, the old man
addressed the poet as soon as he awoke.
“Achilles,” he said, “wilt thou write thy page in the Book of the Ages,
in order that our dynasty may continue itself?”
“Nay, my father,” said the poet, with a noble conviction; “it is not
for me to inscribe my page in the Book. For are not the conditions
fulfilled by which our dynasty shall cease? A thousand years, my
father, has it striven to affirm itself; and it is written that in the
magic hour it shall achieve its apotheosis, it shall be effaced, in
obedience to Universal Law. Yet be of good courage, O my father, for it
perishes only to achieve re-embodiment in an ampler notation. In the
hour this little treatise upon human life is wrought, the archives of
our dynasty are as seed scattered broadcast upon the four winds for
the service of all the peoples in the world.”
Such words of high authority proceeding from those revered lips filled
the old man with a courage and a resolute acceptance of that which was
about to befall, which he had never hoped to achieve.
“Is it seemly, O Achilles,” said the old man, having derived a vital
strength from the poet’s wisdom, “to efface the means by which a new
lustre is given to the heavens?”
“It is as seemly, O my father,” the poet answered, “as it is to pluck
the ripe fruit from the stalk.”
It was therefore in no mood of passion, of wild soul-searching, that
the old man yielded those magic parchments which for a thousand years
had been as the archives of his race. He bowed to the decree of fate
with that calm acceptancy which, in the end, had ever been the crown
that awaited each individual destiny.
Yet, when this volume, which was a thousand years old, had passed for
ever from the precincts of the little room, he did not reveal the
marvellous circumstance to him who was blind.
However, in the evening of that day, the poet said, as if armed by a
prophetic vision, “My father, why dost thou turn no more to the Book of
the Ages?”
The old man took the poet’s fragile hand to his lips with a humble
gesture of obeisance.
“Because, O Achilles,” he said, “is it not seemly, since thou thyself
wouldst have it so, that when the ripe fruit is plucked the stalk shall
be discarded?”
“Verily, my father, thy wisdom is commendable,” said the poet, speaking
in the perfect simplicity of the blood royal.
LIII
After the Book of the Ages had been dispersed among the great world out
of doors, many were the days that elapsed ere the dying poet’s faithful
emissary was seen again in the little room. The old man was thrown into
a fever of dread lest so strange an envoy should never return; but even
in the extremity of his fears he was consoled by the noble courage
of the poet. From day to day he who kept the chimney-side, and whose
hours could be numbered as they passed, retained a superhuman serenity
throughout the whole of this cruel period, which seemed to gnaw at the
vitals of both. In his invincible fortitude he even sought to assuage
the distress of the aged man, his father.
“He will never return, O Achilles,” wailed the old man.
“Our honest servant will not fail one who is the comrade of kingly
death, O my father,” said the blind poet, smiling in his faith.
“Must I pray for a miracle, Achilles?” said the old man, who looked to
him in all things now.
“We would have thee be of good faith, my father,” said the poet. “Never
yet was a destiny but that it fulfilled itself. The printing-presses
are groaning under these pages of ours. To-morrow they will be strown
like autumn leaves all about the floor of this little room.”
Yet the morrow came and the emissary did not return. Another morrow
dawned and yet he came not. Day succeeded day; the dying poet became as
one who has scarce the strength to raise his limbs; the sands grew less
and less in the glass; yet still no breathless messenger issued forth
from the streets of the great city.
In this long-drawn suspense such an anguish of despair besieged the
old man, that again and again he turned to the poet for the sustenance
which it was his to give.
“Be of good courage, O my father,” said the dying poet, yet at this
time the whole of his right side was become paralyzed, so that he could
no longer raise his right hand.
After listening full many weary nights and days for the ever-expected
tap upon the shutters of the shop, there came at last the familiar
sound in a December evening.
With unsteady limbs the old man went forth to unbar the door. Upon the
threshold stood Dodson, worn and pale.
“Do not tell me the miracle has not happened,” cried the old man in a
high, quavering tone.
“Yes, the miracle has happened,” said Dodson in a voice that was thin
and unstrung.
“And--and they have printed the mighty pages?” cried the old man.
“Yes,” said Dodson, “they are printing the cursed pages. I have the
proofs of the first volume under my coat. The others will be through
the press in a few days.”
The old man gave a cry of joy.
“Then the miracle has happened for the second time,” he said. “The Book
of the Ages was cherished by the world of men.”
“Call it what you like,” said Dodson. “Call it a miracle, call it
a business transaction, or call it a daylight robbery, or anything
you please. I can only say that James Dodson had to scour heaven and
earth to get that miserable two hundred pounds. I lied to the dealer;
I drew up a false pedigree for those infernal pages of parchments; I
cajoled them into believing that black was white; I proved to their
satisfaction that that cursed writing in red ink was that of the
Pharaohs, and was supposed to be indelible, because, do what they would
with their chemicals, they could not get it to come off.”
“Oh yes, yes,” said the old man, breathing heavily. “I should have made
it known to you that the writing in the Book of the Ages can never be
effaced.”
“Whatever that infernal writing was,” said Dodson, “it was the cause of
my not being able to get the two hundred pounds I asked for from the
dealers. Do what I would, say what I would, it was only by sheer good
fortune that I was able to get one. They happened to take a fancy to
the clasp of that infernal volume; and as I had the presence of mind
to tell them it was formerly the clasp of an ancient Roman libellus,
they wrote out a cheque for one hundred pounds, less five per cent. for
cash. And after that I had enormous difficulties to raise the other
hundred. Talk about the labours of Hercules; what are they to the
labours of one who attempts to raise a hundred pounds upon no security
in this Christian country? I lied to my aunt; I put my name to an
instrument that may land me in gaol; I lied to Octavius; I cheated an
insurance company; and, as a consequence of all this, the great house
of Crumpett and Hawker have undertaken to send out this three-volume
poem for review on the twelfth of January. And let me tell you, old
man, that in all the long and honourable history of that world-famous
publishing house, James Dodson is the only man who has ever caused it
to betray signs of what you might call undignified haste.”
“No words of mine can requite you, sir,” said the white-haired man,
whose eyes welled with gratitude. “But yet the proud consciousness is
yours that unborn ages will be your debtors.”
“Their monickers on a note of hand or on a three months’ bill don’t go
for much at this hour of the day,” said James Dodson. “I too, like poor
Luney, appear to have made the mistake of being born before my time.
And it seems to me that of all the mistakes a man can commit, there is
none quite so bad as that.”
However, no sooner had Jimmy Dodson come again into the presence of him
who kept the little room, than all these tribulations to which he had
given so free an expression in the shop, yielded immediately to that
solicitude, mingled with awe, with which he had come to regard him.
“Ah, friend,” said the dying poet, “so here are the printed pages at
last.”
“Yes, old boy, here they are at last,” said Jimmy Dodson.
“Give them to me,” said the poet, extending his left hand, which he
could scarcely raise.
Dodson placed a few of the printed sheets upon the extended palm, which
shook like gossamer; and as the poet, with a look of composed passion,
held them up before his sightless eyes, it seemed almost that those
dead orbs were again endowed with life.
“The paper is good,” said the poet, rubbing the pages against his cheek
in order that he might know its quality. “I hope the printing is clear.”
“Yes, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson, “a brand new fount, beautifully
clear.”
“Liberal margins, such as are beloved of the gentle reader?”
“Yes, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson, “beautiful wide margins. It will
make a fine page.”
“And they are printing the poem in three volumes?” asked the poet,
“with a new phase in each; and also they are omitting the name of the
author from the title page?”
“Yes, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson, “they are doing all that. All your
instructions are being carried out to the letter. By the way, would
you like a frontispiece in the first volume of the Wayfarer communing
for the first time with Earth, his Mother? I could get a chap I know
to draw it; last year he had a picture accepted at the Academy; and
Octavius would raise no objection.”
“No, no,” said the poet almost sternly.
“It was only a suggestion, you know, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson with
nervous humility. “You are not offended, old boy, are you?”
In answer the poet extended that weak left hand which he could hardly
raise. Dodson’s first impulse was to clasp the fragile fingers in his
own, which were of such power; but a glance at the countenance of the
blind poet caused this impulse to yield to a finer instinct. Without
in the least knowing why, Dodson sank to his knees and saluted the
extended hand with a reverence he could not have exceeded had it been
that of his sovereign.
LIV
Every evening thenceforward until the third volume had been set up
in type, James Dodson would return to the little room with further
instalments of the printed pages, newly from the press. And full many
weary hours did the poet’s aged father labour through the day and night
to compare the manuscript with the printed work. Weak and frail as the
old man now was, half sightless as were his eyes, he yet addressed
himself to this task with a joyful rapture. Sometimes, in the stress of
the gladness that overcame him, he would read aloud to the poet in his
thin, quavering tones, some of those passages whose quality he could
not forbear to acclaim.
At these times the blind poet, ever sitting by the hearth, would
listen, breathing deep, with head uplifted, and with strange emotions
flitting across his inexpressibly beautiful face. And then when through
sheer weariness the voice of the aged man had ceased to utter the
wonderful music, he himself, in his rich and rare tones, would take up
the theme; and he would speak the lines of ineffable majesty with a
justice so delicate that his aged father needed no longer to look at
the manuscript, but was able to verify the printed page by the poet’s
voice.
Sometimes these labours would even be conducted in the presence of
James Dodson. And although that robust denizen of the great world out
of doors, whenever he found himself in his natural element, could
never bring himself to believe that the labours he was undertaking with
such an all-consuming zeal were being conducted in the cause of reason
and sanity, no sooner did he enter the little room of an evening than
his scepticism fell from him like an outer garment.
It was not for him to understand the words that the poet and his
father recited with such a holy submission; they had no meanings for
his unaccustomed ears; but the dominion of the poet’s presence, which
sprang from that which was now upon his face, the wonderful serenity of
that sightless aspect filled the young man with an awe and a credulity
which he could not recognize as belonging to himself.
“I am going wrong,” he would say in his perplexity as he went his ways
about the great city, “and, of course, they are as wrong as they can
be--yet the marvellous thing is that they make you feel that all the
world is wrong, and that they are the only reasonable people in it!”
One evening, after Jimmy Dodson had sat in a kind of entrancement for
several hours while the poet had recited many passages, he was moved
to ask with dry lips, “I say, old boy, Homer and Milton were blind,
weren’t they?”
“Tradition has it so,” said the poet, and his sightless aspect was
suffused with that secret and beautiful smile that had come to haunt
poor Dodson in his dreams. “But what is ‘tradition’ but an adumbration
of the light that never was?”
On the evening that the last line of the poem had been passed for the
press with an astonishing thoroughness and celerity by the co-operation
of two minds which had to be almost independent of the use of the
eyes, the poet committed these final pages to the care of his faithful
emissary with further injunctions for their prosperity in the great
world out of doors.
“Let our little treatise have reticence, chastity, sobriety,” he said.
“I wish you could see the binding I have chosen,” said Jimmy Dodson.
“Octavius calls it very chaste indeed--you can’t think what an interest
Octavius is taking in the publication. Octavius made one error in his
life, which we will not refer to now, but he has turned out trumps over
this. He would give his ears to know the name of the author!”
“That is a secret you are pledged to respect,” said William Jordan in
his voice of soft irony.
“You can be quite easy about that, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson. “Wild
horses shall not drag it from me; and, of course, there is not a soul
in the world who would ever suspect that the author is you.”
“I trust you,” said the poet simply. “And there is only one further
charge with which I shall tax our friendship. I shall ask you to
collect all the papers that bear the impress of my hand, and lodge them
at the English Museum, in the custody of the English nation.”
James Dodson contrived to dissemble his bewildered surprise.
“Of course I will do so, old boy,” he said gravely and promptly. “I
will make a parcel of the manuscript now. It is too late to take it
round there to-night; but the first thing to-morrow I will take an hour
off from the office, and I will carry it to the English Museum myself.”
“Thank you, thank you,” said the poet. “I thank you in the name of
truth and of ages yet to be.”
LV
Some time during the forenoon of the following day the unprepossessing
outline of an undersized young man with a short black bristling
moustache, who wore a bowler hat, a pair of smart brown boots, and
trim overcoat of blue melton cloth with a velvet collar, might have
been observed in conference with one of the stalwart custodians of the
portals of a massive building in the purlieus of Bloomsbury. The young
man, who was somewhat pale and rather excited in his manner, bore under
his right arm a brown-paper parcel of not inconsiderable bulk.
“Can’t deal with it ’ere,” said the custodian of the portals, without
any display of amiability that would have incurred the charge of
excessive. “Better take it round to Mr. Tovey. First to the left,
second to the right when you come to the top of the second flight of
stairs.”
In the course of a few minutes the bearer of the brown-paper parcel
had made his way into the presence of Mr. Tovey--a bald-headed and
black-coated gentleman whose mien was one of determined and unalterable
impassiveness.
Mr. Tovey viewed the bearer of the parcel, and particularly the parcel
itself, with a polite disfavour, which, however, did not in any sense
transcend the bounds indicated by an official courtesy.
“The English Museum Authorities,” said Mr. Tovey, as his visitor
took the liberty of depositing the brown-paper parcel upon a table
without seeking permission to do so, “the English Museum Authorities
are not empowered to undertake the care of the written manuscripts or
typescripts of living persons.”
“Yes, but you see,” said the bearer of the parcel anxiously, “but you
see, the poor chap happens to be dying.”
“I am afraid, sir,” said Mr. Tovey, with a sympathy that was very
nicely poised, “that even that unfortunate contingency is not
sufficient to justify the Museum Authorities from breaking through
their fixed rule. That rule is perfectly explicit; it cannot admit the
manuscripts or typescripts of living persons.”
“Are there no exceptions?” said the bearer of the parcel.
“If exceptions there are,” said Mr. Tovey impressively, “and as I
speak there are none I can call to mind, they would only be in favour
of persons of such remarkable distinction that they would form no
precedent.”
“That is all right, then,” said the bearer of the parcel with an air of
relief, “because it happens that this is the work of the greatest poet
in the world.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Mr. Tovey with a very well-bred air.
The bearer of the parcel repeated his assertion.
“Is not that a somewhat comprehensive claim to advance on behalf of a
living person?” said Mr. Tovey, enunciating his words very delicately.
“Well, he seems to think so, at any rate,” said the bearer of the
parcel, “and I suppose he ought to know.”
“Would you mind informing me of the name of this accomplished person?”
said Mr. Tovey, with an effective combination of polite interest and
equally polite deprecation.
“His name is to be kept a secret,” said the bearer of the parcel. “He
doesn’t want it to be known.”
“I assume that his poems have been published?” said Mr. Tovey.
“Not yet,” said the bearer of the parcel; “but,” he added, with an
air of weight that was not without its effect, “they are going to be
published by Crumpett and Hawker on the twelfth of January.”
“Curious, curious,” said Mr. Tovey.
However, the announcement itself seemed in some measure to reassure
this very courteous black-coated gentleman, since he requested the
bearer of the parcel to untie the string that he might take a glance at
the manuscript. This the young man proceeded to do; and it must be said
that for one whose proud boast had once been that his self-possession
was invincible, his heart began to beat with a preposterous violence,
as soon as Mr. Tovey came to examine the contents of the parcel.
Jimmy Dodson narrowly scrutinized Mr. Tovey’s impassive countenance as
he ran his fingers through the pages of the manuscript, all stained and
defaced by contact with compositors’ pencils and with printers’ thumbs.
“Rather incoherent, is it not?” said Mr. Tovey mildly, as he turned the
pages over. “Is it not somewhat pagan in tone--that is, as far as there
is a tone--there does not appear to be any very definite conception of
Deity--and rather incoherent--rather incoherent. I am afraid this will
never do.”
The last by now familiar phrase seemed to pierce the heart and brain of
James Dodson.
“I--I suppose, sir,” he said with scared eyes, “you occupying a
responsible position in the English Museum, you would be rather a judge
of poetry?”
“I am not accustomed to make such a claim on my own behalf,” said Mr.
Tovey, in whose well-regulated bosom a sympathetic chord seemed to
have been touched, for at least he seemed to unbend a little and he
seemed to do it very nicely, “but perhaps I am entitled to say that
the Oxbridge Press paid me the compliment of inviting me to edit their
Chaucer, their Spenser, their Keats, their Felicia Hemans, and their
James Russell Lowell. And I have also competed for the Newdigate Prize.”
Jimmy Dodson strangled a groan. He clenched his hands in desperation.
“Well, all I can say is,” he said, breaking out with a violence
which was so unexpected that it somewhat alarmed the courteous and
self-possessed Mr. Tovey, “I don’t care what you’ve done or what
you haven’t done; I don’t care what you think or what you don’t
think, you’ve got there the manuscript of the greatest poem ever
written--ab-so-lute-ly the greatest ever written, mark you--and you’ve
got to have it whether you want it or not. Mind you, I know nothing
about poetry myself--never cared for it--never had time to read it--but
whether you believe it, or whether you don’t, I know I am speaking the
truth. I promised the poor chap who wrote this poem--he has been blind
for weeks and he is dying by inches--that I would carry his manuscript
to the English Museum--and here it is. And now you’ve got it you had
better take care of it--and just see that you do. Good-morning.”
Before the astonished Mr. Tovey could interpose a word of expostulation
and remonstrance, this somewhat ill-favoured and rather vulgar person
who had waxed so vehement all at once had passed from his ken; and he
descended the stairs and passed out of the doors of the building with a
violence of demeanour which not only scandalized the austere custodians
of its portals, but caused them to reprove him as he went by.
Mr. Tovey, when at last his very natural and proper astonishment
had permitted him to realize that this vulgarian had gone away, and
further, that his trimly kept domain had been encumbered with a piece
of brown paper and string and a thousand or so pages of foolscap all
smudged and dishevelled by contact with the printers, he rang his bell.
The summons was heeded by a young middle-aged gentleman who in years
might have been five-and-twenty, but who in manner, demeanour and
cultivated deference to all the things that were, foremost of whom was
Mr. Tovey himself, was of no particular period of life.
“Mr. Toplady,” said Mr. Tovey, with a well-bred concealment of what his
feelings had recently undergone, “I shall be grateful if you will ask
Mr. Bessy to ask Mr. Fairservice to ask Mr. MacFayden to ask Perry to
ask one of the porters to remove this parcel.”
Mr. Toplady bowed, thanked Mr. Tovey and withdrew delicately.
In a little while there came a knock on the door of Mr. Tovey’s domain,
and in response to that gentleman’s invitation, a stalwart son of
labour, six feet six inches high and broad in proportion, clad in a
bright brown uniform with a liberal display of gold braid, entered the
room, and removed the brown paper, the string, and also the manuscript
in a remarkably efficient, solemn, and dignified manner.
A quarter of an hour after his feat had been performed with such
admirable success, this same impressive gold-braided figure knocked
again on Mr. Tovey’s door and entered his domain.
“Beg pardon, sir,” said the stalwart, “but what is us to do with that
there parcel?”
Mr. Tovey looked up from his weekly perusal of the _Journal of
Literature_, to which he was a constant and esteemed contributor.
“The parcel?” he said. “What parcel, Wordsworth? Oh, yes, I think I
remember.” And then with a slightly humorous deprecation which had cost
him two-thirds of a lifetime to acquire, “Suppose, Wordsworth, you
light the fires with that parcel--and, Wordsworth, suppose you don’t
make a noise when you close the door.”
LVI
At eight o’clock in the evening of the same day when Jimmy Dodson made
his nightly pilgrimage to the little room, he was greeted eagerly by
him who kept the chimney-side.
“Our little treatise is in worthy hands at the English Museum?” he
said. “But, good friend, I am so persuaded of it that I do not ask you
to answer.”
“I do answer all the same, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson with a fervour
which was born of careful preparation. “I took it to the chief, the
head man, the curator or whatever they call him--you see, old boy, I
thought if I left it to an understrapper it might get mislaid.”
“It might, it might,” said the poet with a smile of approval. “This
little world of ours is so strange in its ways.”
“And what is more,” said Jimmy Dodson, “I told him what it was. I told
him it was absolutely the greatest poem in the world.”
“That was doubtless wise,” said the poet with his curious simplicity.
“Yet, what do you think, old boy?” said Jimmy Dodson with indignation.
“He as good as said he didn’t believe it. He as good as called me a
liar.”
“Ah,” said the poet, breathing deep. “And then--and then, in what
manner did you answer him?”
“Why, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson proudly, “I did precisely what you
would have done yourself. I whipped the string off the parcel; I handed
him the first page of the manuscript, and I said, ‘There it is; now
look at it for yourself!’”
“Oh good, oh brave!” cried he who was sightless. “And--and----?”
As his lips shaped the question, the breath of the dying poet came in
great heavy gasps. The face of the unhappy Dodson was set like a piece
of marble, but there was a curious intensity burning in his eyes.
“And--and? Why, what do _you_ think, old boy?” said the faithful
emissary, and he paused dramatically.
“He was silent,” said the poet. “He did not speak.”
“No, old boy, that is just where you are wrong,” said Jimmy Dodson with
an air of triumph. “He spoke right enough. You see, that chap couldn’t
help himself. At first I felt sure he would go clean out of his mind.
‘My God,’ he said, ‘tell me who is the author of this?’ ‘No,’ said I,
‘the authorship is to remain a dead secret.’ ‘_You_ are not the author
at any rate,’ he said, ‘a common, vulgar little chap like you.’ ‘No,’ I
said, ‘and it is no use pretending that I am; but all the same I have
promised the author that I would keep his secret; and what is more I
am going to keep it.’ ‘I shall see the publishers,’ he said. ‘The world
has a right to know who is the author of this.’ ‘By all means see them
if you like,’ I said, ‘but you will be none the wiser. They don’t know
any more than you do.’ Well, after that the poor old fellow--highly
respectable, too--University man, and so on--behaved as though he was
fairly up the pole. He swore he would know the author; he swore he
wouldn’t let me go out of that room until I had told him your name. You
see, that chap was simply mad keen on poetry; he had edited Chaucer and
Keats and those chaps for the Oxbridge Press. But no, I stood firm;
and when I left him, he said, ‘Well, sir, even if you won’t tell me
the name of the author, I may tell you that this priceless manuscript
will be placed among those we have of Shakespeare and Milton, for’--and
these are his very words, Luney, old boy--‘for,’ said he, ‘this
brown-paper parcel is a national possession.’”
When Jimmy Dodson had concluded his account of this remarkable scene at
the English Museum, and he ventured to look at the blind poet through
the tears that rendered his own eyes so dim, he was overcome by horror.
The sightless eyes of the poet were closed; his head was thrown back
in the chair; his breathing could no longer be heard. The illusion
of death was so complete that for an instant Dodson felt that he had
entered its presence, and that by his own too-faithful hand he had
slain his friend.
However, almost immediately the poet uttered a sigh. He then raised
his head, and opened his sightless eyes again. “Courage, Achilles!” he
could be heard to mutter faintly.
An hour of silence passed ere the voice of the poet was heard again. He
then addressed his unhappy friend in the manner that became the true
prince.
“Jimmy,” he said, “the world will never know what it owes to one strong
and faithful soul.”
Yet again the dying poet held forth his hand, which yet again received
the homage of his unhappy friend.
LVII
A divine patience sustained the poet through those weary days until
there came the hour in which the miracle of miracles was consummated,
and the printed and bound volumes of his labour, emerging at last from
all the vicissitudes of the press were at last laid on his knees.
The right hand he could not raise; and the left had no longer the power
to support the weight of the three volumes of _Reconciliation: A Poem_.
Therefore were they poised upon the poet’s knees, and his hands dangled
upon their covers helplessly.
“This perfunctory clay has only one other duty to discharge,” he said,
as a slow and calm radiance overspread his face, “ere it be released
from its bonds. I must await the verdict of the street-persons upon
my little treatise. I must stay yet awhile until some authentic voice
among them has spoken in their name. By that means I shall know that my
destiny is at last complete.”
His friend James Dodson assured him that that day copies of the poem
had been sent to fifty of the foremost English journals.
“It may be a month, old boy, before we hear what they have got to say
about it,” he said.
“A month,” said the poet with a slight shiver. “It is a long term. Yet
shall it seem as but a day.”
“They are always slow at reviewing poetry, you know,” said Jimmy
Dodson. “Perhaps they might even take longer than a month. You see, it
is such a long poem that it will take a lot of reading; and then, of
course, when they have read it, they will have to think about it before
they can express their opinion. In fact, old boy, they are certain to
have to think about it a good deal.”
“Truly,” said the poet, “they will have to think about it a good deal.”
From that time forth the days as they passed were fraught with
inexpressible pain for James Dodson. Up till the time of the issue
of this strange and bewildering poem in three volumes, which all
the expert minds of his acquaintance had promptly and unsparingly
condemned, he had sought to keep up his heart with the reflection,
frail though it was, that they might be mistaken after all. For he
gathered from the researches he had recently begun to conduct upon the
subject that such things had happened before.
Yet how incomprehensible it was, in the teeth of all the uncompromising
hostility that had been visited upon the manuscript itself, and
the remarkable apathy of all who had been brought in contact with
it--publishers, printers, proof-readers, the official at the English
Museum--that the author himself, lying all broken in the clutch of
death, should yet possess the occult and mysterious power to convince
such a one as James Dodson against his judgment, his reason, his
knowledge of the world, and all the standards by which he understood
life, that his own extravagant estimate, his own ridiculous,
preposterous, overweening estimate of the merits of his work should yet
derive an ample sanction from the presence of him who proclaimed it.
“When I am away from that place I know the poor chap is hopelessly
mad,” Jimmy Dodson would say to himself in his unhappy self-communion;
“and I know his old father is hopelessly mad as well; it is proved by
the judgment of others; yet as soon as I enter that accursed little
room behind that accursed little shop they both seem to have such
marvellous sanity that they make me ashamed of my own.”
From the time his friend’s poem was given to the world Jimmy Dodson
spent his days hoping against hope. In the face of such emphatic
denial of the merits of the work it called for great courage to
venture to believe that after all it might vindicate itself. Yet day
after day he scanned the columns of the newspapers in the vain search
for a vindication that he might carry to the dying man. Nor was he able
to elicit any favourable tidings from the firm of Crumpett and Hawker.
Their interest in the work terminated with its issue to the press. They
had not engaged to advertise it, nor to canvass for its sale among
their clients the booksellers. Therefore, at the end of the first
month of its issue not only had it been passed over in silence by the
newspapers, but also not a single copy had been sold to the public.
In the face of these cold facts Dodson had scarcely the courage to
approach his dying friend, yet an irresistible power seemed to draw
him to his presence. It pierced his heart to observe the ludicrous,
pathetic, overweening faith of the dying poet in that which he had
given to the world. As he grew weaker and weaker in body, this sense of
achievement seemed to mount to greater heights in his veins, so that
the unhappy Dodson felt that he had no alternative but to continue to
enact the amazing role he had already played so many times.
One evening he said to the white-haired man who welcomed him into the
shop, “I suppose we must keep it up till the end comes, but God knows
it is wearing me out. I have lost a stone in weight; I can’t eat my
meals; I can’t sleep at night. Old man, this business is killing James
Dodson by inches; but I suppose he must keep it up to the bitter end.”
“Yes,” said the old man faintly, “the truth must be concealed from
the dying Achilles that the great world out of doors has rejected
his labours. Yet it is meet that we ourselves should continue in our
homage to this mighty one, for we do but anticipate the verdict of ages
unborn.”
“Verdict of ages unborn!” said Dodson, with contempt and bitterness,
for his own dire suffering appeared to be overcoming his resolve;
“there will be no verdict of ages unborn if we go on at this rate. Not
a single copy has been sold up to date. If I could only scrape together
the money, which I can’t, I would insert a full-page advertisement
in the _Times_. I see the _Journal of Literature_ has acknowledged
it among the books received, but they take care not to give a bit of
recognition to the author. They must have found out that he’s a long
while a-dying.”
As the unhappy Dodson entered this evening the presence of the poet, he
seemed to discern a curious anguish in the eyes of his dying friend.
“Jimmy,” said the poet in a scarcely audible voice, “the hand of death
is upon me. There hardly remains more than a day and a night of the
sands of life. Yet I would like to hear that my labours have received
some sort of sanction. Have they made no sign? Have they said nothing?”
The entreaty in the sightless gaze filled the unhappy Dodson with a
kind of reckless despair.
“Have they said nothing?” he said in choking accents, yet his strange
cockney speech sounded like music, so intense was the emotion with
which it vibrated. “Have they made no sign, old boy? Why--why, you
can’t believe what a sensation your poem is making! They are printing
a second edition, and it will run to--to a hundred thousand copies.
The--the first was--was over ten thousand, you know, and that has
already been over subscribed. The papers are full of it--greatest
thing ever done--better than Homer, better than Shakespeare and so
on, although, of course, old boy, they put it more literary. I wish
you could see the face of Octavius. He is the proudest man in London
because Crumpett and Hawker happen to have had the luck to publish it.
But Octavius deserves credit, doesn’t he, old boy, because from the
first he saw its merits? He says poetry is going to be fashionable.
Duchesses in fur coats drive up in their motors to inquire the name of
the author, and when Octavius says he can’t tell ’em because he don’t
know, they get--well, they get _ratty_! I believe Octavius would give
his ears to know the name of the author. He has offered to double my
screw if I will tell him. And every paper in London pesters us to death
for your photograph and a few details concerning your life.”
“And--and the persons in the street, do you think they read with
knowledge?”
“I am sure they do. As I went round the corner to get my lunch to-day I
saw two chaps with copies of it under their arms.”
“And--and in what manner do they express themselves concerning it? Do
you suppose they understand? Do you suppose these poor purblind ones
accept the ampler interpretation of human destiny?”
“Of course they do, old boy--that is as well as they can. I don’t
know much about literature myself, but some of the reviews that are
coming out in the highest quarters are enough to make you dizzy.
They--they say this--this poem of yours, old boy, is going--is going to
rev-revolutionize thought and--and philosophy and--and everything else.”
“My friend,” said the dying man softly, “I would have you bring me the
words of one among these poor street-persons; and the aged man, my
father, shall read them to me; and then--and then I shall ask no more.”
The face of Dodson was the colour of snow. His eyes were full of
despair.
“Very well, old boy,” he stammered, “I--I will bring you one of these
reviews--and--and you shall hear for yourself what they think about
this marvellous work of yours.”
“Bring it to-morrow evening at eight o’clock,” said the poet in a voice
that could hardly be heard. “I will wait until then.”
“I will not fail,” promised his friend.
As Dodson burst out of the shop in a paroxysm of wild despair, he
prayed that when he came on the morrow, this mighty spirit which
contended with death should have yielded already.
LVIII
When on the following evening the tap was heard upon the shutters, and
it was answered by the white-haired old man, it was a haggard, unkempt,
wild-eyed figure that stood upon the threshold, trembling in every limb.
“Does he still live?” was the first question uttered, yet James Dodson
had hardly the power to frame it.
“He lives, and he awaits you,” said the old man.
The haggard figure on the threshold gave a groan of anguish.
“Is--is he still in his right mind?” asked the unhappy Dodson.
“The noble mind of Achilles was never so valiant,” said the old man,
“as now that the sands of life have so nearly run.”
Dodson reeled as he entered the shop.
“I’ve been praying all day that he would be taken,” he said hoarsely
in the ear of the old man. “You see, I’ve done my best--but--but I’m
no scholar. I--I’ve not had the education. I’ve got a chap I know
to give me a hand--he reviews novels for _The Talisman_. It was the
best I could do in the time. We’ve laid it in all we knew--better
than Shakespeare, better than Homer, better than the coves who did
the Bible--oh, I tell you we’ve not spared an ounce of the paint! But
you must read it quickly, because you know, although the sense is all
right--absolutely the greatest thing of its kind in the world, and so
on--it’s a bit weak in places, and the poor old boy is so bright these
days that he might find out what we’ve done--and if he should do that
he might understand it all--and--and--if--he--understood--it--all----”
Dodson covered his eyes with his hands. As for the last time he
tottered through the shop and crossed the threshold of the little room,
his powerful stunted frame seemed to be overborne.
The poet still kept his chair beside the bright hearth. The grey hue of
dissolution was already upon his cheeks. But to that friend who for the
last time encountered their gaze, it seemed that those orbs which so
long had been sightless, had in their last extremity been accorded the
power of vision.
The prey of pity and terror, Dodson averted his gaze helplessly.
“You have brought the verdict, faithful one?” said the poet; and the
young man understood, even in the pass to which he himself was come,
how greatly the noble voice transcended in its quality all that had
ever sounded in his ears.
“I have, old boy,” said Dodson defiantly, yet his own voice was like
the croak of a raven.
“Begin, O my father,” said the dying poet.
With an automatic obedience which neither sought to comprehend nor
to control, Dodson’s hands dived into the recesses of his overcoat.
Therefrom they produced a reporter’s notebook, half-full of a hasty and
clumsy pencil scrawl. This he gave to the old man.
“It begins here,” he said, indicating the place in an urgent whisper.
“It is not very clear, but I hadn’t much time. Can you make it out?
Read it as quickly as ever you can, and then perhaps he will not notice
that it is not all that it might be.”
“Begin, O my father!” said the gentle voice of the dying man.
Immediately the thin, high, quavering tones of the old man began to
read. At his first words the figure beside the hearth seemed to uplift
his head, and to strain all his senses; the glazed and sightless eyes
were enkindled; a strange rapture played about the parted lips.
Dodson listened in a kind of dull terror. He dared not look at the face
of the poet, nor yet at that of him who read. As he sat in impotence
midway between the two, with fire and ice in his veins, he could not
follow the words that proceeded from the old man’s lips.
At last it was borne in upon him that a miracle had been wrought. The
white-haired, feeble, half-blind old creature was not crooning his own
crude pencilled phrases, which he knew to be so inept that he felt them
to be a blasphemous mockery.
That which proceeded from the lips of this aged man was couched in
terms of wisdom and beauty. It began by setting forth briefly the place
of the world-poet in the hierarchy of mankind, which was consonant with
mankind’s own place in the hierarchy of nature. It indicated briefly
the scope and status of the world-poet; and in a short, powerful,
lucid argument it proceeded to add another to the group which time was
constantly conspiring to limit.
It indicated that which went to the making of a world-poet; a thousand
years of prayer and vigil; of unceasing strife against the things that
were. It indicated what the world-poet was in essence and in substance;
how he transcended all men in their several stations because he was as
they were themselves, yet by his power of vision rendered infinitely
more; how this divine manifestation of the truth that all the world
was kin, was a doctor, a lawyer, a soldier, a teacher, a statesman, a
tiller of the earth, a peruser of books.
It proceeded briefly to rehearse the theme of this the latest of the
world-poets in the order of his coming, who was yet destined to take
precedence of them all. Differentiating classic art from the romantic,
and claiming for the poet of the _Reconciliation_ the foremost place
in the nobler school, inasmuch that his poem is like a pool whose
depths are so measureless that its surface is tranquil, and yet so
clear that it becomes a mirror that faithfully reflects the features
of all that gaze therein, it recounted how the poem treats the life of
man in all its phases. The mighty theme commences with that unspeakable
suffering by which Man was taught to speak, that strange ascension
from the higher anthropoids to a partial rationalism, culminating in
that stage of “Reason” which offered the ill-starred creature Man, in
lieu of an ample garment for his solace, protection, and utility, a
kind of ridiculous swaddling-clothes, in which he could neither walk
nor yet inhabit himself with decency. It reveals Man, the Wayfarer,
ever straining after that which he knows not how to attain, until worn
out with the heat and dust and the bloody conflict of the battle, the
unhappy Warrior-traveller commits himself, a tired, baffled, war-worn
child of destiny, yet grateful in his weariness, to the arms of Earth,
his mother, again.
To the poet, Man’s terrestrial life, in the present stage of his
development, is a progress through an eternal forest; and it submits
itself to three phases--bewilderment, terror, pity. Through these he
conducts the Warrior-Soul ever seeking for “truth,” ever engaged in a
titanic struggle with his “reason”--that sword with which he wounds
himself because he comprehends not how to use it rightly--yet ever
seeking to reconcile the primal instinct of his own divinity with “the
facts of experience” which in vain he strives to overthrow.
He begins with Man’s childhood. When to the mocking amazement of Earth,
his primitive mother, the heroic but ill-starred Warrior has wrested
from Destiny the power of speech, of thought, of will to bear his head
erectly, he forsakes his half-brothers, the beasts of the field, and in
a spirit of wonder and inquiry fares forth until he comes to a great
city. In its purlieus he grows bewildered by the numberless things
he cannot understand, and by the reception of answers that he cannot
adjust to his partial development. Yet the Warrior is ever sustained
by the sense of his own prowess, and proud of that which it has already
achieved, he believes that when it can address its questions to the
Whole of that which lies before it, it will comprehend it all.
The second phase of the poem opens with the Warrior’s tragic discovery
that his innate sense of divinity is only comparative; that although he
is Man in relation to the Ape, in his relation to the universe he is no
more than Man-Ape gibbering upon the branches of the Eternal Forest;
and that the sense of his own divinity is founded upon his superiority
to the beasts of the field. In this tragic phase, the Warrior, overcome
by disillusionment, alternately hacks himself with his sword, and at
other times seeks to cast it away from him. Overcome by horror he
faints in his weakness by the wayside, yet awakens from his hideous
nightmare to find his body weltering in blood, and the sword, all
hacked and jagged, still in his hand.
The third phase is that in which the Warrior returns again to Earth,
his rude mother, whom an overweening exaltation in his prowess has
led him to forsake. Having returned to her as a babe, and lain at
suck at the brown breasts of the sweet savage, she caresses him and
croons her strange songs in his ears; and to give him pleasure and
sustenance--because the Warrior whom she has long mourned as lost has
ever been the favourite among all her children--she whispers to him as
he lies again in her bosom that he is indeed divine.
Girt by this forgiveness, and clad in the valour of his divinity once
again, a new and ampler strength is given to the Warrior’s right hand.
He learns for the first time in what manner to use his Sword. Yet
no sooner does he learn so to do than he understands how Earth, his
mother, has deceived him, in order that she may give pleasure to the
favourite among all her children, who has returned to lie at her brown
breasts. And the Warrior blesses her for the deception, as otherwise he
could never have received the strength in his right hand; and without
that strength he could not have learned to use the sword of his reason.
The poem closes in the exaltation of an infinite pity and tenderness,
for the Warrior, blind and spent and weak, with the Sword all broken
and jagged upon his knees, has had his inquiries answered, and ceasing
to struggle and to resent, in his concern for all his brothers who have
not yet learned to use their swords, he defends their amazing formulas
and shibboleths and extraordinary self-deceptions, whereby they seek to
acquire the strength so to do. And in a passage of tender irony that
has no parallel he entreats his poor brothers to continue to deceive
themselves; and the Warrior concludes with an invocation to Earth, his
mother, for her loving and wise deception, whereby the proudest of her
sons has come to lie at peace.
As the white-haired man continued to read the appreciation of the
poem, which he himself had wrought, thereby re-enacting the deception
of the Mother of the Warrior-Soul, he revealed to the dying poet how
his work in all the wonderful assemblance of its qualities surpassed
any other that had been given to the world. He appraised the metre
which only the highest inspiration would have dared to employ; he
appraised the miraculous blend of gravity, sonority, sweetness, purity;
the ever-gathering range and power of those mighty cadences, which
swept the whole gamut of the emotions as though they were the strings
of a lyre. He showed how the people of unborn ages would be able to
derive stimulus and sanction for their labours; how the poet’s divine
simplicity was such that he who ran might read; how the official
“souls” who infest the groves of Academe would be able to cherish it
for its “art”; how the humblest street-persons who walked the streets
of the great city would be able to cherish it for its truth. This
epic of Man the Warrior ever trampling the brakes of the Eternal
Forest, cutting out the path with the Sword in his right hand in the
fruitless search for that which will reconcile him to his partial
vision, with the nobly pitiful irony of its conclusion that in the
present stage of the Warrior’s development the reconciliation must be
sought by compromise--this epic had in its austere mingling together
of those elements of tragedy which purge man’s nature with the healing
and co-ordinating properties which reconcile diverse and conflicting
factors of experience with the primal belief of Man Himself, a
universal power which had been given to no other poet in the modern or
the ancient world. And the old man concluded with the prophecy that
when “Civilization” itself had sunk to a mere shibboleth of the remote
age of “Reason,” the half-divine, half-barbarous music of the unknown
poet of the _Reconciliation_, would prove the only _via media_ between
the epoch of ampler vision and that fantastic shadowography of the long
ago when Man seemed other than He was.
Throughout the reading of this appraisement of his labours, the
blind-eyed poet seemed to vibrate with every word that came upon his
ears. As each phrase uttered by that thin, high, quavering voice
addressed the entranced being of the poet, the frail and broken form
seemed to sway in unison therewith; and the secret and beautiful smile
lurking within the hollows of the cheeks seemed to illuminate even the
sightless eyes, so that poor Dodson, who sat listening faintly to the
old man’s words, was tortured continually by the illusion that the
sight had returned to the eyes of his dying friend.
As the old man, never failing to give expression to his own personal
vindication of that which the poet had wrought, won nearer and nearer
towards the end, the dying man was heard to murmur, “Courage, Achilles!
Courage, Achilles!” for he seemed almost to fear that consciousness
would forsake him before he could realize his own apotheosis to the
full.
When the old man in a kind of triumph and defiance had come to the
end of his task, the radiance upon the poet’s face was starlike in its
lustre.
“Oh, oh, he can see! he can see!” muttered Dodson, in a wild
consternation. “He has the sight in his eyes.”
The poet had stretched forth his weak left hand as though in quest of
something.
He shaped a phrase with his lips, which Dodson had not the power to
understand.
“What does he say?” cried Dodson wildly.
However, the white-haired man appeared to understand. He took from the
table not the carefully written pages from which he had been reading,
but the threepenny reporter’s notebook in which Dodson’s hastily
pencilled criticism had been scribbled. To Dodson’s profound wonder the
old man carried this over to where the poet lay and placed it in the
outstretched left hand. But the hand had not the power to hold it now.
The poet was heard to mutter some inaudible words.
The old man bore the somewhat unclean threepenny reporter’s notebook,
with its dilapidated green cover, to the lips of the poet, who pressed
them upon it with a half-joyful gesture. In the act he had ceased to
breathe.
It was left to poor Dodson to discover that the act of the divine
clemency had, after many days, been extended to the Warrior-Soul. The
old man was still holding the threepenny reporter’s notebook to the
lips of the mighty dead, when Dodson tore it from his hand. Clutching
it convulsively the young man ran forth of the room and headlong
through the shop. Bare-headed, wild-eyed he reached the frost-bound,
fog-engirdled darkness of the January streets. As he ran up one street
and down another, not knowing nor desiring to know whither he was
bound, yet with that in his clutch ever pressed to his own white lips,
he cried out, “Oh Luney, Luney, I wish now I had never known you!”
LIX
In the course of the afternoon of the following day, the old man, as
he was clearing away a quantity of _débris_ that choked the fire-grate
in the little room, heard a tap upon the closed shutters of the shop.
Supposing it to proceed from the hand of that blind agent of providence
to whom the world was so much indebted, he left his occupation and went
forth to open the door.
Upon the threshold of the shop he discovered an elderly, grizzled,
grey-bearded man, a total stranger to him. The face of the stranger was
of great resolution.
No sooner had the old man opened the door of the shop and beheld this
unexpected appearance, than the man upon the threshold looked into
his eyes. Suddenly he swept the hat from his head, and his grey hairs
fluttered in the icy January wind.
“I think, sir,” he said in a harsh, strange accent, which yet was that
of awe, “I think, sir, I stand in the presence of the poet.”
The old man recoiled a step from his visitor in mute surprise.
“Forgive me, sir,” said his visitor, “forgive the importunity of the
vulgar, but I am hardly to blame. I have come all the way from Aberdeen
to look upon the poet. You see, I have been a reviewer of books for the
_Caledonian Journal_ for fifty years, but a month ago I received a book
from which my pen has refrained. But I have not been able to refrain
my eyes from its author. To-day, upon my arrival from Aberdeen, I went
direct to the publishers, who at first even denied an acquaintance with
the poet’s name, but ultimately I found a young man in their office who
sent me here.”
“The poet is not I,” said the old man humbly.
The visitor appeared surprised and incredulous.
“If you are not the poet, sir,” he said, “I am sure you are a near
kinsman.”
The old man peered at the grim features of his visitor with his
half-blind eyes. “You appear to be simple and gentle,” he said softly.
“Perhaps you will follow.”
The old man led his visitor into the shop, into the little room, which
was now deserted, and thence up the stairs, into the small chamber
lighted with dim candles, in which the poet lay.
As soon as the visitor beheld that which was therein contained, he sank
to his knees by its side. He remained in that attitude a long while.
When he arose the aged man was gazing upon him with his half-blind
eyes. They confronted one another like a pair of children.
Suddenly the visitor leaned across the bed in an act of further homage
to the lifeless clay.
“Why do you do that?” said the white-haired man at his side.
“Why do I do this?” said the other, and his powerful spreading northern
speech appeared to strike the walls of the tiny chamber. “Why do I do
this? I am afraid, sir, it must be left to my great great grandchildren
to answer your question.”
THE END
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