Traffics and Discoveries
by
Rudyard Kipling
Part 5 out of 6
I followed his eye and saw white flags fluttering before a drum and fife
band and a knot of youths in sweaters gathered round the dummy breech of a
four-inch gun which they were feeding at express rates.
"The attacks don't interfere with you if you flag yourself, Sir," the boy
explained. "That's a Second Camp team from the Technical Schools loading
against time for a bet."
We picked our way deviously through the busy groups. Apparently it was not
etiquette to notice a Guard officer, and the youths at the twenty-five
pounder were far too busy to look up. I watched the cleanly finished hoist
and shove-home of the full-weight shell from a safe distance, when I
became aware of a change among the scattered boys on the common, who
disappeared among the hillocks to an accompaniment of querulous whistles.
A boy or two on bicycles dashed from corps to corps, and on their arrival
each corps seemed to fade away.
The youths at loading practice did not pause for the growing hush round
them, nor did the drum and fife band drop a single note. Bayley exploded
afresh. "The Schools are preparing for our attack, by Jove! I wonder who's
directin' 'em. Do _you_ know?"
The warrior of the Eighth District looked up shrewdly.
"I saw Mr. Cameron speaking to Mr. Levitt just as the Guard went up the
road. 'E's our 'ead-master, Mr. Cameron, but Mr. Levitt, of the Sixth
District, is actin' as senior officer on the ground this Saturday. Most
likely Mr. Levitt is commandin'."
"How many corps are there here?" I asked.
"Oh, bits of lots of 'em--thirty or forty, p'r'aps, Sir. But the whistles
says they've all got to rally on the Board Schools. 'Ark! There's the
whistle for the Private Schools! They've been called up the ground at the
double."
"Stop!" cried a bearded man with a watch, and the crews dropped beside the
breech wiping their brows and panting.
"Hullo! there's some attack on the Schools," said one. "Well, Marden, you
owe me three half-crowns. I've beaten your record. Pay up."
The boy beside us tapped his foot fretfully as he eyed his companions
melting among the hillocks, but the gun-team adjusted their bets without
once looking up.
The ground rose a little to a furze-crowned ridge in the centre so that I
could not see the full length of it, but I heard a faint bubble of blank
in the distance.
"The Saturday allowance," murmured Bayley. "War's begun, but it wouldn't
be etiquette for us to interfere. What are you saying, my child?"
"Nothin', Sir, only--only I don't think the Guard will be able to come
through on so narrer a front, Sir. They'll all be jammed up be'ind the
ridge if _we_'ve got there in time. It's awful sticky for guns at the end
of our ground, Sir."
"I'm inclined to think you're right, Moltke. The Guard is hung up:
distinctly so. Old Vee will have to cut his way through. What a pernicious
amount of blank the kids seem to have!"
It was quite a respectable roar of battle that rolled among the hillocks
for ten minutes, always out of our sight. Then we heard the "Cease Fire"
over the ridge.
"They've sent for the Umpires," the Board School boy squeaked, dancing on
one foot. "You've been hung up, Sir. I--I thought the sand-pits 'ud stop
you."
Said one of the jerseyed hobbledehoys at the gun, slipping on his coat:
"Well, that's enough for this afternoon. I'm off," and moved to the
railings without even glancing towards the fray.
"I anticipate the worst," said Bayley with gravity after a few minutes.
"Hullo! Here comes my disgraced corps!"
The Guard was pouring over the ridge--a disorderly mob--horse, foot, and
guns mixed, while from every hollow of the ground about rose small boys
cheering shrilly. The outcry was taken up by the parents at the railings,
and spread to a complete circle of cheers, handclappings, and waved
handkerchiefs.
Our Eighth District private cast away restraint and openly capered. "We
got 'em! We got 'em!" he squealed.
The grey-green flood paused a fraction of a minute and drew itself into
shape, coming to rest before Bayley. Verschoyle saluted.
"Vee, Vee," said Bayley. "Give me back my legions. Well, I hope you're
proud of yourself?"
"The little beasts were ready for us. Deuced well posted too," Verschoyle
replied. "I wish you'd seen that first attack on our flank. Rather
impressive. Who warned 'em?"
"I don't know. I got my information from a baby in blue plush breeches.
Did they do well?"
"Very decently indeed. I've complimented their C.O. and buttered the whole
boiling." He lowered his voice. "As a matter o' fact, I halted five good
minutes to give 'em time to get into position."
"Well, now we can inspect our Foreign Service corps. We sha'n't need the
men for an hour, Vee."
"Very good, Sir. Colour-sergeants!" cried Verschoyle, raising his voice,
and the cry ran from company to company. Whereupon the officers left their
men, people began to climb over the railings, and the regiment dissolved
among the spectators and the school corps of the city.
"No sense keeping men standing when you don't need 'em," said Bayley.
"Besides, the Schools learn more from our chaps in an afternoon than they
can pick up in a month's drill. Look at those Board-schoolmaster captains
buttonholing old Purvis on the art of war!"
"Wonder what the evening papers'll say about this," said Pigeon.
"You'll know in half an hour," Burgard laughed. "What possessed you to
take your ponies across the sand-pits, Pij?"
"Pride. Silly pride," said the Canadian.
We crossed the common to a very regulation paradeground overlooked by a
statue of our Queen. Here were carriages, many and elegant, filled with
pretty women, and the railings were lined with frockcoats and top hats.
"This is distinctly social," I suggested to Kyd.
"Ra-ather. Our F.S. corps is nothing if not correct, but Bayley'll sweat
'em all the same."
I saw six companies drawn up for inspection behind lines of long sausage-
shaped kit-bags. A band welcomed us with "A Life on the Ocean Wave."
"What cheek!" muttered Verschoyle. "Give 'em beans, Bayley."
"I intend to," said the Colonel, grimly. "Will each of you fellows take a
company, please, and inspect 'em faithfully. '_En état de partir_' is
their little boast, remember. When you've finished you can give 'em a
little pillow-fighting."
"What does the single cannon on those men's sleeves mean?" I asked.
"That they're big gun-men, who've done time with the Fleet," Bayley
returned. "Any F.S. corps that has over twenty per cent big-gun men thinks
itself entitled to play 'A Life on the Ocean Wave'--when it's out of
hearing of the Navy."
"What beautiful stuff they are! What's their regimental average?"
"It ought to be five eight, height, thirty-eight, chest, and twenty-four
years, age. What is it?" Bayley asked of a Private.
"Five nine and half, Sir, thirty-nine, twenty-four and a half," was the
reply, and he added insolently, "_En tat de partir_." Evidently that F.S.
corps was on its mettle ready for the worst.
"What about their musketry average?" I went on.
"Not my pidgin," said Bayley. "But they wouldn't be in the corps a day if
they couldn't shoot; I know _that_ much. Now I'm going to go through 'em
for socks and slippers."
The kit-inspection exceeded anything I had ever dreamed. I drifted from
company to company while the Guard officers oppressed them. Twenty per
cent, at least, of the kits were shovelled out on the grass and gone
through in detail.
"What have they got jumpers and ducks for?" I asked of Harrison.
"For Fleet work, of course. _En tat de partir_ with an F. S. corps means
they are amphibious."
"Who gives 'em their kit--Government?"
"There is a Government allowance, but no C. O. sticks to it. It's the same
as paint and gold-leaf in the Navy. It comes out of some one's pockets.
How much does your kit cost you?"--this to the private in front of us.
"About ten or fifteen quid every other year, I suppose," was the answer.
"Very good. Pack your bag--quick."
The man knelt, and with supremely deft hands returned all to the bag,
lashed and tied it, and fell back.
"Arms," said Harrison. "Strip and show ammunition."
The man divested himself of his rolled greatcoat and haversack with one
wriggle, as it seemed to me; a twist of a screw removed the side plate of
the rifle breech (it was not a bolt action). He handed it to Harrison with
one hand, and with the other loosed his clip-studded belt.
"What baby cartridges!" I exclaimed. "No bigger than bulletted breech-
caps."
"They're the regulation .256," said Harrison. "No one has complained of
'em yet. They expand a bit when they arrive.... Empty your bottle, please,
and show your rations."
The man poured out his water-bottle and showed the two-inch emergency tin.
Harrison passed on to the next, but I was fascinated by the way in which
the man re-established himself amid his straps and buckles, asking no help
from either side.
"How long does it take you to prepare for inspection?" I asked him.
"Well, I got ready this afternoon in twelve minutes," he smiled. "I didn't
see the storm-cone till half-past three. I was at the Club."
"Weren't a good many of you out of town?"
"Not _this_ Saturday. We knew what was coming. You see, if we pull through
the inspection we may move up one place on the roster for foreign
service.... You'd better stand back. We're going to pillow-fight."
The companies stooped to the stuffed kit-bags, doubled with them
variously, piled them in squares and mounds, passed them from shoulder to
shoulder like buckets at a fire, and repeated the evolution.
"What's the idea?" I asked of Verschoyle, who, arms folded behind him, was
controlling the display. Many women had descended from the carriages, and
were pressing in about us admiringly.
"For one thing, it's a fair test of wind and muscle, and for another it
saves time at the docks. We'll suppose this first company to be drawn up
on the dock-head and those five others still in the troop-train. How would
you get their kit into the ship?"
"Fall 'em all in on the platform, march'em to the gangways," I answered,
"and trust to Heaven and a fatigue party to gather the baggage and drunks
in later."
"Ye-es, and have half of it sent by the wrong trooper. I know _that_
game," Verschoyle drawled. "We don't play it any more. Look!"
He raised his voice, and five companies, glistening a little and breathing
hard, formed at right angles to the sixth, each man embracing his sixty-
pound bag.
"Pack away," cried Verschoyle, and the great bean-bag game (I can compare
it to nothing else) began. In five minutes every bag was passed along
either arm of the T and forward down the sixth company, who passed,
stacked, and piled them in a great heap. These were followed by the
rifles, belts, greatcoats, and knapsacks, so that in another five minutes
the regiment stood, as it were, stripped clean.
"Of course on a trooper there'd be a company below stacking the kit away,"
said Verschoyle, "but that wasn't so bad."
"Bad!" I cried. "It was miraculous!"
"Circus-work--all circus-work!" said Pigeon. "It won't prevent 'em bein'
sick as dogs when the ship rolls." The crowd round us applauded, while the
men looked meekly down their self-conscious noses.
A little grey-whiskered man trotted up to the Boy.
"Have we made good, Bayley?" he said. "Are we _en tat de partir_?"
"That's what I shall report," said Bayley, smiling.
"I thought my bit o' French 'ud draw you," said the little man, rubbing
his hands.
"Who is he?" I whispered to Pigeon.
"Ramsay--their C.O. An old Guard captain. A keen little devil. They say he
spends six hundred a year on the show. He used to be in the Lincolns till
he came into his property."
"Take 'em home an' make 'em drunk," I heard Bayley say. "I suppose you'll
have a dinner to celebrate. But you may as well tell the officers of E
company that I don't think much of them. I sha'n't report it, but their
men were all over the shop."
"Well, they're young, you see," Colonel Ramsay began.
"You're quite right. Send 'em to me and I'll talk to 'em. Youth is the
time to learn."
"Six hundred a year," I repeated to Pigeon. "That must be an awful tax on
a man. Worse than in the old volunteering days."
"That's where you make your mistake," said Verschoyle. "In the old days a
man had to spend his money to coax his men to drill because they weren't
the genuine article. You know what I mean. They made a favour of putting
in drills, didn't they? And they were, most of 'em, the children we have
to take over at Second Camp, weren't they? Well, now that a C. O. is sure
of his _men_, now that he hasn't to waste himself in conciliating an'
bribin', an' beerin' _kids_, he doesn't care what he spends on his corps,
because every pound tells. Do you understand?"
"I see what you mean, Vee. Having the male material guaranteed----"
"And trained material at that," Pigeon put in. "Eight years in the
schools, remember, as well as----"
"Precisely. A man rejoices in working them up. That's as it should be," I
said.
"Bayly's saying the very same to those F. S. pups," said Verschoyle.
The Boy was behind us, between two young F. S. officers, a hand on the
shoulder of each.
"Yes, that's all doocid interesting," he growled paternally. "But you
forget, my sons, now that your men are bound to serve, you're trebly bound
to put a polish on 'em. You've let your company simply go to seed. Don't
try and explain. I've told all those lies myself in my time. It's only
idleness. _I_ know. Come and lunch with me to-morrow and I'll give you a
wrinkle or two in barracks." He turned to me.
"Suppose we pick up Vee's defeated legion and go home. You'll dine with us
to-night. Good-bye, Ramsay. Yes, you're _en état de partir_, right enough.
You'd better get Lady Gertrude to talk to the Armity if you want the corps
sent foreign. I'm no politician."
We strolled away from the great white statue of the Widow, with sceptre,
orb, and crown, that looked toward the city, and regained the common,
where the Guard battalion walked with the female of its species and the
children of all its relatives. At sight of the officers the uniforms began
to detach themselves and gather in companies. A Board School corps was
moving off the ground, headed by its drums and fifes, which it assisted
with song. As we drew nearer we caught the words, for they were launched
with intention:--
'Oo is it mashes the country nurse?
The Guardsman!
'Oo is it takes the lydy's purse?
The Guardsman!
Calls for a drink, and a mild cigar,
Batters a sovereign down on the bar,
Collars the change and says "Ta-ta!"
The Guardsman!
"Why, that's one of old Jemmy Fawne's songs. I haven't heard it in ages,"
I began.
"Little devils!" said Pigeon.
"Speshul! Extra speshul! Sports Edition!" a newsboy cried. "'Ere y'are,
Captain. Defeat o' the Guard!"
"I'll buy a copy," said the Boy, as Pigeon blushed wrathfully. "I must, to
see how the Dove lost his mounted company." He unfolded the flapping sheet
and we crowded round it.
"'_Complete Rout of the Guard,_'" he read. "'_Too Narrow a Front._' That's
one for you, Vee! '_Attack Anticipated by Mr. Levitt, B. A._' Aha! '_The
Schools Stand Fast._'"
"Here's another version," said Kyd, waving a tinted sheet. "'_To your
tents, O Israel! The Hebrew Schools stop the Mounted Troops._' Pij, were
you scuppered by Jewboys?"
"'_Umpires Decide all Four Guns Lost,_'" Bayley went on. "By Jove,
there'll have to be an inquiry into this regrettable incident, Vee!"
"I'll never try to amuse the kids again," said the baited Verschoyle.
"Children and newspapers are low things.... And I was hit on the nose by a
wad, too! They oughtn't to be allowed blank ammunition!"
So we leaned against the railings in the warm twilight haze while the
battalion, silently as a shadow, formed up behind us ready to be taken
over. The heat, the hum of the great city, as it might have been the hum
of a camped army, the creaking of the belts, and the well-known faces bent
above them, brought back to me the memory of another evening, years ago,
when Verschoyle and I waited for news of guns missing in no sham fight.
"A regular Sanna's Post, isn't it?" I said at last. "D'you remember, Vee--
by the market-square--that night when the wagons went out?"
Then it came upon me, with no horror, but a certain mild wonder, that we
had waited, Vee and I, that night for the body of Boy Bayley; and that Vee
himself had died of typhoid in the spring of 1902. The rustling of the
papers continued, but Bayley, shifting slightly, revealed to me the three-
day old wound on his left side that had soaked the ground about him. I saw
Pigeon fling up a helpless arm as to guard himself against a spatter of
shrapnel, and Luttrell with a foolish tight-lipped smile lurched over all
in one jointless piece. Only old Vee's honest face held steady for awhile
against the darkness that had swallowed up the battalion behind us. Then
his jaw dropped and the face stiffened, so that a fly made bold to explore
the puffed and scornful nostril.
* * * * *
I waked brushing a fly from my nose, and saw the Club waiter set out the
evening papers on the table.
"THEY"
THE RETURN OF THE CHILDREN
Neither the harps nor the crowns amused, nor the cherubs' dove-winged
races--
Holding hands forlornly the Children wandered beneath the Dome;
Plucking the radiant robes of the passers by, and with pitiful faces
Begging what Princes and Powers refused:--"Ah, please will you let us
go home?"
Over the jewelled floor, nigh weeping, ran to them Mary the Mother,
Kneeled and caressed and made promise with kisses, and drew them along
to the gateway--
Yea, the all-iron unbribable Door which Peter must guard and none other.
Straightway She took the Keys from his keeping, and opened and freed
them straightway.
Then to Her Son, Who had seen and smiled, She said: "On the night that
I bore Thee
What didst Thou care for a love beyond mine or a heaven that was not my
arm?
Didst Thou push from the nipple O Child, to hear the angels adore Thee?
When we two lay in the breath of the kine?" And He said:--"Thou hast
done no harm."
So through the Void the Children ran homeward merrily hand in hand,
Looking neither to left nor right where the breathless Heavens stood
still;
And the Guards of the Void resheathed their swords, for they heard the
Command.
"Shall I that have suffered the children to come to me hold them against
their will?"
"THEY"
One view called me to another; one hill top to its fellow, half across the
county, and since I could answer at no more trouble than the snapping
forward of a lever, I let the country flow under my wheels. The orchid-
studded flats of the East gave way to the thyme, ilex, and grey grass of
the Downs; these again to the rich cornland and fig-trees of the lower
coast, where you carry the beat of the tide on your left hand for fifteen
level miles; and when at last I turned inland through a huddle of rounded
hills and woods I had run myself clean out of my known marks. Beyond that
precise hamlet which stands godmother to the capital of the United States,
I found hidden villages where bees, the only things awake, boomed in
eighty-foot lindens that overhung grey Norman churches; miraculous brooks
diving under stone bridges built for heavier traffic than would ever vex
them again; tithe-barns larger than their churches, and an old smithy that
cried out aloud how it had once been a hall of the Knights of the Temple.
Gipsies I found on a common where the gorse, bracken, and heath fought it
out together up a mile of Roman road; and a little farther on I disturbed
a red fox rolling dog-fashion in the naked sunlight.
As the wooded hills closed about me I stood up in the car to take the
bearings of that great Down whose ringed head is a landmark for fifty
miles across the low countries. I judged that the lie of the country would
bring me across some westward running road that went to his feet, but I
did not allow for the confusing veils of the woods. A quick turn plunged
me first into a green cutting brimful of liquid sunshine, next into a
gloomy tunnel where last year's dead leaves whispered and scuffled about
my tyres. The strong hazel stuff meeting overhead had not been cut for a
couple of generations at least, nor had any axe helped the moss-cankered
oak and beech to spring above them. Here the road changed frankly into a
carpetted ride on whose brown velvet spent primrose-clumps showed like
jade, and a few sickly, white-stalked bluebells nodded together. As the
slope favoured I shut off the power and slid over the whirled leaves,
expecting every moment to meet a keeper; but I only heard a jay, far off,
arguing against the silence under the twilight of the trees.
Still the track descended. I was on the point of reversing and working my
way back on the second speed ere I ended in some swamp, when I saw
sunshine through the tangle ahead and lifted the brake.
It was down again at once. As the light beat across my face my fore-wheels
took the turf of a great still lawn from which sprang horsemen ten feet
high with levelled lances, monstrous peacocks, and sleek round-headed
maids of honour--blue, black, and glistening--all of clipped yew. Across
the lawn--the marshalled woods besieged it on three sides--stood an
ancient house of lichened and weather-worn stone, with mullioned windows
and roofs of rose-red tile. It was flanked by semi-circular walls, also
rose-red, that closed the lawn on the fourth side, and at their feet a box
hedge grew man-high. There were doves on the roof about the slim brick
chimneys, and I caught a glimpse of an octagonal dove-house behind the
screening wall.
Here, then, I stayed; a horseman's green spear laid at my breast; held by
the exceeding beauty of that jewel in that setting.
"If I am not packed off for a trespasser, or if this knight does not ride
a wallop at me," thought I, "Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth at least must
come out of that half-open garden door and ask me to tea."
A child appeared at an upper window, and I thought the little thing waved
a friendly hand. But it was to call a companion, for presently another
bright head showed. Then I heard a laugh among the yew-peacocks, and
turning to make sure (till then I had been watching the house only) I saw
the silver of a fountain behind a hedge thrown up against the sun. The
doves on the roof cooed to the cooing water; but between the two notes I
caught the utterly happy chuckle of a child absorbed in some light
mischief.
The garden door--heavy oak sunk deep in the thickness of the wall--opened
further: a woman in a big garden hat set her foot slowly on the time-
hollowed stone step and as slowly walked across the turf. I was forming
some apology when she lifted up her head and I saw that she was blind.
"I heard you," she said. "Isn't that a motor car?"
"I'm afraid I've made a mistake in my road. I should have turned off up
above--I never dreamed"--I began.
"But I'm very glad. Fancy a motor car coming into the garden! It will be
such a treat----" She turned and made as though looking about her. "You--
you haven't seen any one have you--perhaps?"
"No one to speak to, but the children seemed interested at a distance."
"Which?"
"I saw a couple up at the window just now, and I think I heard a little
chap in the grounds."
"Oh, lucky you!" she cried, and her face brightened. "I hear them, of
course, but that's all. You've seen them and heard them?"
"Yes," I answered. "And if I know anything of children one of them's
having a beautiful time by the fountain yonder. Escaped, I should
imagine."
"You're fond of children?"
I gave her one or two reasons why I did not altogether hate them.
"Of course, of course," she said. "Then you understand. Then you won't
think it foolish if I ask you to take your car through the gardens, once
or twice--quite slowly. I'm sure they'd like to see it. They see so
little, poor things. One tries to make their life pleasant, but----" she
threw out her hands towards the woods. "We're so out of the world here."
"That will be splendid," I said. "But I can't cut up your grass."
She faced to the right. "Wait a minute," she said. "We're at the South
gate, aren't we? Behind those peacocks there's a flagged path. We call it
the Peacock's Walk. You can't see it from here, they tell me, but if you
squeeze along by the edge of the wood you can turn at the first peacock
and get on to the flags."
It was sacrilege to wake that dreaming house-front with the clatter of
machinery, but I swung the car to clear the turf, brushed along the edge
of the wood and turned in on the broad stone path where the fountain-basin
lay like one star-sapphire.
"May I come too?" she cried. "No, please don't help me. They'll like it
better if they see me."
She felt her way lightly to the front of the car, and with one foot on the
step she called: "Children, oh, children! Look and see what's going to
happen!"
The voice would have drawn lost souls from the Pit, for the yearning that
underlay its sweetness, and I was not surprised to hear an answering shout
behind the yews. It must have been the child by the fountain, but he fled
at our approach, leaving a little toy boat in the water. I saw the glint
of his blue blouse among the still horsemen.
Very disposedly we paraded the length of the walk and at her request
backed again. This time the child had got the better of his panic, but
stood far off and doubting.
"The little fellow's watching us," I said. "I wonder if he'd like a ride."
"They're very shy still. Very shy. But, oh, lucky you to be able to see
them! Let's listen."
I stopped the machine at once, and the humid stillness, heavy with the
scent of box, cloaked us deep. Shears I could hear where some gardener was
clipping; a mumble of bees and broken voices that might have been the
doves.
"Oh, unkind!" she said weariedly.
"Perhaps they're only shy of the motor. The little maid at the window
looks tremendously interested."
"Yes?" She raised her head. "It was wrong of me to say that. They are
really fond of me. It's the only thing that makes life worth living--when
they're fond of you, isn't it? I daren't think what the place would be
without them. By the way, is it beautiful?"
"I think it is the most beautiful place I have ever seen."
"So they all tell me. I can feel it, of course, but that isn't quite the
same thing."
"Then have you never---?" I began, but stopped abashed.
"Not since I can remember. It happened when I was only a few months old,
they tell me. And yet I must remember something, else how could I dream
about colours. I see light in my dreams, and colours, but I never see
_them_. I only hear them just as I do when I'm awake."
"It's difficult to see faces in dreams. Some people can, but most of us
haven't the gift," I went on, looking up at the window where the child
stood all but hidden.
"I've heard that too," she said. "And they tell me that one never sees a
dead person's face in a dream. Is that true?"
"I believe it is--now I come to think of it."
"But how is it with yourself--yourself?" The blind eyes turned towards me.
"I have never seen the faces of my dead in any dream," I answered.
"Then it must be as bad as being blind."
The sun had dipped behind the woods and the long shades were possessing
the insolent horsemen one by one. I saw the light die from off the top of
a glossy-leaved lance and all the brave hard green turn to soft black. The
house, accepting another day at end, as it had accepted an hundred
thousand gone, seemed to settle deeper into its rest among the shadows.
"Have you ever wanted to?" she said after the silence.
"Very much sometimes," I replied. The child had left the window as the
shadows closed upon it.
"Ah! So've I, but I don't suppose it's allowed. ... Where d'you live?"
"Quite the other side of the county--sixty miles and more, and I must be
going back. I've come without my big lamp."
"But it's not dark yet. I can feel it."
"I'm afraid it will be by the time I get home. Could you lend me someone
to set me on my road at first? I've utterly lost myself."
"I'll send Madden with you to the cross-roads. We are so out of the world,
I don't wonder you were lost! I'll guide you round to the front of the
house; but you will go slowly, won't you, till you're out of the grounds?
It isn't foolish, do you think?"
"I promise you I'll go like this," I said, and let the car start herself
down the flagged path.
We skirted the left wing of the house, whose elaborately cast lead
guttering alone was worth a day's journey; passed under a great rose-grown
gate in the red wall, and so round to the high front of the house which in
beauty and stateliness as much excelled the back as that all others I had
seen.
"Is it so very beautiful?" she said wistfully when she heard my raptures.
"And you like the lead-figures too? There's the old azalea garden behind.
They say that this place must have been made for children. Will you help
me out, please? I should like to come with you as far as the cross-roads,
but I mustn't leave them. Is that you, Madden? I want you to show this
gentleman the way to the cross-roads. He has lost his way but--he has seen
them."
A butler appeared noiselessly at the miracle of old oak that must be
called the front door, and slipped aside to put on his hat. She stood
looking at me with open blue eyes in which no sight lay, and I saw for the
first time that she was beautiful.
"Remember," she said quietly, "if you are fond of them you will come
again," and disappeared within the house.
The butler in the car said nothing till we were nearly at the lodge gates,
where catching a glimpse of a blue blouse in a shrubbery I swerved amply
lest the devil that leads little boys to play should drag me into child-
murder.
"Excuse me," he asked of a sudden, "but why did you do that, Sir?"
"The child yonder."
"Our young gentleman in blue?"
"Of course."
"He runs about a good deal. Did you see him by the fountain, Sir?"
"Oh, yes, several times. Do we turn here?"
"Yes, Sir. And did you 'appen to see them upstairs too?"
"At the upper window? Yes."
"Was that before the mistress come out to speak to you, Sir?"
"A little before that. Why d'you want to know?"
He paused a little. "Only to make sure that--that they had seen the car,
Sir, because with children running about, though I'm sure you're driving
particularly careful, there might be an accident. That was all, Sir. Here
are the cross-roads. You can't miss your way from now on. Thank you, Sir,
but that isn't _our_ custom, not with----"
"I beg your pardon," I said, and thrust away the British silver.
"Oh, it's quite right with the rest of 'em as a rule. Goodbye, Sir."
He retired into the armour-plated conning tower of his caste and walked
away. Evidently a butler solicitous for the honour of his house, and
interested, probably through a maid, in the nursery.
Once beyond the signposts at the cross-roads I looked back, but the
crumpled hills interlaced so jealously that I could not see where the
house had lain. When I asked its name at a cottage along the road, the fat
woman who sold sweetmeats there gave me to understand that people with
motor cars had small right to live--much less to "go about talking like
carriage folk." They were not a pleasant-mannered community.
When I retraced my route on the map that evening I was little wiser.
Hawkin's Old Farm appeared to be the survey title of the place, and the
old County Gazetteer, generally so ample, did not allude to it. The big
house of those parts was Hodnington Hall, Georgian with early Victorian
embellishments, as an atrocious steel engraving attested. I carried my
difficulty to a neighbour--a deep-rooted tree of that soil--and he gave me
a name of a family which conveyed no meaning.
A month or so later--I went again, or it may have been that my car took
the road of her own volition. She over-ran the fruitless Downs, threaded
every turn of the maze of lanes below the hills, drew through the high-
walled woods, impenetrable in their full leaf, came out at the cross roads
where the butler had left me, and a little further on developed an
internal trouble which forced me to turn her in on a grass way-waste that
cut into a summer-silent hazel wood. So far as I could make sure by the
sun and a six-inch Ordnance map, this should be the road flank of that
wood which I had first explored from the heights above. I made a mighty
serious business of my repairs and a glittering shop of my repair kit,
spanners, pump, and the like, which I spread out orderly upon a rug. It
was a trap to catch all childhood, for on such a day, I argued, the
children would not be far off. When I paused in my work I listened, but
the wood was so full of the noises of summer (though the birds had mated)
that I could not at first distinguish these from the tread of small
cautious feet stealing across the dead leaves. I rang my bell in an
alluring manner, but the feet fled, and I repented, for to a child a
sudden noise is very real terror. I must have been at work half an hour
when I heard in the wood the voice of the blind woman crying: "Children,
oh children, where are you?" and the stillness made slow to close on the
perfection of that cry. She came towards me, half feeling her way between
the tree boles, and though a child it seemed clung to her skirt, it
swerved into the leafage like a rabbit as she drew nearer.
"Is that you?" she said, "from the other side of the county?"
"Yes, it's me from the other side of the county."
"Then why didn't you come through the upper woods? They were there just
now."
"They were here a few minutes ago. I expect they knew my car had broken
down, and came to see the fun."
"Nothing serious, I hope? How do cars break down?"
"In fifty different ways. Only mine has chosen the fifty first."
She laughed merrily at the tiny joke, cooed with delicious laughter, and
pushed her hat back.
"Let me hear," she said.
"Wait a moment," I cried, "and I'll get you a cushion."
She set her foot on the rug all covered with spare parts, and stooped
above it eagerly. "What delightful things!" The hands through which she
saw glanced in the chequered sunlight. "A box here--another box! Why
you've arranged them like playing shop!"
"I confess now that I put it out to attract them. I don't need half those
things really."
"How nice of you! I heard your bell in the upper wood. You say they were
here before that?"
"I'm sure of it. Why are they so shy? That little fellow in blue who was
with you just now ought to have got over his fright. He's been watching me
like a Red Indian."
"It must have been your bell," she said. "I heard one of them go past me
in trouble when I was coming down. They're shy--so shy even with me." She
turned her face over her shoulder and cried again: "Children! Oh,
children! Look and see!"
"They must have gone off together on their own affairs,"
I suggested, for there was a murmur behind us of lowered voices broken by
the sudden squeaking giggles of childhood. I returned to my tinkerings and
she leaned forward, her chin on her hand, listening interestedly.
"How many are they?" I said at last. The work was finished, but I saw no
reason to go.
Her forehead puckered a little in thought. "I don't quite know," she said
simply. "Sometimes more--sometimes less. They come and stay with me
because I love them, you see."
"That must be very jolly," I said, replacing a drawer, and as I spoke I
heard the inanity of my answer.
"You--you aren't laughing at me," she cried. "I--I haven't any of my own.
I never married. People laugh at me sometimes about them because--
because------"
"Because they're savages," I returned. "It's nothing to fret for. That
sort laugh at everything that isn't in their own fat lives."
"I don't know. How should I? I only don't like being laughed at about
_them_. It hurts; and when one can't see.... I don't want to seem silly,"
her chin quivered like a child's as she spoke, "but we blindies have only
one skin, I think. Everything outside hits straight at our souls. It's
different with you. You've such good defences in your eyes--looking out--
before anyone can really pain you in your soul. People forget that with
us."
I was silent reviewing that inexhaustible matter--the more than inherited
(since it is also carefully taught) brutality of the Christian peoples,
beside which the mere heathendom of the West Coast nigger is clean and
restrained. It led me a long distance into myself.
"Don't do that!" she said of a sudden, putting her hands before her eyes.
"What?"
She made a gesture with her hand.
"That! It's--it's all purple and black. Don't! That colour hurts."
"But, how in the world do you know about colours?" I exclaimed, for here
was a revelation indeed.
"Colours as colours?" she asked.
"No. _Those_ Colours which you saw just now."
"You know as well as I do," she laughed, "else you wouldn't have asked
that question. They aren't in the world at all. They're in _you_--when you
went so angry."
"D'you mean a dull purplish patch, like port-wine mixed with ink?" I said.
"I've never seen ink or port-wine, but the colours aren't mixed. They are
separate--all separate."
"Do you mean black streaks and jags across the purple?"
She nodded. "Yes--if they are like this," and zigzagged her finger again,
"but it's more red than purple--that bad colour."
"And what are the colours at the top of the--whatever you see?"
Slowly she leaned forward and traced on the rug the figure of the Egg
itself.
"I see them so," she said, pointing with a grass stem, "white, green,
yellow, red, purple, and when people are angry or bad, black across the
red--as you were just now."
"Who told you anything about it--in the beginning?" I demanded.
"About the colours? No one. I used to ask what colours were when I was
little--in table-covers and curtains and carpets, you see--because some
colours hurt me and some made me happy. People told me; and when I got
older that was how I saw people." Again she traced the outline of the Egg
which it is given to very few of us to see.
"All by yourself?" I repeated.
"All by myself. There wasn't anyone else. I only found out afterwards that
other people did not see the Colours."
She leaned against the tree-hole plaiting and unplaiting chance-plucked
grass stems. The children in the wood had drawn nearer. I could see them
with the tail of my eye frolicking like squirrels.
"Now I am sure you will never laugh at me," she went on after a long
silence. "Nor at _them_."
"Goodness! No!" I cried, jolted out of my train of thought. "A man who
laughs at a child--unless the child is laughing too--is a heathen!"
"I didn't mean that of course. You'd never laugh _at_ children, but I
thought--I used to think--that perhaps you might laugh about _them_. So
now I beg your pardon.... What are you going to laugh at?"
I had made no sound, but she knew.
"At the notion of your begging my pardon. If you had done your duty as a
pillar of the state and a landed proprietress you ought to have summoned
me for trespass when I barged through your woods the other day. It was
disgraceful of me--inexcusable."
She looked at me, her head against the tree trunk--long and steadfastly--
this woman who could see the naked soul.
"How curious," she half whispered. "How very curious."
"Why, what have I done?"
"You don't understand ... and yet you understood about the Colours. Don't
you understand?"
She spoke with a passion that nothing had justified, and I faced her
bewilderedly as she rose. The children had gathered themselves in a
roundel behind a bramble bush. One sleek head bent over something smaller,
and the set of the little shoulders told me that fingers were on lips.
They, too, had some child's tremendous secret. I alone was hopelessly
astray there in the broad sunlight.
"No," I said, and shook my head as though the dead eyes could note.
"Whatever it is, I don't understand yet. Perhaps I shall later--if you'll
let me come again."
"You will come again," she answered. "You will surely come again and walk
in the wood."
"Perhaps the children will know me well enough by that time to let me play
with them--as a favour. You know what children are like."
"It isn't a matter of favour but of right," she replied, and while I
wondered what she meant, a dishevelled woman plunged round the bend of the
road, loose-haired, purple, almost lowing with agony as she ran. It was my
rude, fat friend of the sweetmeat shop. The blind woman heard and stepped
forward. "What is it, Mrs. Madehurst?" she asked.
The woman flung her apron over her head and literally grovelled in the
dust, crying that her grandchild was sick to death, that the local doctor
was away fishing, that Jenny the mother was at her wits end, and so forth,
with repetitions and bellowings.
"Where's the next nearest doctor?" I asked between paroxysms.
"Madden will tell you. Go round to the house and take him with you. I'll
attend to this. Be quick!" She half-supported the fat woman into the
shade. In two minutes I was blowing all the horns of Jericho under the
front of the House Beautiful, and Madden, in the pantry, rose to the
crisis like a butler and a man.
A quarter of an hour at illegal speeds caught us a doctor five miles away.
Within the half-hour we had decanted him, much interested in motors, at
the door of the sweetmeat shop, and drew up the road to await the verdict.
"Useful things cars," said Madden, all man and no butler. "If I'd had one
when mine took sick she wouldn't have died."
"How was it?" I asked.
"Croup. Mrs. Madden was away. No one knew what to do. I drove eight miles
in a tax cart for the doctor. She was choked when we came back. This car
'd ha' saved her. She'd have been close on ten now."
"I'm sorry," I said. "I thought you were rather fond of children from what
you told me going to the cross-roads the other day."
"Have you seen 'em again, Sir--this mornin'?"
"Yes, but they're well broke to cars. I couldn't get any of them within
twenty yards of it."
He looked at me carefully as a scout considers a stranger--not as a menial
should lift his eyes to his divinely appointed superior.
"I wonder why," he said just above the breath that he drew.
We waited on. A light wind from the sea wandered up and down the long
lines of the woods, and the wayside grasses, whitened already with summer
dust, rose and bowed in sallow waves.
A woman, wiping the suds off her arms, came out of the cottage next the
sweetmeat shop.
"I've be'n listenin' in de back-yard," she said cheerily. "He says
Arthur's unaccountable bad. Did ye hear him shruck just now? Unaccountable
bad. I reckon t'will come Jenny's turn to walk in de wood nex' week along,
Mr. Madden."
"Excuse me, Sir, but your lap-robe is slipping," said Madden
deferentially. The woman started, dropped a curtsey, and hurried away.
"What does she mean by 'walking in the wood'?" I asked.
"It must be some saying they use hereabouts. I'm from Norfolk myself,"
said Madden. "They're an independent lot in this county. She took you for
a chauffeur, Sir."
I saw the Doctor come out of the cottage followed by a draggle-tailed
wench who clung to his arm as though he could make treaty for her with
Death. "Dat sort," she wailed--"dey're just as much to us dat has 'em as
if dey was lawful born. Just as much--just as much! An' God he'd be just
as pleased if you saved 'un, Doctor. Don't take it from me. Miss Florence
will tell ye de very same. Don't leave 'im, Doctor!"
"I know. I know," said the man, "but he'll be quiet for a while now.
We'll get the nurse and the medicine as fast as we can." He signalled me
to come forward with the car, and I strove not to be privy to what
followed; but I saw the girl's face, blotched and frozen with grief, and I
felt the hand without a ring clutching at my knees when we moved away.
The Doctor was a man of some humour, for I remember he claimed my car
under the Oath of sculapius, and used it and me without mercy. First we
convoyed Mrs. Madehurst and the blind woman to wait by the sick bed till
the nurse should come. Next we invaded a neat county town for
prescriptions (the Doctor said the trouble was cerebro-spinal meningitis),
and when the County Institute, banked and flanked with scared market
cattle, reported itself out of nurses for the moment we literally flung
ourselves loose upon the county. We conferred with the owners of great
houses--magnates at the ends of overarching avenues whose big-boned
womenfolk strode away from their tea-tables to listen to the imperious
Doctor. At last a white-haired lady sitting under a cedar of Lebanon and
surrounded by a court of magnificent Borzois--all hostile to motors--gave
the Doctor, who received them as from a princess, written orders which we
bore many miles at top speed, through a park, to a French nunnery, where
we took over in exchange a pallid-faced and trembling Sister. She knelt at
the bottom of the tonneau telling her beads without pause till, by short
cuts of the Doctor's invention, we had her to the sweetmeat shop once
more. It was a long afternoon crowded with mad episodes that rose and
dissolved like the dust of our wheels; cross-sections of remote and
incomprehensible lives through which we raced at right angles; and I went
home in the dusk, wearied out, to dream of the clashing horns of cattle;
round-eyed nuns walking in a garden of graves; pleasant tea-parties
beneath shaded trees; the carbolic-scented, grey-painted corridors of the
County Institute; the steps of shy children in the wood, and the hands
that clung to my knees as the motor began to move.
* * * * *
I had intended to return in a day or two, but it pleased Fate to hold me
from that side of the county, on many pretexts, till the elder and the
wild rose had fruited. There came at last a brilliant day, swept clear
from the south-west, that brought the hills within hand's reach--a day of
unstable airs and high filmy clouds. Through no merit of my own I was
free, and set the car for the third time on that known road. As I reached
the crest of the Downs I felt the soft air change, saw it glaze under the
sun; and, looking down at the sea, in that instant beheld the blue of the
Channel turn through polished silver and dulled steel to dingy pewter. A
laden collier hugging the coast steered outward for deeper water and,
across copper-coloured haze, I saw sails rise one by one on the anchored
fishing-fleet. In a deep dene behind me an eddy of sudden wind drummed
through sheltered oaks, and spun aloft the first day sample of autumn
leaves. When I reached the beach road the sea-fog fumed over the
brickfields, and the tide was telling all the groins of the gale beyond
Ushant. In less than an hour summer England vanished in chill grey. We
were again the shut island of the North, all the ships of the world
bellowing at our perilous gates; and between their outcries ran the piping
of bewildered gulls. My cap dripped moisture, the folds of the rug held it
in pools or sluiced it away in runnels, and the salt-rime stuck to my
lips.
Inland the smell of autumn loaded the thickened fog among the trees, and
the drip became a continuous shower. Yet the late flowers--mallow of the
wayside, scabious of the field, and dahlia of the garden--showed gay in
the mist, and beyond the sea's breath there was little sign of decay in
the leaf. Yet in the villages the house doors were all open, and bare-
legged, bare-headed children sat at ease on the damp doorsteps to shout
"pip-pip" at the stranger.
I made bold to call at the sweetmeat shop, where Mrs. Madehurst met me
with a fat woman's hospitable tears. Jenny's child, she said, had died two
days after the nun had come. It was, she felt, best out of the way, even
though insurance offices, for reasons which she did not pretend to follow,
would not willingly insure such stray lives. "Not but what Jenny didn't
tend to Arthur as though he'd come all proper at de end of de first year--
like Jenny herself." Thanks to Miss Florence, the child had been buried
with a pomp which, in Mrs. Madehurst's opinion, more than covered the
small irregularity of its birth. She described the coffin, within and
without, the glass hearse, and the evergreen lining of the grave.
"But how's the mother?" I asked.
"Jenny? Oh, she'll get over it. I've felt dat way with one or two o' my
own. She'll get over. She's walkin' in de wood now."
"In this weather?"
Mrs. Madehurst looked at me with narrowed eyes across the counter.
"I dunno but it opens de 'eart like. Yes, it opens de 'eart. Dat's where
losin' and bearin' comes so alike in de long run, we do say."
Now the wisdom of the old wives is greater than that of all the Fathers,
and this last oracle sent me thinking so extendedly as I went up the road,
that I nearly ran over a woman and a child at the wooded corner by the
lodge gates of the House Beautiful.
"Awful weather!" I cried, as I slowed dead for the turn.
"Not so bad," she answered placidly out of the fog. "Mine's used to 'un.
You'll find yours indoors, I reckon."
Indoors, Madden received me with professional courtesy, and kind inquiries
for the health of the motor, which he would put under cover.
I waited in a still, nut-brown hall, pleasant with late flowers and warmed
with a delicious wood fire--a place of good influence and great peace.
(Men and women may sometimes, after great effort, achieve a creditable
lie; but the house, which is their temple, cannot say anything save the
truth of those who have lived in it.) A child's cart and a doll lay on the
black-and-white floor, where a rug had been kicked back. I felt that the
children had only just hurried away--to hide themselves, most like--in the
many turns of the great adzed staircase that climbed statelily out of the
hall, or to crouch at gaze behind the lions and roses of the carven
gallery above. Then I heard her voice above me, singing as the blind sing
--from the soul:--
In the pleasant orchard-closes.
And all my early summer came back at the call.
In the pleasant orchard-closes,
God bless all our gains say we--
But may God bless all our losses,
Better suits with our degree,
She dropped the marring fifth line, and repeated--
Better suits with our degree!
I saw her lean over the gallery, her linked hands white as pearl against
the oak.
"Is that you--from the other side of the county?" she called.
"Yes, me--from the other side of the county," I answered laughing.
"What a long time before you had to come here again." She ran down the
stairs, one hand lightly touching the broad rail. "It's two months and
four days. Summer's gone!"
"I meant to come before, but Fate prevented."
"I knew it. Please do something to that fire. They won't let me play with
it, but I can feel it's behaving badly. Hit it!"
I looked on either side of the deep fireplace, and found but a
half-charred hedge-stake with which I punched a black log into flame.
"It never goes out, day or night," she said, as though explaining. "In
case any one conies in with cold toes, you see."
"It's even lovelier inside than it was out," I murmured. The red light
poured itself along the age-polished dusky panels till the Tudor roses
and lions of the gallery took colour and motion. An old eagle-topped
convex mirror gathered the picture into its mysterious heart, distorting
afresh the distorted shadows, and curving the gallery lines into the
curves of a ship. The day was shutting down in half a gale as the fog
turned to stringy scud. Through the uncurtained mullions of the broad
window I could see valiant horsemen of the lawn rear and recover against
the wind that taunted them with legions of dead leaves.
"Yes, it must be beautiful," she said. "Would you like to go over it?
There's still light enough upstairs."
I followed her up the unflinching, wagon-wide staircase to the gallery
whence opened the thin fluted Elizabethan doors.
"Feel how they put the latch low down for the sake of the children." She
swung a light door inward.
"By the way, where are they?" I asked. "I haven't even heard them to-day."
She did not answer at once. Then, "I can only hear them," she replied
softly. "This is one of their rooms--everything ready, you see."
She pointed into a heavily-timbered room. There were little low gate
tables and children's chairs. A doll's house, its hooked front half open,
faced a great dappled rocking-horse, from whose padded saddle it was but a
child's scramble to the broad window-seat overlooking the lawn. A toy gun
lay in a corner beside a gilt wooden cannon.
"Surely they've only just gone," I whispered. In the failing light a door
creaked cautiously. I heard the rustle of a frock and the patter of feet--
quick feet through a room beyond.
"I heard that," she cried triumphantly. "Did you? Children, O children,
where are you?"
The voice filled the walls that held it lovingly to the last perfect note,
but there came no answering shout such as I had heard in the garden. We
hurried on from room to oak-floored room; up a step here, down three steps
there; among a maze of passages; always mocked by our quarry. One might as
well have tried to work an unstopped warren with a single ferret. There
were bolt-holes innumerable--recesses in walls, embrasures of deep slitten
windows now darkened, whence they could start up behind us; and abandoned
fireplaces, six feet deep in the masonry, as well as the tangle of
communicating doors. Above all, they had the twilight for their helper in
our game. I had caught one or two joyous chuckles of evasion, and once or
twice had seen the silhouette of a child's frock against some darkening
window at the end of a passage; but we returned empty-handed to the
gallery, just as a middle-aged woman was setting a lamp in its niche.
"No, I haven't seen her either this evening, Miss Florence," I heard her
say, "but that Turpin he says he wants to see you about his shed."
"Oh, Mr. Turpin must want to see me very badly. Tell him to come to the
hall, Mrs. Madden."
I looked down into the hall whose only light was the dulled fire, and deep
in the shadow I saw them at last. They must have slipped down while we
were in the passages, and now thought themselves perfectly hidden behind
an old gilt leather screen. By child's law, my fruitless chase was as good
as an introduction, but since I had taken so much trouble I resolved to
force them to come forward later by the simple trick, which children
detest, of pretending not to notice them. They lay close, in a little
huddle, no more than shadows except when a quick flame betrayed an
outline.
"And now we'll have some tea," she said. "I believe I ought to have
offered it you at first, but one doesn't arrive at manners somehow when
one lives alone and is considered--h'm--peculiar." Then with very pretty
scorn, "would you like a lamp to see to eat by?" "The firelight's much
pleasanter, I think." We descended into that delicious gloom and Madden
brought tea.
I took my chair in the direction of the screen ready to surprise or be
surprised as the game should go, and at her permission, since a hearth is
always sacred, bent forward to play with the fire.
"Where do you get these beautiful short faggots from?" I asked idly. "Why,
they are tallies!"
"Of course," she said. "As I can't read or write I'm driven back on the
early English tally for my accounts. Give me one and I'll tell you what it
meant."
I passed her an unburned hazel-tally, about a foot long, and she ran her
thumb down the nicks.
"This is the milk-record for the home farm for the month of April last
year, in gallons," said she. "I don't know what I should have done without
tallies. An old forester of mine taught me the system. It's out of date
now for every one else; but my tenants respect it. One of them's coming
now to see me. Oh, it doesn't matter. He has no business here out of
office hours. He's a greedy, ignorant man--very greedy or--he wouldn't
come here after dark."
"Have you much land then?"
"Only a couple of hundred acres in hand, thank goodness. The other six
hundred are nearly all let to folk who knew my folk before me, but this
Turpin is quite a new man--and a highway robber."
"But are you sure I sha'n't be----?"
"Certainly not. You have the right. He hasn't any children."
"Ah, the children!" I said, and slid my low chair back till it nearly
touched the screen that hid them. "I wonder whether they'll come out for
me."
There was a murmur of voices--Madden's and a deeper note--at the low, dark
side door, and a ginger-headed, canvas-gaitered giant of the unmistakable
tenant farmer type stumbled or was pushed in.
"Come to the fire, Mr. Turpin," she said.
"If--if you please, Miss, I'll--I'll be quite as well by the door." He
clung to the latch as he spoke like a frightened child. Of a sudden I
realised that he was in the grip of some almost overpowering fear.
"Well?"
"About that new shed for the young stock--that was all. These first autumn
storms settin' in ... but I'll come again, Miss." His teeth did not
chatter much more than the door latch.
"I think not," she answered levelly. "The new shed--m'm. What did my agent
write you on the 15th?"
"I--fancied p'raps that if I came to see you--ma--man to man like, Miss.
But----"
His eyes rolled into every corner of the room wide with horror. He half
opened the door through which he had entered, but I noticed it shut again
--from without and firmly.
"He wrote what I told him," she went on. "You are overstocked already.
Dunnett's Farm never carried more than fifty bullocks--even in Mr.
Wright's time. And _he_ used cake. You've sixty-seven and you don't cake.
You've broken the lease in that respect. You're dragging the heart out of
the farm."
"I'm--I'm getting some minerals--superphosphates--next week. I've as good
as ordered a truck-load already. I'll go down to the station to-morrow
about 'em. Then I can come and see you man to man like, Miss, in the
daylight.... That gentleman's not going away, is he?" He almost shrieked.
I had only slid the chair a little further back, reaching behind me to tap
on the leather of the screen, but he jumped like a rat.
"No. Please attend to me, Mr. Turpin." She turned in her chair and faced
him with his back to the door. It was an old and sordid little piece of
scheming that she forced from him--his plea for the new cowshed at his
landlady's expense, that he might with the covered manure pay his next
year's rent out of the valuation after, as she made clear, he had bled the
enriched pastures to the bone. I could not but admire the intensity of his
greed, when I saw him out-facing for its sake whatever terror it was that
ran wet on his forehead.
I ceased to tap the leather--was, indeed, calculating the cost of the
shed--when I felt my relaxed hand taken and turned softly between the soft
hands of a child. So at last I had triumphed. In a moment I would turn and
acquaint myself with those quick-footed wanderers....
The little brushing kiss fell in the centre of my palm--as a gift on which
the fingers were, once, expected to close: as the all faithful half-
reproachful signal of a waiting child not used to neglect even when
grown-ups were busiest--a fragment of the mute code devised very long ago.
Then I knew. And it was as though I had known from the first day when I
looked across the lawn at the high window.
I heard the door shut. The woman turned to me in silence, and I felt that
she knew.
What time passed after this I cannot say. I was roused by the fall of a
log, and mechanically rose to put it back. Then I returned to my place in
the chair very close to the screen.
"Now you understand," she whispered, across the packed shadows.
"Yes, I understand--now. Thank you."
"I--I only hear them." She bowed her head in her hands. "I have no right,
you know--no other right. I have neither borne nor lost--neither borne nor
lost!"
"Be very glad then," said I, for my soul was torn open within me.
"Forgive me!"
She was still, and I went back to my sorrow and my joy.
"It was because I loved them so," she said at last, brokenly. "_That_ was
why it was, even from the first--even before I knew that they--they were
all I should ever have. And I loved them so!"
She stretched out her arms to the shadows and the shadows within the
shadow.
"They came because I loved them--because I needed them. I--I must have
made them come. Was that wrong, think you?"
"No--no."
"I--I grant you that the toys and--and all that sort of thing were
nonsense, but--but I used to so hate empty rooms myself when I was
little." She pointed to the gallery. "And the passages all empty. ... And
how could I ever bear the garden door shut? Suppose----"
"Don't! For pity's sake, don't!" I cried. The twilight had brought a cold
rain with gusty squalls that plucked at the leaded windows.
"And the same thing with keeping the fire in all night. _I_ don't think it
so foolish--do you?"
I looked at the broad brick hearth, saw, through tears I believe, that
there was no unpassable iron on or near it, and bowed my head.
"I did all that and lots of other things--just to make believe. Then they
came. I heard them, but I didn't know that they were not mine by right
till Mrs. Madden told me----"
"The butler's wife? What?"
"One of them--I heard--she saw. And knew. Hers! _Not_ for me. I didn't
know at first. Perhaps I was jealous. Afterwards, I began to understand
that it was only because I loved them, not because----... Oh, you _must_
bear or lose," she said piteously. "There is no other way--and yet they
love me. They must! Don't they?"
There was no sound in the room except the lapping voices of the fire, but
we two listened intently, and she at least took comfort from what she
heard. She recovered herself and half rose. I sat still in my chair by the
screen.
"Don't think me a wretch to whine about myself like this, but--but I'm all
in the dark, you know, and _you_ can see."
In truth I could see, and my vision confirmed me in my resolve, though
that was like the very parting of spirit and flesh. Yet a little longer I
would stay since it was the last time.
"You think it is wrong, then?" she cried sharply, though I had said
nothing.
"Not for you. A thousand times no. For you it is right.... I am grateful
to you beyond words. For me it would be wrong. For me only...."
"Why?" she said, but passed her hand before her face as she had done at
our second meeting in the wood. "Oh, I see," she went on simply as a
child. "For you it would be wrong." Then with a little indrawn laugh,
"and, d'you remember, I called you lucky--once--at first. You who must
never come here again!"
She left me to sit a little longer by the screen, and I heard the sound of
her feet die out along the gallery above.
MRS. BATHURST
FROM LYDEN'S "IRENIUS"
ACT III. Sc. II.
Gow.--Had it been your Prince instead of a groom caught in this noose
there's not an astrologer of the city----
PRINCE.--Sacked! Sacked! We were a city yesterday.
Gow.--So be it, but I was not governor. Not an astrologer, but would ha'
sworn he'd foreseen it at the last versary of Venus, when Vulcan caught
her with Mars in the house of stinking Capricorn. But since 'tis Jack of
the Straw that hangs, the forgetful stars had it not on their tablets.
PRINCE.--Another life! Were there any left to die? How did the
poor fool come by it?
Gow.--_Simpliciter_ thus. She that damned him to death knew not that she
did it, or would have died ere she had done it. For she loved him. He
that hangs him does so in obedience to the Duke, and asks no more than
"Where is the rope?" The Duke, very exactly he hath told us, works God's
will, in which holy employ he's not to be questioned. We have then left
upon this finger, only Jack whose soul now plucks the left sleeve of
Destiny in Hell to overtake why she clapped him up like a fly on a sunny
wall. Whuff! Soh!
PRINCE.--Your cloak, Ferdinand. I'll sleep now.
FERDINAND.--Sleep, then.. He too, loved his life?
Gow.--He was born of woman ... but at the end threw life from
him, like your Prince, for a little sleep ... "Have I any look of a
King?" said he, clanking his chain--"to be so baited on all sides by
Fortune, that I must e'en die now to live with myself one day longer?" I
left him railing at Fortune and woman's love.
FERDINAND.--Ah, woman's love!
_(Aside)_ Who knows not Fortune, glutted on easy thrones, Stealing from
feasts as rare to coneycatch, Privily in the hedgerows for a clown With
that same cruel-lustful hand and eye, Those nails and wedges, that one
hammer and lead, And the very gerb of long-stored lightnings loosed
Yesterday 'gainst some King.
MRS. BATHURST
The day that I chose to visit H.M.S. _Peridot_ in Simon's Bay was the day
that the Admiral had chosen to send her up the coast. She was just
steaming out to sea as my train came in, and since the rest of the Fleet
were either coaling or busy at the rifle-ranges a thousand feet up the
hill, I found myself stranded, lunchless, on the sea-front with no hope of
return to Cape Town before five P.M. At this crisis I had the luck to come
across my friend Inspector Hooper, Cape Government Railways, in command of
an engine and a brake-van chalked for repair.
"If you get something to eat," he said, "I'll run you down to Glengariff
siding till the goods comes along. It's cooler there than here, you see."
I got food and drink from the Greeks who sell all things at a price, and
the engine trotted us a couple of miles up the line to a bay of drifted
sand and a plank-platform half buried in sand not a hundred yards from the
edge of the surf. Moulded dunes, whiter than any snow, rolled far inland
up a brown and purple valley of splintered rocks and dry scrub. A crowd of
Malays hauled at a net beside two blue and green boats on the beach; a
picnic party danced and shouted barefoot where a tiny river trickled
across the flat, and a circle of dry hills, whose feet were set in sands
of silver, locked us in against a seven-coloured sea. At either horn of
the bay the railway line, cut just above high water-mark, ran round a
shoulder of piled rocks, and disappeared.
"You see there's always a breeze here," said Hooper, opening the door as
the engine left us in the siding on the sand, and the strong south-easter
buffeting under Elsie's Peak dusted sand into our tickey beer. Presently
he sat down to a file full of spiked documents. He had returned from a
long trip up-country, where he had been reporting on damaged rolling-
stock, as far away as Rhodesia. The weight of the bland wind on my
eyelids; the song of it under the car roof, and high up among the rocks;
the drift of fine grains chasing each other musically ashore; the tramp of
the surf; the voices of the picnickers; the rustle of Hooper's file, and
the presence of the assured sun, joined with the beer to cast me into
magical slumber. The hills of False Bay were just dissolving into those of
fairyland when I heard footsteps on the sand outside, and the clink of our
couplings.
"Stop that!" snapped Hooper, without raising his head from his work. "It's
those dirty little Malay boys, you see: they're always playing with the
trucks...."
"Don't be hard on 'em. The railway's a general refuge in Africa," I
replied.
"'Tis--up-country at any rate. That reminds me," he felt in his waistcoat-
pocket, "I've got a curiosity for you from Wankies--beyond Buluwayo. It's
more of a souvenir perhaps than----"
"The old hotel's inhabited," cried a voice. "White men from the language.
Marines to the front! Come on, Pritch. Here's your Belmont. Wha--i--i!"
The last word dragged like a rope as Mr. Pyecroft ran round to the open
door, and stood looking up into my face. Behind him an enormous Sergeant
of Marines trailed a stalk of dried seaweed, and dusted the sand nervously
from his fingers.
"What are you doing here?" I asked. "I thought the _Hierophant_ was down
the coast?"
"We came in last Tuesday--from Tristan D'Acunha--for overhaul, and we
shall be in dockyard 'ands for two months, with boiler-seatings."
"Come and sit down," Hooper put away the file.
"This is Mr. Hooper of the Railway," I exclaimed, as Pyecroft turned to
haul up the black-moustached sergeant.
"This is Sergeant Pritchard, of the _Agaric_, an old shipmate," said he.
"We were strollin' on the beach." The monster blushed and nodded. He
filled up one side of the van when he sat down.
"And this is my friend, Mr. Pyecroft," I added to Hooper, already busy
with the extra beer which my prophetic soul had bought from the Greeks.
"_Moi aussi_" quoth Pyecroft, and drew out beneath his coat a labelled
quart bottle.
"Why, it's Bass," cried Hooper.
"It was Pritchard," said Pyecroft. "They can't resist him."
"That's not so," said Pritchard, mildly.
"Not _verbatim_ per'aps, but the look in the eye came to the same thing."
"Where was it?" I demanded.
"Just on beyond here--at Kalk Bay. She was slappin' a rug in a back
verandah. Pritch hadn't more than brought his batteries to bear, before
she stepped indoors an' sent it flyin' over the wall."
Pyecroft patted the warm bottle.
"It was all a mistake," said Pritchard. "I shouldn't wonder if she mistook
me for Maclean. We're about of a size."
I had heard householders of Muizenburg, St. James's, and Kalk Bay complain
of the difficulty of keeping beer or good servants at the seaside, and I
began to see the reason. None the less, it was excellent Bass, and I too
drank to the health of that large-minded maid.
"It's the uniform that fetches 'em, an' they fetch it," said Pyecroft. "My
simple navy blue is respectable, but not fascinatin'. Now Pritch in 'is
Number One rig is always 'purr Mary, on the terrace'--_ex officio_ as you
might say."
"She took me for Maclean, I tell you," Pritchard insisted. "Why--why--to
listen to him you wouldn't think that only yesterday----"
"Pritch," said Pyecroft, "be warned in time. If we begin tellin' what we
know about each other we'll be turned out of the pub. Not to mention
aggravated desertion on several occasions----"
"Never anything more than absence without leaf--I defy you to prove it,"
said the Sergeant hotly. "An' if it comes to that how about Vancouver in
'87?"
"How about it? Who pulled bow in the gig going ashore? Who told Boy
Niven...?"
"Surely you were court martialled for that?" I said. The story of Boy
Niven who lured seven or eight able-bodied seamen and marines into the
woods of British Columbia used to be a legend of the Fleet.
"Yes, we were court-martialled to rights," said Pritchard, "but we should
have been tried for murder if Boy Niven 'adn't been unusually tough. He
told us he had an uncle 'oo'd give us land to farm. 'E said he was born at
the back o' Vancouver Island, and _all_ the time the beggar was a balmy
Barnado Orphan!"
"_But_ we believed him," said Pyecroft. "I did--you did--Paterson did--an'
'oo was the Marine that married the cocoanut-woman afterwards--him with
the mouth?"
"Oh, Jones, Spit-Kid Jones. I 'aven't thought of 'im in years," said
Pritchard. "Yes, Spit-Kid believed it, an' George Anstey and Moon. We were
very young an' very curious."
"_But_ lovin' an' trustful to a degree," said Pyecroft.
"Remember when 'e told us to walk in single file for fear o' bears?
'Remember, Pye, when 'e 'opped about in that bog full o' ferns an' sniffed
an' said 'e could smell the smoke of 'is uncle's farm? An' _all_ the time
it was a dirty little out-lyin' uninhabited island. We walked round it in
a day, an' come back to our boat lyin' on the beach. A whole day Boy Niven
kept us walkin' in circles lookin' for 'is uncle's farm! He said his uncle
was compelled by the law of the land to give us a farm!"
"Don't get hot, Pritch. We believed," said Pyecroft.
"He'd been readin' books. He only did it to get a run ashore an' have
himself talked of. A day an' a night--eight of us--followin' Boy Niven
round an uninhabited island in the Vancouver archipelago! Then the picket
came for us an' a nice pack o' idiots we looked!"
"What did you get for it?" Hooper asked.
"Heavy thunder with continuous lightning for two hours. Thereafter sleet-
squalls, a confused sea, and cold, unfriendly weather till conclusion o'
cruise," said Pyecroft. "It was only what we expected, but what we felt,
an' I assure you, Mr. Hooper, even a sailor-man has a heart to break, was
bein' told that we able seamen an' promisin' marines 'ad misled Boy Niven.
Yes, we poor back-to-the-landers was supposed to 'ave misled him! He
rounded on us, o' course, an' got off easy."
"Excep' for what we gave him in the steerin'-flat when we came out o'
cells. 'Eard anything of 'im lately, Pye?"
"Signal Boatswain in the Channel Fleet, I believe--Mr. L.L. Niven is."
"An' Anstey died o' fever in Benin," Pritchard mused. "What come to Moon?
Spit-Kid we know about."
"Moon--Moon! Now where did I last...? Oh yes, when I was in the
_Palladium_! I met Quigley at Buncrana Station. He told me Moon 'ad run
when the _Astrild_ sloop was cruising among the South Seas three years
back. He always showed signs o' bein' a Mormonastic beggar. Yes, he
slipped off quietly an' they 'adn't time to chase 'im round the islands
even if the navigatin' officer 'ad been equal to the job."
"Wasn't he?" said Hooper.
"Not so. Accordin' to Quigley the _Astrild_ spent half her commission
rompin' up the beach like a she-turtle, an' the other half hatching
turtles' eggs on the top o' numerous reefs. When she was docked at Sydney
her copper looked like Aunt Maria's washing on the line--an' her 'midship
frames was sprung. The commander swore the dockyard 'ad done it haulin'
the pore thing on to the slips. They _do_ do strange things at sea, Mr.
Hooper."
"Ah! I'm not a tax-payer," said Hooper, and opened a fresh bottle. The
Sergeant seemed to be one who had a difficulty in dropping subjects.
"How it all comes back, don't it?" he said. "Why Moon must 'ave 'ad
sixteen years' service before he ran."
"It takes 'em at all ages. Look at--you know," said Pyecroft.
"Who?" I asked.
"A service man within eighteen months of his pension, is the party you're
thinkin' of," said Pritchard. "A warrant 'oose name begins with a V.,
isn't it?"
"But, in a way o' puttin' it, we can't say that he actually did desert,"
Pyecroft suggested.
"Oh, no," said Pritchard. "It was only permanent absence up country
without leaf. That was all."
"Up country?" said Hooper. "Did they circulate his description?"
"What for?" said Pritchard, most impolitely.
"Because deserters are like columns in the war. They don't move away from
the line, you see. I've known a chap caught at Salisbury that way tryin'
to get to Nyassa. They tell me, but o' course I don't know, that they
don't ask questions on the Nyassa Lake Flotilla up there. I've heard of a
P. and O. quartermaster in full command of an armed launch there."
"Do you think Click 'ud ha' gone up that way?" Pritchard asked.
"There's no saying. He was sent up to Bloemfontein to take over some Navy
ammunition left in the fort. We know he took it over and saw it into the
trucks. Then there was no more Click--then or thereafter. Four months ago
it transpired, and thus the _casus belli_ stands at present," said
Pyecroft.
"What were his marks?" said Hooper again.
"Does the Railway get a reward for returnin' 'em, then?" said Pritchard.
"If I did d'you suppose I'd talk about it?" Hooper retorted angrily.
"You seemed so very interested," said Pritchard with equal crispness.
"Why was he called Click?" I asked to tide over an uneasy little break in
the conversation. The two men were staring at each other very fixedly.
"Because of an ammunition hoist carryin' away," said Pyecroft. "And it
carried away four of 'is teeth--on the lower port side, wasn't it, Pritch?
The substitutes which he bought weren't screwed home in a manner o'
sayin'. When he talked fast they used to lift a little on the bed plate.
'Ence, 'Click.' They called 'im a superior man which is what we'd call a
long, black-'aired, genteely speakin', 'alf-bred beggar on the lower
deck."
"Four false teeth on the lower left jaw," said Hooper, his hand in his
waistcoat pocket. "What tattoo marks?"
"Look here," began Pritchard, half rising. "I'm sure we're very grateful
to you as a gentleman for your 'orspitality, but per'aps we may 'ave made
an error in--"
I looked at Pyecroft for aid, Hooper was crimsoning rapidly.
"If the fat marine now occupying the foc'sle will kindly bring 'is _status
quo_ to an anchor yet once more, we may be able to talk like gentlemen--
not to say friends," said Pyecroft. "He regards you, Mr. Hooper, as a
emissary of the Law."
"I only wish to observe that when a gentleman exhibits such a peculiar, or
I should rather say, such a _bloomin'_ curiosity in identification marks
as our friend here----"
"Mr. Pritchard," I interposed, "I'll take all the responsibility for Mr.
Hooper."
"An' _you_'ll apologise all round," said Pyecroft. "You're a rude little
man, Pritch."
"But how was I----" he began, wavering.
"I don't know an' I don't care. Apologise!"
The giant looked round bewildered and took our little hands into his vast
grip, one by one. "I was wrong," he said meekly as a sheep. "My suspicions
was unfounded. Mr. Hooper, I apologise."
"You did quite right to look out for your own end o' the line," said
Hooper. "I'd ha' done the same with a gentleman I didn't know, you see. If
you don't mind I'd like to hear a little more o' your Mr. Vickery. It's
safe with me, you see."
"Why did Vickery run," I began, but Pyecroft's smile made me turn my
question to "Who was she?"
"She kep' a little hotel at Hauraki--near Auckland," said Pyecroft.
"By Gawd!" roared Pritchard, slapping his hand on his leg. "Not Mrs.
Bathurst!"
Pyecroft nodded slowly, and the Sergeant called all the powers of darkness
to witness his bewilderment.
"So far as I could get at it Mrs. B. was the lady in question."
"But Click was married," cried Pritchard.
"An' 'ad a fifteen year old daughter. 'E's shown me her photograph.
Settin' that aside, so to say, 'ave you ever found these little things
make much difference? Because I haven't."
"Good Lord Alive an' Watchin'!... Mrs. Bathurst...." Then with another
roar: "You can say what you please, Pye, but you don't make me believe it
was any of 'er fault. She wasn't _that!_"
"If I was going to say what I please, I'd begin by callin' you a silly ox
an' work up to the higher pressures at leisure. I'm trying to say solely
what transpired. M'rover, for once you're right. It wasn't her fault."
"You couldn't 'aven't made me believe it if it 'ad been," was the answer.
Such faith in a Sergeant of Marines interested me greatly. "Never mind
about that," I cried. "Tell me what she was like."
"She was a widow," said Pyecroft. "Left so very young and never
re-spliced. She kep' a little hotel for warrants and non-coms close to
Auckland, an' she always wore black silk, and 'er neck--"
"You ask what she was like," Pritchard broke in. "Let me give you an
instance. I was at Auckland first in '97, at the end o' the _Marroquin's_
commission, an' as I'd been promoted I went up with the others. She used
to look after us all, an' she never lost by it--not a penny! 'Pay me now,'
she'd say, 'or settle later. I know you won't let me suffer. Send the
money from home if you like,' Why, gentlemen all, I tell you I've seen
that lady take her own gold watch an' chain off her neck in the bar an'
pass it to a bosun 'oo'd come ashore without 'is ticker an' 'ad to catch
the last boat. 'I don't know your name,' she said, 'but when you've done
with it, you'll find plenty that know me on the front. Send it back by one
o' them.' And it was worth thirty pounds if it was worth 'arf a crown. The
little gold watch, Pye, with the blue monogram at the back. But, as I was
sayin', in those days she kep' a beer that agreed with me--Slits it was
called. One way an' another I must 'ave punished a good few bottles of it
while we was in the bay--comin' ashore every night or so. Chaffin across
the bar like, once when we were alone, 'Mrs. B.,' I said, 'when next I
call I want you to remember that this is my particular--just as you're my
particular?' (She'd let you go _that_ far!) 'Just as you're my
particular,' I said. 'Oh, thank you, Sergeant Pritchard,' she says, an'
put 'er hand up to the curl be'ind 'er ear. Remember that way she had,
Pye?"
"I think so," said the sailor.
"Yes, 'Thank you, Sergeant Pritchard,' she says. 'The least I can do is to
mark it for you in case you change your mind. There's no great demand for
it in the Fleet,' she says, 'but to make sure I'll put it at the back o'
the shelf,' an' she snipped off a piece of her hair ribbon with that old
dolphin cigar cutter on the bar--remember it, Pye?--an' she tied a bow
round what was left--just four bottles. That was '97--no, '96. In '98 I
was in the _Resiliant_--China station--full commission. In Nineteen One,
mark you, I was in the _Carthusian_, back in Auckland Bay again. Of course
I went up to Mrs. B.'s with the rest of us to see how things were goin'.
They were the same as ever. (Remember the big tree on the pavement by the
side-bar, Pye?) I never said anythin' in special (there was too many of us
talkin' to her), but she saw me at once."
"That wasn't difficult?" I ventured.
"Ah, but wait. I was comin' up to the bar, when, 'Ada,' she says to her
niece, 'get me Sergeant Pritchard's particular,' and, gentlemen all, I
tell you before I could shake 'ands with the lady, there were those four
bottles o' Slits, with 'er 'air ribbon in a bow round each o' their necks,
set down in front o' me, an' as she drew the cork she looked at me under
her eyebrows in that blindish way she had o' lookin', an', 'Sergeant
Pritchard,' she says, 'I do 'ope you 'aven't changed your mind about your
particulars.' That's the kind o' woman she was--after five years!"
"I don't _see_ her yet somehow," said Hooper, but with sympathy.
"She--she never scrupled to feed a lame duck or set 'er foot on a scorpion
at any time of 'er life," Pritchard added valiantly.
"That don't help me either. My mother's like that for one."
The giant heaved inside his uniform and rolled his eyes at the car-roof.
Said Pyecroft suddenly:--
"How many women have you been intimate with all over the world, Pritch?"
Pritchard blushed plum colour to the short hairs of his seventeen-inch
neck.
"'Undreds," said Pyecroft. "So've I. How many of 'em can you remember in
your own mind, settin' aside the first--an' per'aps the last--_and one
more_?"
"Few, wonderful few, now I tax myself," said Sergeant Pritchard,
relievedly.
"An' how many times might you 'ave been at Aukland?"
"One--two," he began. "Why, I can't make it more than three times in ten
years. But I can remember every time that I ever saw Mrs. B."
"So can I--an' I've only been to Auckland twice--how she stood an' what
she was sayin' an' what she looked like. That's the secret. 'Tisn't
beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It's just It. Some
women'll stay in a man's memory if they once walked down a street, but
most of 'em you can live with a month on end, an' next commission you'd be
put to it to certify whether they talked in their sleep or not, as one
might say."
"Ah," said Hooper. "That's more the idea. I've known just two women of
that nature."
"An' it was no fault o' theirs?" asked Pritchard.
"None whatever. I know that!"
"An' if a man gets struck with that kind o' woman, Mr. Hooper?" Pritchard
went on.
"He goes crazy--or just saves himself," was the slow answer.
"You've hit it," said the Sergeant. "You've seen an' known somethin' in
the course o' your life, Mr. Hooper. I'm lookin' at you!" He set down his
bottle.
"And how often had Vickery seen her?" I asked.
"That's the dark an' bloody mystery," Pyecroft answered. "I'd never come
across him till I come out in the _Hierophant_ just now, an' there wasn't
any one in the ship who knew much about him. You see, he was what you call
a superior man. 'E spoke to me once or twice about Auckland and Mrs. B. on
the voyage out. I called that to mind subsequently. There must 'ave been a
good deal between 'em, to my way o' thinkin'. Mind you I'm only giving you
my _sum_ of it all, because all I know is second-hand so to speak, or
rather I should say more than second-'and."
"How?" said Hooper peremptorily. "You must have seen it or heard it."
"Yes," said Pyecroft. "I used to think seein' and hearin' was the only
regulation aids to ascertainin' facts, but as we get older we get more
accommodatin'. The cylinders work easier, I suppose.... Were you in Cape
Town last December when Phyllis's Circus came?"
"No--up country," said Hooper, a little nettled at the change of venue.
"I ask because they had a new turn of a scientific nature called 'Home and
Friends for a Tickey.'"
"Oh, you mean the cinematograph--the pictures of prize-fights and
steamers. I've seen 'em up country."
"Biograph or cinematograph was what I was alludin' to. London Bridge with
the omnibuses--a troopship goin' to the war--marines on parade at
Portsmouth an' the Plymouth Express arrivin' at Paddin'ton."
"Seen 'em all. Seen 'em all," said Hooper impatiently.
"We _Hierophants_ came in just before Christmas week an' leaf was easy."
"I think a man gets fed up with Cape Town quicker than anywhere else on
the station. Why, even Durban's more like Nature. We was there for
Christmas," Pritchard put in.
"Not bein' a devotee of Indian _peeris_, as our Doctor said to the Pusser,
I can't exactly say. Phyllis's was good enough after musketry practice at
Mozambique. I couldn't get off the first two or three nights on account of
what you might call an imbroglio with our Torpedo Lieutenant in the
submerged flat, where some pride of the West country had sugared up a
gyroscope; but I remember Vickery went ashore with our Carpenter Rigdon--
old Crocus we called him. As a general rule Crocus never left 'is ship
unless an' until he was 'oisted out with a winch, but _when_ 'e went 'e
would return noddin' like a lily gemmed with dew. We smothered him down
below that night, but the things 'e said about Vickery as a fittin'
playmate for a Warrant Officer of 'is cubic capacity, before we got him
quiet, was what I should call pointed."
"I've been with Crocus--in the _Redoubtable_," said the Sergeant. "He's a
character if there is one."
"Next night I went into Cape Town with Dawson and Pratt; but just at the
door of the Circus I came across Vickery. 'Oh!' he says, 'you're the man
I'm looking for. Come and sit next me. This way to the shillin' places!'
I went astern at once, protestin' because tickey seats better suited my
so-called finances. 'Come on,' says Vickery, 'I'm payin'.' Naturally I
abandoned Pratt and Dawson in anticipation o' drinks to match the seats.
'No,' he says, when this was 'inted--'not now. Not now. As many as you
please afterwards, but I want you sober for the occasion.' I caught 'is
face under a lamp just then, an' the appearance of it quite cured me of my
thirsts. Don't mistake. It didn't frighten me. It made me anxious. I can't
tell you what it was like, but that was the effect which it 'ad on me. If
you want to know, it reminded me of those things in bottles in those
herbalistic shops at Plymouth--preserved in spirits of wine. White an'
crumply things--previous to birth as you might say."
"You 'ave a beastial mind, Pye," said the Sergeant, relighting his pipe.
"Perhaps. We were in the front row, an' 'Home an' Friends' came on early.
Vickery touched me on the knee when the number went up. 'If you see
anything that strikes you,' he says, 'drop me a hint'; then he went on
clicking. We saw London Bridge an' so forth an' so on, an' it was most
interestin'. I'd never seen it before. You 'eard a little dynamo like
buzzin', but the pictures were the real thing--alive an' movin'."
"I've seen 'em," said Hooper. "Of course they are taken from the very
thing itself--you see."
"Then the Western Mail came in to Paddin'ton on the big magic lantern
sheet. First we saw the platform empty an' the porters standin' by. Then
the engine come in, head on, an' the women in the front row jumped: she
headed so straight. Then the doors opened and the passengers came out and
the porters got the luggage--just like life. Only--only when any one came
down too far towards us that was watchin', they walked right out o' the
picture, so to speak. I was 'ighly interested, I can tell you. So were all
of us. I watched an old man with a rug 'oo'd dropped a book an' was tryin'
to pick it up, when quite slowly, from be'ind two porters--carryin' a
little reticule an' lookin' from side to side--comes out Mrs. Bathurst.
There was no mistakin' the walk in a hundred thousand. She come forward--
right forward--she looked out straight at us with that blindish look which
Pritch alluded to. She walked on and on till she melted out of the
picture--like--like a shadow jumpin' over a candle, an' as she went I
'eard Dawson in the ticky seats be'ind sing out: 'Christ! There's
Mrs. B.!'"
Hooper swallowed his spittle and leaned forward intently.
"Vickery touched me on the knee again. He was clickin' his four false
teeth with his jaw down like an enteric at the last kick. 'Are you sure?'
says he. 'Sure,' I says, 'didn't you 'ear Dawson give tongue? Why, it's
the woman herself.' 'I was sure before,' he says, 'but I brought you to
make sure. Will you come again with me to-morrow?'
"'Willingly,' I says, 'it's like meetin' old friends.'
"'Yes,' he says, openin' his watch, 'very like. It will be four-and-twenty
hours less four minutes before I see her again. Come and have a drink,' he
says. 'It may amuse you, but it's no sort of earthly use to me.' He went
out shaking his head an' stumblin' over people's feet as if he was drunk
already. I anticipated a swift drink an' a speedy return, because I wanted
to see the performin' elephants. Instead o' which Vickery began to
navigate the town at the rate o' knots, lookin' in at a bar every three
minutes approximate Greenwich time. I'm not a drinkin' man, though there
are those present"--he cocked his unforgetable eye at me--"who may have
seen me more or less imbued with the fragrant spirit. None the less, when
I drink I like to do it at anchor an' not at an average speed of eighteen
knots on the measured mile. There's a tank as you might say at the back o'
that big hotel up the hill--what do they call it?"
"The Molteno Reservoir," I suggested, and Hooper nodded.
"That was his limit o' drift. We walked there an' we come down through the
Gardens--there was a South-Easter blowin'--an' we finished up by the
Docks. Then we bore up the road to Salt River, and wherever there was a
pub Vickery put in sweatin'. He didn't look at what he drunk--he didn't
look at the change. He walked an' he drunk an' he perspired in rivers. I
understood why old Crocus 'ad come back in the condition 'e did, because
Vickery an' I 'ad two an' a half hours o' this gipsy manoeuvre an' when we
got back to the station there wasn't a dry atom on or in me."
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