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diff --git a/1743.txt b/1743.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..87f8533 --- /dev/null +++ b/1743.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8215 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Twelve Stories and a Dream, by H. G. Wells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Twelve Stories and a Dream + +Author: H. G. Wells + +Posting Date: September 21, 2008 [EBook #1743] +Release Date: May, 1999 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWELVE STORIES AND A DREAM *** + + + + +Produced by Aaron Cannon, and Stephanie Johnson + + + + + +TWELVE STORIES AND A DREAM + +By H. G. Wells + + + +CONTENTS + + 1. Filmer + + 2. The Magic Shop + + 3. The Valley of Spiders + + 4. The Truth About Pyecraft + + 5. Mr. Skelmersdale in Fairyland + + 6. The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost + + 7. Jimmy Goggles the God + + 8. The New Accelerator + + 9. Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation + + 10. The Stolen Body + + 11. Mr. Brisher's Treasure + + 12. Miss Winchelsea's Heart + + 13. A Dream of Armageddon + + + + +1. FILMER + +In truth the mastery of flying was the work of thousands of men--this +man a suggestion and that an experiment, until at last only one vigorous +intellectual effort was needed to finish the work. But the inexorable +injustice of the popular mind has decided that of all these thousands, +one man, and that a man who never flew, should be chosen as the +discoverer, just as it has chosen to honour Watt as the discoverer of +steam and Stephenson of the steam-engine. And surely of all honoured +names none is so grotesquely and tragically honoured as poor Filmer's, +the timid, intellectual creature who solved the problem over which the +world had hung perplexed and a little fearful for so many generations, +the man who pressed the button that has changed peace and warfare and +well-nigh every condition of human life and happiness. Never has that +recurring wonder of the littleness of the scientific man in the face of +the greatness of his science found such an amazing exemplification. +Much concerning Filmer is, and must remain, profoundly obscure--Filmers +attract no Boswells--but the essential facts and the concluding scene +are clear enough, and there are letters, and notes, and casual allusions +to piece the whole together. And this is the story one makes, putting +this thing with that, of Filmer's life and death. + +The first authentic trace of Filmer on the page of history is a document +in which he applies for admission as a paid student in physics to the +Government laboratories at South Kensington, and therein he describes +himself as the son of a "military bootmaker" ("cobbler" in the vulgar +tongue) of Dover, and lists his various examination proofs of a high +proficiency in chemistry and mathematics. With a certain want of dignity +he seeks to enhance these attainments by a profession of poverty and +disadvantages, and he writes of the laboratory as the "gaol" of his +ambitions, a slip which reinforces his claim to have devoted himself +exclusively to the exact sciences. The document is endorsed in a manner +that shows Filmer was admitted to this coveted opportunity; but until +quite recently no traces of his success in the Government institution +could be found. + +It has now, however, been shown that in spite of his professed zeal +for research, Filmer, before he had held this scholarship a year, was +tempted, by the possibility of a small increase in his immediate income, +to abandon it in order to become one of the nine-pence-an-hour computers +employed by a well-known Professor in his vicarious conduct of those +extensive researches of his in solar physics--researches which are still +a matter of perplexity to astronomers. Afterwards, for the space of +seven years, save for the pass lists of the London University, in which +he is seen to climb slowly to a double first class B.Sc., in mathematics +and chemistry, there is no evidence of how Filmer passed his life. No +one knows how or where he lived, though it seems highly probable that he +continued to support himself by teaching while he prosecuted the studies +necessary for this distinction. And then, oddly enough, one finds him +mentioned in the correspondence of Arthur Hicks, the poet. + +"You remember Filmer," Hicks writes to his friend Vance; "well, HE +hasn't altered a bit, the same hostile mumble and the nasty chin--how +CAN a man contrive to be always three days from shaving?--and a sort of +furtive air of being engaged in sneaking in front of one; even his +coat and that frayed collar of his show no further signs of the passing +years. He was writing in the library and I sat down beside him in the +name of God's charity, whereupon he deliberately insulted me by covering +up his memoranda. It seems he has some brilliant research on hand that +he suspects me of all people--with a Bodley Booklet a-printing!--of +stealing. He has taken remarkable honours at the University--he went +through them with a sort of hasty slobber, as though he feared I might +interrupt him before he had told me all--and he spoke of taking his +D.Sc. as one might speak of taking a cab. And he asked what I was +doing--with a sort of comparative accent, and his arm was spread +nervously, positively a protecting arm, over the paper that hid the +precious idea--his one hopeful idea. + +"'Poetry,' he said, 'Poetry. And what do you profess to teach in it, +Hicks?' + +"The thing's a Provincial professorling in the very act of budding, and +I thank the Lord devoutly that but for the precious gift of indolence I +also might have gone this way to D.Sc. and destruction..." + +A curious little vignette that I am inclined to think caught Filmer in +or near the very birth of his discovery. Hicks was wrong in anticipating +a provincial professorship for Filmer. Our next glimpse of him is +lecturing on "rubber and rubber substitutes," to the Society of Arts--he +had become manager to a great plastic-substance manufactory--and at +that time, it is now known, he was a member of the Aeronautical +Society, albeit he contributed nothing to the discussions of that body, +preferring no doubt to mature his great conception without external +assistance. And within two years of that paper before the Society of +Arts he was hastily taking out a number of patents and proclaiming in +various undignified ways the completion of the divergent inquiries which +made his flying machine possible. The first definite statement to that +effect appeared in a halfpenny evening paper through the agency of a man +who lodged in the same house with Filmer. His final haste after his long +laborious secret patience seems to have been due to a needless panic, +Bootle, the notorious American scientific quack, having made an +announcement that Filmer interpreted wrongly as an anticipation of his +idea. + +Now what precisely was Filmer's idea? Really a very simple one. Before +his time the pursuit of aeronautics had taken two divergent lines, and +had developed on the one hand balloons--large apparatus lighter than +air, easy in ascent, and comparatively safe in descent, but floating +helplessly before any breeze that took them; and on the other, flying +machines that flew only in theory--vast flat structures heavier than +air, propelled and kept up by heavy engines and for the most part +smashing at the first descent. But, neglecting the fact that the +inevitable final collapse rendered them impossible, the weight of the +flying machines gave them this theoretical advantage, that they could +go through the air against a wind, a necessary condition if aerial +navigation was to have any practical value. It is Filmer's particular +merit that he perceived the way in which the contrasted and hitherto +incompatible merits of balloon and heavy flying machine might be +combined in one apparatus, which should be at choice either heavier or +lighter than air. He took hints from the contractile bladders of fish +and the pneumatic cavities of birds. He devised an arrangement of +contractile and absolutely closed balloons which when expanded could +lift the actual flying apparatus with ease, and when retracted by the +complicated "musculature" he wove about them, were withdrawn almost +completely into the frame; and he built the large framework which these +balloons sustained, of hollow, rigid tubes, the air in which, by an +ingenious contrivance, was automatically pumped out as the apparatus +fell, and which then remained exhausted so long as the aeronaut desired. +There were no wings or propellers to his machine, such as there had been +to all previous aeroplanes, and the only engine required was the compact +and powerful little appliance needed to contract the balloons. He +perceived that such an apparatus as he had devised might rise with frame +exhausted and balloons expanded to a considerable height, might +then contract its balloons and let the air into its frame, and by an +adjustment of its weights slide down the air in any desired direction. +As it fell it would accumulate velocity and at the same time lose +weight, and the momentum accumulated by its down-rush could be utilised +by means of a shifting of its weights to drive it up in the air again +as the balloons expanded. This conception, which is still the structural +conception of all successful flying machines, needed, however, a vast +amount of toil upon its details before it could actually be +realised, and such toil Filmer--as he was accustomed to tell the +numerous interviewers who crowded upon him in the heyday of his +fame--"ungrudgingly and unsparingly gave." His particular difficulty was +the elastic lining of the contractile balloon. He found he needed a new +substance, and in the discovery and manufacture of that new substance he +had, as he never failed to impress upon the interviewers, "performed +a far more arduous work than even in the actual achievement of my +seemingly greater discovery." + +But it must not be imagined that these interviews followed hard upon +Filmer's proclamation of his invention. An interval of nearly five years +elapsed during which he timidly remained at his rubber factory--he +seems to have been entirely dependent on his small income from this +source--making misdirected attempts to assure a quite indifferent +public that he really HAD invented what he had invented. He occupied +the greater part of his leisure in the composition of letters to the +scientific and daily press, and so forth, stating precisely the net +result of his contrivances, and demanding financial aid. That alone +would have sufficed for the suppression of his letters. He spent such +holidays as he could arrange in unsatisfactory interviews with the +door-keepers of leading London papers--he was singularly not adapted for +inspiring hall-porters with confidence--and he positively attempted +to induce the War Office to take up his work with him. There remains a +confidential letter from Major-General Volleyfire to the Earl of Frogs. +"The man's a crank and a bounder to boot," says the Major-General in +his bluff, sensible, army way, and so left it open for the Japanese +to secure, as they subsequently did, the priority in this side of +warfare--a priority they still to our great discomfort retain. + +And then by a stroke of luck the membrane Filmer had invented for his +contractile balloon was discovered to be useful for the valves of a new +oil-engine, and he obtained the means for making a trial model of his +invention. He threw up his rubber factory appointment, desisted from all +further writing, and, with a certain secrecy that seems to have been an +inseparable characteristic of all his proceedings, set to work upon +the apparatus. He seems to have directed the making of its parts and +collected most of it in a room in Shoreditch, but its final putting +together was done at Dymchurch, in Kent. He did not make the affair +large enough to carry a man, but he made an extremely ingenious use of +what were then called the Marconi rays to control its flight. The first +flight of this first practicable flying machine took place over some +fields near Burford Bridge, near Hythe, in Kent, and Filmer followed and +controlled its flight upon a specially constructed motor tricycle. + +The flight was, considering all things, an amazing success. The +apparatus was brought in a cart from Dymchurch to Burford Bridge, +ascended there to a height of nearly three hundred feet, swooped thence +very nearly back to Dymchurch, came about in its sweep, rose again, +circled, and finally sank uninjured in a field behind the Burford +Bridge Inn. At its descent a curious thing happened. Filmer got off his +tricycle, scrambled over the intervening dyke, advanced perhaps +twenty yards towards his triumph, threw out his arms in a strange +gesticulation, and fell down in a dead faint. Every one could then +recall the ghastliness of his features and all the evidences of extreme +excitement they had observed throughout the trial, things they might +otherwise have forgotten. Afterwards in the inn he had an unaccountable +gust of hysterical weeping. + +Altogether there were not twenty witnesses of this affair, and those for +the most part uneducated men. The New Romney doctor saw the ascent but +not the descent, his horse being frightened by the electrical apparatus +on Filmer's tricycle and giving him a nasty spill. Two members of +the Kent constabulary watched the affair from a cart in an unofficial +spirit, and a grocer calling round the Marsh for orders and two lady +cyclists seem almost to complete the list of educated people. There were +two reporters present, one representing a Folkestone paper and the +other being a fourth-class interviewer and "symposium" journalist, whose +expenses down, Filmer, anxious as ever for adequate advertisement--and +now quite realising the way in which adequate advertisement may be +obtained--had paid. The latter was one of those writers who can throw +a convincing air of unreality over the most credible events, and his +half-facetious account of the affair appeared in the magazine page of +a popular journal. But, happily for Filmer, this person's colloquial +methods were more convincing. He went to offer some further screed upon +the subject to Banghurst, the proprietor of the New Paper, and one of +the ablest and most unscrupulous men in London journalism, and Banghurst +instantly seized upon the situation. The interviewer vanishes from +the narrative, no doubt very doubtfully remunerated, and Banghurst, +Banghurst himself, double chin, grey twill suit, abdomen, voice, +gestures and all, appears at Dymchurch, following his large, unrivalled +journalistic nose. He had seen the whole thing at a glance, just what it +was and what it might be. + +At his touch, as it were, Filmer's long-pent investigations exploded +into fame. He instantly and most magnificently was a Boom. One turns +over the files of the journals of the year 1907 with a quite incredulous +recognition of how swift and flaming the boom of those days could be. +The July papers know nothing of flying, see nothing in flying, state by +a most effective silence that men never would, could or should fly. In +August flying and Filmer and flying and parachutes and aerial tactics +and the Japanese Government and Filmer and again flying, shouldered +the war in Yunnan and the gold mines of Upper Greenland off the leading +page. And Banghurst had given ten thousand pounds, and, further, +Banghurst was giving five thousand pounds, and Banghurst had devoted his +well-known, magnificent (but hitherto sterile) private laboratories and +several acres of land near his private residence on the Surrey hills +to the strenuous and violent completion--Banghurst fashion--of the +life-size practicable flying machine. Meanwhile, in the sight of +privileged multitudes in the walled-garden of the Banghurst town +residence in Fulham, Filmer was exhibited at weekly garden parties +putting the working model through its paces. At enormous initial cost, +but with a final profit, the New Paper presented its readers with a +beautiful photographic souvenir of the first of these occasions. + +Here again the correspondence of Arthur Hicks and his friend Vance comes +to our aid. + +"I saw Filmer in his glory," he writes, with just the touch of envy +natural to his position as a poet passe. "The man is brushed and shaved, +dressed in the fashion of a Royal-Institution-Afternoon Lecturer, the +very newest shape in frock-coats and long patent shoes, and altogether +in a state of extraordinary streakiness between an owlish great man and +a scared abashed self-conscious bounder cruelly exposed. He hasn't a +touch of colour in the skin of his face, his head juts forward, and +those queer little dark amber eyes of his watch furtively round him for +his fame. His clothes fit perfectly and yet sit upon him as though he +had bought them ready-made. He speaks in a mumble still, but he says, +you perceive indistinctly, enormous self-assertive things, he backs into +the rear of groups by instinct if Banghurst drops the line for a minute, +and when he walks across Banghurst's lawn one perceives him a little out +of breath and going jerky, and that his weak white hands are clenched. +His is a state of tension--horrible tension. And he is the Greatest +Discoverer of This or Any Age--the Greatest Discoverer of This or Any +Age! What strikes one so forcibly about him is that he didn't somehow +quite expect it ever, at any rate, not at all like this. Banghurst is +about everywhere, the energetic M.C. of his great little catch, and +I swear he will have every one down on his lawn there before he has +finished with the engine; he had bagged the prime minister yesterday, +and he, bless his heart! didn't look particularly outsize, on the very +first occasion. Conceive it! Filmer! Our obscure unwashed Filmer, the +Glory of British science! Duchesses crowd upon him, beautiful, bold +peeresses say in their beautiful, clear loud voices--have you noticed +how penetrating the great lady is becoming nowadays?--'Oh, Mr. Filmer, +how DID you do it?' + +"Common men on the edge of things are too remote for the answer. One +imagines something in the way of that interview, 'toil ungrudgingly +and unsparingly given, Madam, and, perhaps--I don't know--but perhaps a +little special aptitude.'" + +So far Hicks, and the photographic supplement to the New Paper is in +sufficient harmony with the description. In one picture the machine +swings down towards the river, and the tower of Fulham church appears +below it through a gap in the elms, and in another, Filmer sits at his +guiding batteries, and the great and beautiful of the earth stand around +him, with Banghurst massed modestly but resolutely in the rear. The +grouping is oddly apposite. Occluding much of Banghurst, and looking +with a pensive, speculative expression at Filmer, stands the Lady Mary +Elkinghorn, still beautiful, in spite of the breath of scandal and her +eight-and-thirty years, the only person whose face does not admit a +perception of the camera that was in the act of snapping them all. + +So much for the exterior facts of the story, but, after all, they are +very exterior facts. About the real interest of the business one is +necessarily very much in the dark. How was Filmer feeling at the time? +How much was a certain unpleasant anticipation present inside that +very new and fashionable frock-coat? He was in the halfpenny, penny, +six-penny, and more expensive papers alike, and acknowledged by the +whole world as "the Greatest Discoverer of This or Any Age." He had +invented a practicable flying machine, and every day down among the +Surrey hills the life-sized model was getting ready. And when it was +ready, it followed as a clear inevitable consequence of his having +invented and made it--everybody in the world, indeed, seemed to take +it for granted; there wasn't a gap anywhere in that serried front of +anticipation--that he would proudly and cheerfully get aboard it, ascend +with it, and fly. + +But we know now pretty clearly that simple pride and cheerfulness +in such an act were singularly out of harmony with Filmer's private +constitution. It occurred to no one at the time, but there the fact is. +We can guess with some confidence now that it must have been drifting +about in his mind a great deal during the day, and, from a little +note to his physician complaining of persistent insomnia, we have the +soundest reason for supposing it dominated his nights,--the idea that it +would be after all, in spite of his theoretical security, an abominably +sickening, uncomfortable, and dangerous thing for him to flap about in +nothingness a thousand feet or so in the air. It must have dawned upon +him quite early in the period of being the Greatest Discoverer of This +or Any Age, the vision of doing this and that with an extensive void +below. Perhaps somewhen in his youth he had looked down a great height +or fallen down in some excessively uncomfortable way; perhaps some habit +of sleeping on the wrong side had resulted in that disagreeable falling +nightmare one knows, and given him his horror; of the strength of that +horror there remains now not a particle of doubt. + +Apparently he had never weighed this duty of flying in his earlier days +of research; the machine had been his end, but now things were opening +out beyond his end, and particularly this giddy whirl up above there. He +was a Discoverer and he had Discovered. But he was not a Flying Man, and +it was only now that he was beginning to perceive clearly that he was +expected to fly. Yet, however much the thing was present in his mind he +gave no expression to it until the very end, and meanwhile he went to +and fro from Banghurst's magnificent laboratories, and was interviewed +and lionised, and wore good clothes, and ate good food, and lived in +an elegant flat, enjoying a very abundant feast of such good, coarse, +wholesome Fame and Success as a man, starved for all his years as he had +been starved, might be reasonably expected to enjoy. + +After a time, the weekly gatherings in Fulham ceased. The model had +failed one day just for a moment to respond to Filmer's guidance, or he +had been distracted by the compliments of an archbishop. At any rate, +it suddenly dug its nose into the air just a little too steeply as the +archbishop was sailing through a Latin quotation for all the world like +an archbishop in a book, and it came down in the Fulham Road within +three yards of a 'bus horse. It stood for a second perhaps, astonishing +and in its attitude astonished, then it crumpled, shivered into pieces, +and the 'bus horse was incidentally killed. + +Filmer lost the end of the archiepiscopal compliment. He stood up and +stared as his invention swooped out of sight and reach of him. His long, +white hands still gripped his useless apparatus. The archbishop followed +his skyward stare with an apprehension unbecoming in an archbishop. + +Then came the crash and the shouts and uproar from the road to relieve +Filmer's tension. "My God!" he whispered, and sat down. + +Every one else almost was staring to see where the machine had vanished, +or rushing into the house. + +The making of the big machine progressed all the more rapidly for this. +Over its making presided Filmer, always a little slow and very careful +in his manner, always with a growing preoccupation in his mind. His care +over the strength and soundness of the apparatus was prodigious. The +slightest doubt, and he delayed everything until the doubtful part could +be replaced. Wilkinson, his senior assistant, fumed at some of these +delays, which, he insisted, were for the most part unnecessary. +Banghurst magnified the patient certitude of Filmer in the New +Paper, and reviled it bitterly to his wife, and MacAndrew, the second +assistant, approved Filmer's wisdom. "We're not wanting a fiasco, man," +said MacAndrew. "He's perfectly well advised." + +And whenever an opportunity arose Filmer would expound to Wilkinson and +MacAndrew just exactly how every part of the flying machine was to be +controlled and worked, so that in effect they would be just as capable, +and even more capable, when at last the time came, of guiding it through +the skies. + +Now I should imagine that if Filmer had seen fit at this stage to define +just what he was feeling, and to take a definite line in the matter of +his ascent, he might have escaped that painful ordeal quite easily. If +he had had it clearly in his mind he could have done endless things. He +would surely have found no difficulty with a specialist to demonstrate a +weak heart, or something gastric or pulmonary, to stand in his way--that +is the line I am astonished he did not take,--or he might, had he been +man enough, have declared simply and finally that he did not intend to +do the thing. But the fact is, though the dread was hugely present in +his mind, the thing was by no means sharp and clear. I fancy that all +through this period he kept telling himself that when the occasion came +he would find himself equal to it. He was like a man just gripped by a +great illness, who says he feels a little out of sorts, and expects to +be better presently. Meanwhile he delayed the completion of the machine, +and let the assumption that he was going to fly it take root and +flourish exceedingly about him. He even accepted anticipatory +compliments on his courage. And, barring this secret squeamishness, +there can be no doubt he found all the praise and distinction and fuss +he got a delightful and even intoxicating draught. + +The Lady Mary Elkinghorn made things a little more complicated for him. + +How THAT began was a subject of inexhaustible speculation to Hicks. +Probably in the beginning she was just a little "nice" to him with that +impartial partiality of hers, and it may be that to her eyes, standing +out conspicuously as he did ruling his monster in the upper air, he had +a distinction that Hicks was not disposed to find. And somehow they must +have had a moment of sufficient isolation, and the great Discoverer a +moment of sufficient courage for something just a little personal to +be mumbled or blurted. However it began, there is no doubt that it did +begin, and presently became quite perceptible to a world accustomed +to find in the proceedings of the Lady Mary Elkinghorn a matter of +entertainment. It complicated things, because the state of love in +such a virgin mind as Filmer's would brace his resolution, if not +sufficiently, at any rate considerably towards facing a danger he +feared, and hampered him in such attempts at evasion as would otherwise +be natural and congenial. + +It remains a matter for speculation just how the Lady Mary felt for +Filmer and just what she thought of him. At thirty-eight one may +have gathered much wisdom and still be not altogether wise, and the +imagination still functions actively enough in creating glamours and +effecting the impossible. He came before her eyes as a very central man, +and that always counts, and he had powers, unique powers as it seemed, +at any rate in the air. The performance with the model had just a touch +of the quality of a potent incantation, and women have ever displayed an +unreasonable disposition to imagine that when a man has powers he must +necessarily have Power. Given so much, and what was not good in Filmer's +manner and appearance became an added merit. He was modest, he hated +display, but given an occasion where TRUE qualities are needed, +then--then one would see! + +The late Mrs. Bampton thought it wise to convey to Lady Mary her opinion +that Filmer, all things considered, was rather a "grub." "He's certainly +not a sort of man I have ever met before," said the Lady Mary, with a +quite unruffled serenity. And Mrs. Bampton, after a swift, imperceptible +glance at that serenity, decided that so far as saying anything to Lady +Mary went, she had done as much as could be expected of her. But she +said a great deal to other people. + +And at last, without any undue haste or unseemliness, the day dawned, +the great day, when Banghurst had promised his public--the world in +fact--that flying should be finally attained and overcome. Filmer saw it +dawn, watched even in the darkness before it dawned, watched its stars +fade and the grey and pearly pinks give place at last to the clear blue +sky of a sunny, cloudless day. He watched it from the window of his +bedroom in the new-built wing of Banghurst's Tudor house. And as the +stars were overwhelmed and the shapes and substances of things grew +into being out of the amorphous dark, he must have seen more and more +distinctly the festive preparations beyond the beech clumps near the +green pavilion in the outer park, the three stands for the privileged +spectators, the raw, new fencing of the enclosure, the sheds and +workshops, the Venetian masts and fluttering flags that Banghurst had +considered essential, black and limp in the breezeless dawn, and amidst +all these things a great shape covered with tarpauling. A strange and +terrible portent for humanity was that shape, a beginning that must +surely spread and widen and change and dominate all the affairs of men, +but to Filmer it is very doubtful whether it appeared in anything but a +narrow and personal light. Several people heard him pacing in the small +hours--for the vast place was packed with guests by a proprietor editor +who, before all understood compression. And about five o'clock, if not +before, Filmer left his room and wandered out of the sleeping house into +the park, alive by that time with sunlight and birds and squirrels and +the fallow deer. MacAndrew, who was also an early riser, met him near +the machine, and they went and had a look at it together. + +It is doubtful if Filmer took any breakfast, in spite of the urgency +of Banghurst. So soon as the guests began to be about in some number he +seems to have retreated to his room. Thence about ten he went into the +shrubbery, very probably because he had seen the Lady Mary Elkinghorn +there. She was walking up and down, engaged in conversation with her old +school friend, Mrs. Brewis-Craven, and although Filmer had never met the +latter lady before, he joined them and walked beside them for some time. +There were several silences in spite of the Lady Mary's brilliance. The +situation was a difficult one, and Mrs. Brewis-Craven did not master +its difficulty. "He struck me," she said afterwards with a luminous +self-contradiction, "as a very unhappy person who had something to say, +and wanted before all things to be helped to say it. But how was one to +help him when one didn't know what it was?" + +At half-past eleven the enclosures for the public in the outer park were +crammed, there was an intermittent stream of equipages along the belt +which circles the outer park, and the house party was dotted over the +lawn and shrubbery and the corner of the inner park, in a series of +brilliantly attired knots, all making for the flying machine. Filmer +walked in a group of three with Banghurst, who was supremely and +conspicuously happy, and Sir Theodore Hickle, the president of the +Aeronautical Society. Mrs. Banghurst was close behind with the Lady Mary +Elkinghorn, Georgina Hickle, and the Dean of Stays. Banghurst was large +and copious in speech, and such interstices as he left were filled in by +Hickle with complimentary remarks to Filmer. And Filmer walked between +them saying not a word except by way of unavoidable reply. Behind, Mrs. +Banghurst listened to the admirably suitable and shapely conversation of +the Dean with that fluttered attention to the ampler clergy ten years +of social ascent and ascendency had not cured in her; and the Lady +Mary watched, no doubt with an entire confidence in the world's +disillusionment, the drooping shoulders of the sort of man she had never +met before. + +There was some cheering as the central party came into view of the +enclosures, but it was not very unanimous nor invigorating cheering. +They were within fifty yards of the apparatus when Filmer took a hasty +glance over his shoulder to measure the distance of the ladies behind +them, and decided to make the first remark he had initiated since the +house had been left. His voice was just a little hoarse, and he cut in +on Banghurst in mid-sentence on Progress. + +"I say, Banghurst," he said, and stopped. + +"Yes," said Banghurst. + +"I wish--" He moistened his lips. "I'm not feeling well." + +Banghurst stopped dead. "Eh?" he shouted. + +"A queer feeling." Filmer made to move on, but Banghurst was immovable. +"I don't know. I may be better in a minute. If not--perhaps... +MacAndrew--" + +"You're not feeling WELL?" said Banghurst, and stared at his white face. + +"My dear!" he said, as Mrs. Banghurst came up with them, "Filmer says he +isn't feeling WELL." + +"A little queer," exclaimed Filmer, avoiding the Lady Mary's eyes. "It +may pass off--" + +There was a pause. + +It came to Filmer that he was the most isolated person in the world. + +"In any case," said Banghurst, "the ascent must be made. Perhaps if you +were to sit down somewhere for a moment--" + +"It's the crowd, I think," said Filmer. + +There was a second pause. Banghurst's eye rested in scrutiny on Filmer, +and then swept the sample of public in the enclosure. + +"It's unfortunate," said Sir Theodore Hickle; "but still--I suppose--Your +assistants--Of course, if you feel out of condition and disinclined--" + +"I don't think Mr. Filmer would permit THAT for a moment," said Lady +Mary. + +"But if Mr. Filmer's nerve is run--It might even be dangerous for him to +attempt--" Hickle coughed. + +"It's just because it's dangerous," began the Lady Mary, and felt she +had made her point of view and Filmer's plain enough. + +Conflicting motives struggled for Filmer. + +"I feel I ought to go up," he said, regarding the ground. He looked up +and met the Lady Mary's eyes. "I want to go up," he said, and smiled +whitely at her. He turned towards Banghurst. "If I could just sit down +somewhere for a moment out of the crowd and sun--" + +Banghurst, at least, was beginning to understand the case. "Come into my +little room in the green pavilion," he said. "It's quite cool there." He +took Filmer by the arm. + +Filmer turned his face to the Lady Mary Elkinghorn again. "I shall be +all right in five minutes," he said. "I'm tremendously sorry--" + +The Lady Mary Elkinghorn smiled at him. "I couldn't think--" he said to +Hickle, and obeyed the compulsion of Banghurst's pull. + +The rest remained watching the two recede. + +"He is so fragile," said the Lady Mary. + +"He's certainly a highly nervous type," said the Dean, whose weakness +it was to regard the whole world, except married clergymen with enormous +families, as "neurotic." + +"Of course," said Hickle, "it isn't absolutely necessary for him to go +up because he has invented--" + +"How COULD he avoid it?" asked the Lady Mary, with the faintest shadow +of scorn. + +"It's certainly most unfortunate if he's going to be ill now," said Mrs. +Banghurst a little severely. + +"He's not going to be ill," said the Lady Mary, and certainly she had +met Filmer's eye. + +"YOU'LL be all right," said Banghurst, as they went towards the +pavilion. "All you want is a nip of brandy. It ought to be you, you +know. You'll be--you'd get it rough, you know, if you let another man--" + +"Oh, I want to go," said Filmer. "I shall be all right. As a matter of +fact I'm almost inclined NOW--. No! I think I'll have that nip of brandy +first." + +Banghurst took him into the little room and routed out an empty +decanter. He departed in search of a supply. He was gone perhaps five +minutes. + +The history of those five minutes cannot be written. At intervals +Filmer's face could be seen by the people on the easternmost of the +stands erected for spectators, against the window pane peering out, and +then it would recede and fade. Banghurst vanished shouting behind the +grand stand, and presently the butler appeared going pavilionward with a +tray. + +The apartment in which Filmer came to his last solution was a pleasant +little room very simply furnished with green furniture and an old +bureau--for Banghurst was simple in all his private ways. It was hung +with little engravings after Morland and it had a shelf of books. But as +it happened, Banghurst had left a rook rifle he sometimes played with on +the top of the desk, and on the corner of the mantelshelf was a tin with +three or four cartridges remaining in it. As Filmer went up and down +that room wrestling with his intolerable dilemma he went first towards +the neat little rifle athwart the blotting-pad and then towards the neat +little red label + +".22 LONG." + +The thing must have jumped into his mind in a moment. + +Nobody seems to have connected the report with him, though the gun, +being fired in a confined space, must have sounded loud, and there +were several people in the billiard-room, separated from him only by a +lath-and-plaster partition. But directly Banghurst's butler opened the +door and smelt the sour smell of the smoke, he knew, he says, what had +happened. For the servants at least of Banghurst's household had guessed +something of what was going on in Filmer's mind. + +All through that trying afternoon Banghurst behaved as he held a man +should behave in the presence of hopeless disaster, and his guests +for the most part succeeded in not insisting upon the fact--though to +conceal their perception of it altogether was impossible--that Banghurst +had been pretty elaborately and completely swindled by the deceased. The +public in the enclosure, Hicks told me, dispersed "like a party that has +been ducking a welsher," and there wasn't a soul in the train to London, +it seems, who hadn't known all along that flying was a quite impossible +thing for man. "But he might have tried it," said many, "after carrying +the thing so far." + +In the evening, when he was comparatively alone, Banghurst broke down +and went on like a man of clay. I have been told he wept, which must +have made an imposing scene, and he certainly said Filmer had ruined +his life, and offered and sold the whole apparatus to MacAndrew for +half-a-crown. "I've been thinking--" said MacAndrew at the conclusion of +the bargain, and stopped. + +The next morning the name of Filmer was, for the first time, less +conspicuous in the New Paper than in any other daily paper in the world. +The rest of the world's instructors, with varying emphasis, according to +their dignity and the degree of competition between themselves and the +New Paper, proclaimed the "Entire Failure of the New Flying Machine," +and "Suicide of the Impostor." But in the district of North Surrey the +reception of the news was tempered by a perception of unusual aerial +phenomena. + +Overnight Wilkinson and MacAndrew had fallen into violent argument on +the exact motives of their principal's rash act. + +"The man was certainly a poor, cowardly body, but so far as his science +went he was NO impostor," said MacAndrew, "and I'm prepared to give that +proposition a very practical demonstration, Mr. Wilkinson, so soon as +we've got the place a little more to ourselves. For I've no faith in all +this publicity for experimental trials." + +And to that end, while all the world was reading of the certain failure +of the new flying machine, MacAndrew was soaring and curvetting with +great amplitude and dignity over the Epsom and Wimbledon divisions; +and Banghurst, restored once more to hope and energy, and regardless of +public security and the Board of Trade, was pursuing his gyrations and +trying to attract his attention, on a motor car and in his pyjamas--he +had caught sight of the ascent when pulling up the blind of his bedroom +window--equipped, among other things, with a film camera that was +subsequently discovered to be jammed. And Filmer was lying on the +billiard table in the green pavilion with a sheet about his body. + + + + +2. THE MAGIC SHOP + +I had seen the Magic Shop from afar several times; I had passed it once +or twice, a shop window of alluring little objects, magic balls, magic +hens, wonderful cones, ventriloquist dolls, the material of the basket +trick, packs of cards that LOOKED all right, and all that sort of +thing, but never had I thought of going in until one day, almost without +warning, Gip hauled me by my finger right up to the window, and so +conducted himself that there was nothing for it but to take him in. I +had not thought the place was there, to tell the truth--a modest-sized +frontage in Regent Street, between the picture shop and the place where +the chicks run about just out of patent incubators, but there it was +sure enough. I had fancied it was down nearer the Circus, or round the +corner in Oxford Street, or even in Holborn; always over the way and +a little inaccessible it had been, with something of the mirage in its +position; but here it was now quite indisputably, and the fat end of +Gip's pointing finger made a noise upon the glass. + +"If I was rich," said Gip, dabbing a finger at the Disappearing Egg, +"I'd buy myself that. And that"--which was The Crying Baby, Very +Human--"and that," which was a mystery, and called, so a neat card +asserted, "Buy One and Astonish Your Friends." + +"Anything," said Gip, "will disappear under one of those cones. I have +read about it in a book. + +"And there, dadda, is the Vanishing Halfpenny--, only they've put it +this way up so's we can't see how it's done." + +Gip, dear boy, inherits his mother's breeding, and he did not propose to +enter the shop or worry in any way; only, you know, quite unconsciously +he lugged my finger doorward, and he made his interest clear. + +"That," he said, and pointed to the Magic Bottle. + +"If you had that?" I said; at which promising inquiry he looked up with +a sudden radiance. + +"I could show it to Jessie," he said, thoughtful as ever of others. + +"It's less than a hundred days to your birthday, Gibbles," I said, and +laid my hand on the door-handle. + +Gip made no answer, but his grip tightened on my finger, and so we came +into the shop. + +It was no common shop this; it was a magic shop, and all the prancing +precedence Gip would have taken in the matter of mere toys was wanting. +He left the burthen of the conversation to me. + +It was a little, narrow shop, not very well lit, and the door-bell +pinged again with a plaintive note as we closed it behind us. For a +moment or so we were alone and could glance about us. There was a tiger +in papier-mache on the glass case that covered the low counter--a grave, +kind-eyed tiger that waggled his head in a methodical manner; there were +several crystal spheres, a china hand holding magic cards, a stock +of magic fish-bowls in various sizes, and an immodest magic hat that +shamelessly displayed its springs. On the floor were magic mirrors; one +to draw you out long and thin, one to swell your head and vanish your +legs, and one to make you short and fat like a draught; and while we +were laughing at these the shopman, as I suppose, came in. + +At any rate, there he was behind the counter--a curious, sallow, dark +man, with one ear larger than the other and a chin like the toe-cap of a +boot. + +"What can we have the pleasure?" he said, spreading his long, magic +fingers on the glass case; and so with a start we were aware of him. + +"I want," I said, "to buy my little boy a few simple tricks." + +"Legerdemain?" he asked. "Mechanical? Domestic?" + +"Anything amusing?" said I. + +"Um!" said the shopman, and scratched his head for a moment as if +thinking. Then, quite distinctly, he drew from his head a glass ball. +"Something in this way?" he said, and held it out. + +The action was unexpected. I had seen the trick done at entertainments +endless times before--it's part of the common stock of conjurers--but I +had not expected it here. + +"That's good," I said, with a laugh. + +"Isn't it?" said the shopman. + +Gip stretched out his disengaged hand to take this object and found +merely a blank palm. + +"It's in your pocket," said the shopman, and there it was! + +"How much will that be?" I asked. + +"We make no charge for glass balls," said the shopman politely. "We get +them,"--he picked one out of his elbow as he spoke--"free." He produced +another from the back of his neck, and laid it beside its predecessor on +the counter. Gip regarded his glass ball sagely, then directed a look +of inquiry at the two on the counter, and finally brought his round-eyed +scrutiny to the shopman, who smiled. + +"You may have those too," said the shopman, "and, if you DON'T mind, one +from my mouth. SO!" + +Gip counselled me mutely for a moment, and then in a profound silence +put away the four balls, resumed my reassuring finger, and nerved +himself for the next event. + +"We get all our smaller tricks in that way," the shopman remarked. + +I laughed in the manner of one who subscribes to a jest. "Instead of +going to the wholesale shop," I said. "Of course, it's cheaper." + +"In a way," the shopman said. "Though we pay in the end. But not +so heavily--as people suppose.... Our larger tricks, and our daily +provisions and all the other things we want, we get out of that +hat... And you know, sir, if you'll excuse my saying it, there ISN'T a +wholesale shop, not for Genuine Magic goods, sir. I don't know if +you noticed our inscription--the Genuine Magic shop." He drew a +business-card from his cheek and handed it to me. "Genuine," he +said, with his finger on the word, and added, "There is absolutely no +deception, sir." + +He seemed to be carrying out the joke pretty thoroughly, I thought. + +He turned to Gip with a smile of remarkable affability. "You, you know, +are the Right Sort of Boy." + +I was surprised at his knowing that, because, in the interests of +discipline, we keep it rather a secret even at home; but Gip received it +in unflinching silence, keeping a steadfast eye on him. + +"It's only the Right Sort of Boy gets through that doorway." + +And, as if by way of illustration, there came a rattling at the door, +and a squeaking little voice could be faintly heard. "Nyar! I WARN 'a go +in there, dadda, I WARN 'a go in there. Ny-a-a-ah!" and then the accents +of a down-trodden parent, urging consolations and propitiations. "It's +locked, Edward," he said. + +"But it isn't," said I. + +"It is, sir," said the shopman, "always--for that sort of child," and as +he spoke we had a glimpse of the other youngster, a little, white face, +pallid from sweet-eating and over-sapid food, and distorted by evil +passions, a ruthless little egotist, pawing at the enchanted pane. +"It's no good, sir," said the shopman, as I moved, with my natural +helpfulness, doorward, and presently the spoilt child was carried off +howling. + +"How do you manage that?" I said, breathing a little more freely. + +"Magic!" said the shopman, with a careless wave of the hand, and behold! +sparks of coloured fire flew out of his fingers and vanished into the +shadows of the shop. + +"You were saying," he said, addressing himself to Gip, "before you came +in, that you would like one of our 'Buy One and Astonish your Friends' +boxes?" + +Gip, after a gallant effort, said "Yes." + +"It's in your pocket." + +And leaning over the counter--he really had an extraordinarily long +body--this amazing person produced the article in the customary +conjurer's manner. "Paper," he said, and took a sheet out of the empty +hat with the springs; "string," and behold his mouth was a string-box, +from which he drew an unending thread, which when he had tied his parcel +he bit off--and, it seemed to me, swallowed the ball of string. And then +he lit a candle at the nose of one of the ventriloquist's dummies, stuck +one of his fingers (which had become sealing-wax red) into the flame, +and so sealed the parcel. "Then there was the Disappearing Egg," he +remarked, and produced one from within my coat-breast and packed it, and +also The Crying Baby, Very Human. I handed each parcel to Gip as it was +ready, and he clasped them to his chest. + +He said very little, but his eyes were eloquent; the clutch of his arms +was eloquent. He was the playground of unspeakable emotions. These, +you know, were REAL Magics. Then, with a start, I discovered something +moving about in my hat--something soft and jumpy. I whipped it off, and +a ruffled pigeon--no doubt a confederate--dropped out and ran on the +counter, and went, I fancy, into a cardboard box behind the papier-mache +tiger. + +"Tut, tut!" said the shopman, dexterously relieving me of my headdress; +"careless bird, and--as I live--nesting!" + +He shook my hat, and shook out into his extended hand two or three eggs, +a large marble, a watch, about half-a-dozen of the inevitable glass +balls, and then crumpled, crinkled paper, more and more and more, +talking all the time of the way in which people neglect to brush their +hats INSIDE as well as out, politely, of course, but with a certain +personal application. "All sorts of things accumulate, sir.... Not YOU, +of course, in particular.... Nearly every customer.... Astonishing what +they carry about with them...." The crumpled paper rose and billowed on +the counter more and more and more, until he was nearly hidden from us, +until he was altogether hidden, and still his voice went on and on. "We +none of us know what the fair semblance of a human being may conceal, +sir. Are we all then no better than brushed exteriors, whited +sepulchres--" + +His voice stopped--exactly like when you hit a neighbour's gramophone +with a well-aimed brick, the same instant silence, and the rustle of the +paper stopped, and everything was still.... + +"Have you done with my hat?" I said, after an interval. + +There was no answer. + +I stared at Gip, and Gip stared at me, and there were our distortions in +the magic mirrors, looking very rum, and grave, and quiet.... + +"I think we'll go now," I said. "Will you tell me how much all this +comes to?.... + +"I say," I said, on a rather louder note, "I want the bill; and my hat, +please." + +It might have been a sniff from behind the paper pile.... + +"Let's look behind the counter, Gip," I said. "He's making fun of us." + +I led Gip round the head-wagging tiger, and what do you think there +was behind the counter? No one at all! Only my hat on the floor, and a +common conjurer's lop-eared white rabbit lost in meditation, and looking +as stupid and crumpled as only a conjurer's rabbit can do. I resumed my +hat, and the rabbit lolloped a lollop or so out of my way. + +"Dadda!" said Gip, in a guilty whisper. + +"What is it, Gip?" said I. + +"I DO like this shop, dadda." + +"So should I," I said to myself, "if the counter wouldn't suddenly +extend itself to shut one off from the door." But I didn't call Gip's +attention to that. "Pussy!" he said, with a hand out to the rabbit as it +came lolloping past us; "Pussy, do Gip a magic!" and his eyes followed +it as it squeezed through a door I had certainly not remarked a moment +before. Then this door opened wider, and the man with one ear larger +than the other appeared again. He was smiling still, but his eye met +mine with something between amusement and defiance. "You'd like to see +our show-room, sir," he said, with an innocent suavity. Gip tugged +my finger forward. I glanced at the counter and met the shopman's eye +again. I was beginning to think the magic just a little too genuine. +"We haven't VERY much time," I said. But somehow we were inside the +show-room before I could finish that. + +"All goods of the same quality," said the shopman, rubbing his flexible +hands together, "and that is the Best. Nothing in the place that isn't +genuine Magic, and warranted thoroughly rum. Excuse me, sir!" + +I felt him pull at something that clung to my coat-sleeve, and then +I saw he held a little, wriggling red demon by the tail--the little +creature bit and fought and tried to get at his hand--and in a moment +he tossed it carelessly behind a counter. No doubt the thing was only an +image of twisted indiarubber, but for the moment--! And his gesture was +exactly that of a man who handles some petty biting bit of vermin. I +glanced at Gip, but Gip was looking at a magic rocking-horse. I was +glad he hadn't seen the thing. "I say," I said, in an undertone, and +indicating Gip and the red demon with my eyes, "you haven't many things +like THAT about, have you?" + +"None of ours! Probably brought it with you," said the shopman--also +in an undertone, and with a more dazzling smile than ever. "Astonishing +what people WILL carry about with them unawares!" And then to Gip, "Do +you see anything you fancy here?" + +There were many things that Gip fancied there. + +He turned to this astonishing tradesman with mingled confidence and +respect. "Is that a Magic Sword?" he said. + +"A Magic Toy Sword. It neither bends, breaks, nor cuts the fingers. It +renders the bearer invincible in battle against any one under eighteen. +Half-a-crown to seven and sixpence, according to size. These panoplies +on cards are for juvenile knights-errant and very useful--shield of +safety, sandals of swiftness, helmet of invisibility." + +"Oh, daddy!" gasped Gip. + +I tried to find out what they cost, but the shopman did not heed me. +He had got Gip now; he had got him away from my finger; he had embarked +upon the exposition of all his confounded stock, and nothing was going +to stop him. Presently I saw with a qualm of distrust and something very +like jealousy that Gip had hold of this person's finger as usually he +has hold of mine. No doubt the fellow was interesting, I thought, +and had an interestingly faked lot of stuff, really GOOD faked stuff, +still-- + +I wandered after them, saying very little, but keeping an eye on this +prestidigital fellow. After all, Gip was enjoying it. And no doubt when +the time came to go we should be able to go quite easily. + +It was a long, rambling place, that show-room, a gallery broken up +by stands and stalls and pillars, with archways leading off to other +departments, in which the queerest-looking assistants loafed and stared +at one, and with perplexing mirrors and curtains. So perplexing, indeed, +were these that I was presently unable to make out the door by which we +had come. + +The shopman showed Gip magic trains that ran without steam or clockwork, +just as you set the signals, and then some very, very valuable boxes of +soldiers that all came alive directly you took off the lid and said--. I +myself haven't a very quick ear and it was a tongue-twisting sound, +but Gip--he has his mother's ear--got it in no time. "Bravo!" said the +shopman, putting the men back into the box unceremoniously and handing +it to Gip. "Now," said the shopman, and in a moment Gip had made them +all alive again. + +"You'll take that box?" asked the shopman. + +"We'll take that box," said I, "unless you charge its full value. In +which case it would need a Trust Magnate--" + +"Dear heart! NO!" and the shopman swept the little men back again, shut +the lid, waved the box in the air, and there it was, in brown paper, +tied up and--WITH GIP'S FULL NAME AND ADDRESS ON THE PAPER! + +The shopman laughed at my amazement. + +"This is the genuine magic," he said. "The real thing." + +"It's a little too genuine for my taste," I said again. + +After that he fell to showing Gip tricks, odd tricks, and still odder +the way they were done. He explained them, he turned them inside out, +and there was the dear little chap nodding his busy bit of a head in the +sagest manner. + +I did not attend as well as I might. "Hey, presto!" said the Magic +Shopman, and then would come the clear, small "Hey, presto!" of the boy. +But I was distracted by other things. It was being borne in upon me just +how tremendously rum this place was; it was, so to speak, inundated by +a sense of rumness. There was something a little rum about the fixtures +even, about the ceiling, about the floor, about the casually distributed +chairs. I had a queer feeling that whenever I wasn't looking at them +straight they went askew, and moved about, and played a noiseless +puss-in-the-corner behind my back. And the cornice had a serpentine +design with masks--masks altogether too expressive for proper plaster. + +Then abruptly my attention was caught by one of the odd-looking +assistants. He was some way off and evidently unaware of my presence--I +saw a sort of three-quarter length of him over a pile of toys and +through an arch--and, you know, he was leaning against a pillar in an +idle sort of way doing the most horrid things with his features! The +particular horrid thing he did was with his nose. He did it just as +though he was idle and wanted to amuse himself. First of all it was a +short, blobby nose, and then suddenly he shot it out like a telescope, +and then out it flew and became thinner and thinner until it was like +a long, red, flexible whip. Like a thing in a nightmare it was! He +flourished it about and flung it forth as a fly-fisher flings his line. + +My instant thought was that Gip mustn't see him. I turned about, and +there was Gip quite preoccupied with the shopman, and thinking no evil. +They were whispering together and looking at me. Gip was standing on +a little stool, and the shopman was holding a sort of big drum in his +hand. + +"Hide and seek, dadda!" cried Gip. "You're He!" + +And before I could do anything to prevent it, the shopman had clapped +the big drum over him. I saw what was up directly. "Take that off," I +cried, "this instant! You'll frighten the boy. Take it off!" + +The shopman with the unequal ears did so without a word, and held the +big cylinder towards me to show its emptiness. And the little stool was +vacant! In that instant my boy had utterly disappeared?... + +You know, perhaps, that sinister something that comes like a hand out +of the unseen and grips your heart about. You know it takes your common +self away and leaves you tense and deliberate, neither slow nor hasty, +neither angry nor afraid. So it was with me. + +I came up to this grinning shopman and kicked his stool aside. + +"Stop this folly!" I said. "Where is my boy?" + +"You see," he said, still displaying the drum's interior, "there is no +deception---" + +I put out my hand to grip him, and he eluded me by a dexterous movement. +I snatched again, and he turned from me and pushed open a door to +escape. "Stop!" I said, and he laughed, receding. I leapt after +him--into utter darkness. + +THUD! + +"Lor' bless my 'eart! I didn't see you coming, sir!" + +I was in Regent Street, and I had collided with a decent-looking working +man; and a yard away, perhaps, and looking a little perplexed with +himself, was Gip. There was some sort of apology, and then Gip had +turned and come to me with a bright little smile, as though for a moment +he had missed me. + +And he was carrying four parcels in his arm! + +He secured immediate possession of my finger. + +For the second I was rather at a loss. I stared round to see the door +of the magic shop, and, behold, it was not there! There was no door, no +shop, nothing, only the common pilaster between the shop where they sell +pictures and the window with the chicks!... + +I did the only thing possible in that mental tumult; I walked straight +to the kerbstone and held up my umbrella for a cab. + +"'Ansoms," said Gip, in a note of culminating exultation. + +I helped him in, recalled my address with an effort, and got in also. +Something unusual proclaimed itself in my tail-coat pocket, and I felt +and discovered a glass ball. With a petulant expression I flung it into +the street. + +Gip said nothing. + +For a space neither of us spoke. + +"Dada!" said Gip, at last, "that WAS a proper shop!" + +I came round with that to the problem of just how the whole thing had +seemed to him. He looked completely undamaged--so far, good; he was +neither scared nor unhinged, he was simply tremendously satisfied with +the afternoon's entertainment, and there in his arms were the four +parcels. + +Confound it! what could be in them? + +"Um!" I said. "Little boys can't go to shops like that every day." + +He received this with his usual stoicism, and for a moment I was sorry I +was his father and not his mother, and so couldn't suddenly there, coram +publico, in our hansom, kiss him. After all, I thought, the thing wasn't +so very bad. + +But it was only when we opened the parcels that I really began to be +reassured. Three of them contained boxes of soldiers, quite ordinary +lead soldiers, but of so good a quality as to make Gip altogether forget +that originally these parcels had been Magic Tricks of the only genuine +sort, and the fourth contained a kitten, a little living white kitten, +in excellent health and appetite and temper. + +I saw this unpacking with a sort of provisional relief. I hung about in +the nursery for quite an unconscionable time.... + +That happened six months ago. And now I am beginning to believe it is +all right. The kitten had only the magic natural to all kittens, and +the soldiers seem as steady a company as any colonel could desire. And +Gip--? + +The intelligent parent will understand that I have to go cautiously with +Gip. + +But I went so far as this one day. I said, "How would you like your +soldiers to come alive, Gip, and march about by themselves?" + +"Mine do," said Gip. "I just have to say a word I know before I open the +lid." + +"Then they march about alone?" + +"Oh, QUITE, dadda. I shouldn't like them if they didn't do that." + +I displayed no unbecoming surprise, and since then I have taken occasion +to drop in upon him once or twice, unannounced, when the soldiers were +about, but so far I have never discovered them performing in anything +like a magical manner. + +It's so difficult to tell. + +There's also a question of finance. I have an incurable habit of paying +bills. I have been up and down Regent Street several times, looking for +that shop. I am inclined to think, indeed, that in that matter honour is +satisfied, and that, since Gip's name and address are known to them, I +may very well leave it to these people, whoever they may be, to send in +their bill in their own time. + + + + +3. THE VALLEY OF SPIDERS + +Towards mid-day the three pursuers came abruptly round a bend in the +torrent bed upon the sight of a very broad and spacious valley. The +difficult and winding trench of pebbles along which they had tracked +the fugitives for so long, expanded to a broad slope, and with a common +impulse the three men left the trail, and rode to a little eminence set +with olive-dun trees, and there halted, the two others, as became them, +a little behind the man with the silver-studded bridle. + +For a space they scanned the great expanse below them with eager eyes. +It spread remoter and remoter, with only a few clusters of sere thorn +bushes here and there, and the dim suggestions of some now waterless +ravine, to break its desolation of yellow grass. Its purple distances +melted at last into the bluish slopes of the further hills--hills it +might be of a greener kind--and above them invisibly supported, and +seeming indeed to hang in the blue, were the snowclad summits of +mountains that grew larger and bolder to the north-westward as the sides +of the valley drew together. And westward the valley opened until a +distant darkness under the sky told where the forests began. But the +three men looked neither east nor west, but only steadfastly across the +valley. + +The gaunt man with the scarred lip was the first to speak. "Nowhere," he +said, with a sigh of disappointment in his voice. "But after all, they +had a full day's start." + +"They don't know we are after them," said the little man on the white +horse. + +"SHE would know," said the leader bitterly, as if speaking to himself. + +"Even then they can't go fast. They've got no beast but the mule, and +all to-day the girl's foot has been bleeding---" + +The man with the silver bridle flashed a quick intensity of rage on him. +"Do you think I haven't seen that?" he snarled. + +"It helps, anyhow," whispered the little man to himself. + +The gaunt man with the scarred lip stared impassively. "They can't be +over the valley," he said. "If we ride hard--" + +He glanced at the white horse and paused. + +"Curse all white horses!" said the man with the silver bridle, and +turned to scan the beast his curse included. + +The little man looked down between the melancholy ears of his steed. + +"I did my best," he said. + +The two others stared again across the valley for a space. The gaunt man +passed the back of his hand across the scarred lip. + +"Come up!" said the man who owned the silver bridle, suddenly. The +little man started and jerked his rein, and the horse hoofs of the three +made a multitudinous faint pattering upon the withered grass as they +turned back towards the trail.... + +They rode cautiously down the long slope before them, and so came +through a waste of prickly, twisted bushes and strange dry shapes of +horny branches that grew amongst the rocks, into the levels below. +And there the trail grew faint, for the soil was scanty, and the only +herbage was this scorched dead straw that lay upon the ground. Still, by +hard scanning, by leaning beside the horses' necks and pausing ever and +again, even these white men could contrive to follow after their prey. + +There were trodden places, bent and broken blades of the coarse grass, +and ever and again the sufficient intimation of a footmark. And once +the leader saw a brown smear of blood where the half-caste girl may have +trod. And at that under his breath he cursed her for a fool. + +The gaunt man checked his leader's tracking, and the little man on the +white horse rode behind, a man lost in a dream. They rode one after +another, the man with the silver bridle led the way, and they spoke +never a word. After a time it came to the little man on the white horse +that the world was very still. He started out of his dream. Besides the +little noises of their horses and equipment, the whole great valley kept +the brooding quiet of a painted scene. + +Before him went his master and his fellow, each intently leaning forward +to the left, each impassively moving with the paces of his horse; their +shadows went before them--still, noiseless, tapering attendants; and +nearer a crouched cool shape was his own. He looked about him. What was +it had gone? Then he remembered the reverberation from the banks of the +gorge and the perpetual accompaniment of shifting, jostling pebbles. +And, moreover--? There was no breeze. That was it! What a vast, still +place it was, a monotonous afternoon slumber. And the sky open and +blank, except for a sombre veil of haze that had gathered in the upper +valley. + +He straightened his back, fretted with his bridle, puckered his lips +to whistle, and simply sighed. He turned in his saddle for a time, and +stared at the throat of the mountain gorge out of which they had come. +Blank! Blank slopes on either side, with never a sign of a decent beast +or tree--much less a man. What a land it was! What a wilderness! He +dropped again into his former pose. + +It filled him with a momentary pleasure to see a wry stick of purple +black flash out into the form of a snake, and vanish amidst the brown. +After all, the infernal valley WAS alive. And then, to rejoice him still +more, came a little breath across his face, a whisper that came and +went, the faintest inclination of a stiff black-antlered bush upon a +little crest, the first intimations of a possible breeze. Idly he wetted +his finger, and held it up. + +He pulled up sharply to avoid a collision with the gaunt man, who had +stopped at fault upon the trail. Just at that guilty moment he caught +his master's eye looking towards him. + +For a time he forced an interest in the tracking. Then, as they rode on +again, he studied his master's shadow and hat and shoulder, appearing +and disappearing behind the gaunt man's nearer contours. They had ridden +four days out of the very limits of the world into this desolate place, +short of water, with nothing but a strip of dried meat under their +saddles, over rocks and mountains, where surely none but these fugitives +had ever been before--for THAT! + +And all this was for a girl, a mere wilful child! And the man had whole +cityfuls of people to do his basest bidding--girls, women! Why in the +name of passionate folly THIS one in particular? asked the little man, +and scowled at the world, and licked his parched lips with a blackened +tongue. It was the way of the master, and that was all he knew. Just +because she sought to evade him.... + +His eye caught a whole row of high plumed canes bending in unison, and +then the tails of silk that hung before his neck flapped and fell. The +breeze was growing stronger. Somehow it took the stiff stillness out of +things--and that was well. + +"Hullo!" said the gaunt man. + +All three stopped abruptly. + +"What?" asked the master. "What?" + +"Over there," said the gaunt man, pointing up the valley. + +"What?" + +"Something coming towards us." + +And as he spoke a yellow animal crested a rise and came bearing down +upon them. It was a big wild dog, coming before the wind, tongue out, at +a steady pace, and running with such an intensity of purpose that he +did not seem to see the horsemen he approached. He ran with his nose up, +following, it was plain, neither scent nor quarry. As he drew nearer the +little man felt for his sword. "He's mad," said the gaunt rider. + +"Shout!" said the little man, and shouted. + +The dog came on. Then when the little man's blade was already out, it +swerved aside and went panting by them and past. The eyes of the little +man followed its flight. "There was no foam," he said. For a space the +man with the silver-studded bridle stared up the valley. "Oh, come +on!" he cried at last. "What does it matter?" and jerked his horse into +movement again. + +The little man left the insoluble mystery of a dog that fled from +nothing but the wind, and lapsed into profound musings on human +character. "Come on!" he whispered to himself. "Why should it be given +to one man to say 'Come on!' with that stupendous violence of effect. +Always, all his life, the man with the silver bridle has been saying +that. If _I_ said it--!" thought the little man. But people marvelled +when the master was disobeyed even in the wildest things. This +half-caste girl seemed to him, seemed to every one, mad--blasphemous +almost. The little man, by way of comparison, reflected on the gaunt +rider with the scarred lip, as stalwart as his master, as brave and, +indeed, perhaps braver, and yet for him there was obedience, nothing but +to give obedience duly and stoutly... + +Certain sensations of the hands and knees called the little man back to +more immediate things. He became aware of something. He rode up beside +his gaunt fellow. "Do you notice the horses?" he said in an undertone. + +The gaunt face looked interrogation. + +"They don't like this wind," said the little man, and dropped behind as +the man with the silver bridle turned upon him. + +"It's all right," said the gaunt-faced man. + +They rode on again for a space in silence. The foremost two rode +downcast upon the trail, the hindmost man watched the haze that crept +down the vastness of the valley, nearer and nearer, and noted how the +wind grew in strength moment by moment. Far away on the left he saw a +line of dark bulks--wild hog perhaps, galloping down the valley, but of +that he said nothing, nor did he remark again upon the uneasiness of the +horses. + +And then he saw first one and then a second great white ball, a great +shining white ball like a gigantic head of thistle-down, that drove +before the wind athwart the path. These balls soared high in the air, +and dropped and rose again and caught for a moment, and hurried on +and passed, but at the sight of them the restlessness of the horses +increased. + +Then presently he saw that more of these drifting globes--and then soon +very many more--were hurrying towards him down the valley. + +They became aware of a squealing. Athwart the path a huge boar rushed, +turning his head but for one instant to glance at them, and then hurling +on down the valley again. And at that, all three stopped and sat in +their saddles, staring into the thickening haze that was coming upon +them. + +"If it were not for this thistle-down--" began the leader. + +But now a big globe came drifting past within a score of yards of them. +It was really not an even sphere at all, but a vast, soft, ragged, filmy +thing, a sheet gathered by the corners, an aerial jelly-fish, as it +were, but rolling over and over as it advanced, and trailing long, +cobwebby threads and streamers that floated in its wake. + +"It isn't thistle-down," said the little man. + +"I don't like the stuff," said the gaunt man. + +And they looked at one another. + +"Curse it!" cried the leader. "The air's full of it up there. If it +keeps on at this pace long, it will stop us altogether." + +An instinctive feeling, such as lines out a herd of deer at the approach +of some ambiguous thing, prompted them to turn their horses to the wind, +ride forward for a few paces, and stare at that advancing multitude +of floating masses. They came on before the wind with a sort of smooth +swiftness, rising and falling noiselessly, sinking to earth, rebounding +high, soaring--all with a perfect unanimity, with a still, deliberate +assurance. + +Right and left of the horsemen the pioneers of this strange army passed. +At one that rolled along the ground, breaking shapelessly and trailing +out reluctantly into long grappling ribbons and bands, all three horses +began to shy and dance. The master was seized with a sudden unreasonable +impatience. He cursed the drifting globes roundly. "Get on!" he cried; +"get on! What do these things matter? How CAN they matter? Back to +the trail!" He fell swearing at his horse and sawed the bit across its +mouth. + +He shouted aloud with rage. "I will follow that trail, I tell you!" he +cried. "Where is the trail?" + +He gripped the bridle of his prancing horse and searched amidst the +grass. A long and clinging thread fell across his face, a grey streamer +dropped about his bridle-arm, some big, active thing with many legs ran +down the back of his head. He looked up to discover one of those grey +masses anchored as it were above him by these things and flapping out +ends as a sail flaps when a boat comes, about--but noiselessly. + +He had an impression of many eyes, of a dense crew of squat bodies, of +long, many-jointed limbs hauling at their mooring ropes to bring the +thing down upon him. For a space he stared up, reining in his prancing +horse with the instinct born of years of horsemanship. Then the flat +of a sword smote his back, and a blade flashed overhead and cut the +drifting balloon of spider-web free, and the whole mass lifted softly +and drove clear and away. + +"Spiders!" cried the voice of the gaunt man. "The things are full of big +spiders! Look, my lord!" + +The man with the silver bridle still followed the mass that drove away. + +"Look, my lord!" + +The master found himself staring down at a red, smashed thing on the +ground that, in spite of partial obliteration, could still wriggle +unavailing legs. Then when the gaunt man pointed to another mass that +bore down upon them, he drew his sword hastily. Up the valley now it was +like a fog bank torn to rags. He tried to grasp the situation. + +"Ride for it!" the little man was shouting. "Ride for it down the +valley." + +What happened then was like the confusion of a battle. The man with +the silver bridle saw the little man go past him slashing furiously at +imaginary cobwebs, saw him cannon into the horse of the gaunt man and +hurl it and its rider to earth. His own horse went a dozen paces before +he could rein it in. Then he looked up to avoid imaginary dangers, and +then back again to see a horse rolling on the ground, the gaunt man +standing and slashing over it at a rent and fluttering mass of grey that +streamed and wrapped about them both. And thick and fast as thistle-down +on waste land on a windy day in July, the cobweb masses were coming on. + +The little man had dismounted, but he dared not release his horse. He +was endeavouring to lug the struggling brute back with the strength of +one arm, while with the other he slashed aimlessly, The tentacles of a +second grey mass had entangled themselves with the struggle, and this +second grey mass came to its moorings, and slowly sank. + +The master set his teeth, gripped his bridle, lowered his head, and +spurred his horse forward. The horse on the ground rolled over, there +were blood and moving shapes upon the flanks, and the gaunt man, +suddenly leaving it, ran forward towards his master, perhaps ten paces. +His legs were swathed and encumbered with grey; he made ineffectual +movements with his sword. Grey streamers waved from him; there was +a thin veil of grey across his face. With his left hand he beat at +something on his body, and suddenly he stumbled and fell. He struggled +to rise, and fell again, and suddenly, horribly, began to howl, +"Oh--ohoo, ohooh!" + +The master could see the great spiders upon him, and others upon the +ground. + +As he strove to force his horse nearer to this gesticulating, screaming +grey object that struggled up and down, there came a clatter of hoofs, +and the little man, in act of mounting, swordless, balanced on his belly +athwart the white horse, and clutching its mane, whirled past. And again +a clinging thread of grey gossamer swept across the master's face. +All about him, and over him, it seemed this drifting, noiseless cobweb +circled and drew nearer him.... + +To the day of his death he never knew just how the event of that moment +happened. Did he, indeed, turn his horse, or did it really of its own +accord stampede after its fellow? Suffice it that in another second +he was galloping full tilt down the valley with his sword whirling +furiously overhead. And all about him on the quickening breeze, the +spiders' airships, their air bundles and air sheets, seemed to him to +hurry in a conscious pursuit. + +Clatter, clatter, thud, thud--the man with the silver bridle rode, +heedless of his direction, with his fearful face looking up now right, +now left, and his sword arm ready to slash. And a few hundred yards +ahead of him, with a tail of torn cobweb trailing behind him, rode the +little man on the white horse, still but imperfectly in the saddle. +The reeds bent before them, the wind blew fresh and strong, over his +shoulder the master could see the webs hurrying to overtake.... + +He was so intent to escape the spiders' webs that only as his horse +gathered together for a leap did he realise the ravine ahead. And then +he realised it only to misunderstand and interfere. He was leaning +forward on his horse's neck and sat up and back all too late. + +But if in his excitement he had failed to leap, at any rate he had not +forgotten how to fall. He was horseman again in mid-air. He came off +clear with a mere bruise upon his shoulder, and his horse rolled, +kicking spasmodic legs, and lay still. But the master's sword drove its +point into the hard soil, and snapped clean across, as though Chance +refused him any longer as her Knight, and the splintered end missed his +face by an inch or so. + +He was on his feet in a moment, breathlessly scanning the onrushing +spider-webs. For a moment he was minded to run, and then thought of the +ravine, and turned back. He ran aside once to dodge one drifting terror, +and then he was swiftly clambering down the precipitous sides, and out +of the touch of the gale. + +There under the lee of the dry torrent's steeper banks he might crouch, +and watch these strange, grey masses pass and pass in safety till the +wind fell, and it became possible to escape. And there for a long time +he crouched, watching the strange, grey, ragged masses trail their +streamers across his narrowed sky. + +Once a stray spider fell into the ravine close beside him--a full foot +it measured from leg to leg, and its body was half a man's hand--and +after he had watched its monstrous alacrity of search and escape for a +little while, and tempted it to bite his broken sword, he lifted up his +iron-heeled boot and smashed it into a pulp. He swore as he did so, and +for a time sought up and down for another. + +Then presently, when he was surer these spider swarms could not drop +into the ravine, he found a place where he could sit down, and sat and +fell into deep thought and began after his manner to gnaw his knuckles +and bite his nails. And from this he was moved by the coming of the man +with the white horse. + +He heard him long before he saw him, as a clattering of hoofs, stumbling +footsteps, and a reassuring voice. Then the little man appeared, a +rueful figure, still with a tail of white cobweb trailing behind him. +They approached each other without speaking, without a salutation. The +little man was fatigued and shamed to the pitch of hopeless bitterness, +and came to a stop at last, face to face with his seated master. The +latter winced a little under his dependant's eye. "Well?" he said at +last, with no pretence of authority. + +"You left him?" + +"My horse bolted." + +"I know. So did mine." + +He laughed at his master mirthlessly. + +"I say my horse bolted," said the man who once had a silver-studded +bridle. + +"Cowards both," said the little man. + +The other gnawed his knuckle through some meditative moments, with his +eye on his inferior. + +"Don't call me a coward," he said at length. + +"You are a coward like myself." + +"A coward possibly. There is a limit beyond which every man must fear. +That I have learnt at last. But not like yourself. That is where the +difference comes in." + +"I never could have dreamt you would have left him. He saved your life +two minutes before.... Why are you our lord?" + +The master gnawed his knuckles again, and his countenance was dark. + +"No man calls me a coward," he said. "No. A broken sword is better than +none.... One spavined white horse cannot be expected to carry two men +a four days' journey. I hate white horses, but this time it cannot be +helped. You begin to understand me?... I perceive that you are minded, +on the strength of what you have seen and fancy, to taint my reputation. +It is men of your sort who unmake kings. Besides which--I never liked +you." + +"My lord!" said the little man. + +"No," said the master. "NO!" + +He stood up sharply as the little man moved. For a minute perhaps they +faced one another. Overhead the spiders' balls went driving. There was a +quick movement among the pebbles; a running of feet, a cry of despair, a +gasp and a blow.... + +Towards nightfall the wind fell. The sun set in a calm serenity, and +the man who had once possessed the silver bridle came at last very +cautiously and by an easy slope out of the ravine again; but now he led +the white horse that once belonged to the little man. He would have gone +back to his horse to get his silver-mounted bridle again, but he feared +night and a quickening breeze might still find him in the valley, and +besides he disliked greatly to think he might discover his horse all +swathed in cobwebs and perhaps unpleasantly eaten. + +And as he thought of those cobwebs and of all the dangers he had been +through, and the manner in which he had been preserved that day, his +hand sought a little reliquary that hung about his neck, and he clasped +it for a moment with heartfelt gratitude. As he did so his eyes went +across the valley. + +"I was hot with passion," he said, "and now she has met her reward. They +also, no doubt--" + +And behold! Far away out of the wooded slopes across the valley, but in +the clearness of the sunset distinct and unmistakable, he saw a little +spire of smoke. + +At that his expression of serene resignation changed to an amazed anger. +Smoke? He turned the head of the white horse about, and hesitated. And +as he did so a little rustle of air went through the grass about him. +Far away upon some reeds swayed a tattered sheet of grey. He looked at +the cobwebs; he looked at the smoke. + +"Perhaps, after all, it is not them," he said at last. + +But he knew better. + +After he had stared at the smoke for some time, he mounted the white +horse. + +As he rode, he picked his way amidst stranded masses of web. For some +reason there were many dead spiders on the ground, and those that lived +feasted guiltily on their fellows. At the sound of his horse's hoofs +they fled. + +Their time had passed. From the ground without either a wind to carry +them or a winding sheet ready, these things, for all their poison, could +do him little evil. He flicked with his belt at those he fancied came +too near. Once, where a number ran together over a bare place, he was +minded to dismount and trample them with his boots, but this impulse he +overcame. Ever and again he turned in his saddle, and looked back at the +smoke. + +"Spiders," he muttered over and over again. "Spiders! Well, well.... The +next time I must spin a web." + + + + +4. THE TRUTH ABOUT PYECRAFT + +He sits not a dozen yards away. If I glance over my shoulder I can see +him. And if I catch his eye--and usually I catch his eye--it meets me +with an expression. + +It is mainly an imploring look--and yet with suspicion in it. + +Confound his suspicion! If I wanted to tell on him I should have told +long ago. I don't tell and I don't tell, and he ought to feel at his +ease. As if anything so gross and fat as he could feel at ease! Who +would believe me if I did tell? + +Poor old Pyecraft! Great, uneasy jelly of substance! The fattest clubman +in London. + +He sits at one of the little club tables in the huge bay by the fire, +stuffing. What is he stuffing? I glance judiciously and catch him biting +at a round of hot buttered tea-cake, with his eyes on me. Confound +him!--with his eyes on me! + +That settles it, Pyecraft! Since you WILL be abject, since you WILL +behave as though I was not a man of honour, here, right under your +embedded eyes, I write the thing down--the plain truth about Pyecraft. +The man I helped, the man I shielded, and who has requited me by making +my club unendurable, absolutely unendurable, with his liquid appeal, +with the perpetual "don't tell" of his looks. + +And, besides, why does he keep on eternally eating? + +Well, here goes for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the +truth! + +Pyecraft--. I made the acquaintance of Pyecraft in this very +smoking-room. I was a young, nervous new member, and he saw it. I was +sitting all alone, wishing I knew more of the members, and suddenly +he came, a great rolling front of chins and abdomina, towards me, and +grunted and sat down in a chair close by me and wheezed for a space, and +scraped for a space with a match and lit a cigar, and then addressed +me. I forget what he said--something about the matches not lighting +properly, and afterwards as he talked he kept stopping the waiters one +by one as they went by, and telling them about the matches in that thin, +fluty voice he has. But, anyhow, it was in some such way we began our +talking. + +He talked about various things and came round to games. And thence to +my figure and complexion. "YOU ought to be a good cricketer," he said. I +suppose I am slender, slender to what some people would call lean, and +I suppose I am rather dark, still--I am not ashamed of having a Hindu +great-grandmother, but, for all that, I don't want casual strangers to +see through me at a glance to HER. So that I was set against Pyecraft +from the beginning. + +But he only talked about me in order to get to himself. + +"I expect," he said, "you take no more exercise than I do, and probably +you eat no less." (Like all excessively obese people he fancied he ate +nothing.) "Yet,"--and he smiled an oblique smile--"we differ." + +And then he began to talk about his fatness and his fatness; all he did +for his fatness and all he was going to do for his fatness; what people +had advised him to do for his fatness and what he had heard of people +doing for fatness similar to his. "A priori," he said, "one would think +a question of nutrition could be answered by dietary and a question of +assimilation by drugs." It was stifling. It was dumpling talk. It made +me feel swelled to hear him. + +One stands that sort of thing once in a way at a club, but a time came +when I fancied I was standing too much. He took to me altogether too +conspicuously. I could never go into the smoking-room but he would come +wallowing towards me, and sometimes he came and gormandised round and +about me while I had my lunch. He seemed at times almost to be clinging +to me. He was a bore, but not so fearful a bore as to be limited to me; +and from the first there was something in his manner--almost as though +he knew, almost as though he penetrated to the fact that I MIGHT--that +there was a remote, exceptional chance in me that no one else presented. + +"I'd give anything to get it down," he would say--"anything," and peer +at me over his vast cheeks and pant. + +Poor old Pyecraft! He has just gonged, no doubt to order another +buttered tea-cake! + +He came to the actual thing one day. "Our Pharmacopoeia," he said, "our +Western Pharmacopoeia, is anything but the last word of medical science. +In the East, I've been told--" + +He stopped and stared at me. It was like being at an aquarium. + +I was quite suddenly angry with him. "Look here," I said, "who told you +about my great-grandmother's recipes?" + +"Well," he fenced. + +"Every time we've met for a week," I said, "and we've met pretty +often--you've given me a broad hint or so about that little secret of +mine." + +"Well," he said, "now the cat's out of the bag, I'll admit, yes, it is +so. I had it--" + +"From Pattison?" + +"Indirectly," he said, which I believe was lying, "yes." + +"Pattison," I said, "took that stuff at his own risk." + +He pursed his mouth and bowed. + +"My great-grandmother's recipes," I said, "are queer things to handle. +My father was near making me promise--" + +"He didn't?" + +"No. But he warned me. He himself used one--once." + +"Ah!... But do you think--? Suppose--suppose there did happen to be +one--" + +"The things are curious documents," I said. + +"Even the smell of 'em.... No!" + +But after going so far Pyecraft was resolved I should go farther. I was +always a little afraid if I tried his patience too much he would fall +on me suddenly and smother me. I own I was weak. But I was also annoyed +with Pyecraft. I had got to that state of feeling for him that disposed +me to say, "Well, TAKE the risk!" The little affair of Pattison to which +I have alluded was a different matter altogether. What it was doesn't +concern us now, but I knew, anyhow, that the particular recipe I used +then was safe. The rest I didn't know so much about, and, on the whole, +I was inclined to doubt their safety pretty completely. + +Yet even if Pyecraft got poisoned-- + +I must confess the poisoning of Pyecraft struck me as an immense +undertaking. + +That evening I took that queer, odd-scented sandalwood box out of my +safe and turned the rustling skins over. The gentleman who wrote the +recipes for my great-grandmother evidently had a weakness for skins of +a miscellaneous origin, and his handwriting was cramped to the last +degree. Some of the things are quite unreadable to me--though my family, +with its Indian Civil Service associations, has kept up a knowledge of +Hindustani from generation to generation--and none are absolutely plain +sailing. But I found the one that I knew was there soon enough, and sat +on the floor by my safe for some time looking at it. + +"Look here," said I to Pyecraft next day, and snatched the slip away +from his eager grasp. + +"So far as I--can make it out, this is a recipe for Loss of Weight. +("Ah!" said Pyecraft.) I'm not absolutely sure, but I think it's that. +And if you take my advice you'll leave it alone. Because, you know--I +blacken my blood in your interest, Pyecraft--my ancestors on that side +were, so far as I can gather, a jolly queer lot. See?" + +"Let me try it," said Pyecraft. + +I leant back in my chair. My imagination made one mighty effort and +fell flat within me. "What in Heaven's name, Pyecraft," I asked, "do you +think you'll look like when you get thin?" + +He was impervious to reason. I made him promise never to say a word to +me about his disgusting fatness again whatever happened--never, and then +I handed him that little piece of skin. + +"It's nasty stuff," I said. + +"No matter," he said, and took it. + +He goggled at it. "But--but--" he said. + +He had just discovered that it wasn't English. + +"To the best of my ability," I said, "I will do you a translation." + +I did my best. After that we didn't speak for a fortnight. Whenever +he approached me I frowned and motioned him away, and he respected our +compact, but at the end of a fortnight he was as fat as ever. And then +he got a word in. + +"I must speak," he said. "It isn't fair. There's something wrong. It's +done me no good. You're not doing your great-grandmother justice." + +"Where's the recipe?" + +He produced it gingerly from his pocket-book. + +I ran my eye over the items. "Was the egg addled?" I asked. + +"No. Ought it to have been?" + +"That," I said, "goes without saying in all my poor dear +great-grandmother's recipes. When condition or quality is not specified +you must get the worst. She was drastic or nothing.... And there's one +or two possible alternatives to some of these other things. You got +FRESH rattlesnake venom." + +"I got a rattlesnake from Jamrach's. It cost--it cost--" + +"That's your affair, anyhow. This last item--" + +"I know a man who--" + +"Yes. H'm. Well, I'll write the alternatives down. So far as I know +the language, the spelling of this recipe is particularly atrocious. +By-the-bye, dog here probably means pariah dog." + +For a month after that I saw Pyecraft constantly at the club and as +fat and anxious as ever. He kept our treaty, but at times he broke +the spirit of it by shaking his head despondently. Then one day in the +cloakroom he said, "Your great-grandmother--" + +"Not a word against her," I said; and he held his peace. + +I could have fancied he had desisted, and I saw him one day talking to +three new members about his fatness as though he was in search of other +recipes. And then, quite unexpectedly, his telegram came. + +"Mr. Formalyn!" bawled a page-boy under my nose, and I took the telegram +and opened it at once. + +"For Heaven's sake come.--Pyecraft." + +"H'm," said I, and to tell the truth I was so pleased at the +rehabilitation of my great grandmother's reputation this evidently +promised that I made a most excellent lunch. + +I got Pyecraft's address from the hall porter. Pyecraft inhabited the +upper half of a house in Bloomsbury, and I went there so soon as I had +done my coffee and Trappistine. I did not wait to finish my cigar. + +"Mr. Pyecraft?" said I, at the front door. + +They believed he was ill; he hadn't been out for two days. + +"He expects me," said I, and they sent me up. + +I rang the bell at the lattice-door upon the landing. + +"He shouldn't have tried it, anyhow," I said to myself. "A man who eats +like a pig ought to look like a pig." + +An obviously worthy woman, with an anxious face and a carelessly placed +cap, came and surveyed me through the lattice. + +I gave my name and she let me in in a dubious fashion. + +"Well?" said I, as we stood together inside Pyecraft's piece of the +landing. + +"'E said you was to come in if you came," she said, and regarded me, +making no motion to show me anywhere. And then, confidentially, "'E's +locked in, sir." + +"Locked in?" + +"Locked himself in yesterday morning and 'asn't let any one in since, +sir. And ever and again SWEARING. Oh, my!" + +I stared at the door she indicated by her glances. + +"In there?" I said. + +"Yes, sir." + +"What's up?" + +She shook her head sadly, "'E keeps on calling for vittles, sir. 'EAVY +vittles 'e wants. I get 'im what I can. Pork 'e's 'ad, sooit puddin', +sossiges, noo bread. Everythink like that. Left outside, if you please, +and me go away. 'E's eatin', sir, somethink AWFUL." + +There came a piping bawl from inside the door: "That Formalyn?" + +"That you, Pyecraft?" I shouted, and went and banged the door. + +"Tell her to go away." + +I did. + +Then I could hear a curious pattering upon the door, almost like some +one feeling for the handle in the dark, and Pyecraft's familiar grunts. + +"It's all right," I said, "she's gone." + +But for a long time the door didn't open. + +I heard the key turn. Then Pyecraft's voice said, "Come in." + +I turned the handle and opened the door. Naturally I expected to see +Pyecraft. + +Well, you know, he wasn't there! + +I never had such a shock in my life. There was his sitting-room in a +state of untidy disorder, plates and dishes among the books and writing +things, and several chairs overturned, but Pyecraft-- + +"It's all right, o' man; shut the door," he said, and then I discovered +him. + +There he was right up close to the cornice in the corner by the door, as +though some one had glued him to the ceiling. His face was anxious and +angry. He panted and gesticulated. "Shut the door," he said. "If that +woman gets hold of it--" + +I shut the door, and went and stood away from him and stared. + +"If anything gives way and you tumble down," I said, "you'll break your +neck, Pyecraft." + +"I wish I could," he wheezed. + +"A man of your age and weight getting up to kiddish gymnastics--" + +"Don't," he said, and looked agonised. + +"I'll tell you," he said, and gesticulated. + +"How the deuce," said I, "are you holding on up there?" + +And then abruptly I realised that he was not holding on at all, that he +was floating up there--just as a gas-filled bladder might have floated +in the same position. He began a struggle to thrust himself away +from the ceiling and to clamber down the wall to me. "It's that +prescription," he panted, as he did so. "Your great-gran--" + +He took hold of a framed engraving rather carelessly as he spoke and +it gave way, and he flew back to the ceiling again, while the picture +smashed onto the sofa. Bump he went against the ceiling, and I knew then +why he was all over white on the more salient curves and angles of his +person. He tried again more carefully, coming down by way of the mantel. + +It was really a most extraordinary spectacle, that great, fat, +apoplectic-looking man upside down and trying to get from the ceiling to +the floor. "That prescription," he said. "Too successful." + +"How?" + +"Loss of weight--almost complete." + +And then, of course, I understood. + +"By Jove, Pyecraft," said I, "what you wanted was a cure for fatness! +But you always called it weight. You would call it weight." + +Somehow I was extremely delighted. I quite liked Pyecraft for the time. +"Let me help you!" I said, and took his hand and pulled him down. He +kicked about, trying to get a foothold somewhere. It was very like +holding a flag on a windy day. + +"That table," he said, pointing, "is solid mahogany and very heavy. If +you can put me under that---" + +I did, and there he wallowed about like a captive balloon, while I stood +on his hearthrug and talked to him. + +I lit a cigar. "Tell me," I said, "what happened?" + +"I took it," he said. + +"How did it taste?" + +"Oh, BEASTLY!" + +I should fancy they all did. Whether one regards the ingredients or +the probable compound or the possible results, almost all of my +great-grandmother's remedies appear to me at least to be extraordinarily +uninviting. For my own part-- + +"I took a little sip first." + +"Yes?" + +"And as I felt lighter and better after an hour, I decided to take the +draught." + +"My dear Pyecraft!" + +"I held my nose," he explained. "And then I kept on getting lighter and +lighter--and helpless, you know." + +He gave way to a sudden burst of passion. "What the goodness am I to +DO?" he said. + +"There's one thing pretty evident," I said, "that you mustn't do. If you +go out of doors, you'll go up and up." I waved an arm upward. "They'd +have to send Santos-Dumont after you to bring you down again." + +"I suppose it will wear off?" + +I shook my head. "I don't think you can count on that," I said. + +And then there was another burst of passion, and he kicked out at +adjacent chairs and banged the floor. He behaved just as I should +have expected a great, fat, self-indulgent man to behave under trying +circumstances--that is to say, very badly. He spoke of me and my +great-grandmother with an utter want of discretion. + +"I never asked you to take the stuff," I said. + +And generously disregarding the insults he was putting upon me, I sat +down in his armchair and began to talk to him in a sober, friendly +fashion. + +I pointed out to him that this was a trouble he had brought upon +himself, and that it had almost an air of poetical justice. He had eaten +too much. This he disputed, and for a time we argued the point. + +He became noisy and violent, so I desisted from this aspect of his +lesson. "And then," said I, "you committed the sin of euphuism. You +called it not Fat, which is just and inglorious, but Weight. You--" + +He interrupted to say he recognised all that. What was he to DO? + +I suggested he should adapt himself to his new conditions. So we came to +the really sensible part of the business. I suggested that it would +not be difficult for him to learn to walk about on the ceiling with his +hands-- + +"I can't sleep," he said. + +But that was no great difficulty. It was quite possible, I pointed out, +to make a shake-up under a wire mattress, fasten the under things on +with tapes, and have a blanket, sheet, and coverlet to button at the +side. He would have to confide in his housekeeper, I said; and after +some squabbling he agreed to that. (Afterwards it was quite delightful +to see the beautifully matter-of-fact way with which the good lady took +all these amazing inversions.) He could have a library ladder in his +room, and all his meals could be laid on the top of his bookcase. We +also hit on an ingenious device by which he could get to the floor +whenever he wanted, which was simply to put the British Encyclopaedia +(tenth edition) on the top of his open shelves. He just pulled out a +couple of volumes and held on, and down he came. And we agreed there +must be iron staples along the skirting, so that he could cling to those +whenever he wanted to get about the room on the lower level. + +As we got on with the thing I found myself almost keenly interested. It +was I who called in the housekeeper and broke matters to her, and it was +I chiefly who fixed up the inverted bed. In fact, I spent two whole days +at his flat. I am a handy, interfering sort of man with a screw-driver, +and I made all sorts of ingenious adaptations for him--ran a wire to +bring his bells within reach, turned all his electric lights up +instead of down, and so on. The whole affair was extremely curious and +interesting to me, and it was delightful to think of Pyecraft like some +great, fat blow-fly, crawling about on his ceiling and clambering round +the lintels of his doors from one room to another, and never, never, +never coming to the club any more.... + +Then, you know, my fatal ingenuity got the better of me. I was sitting +by his fire drinking his whisky, and he was up in his favourite corner +by the cornice, tacking a Turkey carpet to the ceiling, when the +idea struck me. "By Jove, Pyecraft!" I said, "all this is totally +unnecessary." + +And before I could calculate the complete consequences of my notion I +blurted it out. "Lead underclothing," said I, and the mischief was done. + +Pyecraft received the thing almost in tears. "To be right ways up +again--" he said. I gave him the whole secret before I saw where it +would take me. "Buy sheet lead," I said, "stamp it into discs. Sew 'em +all over your underclothes until you have enough. Have lead-soled boots, +carry a bag of solid lead, and the thing is done! Instead of being a +prisoner here you may go abroad again, Pyecraft; you may travel--" + +A still happier idea came to me. "You need never fear a shipwreck. +All you need do is just slip off some or all of your clothes, take the +necessary amount of luggage in your hand, and float up in the air--" + +In his emotion he dropped the tack-hammer within an ace of my head. "By +Jove!" he said, "I shall be able to come back to the club again." + +The thing pulled me up short. "By Jove!" I said faintly. "Yes. Of +course--you will." + +He did. He does. There he sits behind me now, stuffing--as I +live!--a third go of buttered tea-cake. And no one in the whole world +knows--except his housekeeper and me--that he weighs practically +nothing; that he is a mere boring mass of assimilatory matter, mere +clouds in clothing, niente, nefas, the most inconsiderable of men. There +he sits watching until I have done this writing. Then, if he can, he +will waylay me. He will come billowing up to me.... + +He will tell me over again all about it, how it feels, how it doesn't +feel, how he sometimes hopes it is passing off a little. And always +somewhere in that fat, abundant discourse he will say, "The secret's +keeping, eh? If any one knew of it--I should be so ashamed.... Makes a +fellow look such a fool, you know. Crawling about on a ceiling and all +that...." + +And now to elude Pyecraft, occupying, as he does, an admirable strategic +position between me and the door. + + + + +5. MR. SKELMERSDALE IN FAIRYLAND + +"There's a man in that shop," said the Doctor, "who has been in +Fairyland." + +"Nonsense!" I said, and stared back at the shop. It was the usual +village shop, post-office, telegraph wire on its brow, zinc pans and +brushes outside, boots, shirtings, and potted meats in the window. "Tell +me about it," I said, after a pause. + +"_I_ don't know," said the Doctor. "He's an ordinary sort of +lout--Skelmersdale is his name. But everybody about here believes it +like Bible truth." + +I reverted presently to the topic. + +"I know nothing about it," said the Doctor, "and I don't WANT to know. I +attended him for a broken finger--Married and Single cricket match--and +that's when I struck the nonsense. That's all. But it shows you the sort +of stuff I have to deal with, anyhow, eh? Nice to get modern sanitary +ideas into a people like this!" + +"Very," I said in a mildly sympathetic tone, and he went on to tell me +about that business of the Bonham drain. Things of that kind, I observe, +are apt to weigh on the minds of Medical Officers of Health. I was as +sympathetic as I knew how, and when he called the Bonham people "asses," +I said they were "thundering asses," but even that did not allay him. + +Afterwards, later in the summer, an urgent desire to seclude myself, +while finishing my chapter on Spiritual Pathology--it was really, I +believe, stiffer to write than it is to read--took me to Bignor. I +lodged at a farmhouse, and presently found myself outside that little +general shop again, in search of tobacco. "Skelmersdale," said I to +myself at the sight of it, and went in. + +I was served by a short, but shapely, young man, with a fair downy +complexion, good, small teeth, blue eyes, and a languid manner. I +scrutinised him curiously. Except for a touch of melancholy in +his expression, he was nothing out of the common. He was in the +shirt-sleeves and tucked-up apron of his trade, and a pencil was thrust +behind his inoffensive ear. Athwart his black waistcoat was a gold +chain, from which dangled a bent guinea. + +"Nothing more to-day, sir?" he inquired. He leant forward over my bill +as he spoke. + +"Are you Mr. Skelmersdale?" said I. + +"I am, sir," he said, without looking up. + +"Is it true that you have been in Fairyland?" + +He looked up at me for a moment with wrinkled brows, with an aggrieved, +exasperated face. "O SHUT it!" he said, and, after a moment of +hostility, eye to eye, he went on adding up my bill. "Four, six and a +half," he said, after a pause. "Thank you, Sir." + +So, unpropitiously, my acquaintance with Mr. Skelmersdale began. + +Well, I got from that to confidence--through a series of toilsome +efforts. I picked him up again in the Village Room, where of a night +I went to play billiards after my supper, and mitigate the extreme +seclusion from my kind that was so helpful to work during the day. I +contrived to play with him and afterwards to talk with him. I found the +one subject to avoid was Fairyland. On everything else he was open +and amiable in a commonplace sort of way, but on that he had been +worried--it was a manifest taboo. Only once in the room did I hear the +slightest allusion to his experience in his presence, and that was by +a cross-grained farm hand who was losing to him. Skelmersdale had run +a break into double figures, which, by the Bignor standards, was +uncommonly good play. "Steady on!" said his adversary. "None of your +fairy flukes!" + +Skelmersdale stared at him for a moment, cue in hand, then flung it down +and walked out of the room. + +"Why can't you leave 'im alone?" said a respectable elder who had been +enjoying the game, and in the general murmur of disapproval the grin of +satisfied wit faded from the ploughboy's face. + +I scented my opportunity. "What's this joke," said I, "about Fairyland?" + +"'Tain't no joke about Fairyland, not to young Skelmersdale," said the +respectable elder, drinking. A little man with rosy cheeks was more +communicative. "They DO say, sir," he said, "that they took him into +Aldington Knoll an' kep' him there a matter of three weeks." + +And with that the gathering was well under weigh. Once one sheep had +started, others were ready enough to follow, and in a little time I +had at least the exterior aspect of the Skelmersdale affair. Formerly, +before he came to Bignor, he had been in that very similar little shop +at Aldington Corner, and there whatever it was did happen had taken +place. The story was clear that he had stayed out late one night on +the Knoll and vanished for three weeks from the sight of men, and had +returned with "his cuffs as clean as when he started," and his pockets +full of dust and ashes. He returned in a state of moody wretchedness +that only slowly passed away, and for many days he would give no account +of where it was he had been. The girl he was engaged to at Clapton +Hill tried to get it out of him, and threw him over partly because he +refused, and partly because, as she said, he fairly gave her the "'ump." +And then when, some time after, he let out to some one carelessly that +he had been in Fairyland and wanted to go back, and when the thing +spread and the simple badinage of the countryside came into play, he +threw up his situation abruptly, and came to Bignor to get out of the +fuss. But as to what had happened in Fairyland none of these people +knew. There the gathering in the Village Room went to pieces like a pack +at fault. One said this, and another said that. + +Their air in dealing with this marvel was ostensibly critical and +sceptical, but I could see a considerable amount of belief showing +through their guarded qualifications. I took a line of intelligent +interest, tinged with a reasonable doubt of the whole story. + +"If Fairyland's inside Aldington Knoll," I said, "why don't you dig it +out?" + +"That's what I says," said the young ploughboy. + +"There's a-many have tried to dig on Aldington Knoll," said the +respectable elder, solemnly, "one time and another. But there's none as +goes about to-day to tell what they got by digging." + +The unanimity of vague belief that surrounded me was rather impressive; +I felt there must surely be SOMETHING at the root of so much conviction, +and the already pretty keen curiosity I felt about the real facts of the +case was distinctly whetted. If these real facts were to be got from any +one, they were to be got from Skelmersdale himself; and I set myself, +therefore, still more assiduously to efface the first bad impression +I had made and win his confidence to the pitch of voluntary speech. In +that endeavour I had a social advantage. Being a person of affability +and no apparent employment, and wearing tweeds and knickerbockers, I was +naturally classed as an artist in Bignor, and in the remarkable code +of social precedence prevalent in Bignor an artist ranks considerably +higher than a grocer's assistant. Skelmersdale, like too many of his +class, is something of a snob; he had told me to "shut it," only under +sudden, excessive provocation, and with, I am certain, a subsequent +repentance; he was, I knew, quite glad to be seen walking about the +village with me. In due course, he accepted the proposal of a pipe and +whisky in my rooms readily enough, and there, scenting by some happy +instinct that there was trouble of the heart in this, and knowing that +confidences beget confidences, I plied him with much of interest and +suggestion from my real and fictitious past. And it was after the third +whisky of the third visit of that sort, if I remember rightly, that a +propos of some artless expansion of a little affair that had touched +and left me in my teens, that he did at last, of his own free will and +motion, break the ice. "It was like that with me," he said, "over there +at Aldington. It's just that that's so rum. First I didn't care a bit +and it was all her, and afterwards, when it was too late, it was, in a +manner of speaking, all me." + +I forbore to jump upon this allusion, and so he presently threw out +another, and in a little while he was making it as plain as daylight +that the one thing he wanted to talk about now was this Fairyland +adventure he had sat tight upon for so long. You see, I'd done the +trick with him, and from being just another half-incredulous, would-be +facetious stranger, I had, by all my wealth of shameless self-exposure, +become the possible confidant. He had been bitten by the desire to show +that he, too, had lived and felt many things, and the fever was upon +him. + +He was certainly confoundedly allusive at first, and my eagerness +to clear him up with a few precise questions was only equalled and +controlled by my anxiety not to get to this sort of thing too soon. But +in another meeting or so the basis of confidence was complete; and from +first to last I think I got most of the items and aspects--indeed, I got +quite a number of times over almost everything that Mr. Skelmersdale, +with his very limited powers of narration, will ever be able to tell. +And so I come to the story of his adventure, and I piece it all together +again. Whether it really happened, whether he imagined it or dreamt it, +or fell upon it in some strange hallucinatory trance, I do not profess +to say. But that he invented it I will not for one moment entertain. +The man simply and honestly believes the thing happened as he says it +happened; he is transparently incapable of any lie so elaborate +and sustained, and in the belief of the simple, yet often keenly +penetrating, rustic minds about him I find a very strong confirmation of +his sincerity. He believes--and nobody can produce any positive fact to +falsify his belief. As for me, with this much of endorsement, I transmit +his story--I am a little old now to justify or explain. + +He says he went to sleep on Aldington Knoll about ten o'clock one +night--it was quite possibly Midsummer night, though he has never +thought of the date, and he cannot be sure within a week or so--and it +was a fine night and windless, with a rising moon. I have been at +the pains to visit this Knoll thrice since his story grew up under my +persuasions, and once I went there in the twilight summer moonrise on +what was, perhaps, a similar night to that of his adventure. Jupiter was +great and splendid above the moon, and in the north and northwest the +sky was green and vividly bright over the sunken sun. The Knoll stands +out bare and bleak under the sky, but surrounded at a little distance by +dark thickets, and as I went up towards it there was a mighty starting +and scampering of ghostly or quite invisible rabbits. Just over +the crown of the Knoll, but nowhere else, was a multitudinous thin +trumpeting of midges. The Knoll is, I believe, an artificial mound, +the tumulus of some great prehistoric chieftain, and surely no man ever +chose a more spacious prospect for a sepulchre. Eastward one sees along +the hills to Hythe, and thence across the Channel to where, thirty miles +and more perhaps, away, the great white lights by Gris Nez and Boulogne +wink and pass and shine. Westward lies the whole tumbled valley of the +Weald, visible as far as Hindhead and Leith Hill, and the valley of the +Stour opens the Downs in the north to interminable hills beyond Wye. +All Romney Marsh lies southward at one's feet, Dymchurch and Romney and +Lydd, Hastings and its hill are in the middle distance, and the hills +multiply vaguely far beyond where Eastbourne rolls up to Beachy Head. + +And out upon all this it was that Skelmersdale wandered, being troubled +in his earlier love affair, and as he says, "not caring WHERE he went." +And there he sat down to think it over, and so, sulking and grieving, +was overtaken by sleep. And so he fell into the fairies' power. + +The quarrel that had upset him was some trivial matter enough between +himself and the girl at Clapton Hill to whom he was engaged. She was +a farmer's daughter, said Skelmersdale, and "very respectable," and +no doubt an excellent match for him; but both girl and lover were very +young and with just that mutual jealousy, that intolerantly keen edge of +criticism, that irrational hunger for a beautiful perfection, that +life and wisdom do presently and most mercifully dull. What the precise +matter of quarrel was I have no idea. She may have said she liked men in +gaiters when he hadn't any gaiters on, or he may have said he liked her +better in a different sort of hat, but however it began, it got by +a series of clumsy stages to bitterness and tears. She no doubt got +tearful and smeary, and he grew dusty and drooping, and she parted with +invidious comparisons, grave doubts whether she ever had REALLY cared +for him, and a clear certainty she would never care again. And with this +sort of thing upon his mind he came out upon Aldington Knoll grieving, +and presently, after a long interval, perhaps, quite inexplicably, fell +asleep. + +He woke to find himself on a softer turf than ever he had slept on +before, and under the shade of very dark trees that completely hid the +sky. Always, indeed, in Fairyland the sky is hidden, it seems. Except +for one night when the fairies were dancing, Mr. Skelmersdale, during +all his time with them, never saw a star. And of that night I am in +doubt whether he was in Fairyland proper or out where the rings and +rushes are, in those low meadows near the railway line at Smeeth. + +But it was light under these trees for all that, and on the leaves and +amidst the turf shone a multitude of glow-worms, very bright and fine. +Mr. Skelmersdale's first impression was that he was SMALL, and the next +that quite a number of people still smaller were standing all about him. +For some reason, he says, he was neither surprised nor frightened, but +sat up quite deliberately and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. And +there all about him stood the smiling elves who had caught him sleeping +under their privileges and had brought him into Fairyland. + +What these elves were like I have failed to gather, so vague and +imperfect is his vocabulary, and so unobservant of all minor detail +does he seem to have been. They were clothed in something very light and +beautiful, that was neither wool, nor silk, nor leaves, nor the petals +of flowers. They stood all about him as he sat and waked, and down the +glade towards him, down a glow-worm avenue and fronted by a star, came +at once that Fairy Lady who is the chief personage of his memory and +tale. Of her I gathered more. She was clothed in filmy green, and about +her little waist was a broad silver girdle. Her hair waved back from +her forehead on either side; there were curls not too wayward and yet +astray, and on her brow was a little tiara, set with a single star. Her +sleeves were some sort of open sleeves that gave little glimpses of her +arms; her throat, I think, was a little displayed, because he speaks of +the beauty of her neck and chin. There was a necklace of coral about +her white throat, and in her breast a coral-coloured flower. She had the +soft lines of a little child in her chin and cheeks and throat. And +her eyes, I gather, were of a kindled brown, very soft and straight and +sweet under her level brows. You see by these particulars how greatly +this lady must have loomed in Mr. Skelmersdale's picture. Certain things +he tried to express and could not express; "the way she moved," he said +several times; and I fancy a sort of demure joyousness radiated from +this Lady. + +And it was in the company of this delightful person, as the guest and +chosen companion of this delightful person, that Mr. Skelmersdale set +out to be taken into the intimacies of Fairyland. She welcomed him +gladly and a little warmly--I suspect a pressure of his hand in both of +hers and a lit face to his. After all, ten years ago young Skelmersdale +may have been a very comely youth. And once she took his arm, and once, +I think, she led him by the hand adown the glade that the glow-worms +lit. + +Just how things chanced and happened there is no telling from Mr. +Skelmersdale's disarticulated skeleton of description. He gives little +unsatisfactory glimpses of strange corners and doings, of places where +there were many fairies together, of "toadstool things that shone pink," +of fairy food, of which he could only say "you should have tasted +it!" and of fairy music, "like a little musical box," that came out of +nodding flowers. There was a great open place where fairies rode and +raced on "things," but what Mr. Skelmersdale meant by "these here things +they rode," there is no telling. Larvae, perhaps, or crickets, or the +little beetles that elude us so abundantly. There was a place where +water splashed and gigantic king-cups grew, and there in the hotter +times the fairies bathed together. There were games being played and +dancing and much elvish love-making, too, I think, among the moss-branch +thickets. There can be no doubt that the Fairy Lady made love to Mr. +Skelmersdale, and no doubt either that this young man set himself to +resist her. A time came, indeed, when she sat on a bank beside him, in +a quiet, secluded place "all smelling of vi'lets," and talked to him of +love. + +"When her voice went low and she whispered," said Mr. Skelmersdale, "and +laid 'er 'and on my 'and, you know, and came close with a soft, warm +friendly way she 'ad, it was as much as I could do to keep my 'ead." + +It seems he kept his head to a certain limited unfortunate extent. He +saw "'ow the wind was blowing," he says, and so, sitting there in a +place all smelling of violets, with the touch of this lovely Fairy Lady +about him, Mr. Skelmersdale broke it to her gently--that he was engaged! + +She had told him she loved him dearly, that he was a sweet human lad for +her, and whatever he would ask of her he should have--even his heart's +desire. + +And Mr. Skelmersdale, who, I fancy, tried hard to avoid looking at her +little lips as they just dropped apart and came together, led up to the +more intimate question by saying he would like enough capital to start a +little shop. He'd just like to feel, he said, he had money enough to do +that. I imagine a little surprise in those brown eyes he talked +about, but she seemed sympathetic for all that, and she asked him many +questions about the little shop, "laughing like" all the time. So he got +to the complete statement of his affianced position, and told her all +about Millie. + +"All?" said I. + +"Everything," said Mr. Skelmersdale, "just who she was, and where she +lived, and everything about her. I sort of felt I 'ad to all the time, I +did." + +"'Whatever you want you shall have,' said the Fairy Lady. 'That's as +good as done. You SHALL feel you have the money just as you wish. And +now, you know--YOU MUST KISS ME.'" + +And Mr. Skelmersdale pretended not to hear the latter part of her +remark, and said she was very kind. That he really didn't deserve she +should be so kind. And-- + +The Fairy Lady suddenly came quite close to him and whispered, "Kiss +me!" + +"And," said Mr. Skelmersdale, "like a fool, I did." + +There are kisses and kisses, I am told, and this must have been quite +the other sort from Millie's resonant signals of regard. There was +something magic in that kiss; assuredly it marked a turning point. +At any rate, this is one of the passages that he thought sufficiently +important to describe most at length. I have tried to get it right, I +have tried to disentangle it from the hints and gestures through which +it came to me, but I have no doubt that it was all different from my +telling and far finer and sweeter, in the soft filtered light and the +subtly stirring silences of the fairy glades. The Fairy Lady asked him +more about Millie, and was she very lovely, and so on--a great many +times. As to Millie's loveliness, I conceive him answering that she was +"all right." And then, or on some such occasion, the Fairy Lady told him +she had fallen in love with him as he slept in the moonlight, and so +he had been brought into Fairyland, and she had thought, not knowing of +Millie, that perhaps he might chance to love her. "But now you know you +can't," she said, "so you must stop with me just a little while, and +then you must go back to Millie." She told him that, and you know +Skelmersdale was already in love with her, but the pure inertia of his +mind kept him in the way he was going. I imagine him sitting in a sort +of stupefaction amidst all these glowing beautiful things, answering +about his Millie and the little shop he projected and the need of a +horse and cart.... And that absurd state of affairs must have gone on +for days and days. I see this little lady, hovering about him and trying +to amuse him, too dainty to understand his complexity and too tender +to let him go. And he, you know, hypnotised as it were by his earthly +position, went his way with her hither and thither, blind to everything +in Fairyland but this wonderful intimacy that had come to him. It is +hard, it is impossible, to give in print the effect of her radiant +sweetness shining through the jungle of poor Skelmersdale's rough and +broken sentences. To me, at least, she shone clear amidst the muddle of +his story like a glow-worm in a tangle of weeds. + +There must have been many days of things while all this was +happening--and once, I say, they danced under the moonlight in the fairy +rings that stud the meadows near Smeeth--but at last it all came to an +end. She led him into a great cavernous place, lit by a red nightlight +sort of thing, where there were coffers piled on coffers, and cups +and golden boxes, and a great heap of what certainly seemed to all Mr. +Skelmersdale's senses--coined gold. There were little gnomes amidst this +wealth, who saluted her at her coming, and stood aside. And suddenly she +turned on him there with brightly shining eyes. + +"And now," she said, "you have been kind to stay with me so long, and it +is time I let you go. You must go back to your Millie. You must go back +to your Millie, and here--just as I promised you--they will give you +gold." + +"She choked like," said Mr. Skelmersdale. "At that, I had a sort of +feeling--" (he touched his breastbone) "as though I was fainting here. +I felt pale, you know, and shivering, and even then--I 'adn't a thing to +say." + +He paused. "Yes," I said. + +The scene was beyond his describing. But I know that she kissed him +good-bye. + +"And you said nothing?" + +"Nothing," he said. "I stood like a stuffed calf. She just looked back +once, you know, and stood smiling like and crying--I could see the +shine of her eyes--and then she was gone, and there was all these little +fellows bustling about me, stuffing my 'ands and my pockets and the back +of my collar and everywhere with gold." + +And then it was, when the Fairy Lady had vanished, that Mr. Skelmersdale +really understood and knew. He suddenly began plucking out the gold +they were thrusting upon him, and shouting out at them to prevent their +giving him more. "'I don't WANT yer gold,' I said. 'I 'aven't done yet. +I'm not going. I want to speak to that Fairy Lady again.' I started off +to go after her and they held me back. Yes, stuck their little 'ands +against my middle and shoved me back. They kept giving me more and more +gold until it was running all down my trouser legs and dropping out of +my 'ands. 'I don't WANT yer gold,' I says to them, 'I want just to speak +to the Fairy Lady again.'" + +"And did you?" + +"It came to a tussle." + +"Before you saw her?" + +"I didn't see her. When I got out from them she wasn't anywhere to be +seen." + +So he ran in search of her out of this red-lit cave, down a long grotto, +seeking her, and thence he came out in a great and desolate place +athwart which a swarm of will-o'-the-wisps were flying to and fro. And +about him elves were dancing in derision, and the little gnomes came out +of the cave after him, carrying gold in handfuls and casting it after +him, shouting, "Fairy love and fairy gold! Fairy love and fairy gold!" + +And when he heard these words, came a great fear that it was all over, +and he lifted up his voice and called to her by her name, and suddenly +set himself to run down the slope from the mouth of the cavern, through +a place of thorns and briers, calling after her very loudly and often. +The elves danced about him unheeded, pinching him and pricking him, and +the will-o'-the-wisps circled round him and dashed into his face, and +the gnomes pursued him shouting and pelting him with fairy gold. As he +ran with all this strange rout about him and distracting him, suddenly +he was knee-deep in a swamp, and suddenly he was amidst thick twisted +roots, and he caught his foot in one and stumbled and fell.... + +He fell and he rolled over, and in that instant he found himself +sprawling upon Aldington Knoll, all lonely under the stars. + +He sat up sharply at once, he says, and found he was very stiff and +cold, and his clothes were damp with dew. The first pallor of dawn and +a chilly wind were coming up together. He could have believed the whole +thing a strangely vivid dream until he thrust his hand into his side +pocket and found it stuffed with ashes. Then he knew for certain it +was fairy gold they had given him. He could feel all their pinches and +pricks still, though there was never a bruise upon him. And in that +manner, and so suddenly, Mr. Skelmersdale came out of Fairyland back +into this world of men. Even then he fancied the thing was but the +matter of a night until he returned to the shop at Aldington Corner and +discovered amidst their astonishment that he had been away three weeks. + +"Lor'! the trouble I 'ad!" said Mr. Skelmersdale. + +"How?" + +"Explaining. I suppose you've never had anything like that to explain." + +"Never," I said, and he expatiated for a time on the behaviour of this +person and that. One name he avoided for a space. + +"And Millie?" said I at last. + +"I didn't seem to care a bit for seeing Millie," he said. + +"I expect she seemed changed?" + +"Every one was changed. Changed for good. Every one seemed big, you +know, and coarse. And their voices seemed loud. Why, the sun, when it +rose in the morning, fair hit me in the eye!" + +"And Millie?" + +"I didn't want to see Millie." + +"And when you did?" + +"I came up against her Sunday, coming out of church. 'Where you been?' +she said, and I saw there was a row. _I_ didn't care if there was. I +seemed to forget about her even while she was there a-talking to me. She +was just nothing. I couldn't make out whatever I 'ad seen in 'er ever, +or what there could 'ave been. Sometimes when she wasn't about, I did +get back a little, but never when she was there. Then it was always the +other came up and blotted her out.... Anyow, it didn't break her heart." + +"Married?" I asked. + +"Married 'er cousin," said Mr. Skelmersdale, and reflected on the +pattern of the tablecloth for a space. + +When he spoke again it was clear that his former sweetheart had clean +vanished from his mind, and that the talk had brought back the Fairy +Lady triumphant in his heart. He talked of her--soon he was letting out +the oddest things, queer love secrets it would be treachery to repeat. I +think, indeed, that was the queerest thing in the whole affair, to hear +that neat little grocer man after his story was done, with a glass of +whisky beside him and a cigar between his fingers, witnessing, with +sorrow still, though now, indeed, with a time-blunted anguish, of +the inappeasable hunger of the heart that presently came upon him. "I +couldn't eat," he said, "I couldn't sleep. I made mistakes in orders +and got mixed with change. There she was day and night, drawing me and +drawing me. Oh, I wanted her. Lord! how I wanted her! I was up there, +most evenings I was up there on the Knoll, often even when it rained. I +used to walk over the Knoll and round it and round it, calling for them +to let me in. Shouting. Near blubbering I was at times. Daft I was +and miserable. I kept on saying it was all a mistake. And every Sunday +afternoon I went up there, wet and fine, though I knew as well as you do +it wasn't no good by day. And I've tried to go to sleep there." + +He stopped sharply and decided to drink some whisky. + +"I've tried to go to sleep there," he said, and I could swear his lips +trembled. "I've tried to go to sleep there, often and often. And, you +know, I couldn't, sir--never. I've thought if I could go to sleep there, +there might be something. But I've sat up there and laid up there, and +I couldn't--not for thinking and longing. It's the longing.... I've +tried--" + +He blew, drank up the rest of his whisky spasmodically, stood up +suddenly and buttoned his jacket, staring closely and critically at the +cheap oleographs beside the mantel meanwhile. The little black notebook +in which he recorded the orders of his daily round projected stiffly +from his breast pocket. When all the buttons were quite done, he patted +his chest and turned on me suddenly. "Well," he said, "I must be going." + +There was something in his eyes and manner that was too difficult for +him to express in words. "One gets talking," he said at last at the +door, and smiled wanly, and so vanished from my eyes. And that is the +tale of Mr. Skelmersdale in Fairyland just as he told it to me. + + + + +6. THE STORY OF THE INEXPERIENCED GHOST + +The scene amidst which Clayton told his last story comes back very +vividly to my mind. There he sat, for the greater part of the time, +in the corner of the authentic settle by the spacious open fire, and +Sanderson sat beside him smoking the Broseley clay that bore his name. +There was Evans, and that marvel among actors, Wish, who is also a +modest man. We had all come down to the Mermaid Club that Saturday +morning, except Clayton, who had slept there overnight--which indeed +gave him the opening of his story. We had golfed until golfing was +invisible; we had dined, and we were in that mood of tranquil kindliness +when men will suffer a story. When Clayton began to tell one, we +naturally supposed he was lying. It may be that indeed he was lying--of +that the reader will speedily be able to judge as well as I. He began, +it is true, with an air of matter-of-fact anecdote, but that we thought +was only the incurable artifice of the man. + +"I say!" he remarked, after a long consideration of the upward rain of +sparks from the log that Sanderson had thumped, "you know I was alone +here last night?" + +"Except for the domestics," said Wish. + +"Who sleep in the other wing," said Clayton. "Yes. Well--" He pulled at +his cigar for some little time as though he still hesitated about his +confidence. Then he said, quite quietly, "I caught a ghost!" + +"Caught a ghost, did you?" said Sanderson. "Where is it?" + +And Evans, who admires Clayton immensely and has been four weeks in +America, shouted, "CAUGHT a ghost, did you, Clayton? I'm glad of it! +Tell us all about it right now." + +Clayton said he would in a minute, and asked him to shut the door. + +He looked apologetically at me. "There's no eavesdropping of course, but +we don't want to upset our very excellent service with any rumours of +ghosts in the place. There's too much shadow and oak panelling to trifle +with that. And this, you know, wasn't a regular ghost. I don't think it +will come again--ever." + +"You mean to say you didn't keep it?" said Sanderson. + +"I hadn't the heart to," said Clayton. + +And Sanderson said he was surprised. + +We laughed, and Clayton looked aggrieved. "I know," he said, with the +flicker of a smile, "but the fact is it really WAS a ghost, and I'm as +sure of it as I am that I am talking to you now. I'm not joking. I mean +what I say." + +Sanderson drew deeply at his pipe, with one reddish eye on Clayton, and +then emitted a thin jet of smoke more eloquent than many words. + +Clayton ignored the comment. "It is the strangest thing that has ever +happened in my life. You know, I never believed in ghosts or anything of +the sort, before, ever; and then, you know, I bag one in a corner; and +the whole business is in my hands." + +He meditated still more profoundly, and produced and began to pierce a +second cigar with a curious little stabber he affected. + +"You talked to it?" asked Wish. + +"For the space, probably, of an hour." + +"Chatty?" I said, joining the party of the sceptics. + +"The poor devil was in trouble," said Clayton, bowed over his cigar-end +and with the very faintest note of reproof. + +"Sobbing?" some one asked. + +Clayton heaved a realistic sigh at the memory. "Good Lord!" he said; +"yes." And then, "Poor fellow! yes." + +"Where did you strike it?" asked Evans, in his best American accent. + +"I never realised," said Clayton, ignoring him, "the poor sort of thing +a ghost might be," and he hung us up again for a time, while he sought +for matches in his pocket and lit and warmed to his cigar. + +"I took an advantage," he reflected at last. + +We were none of us in a hurry. "A character," he said, "remains just the +same character for all that it's been disembodied. That's a thing we too +often forget. People with a certain strength or fixity of purpose may +have ghosts of a certain strength and fixity of purpose--most haunting +ghosts, you know, must be as one-idea'd as monomaniacs and as obstinate +as mules to come back again and again. This poor creature wasn't." He +suddenly looked up rather queerly, and his eye went round the room. "I +say it," he said, "in all kindliness, but that is the plain truth of the +case. Even at the first glance he struck me as weak." + +He punctuated with the help of his cigar. + +"I came upon him, you know, in the long passage. His back was towards +me and I saw him first. Right off I knew him for a ghost. He was +transparent and whitish; clean through his chest I could see the glimmer +of the little window at the end. And not only his physique but his +attitude struck me as being weak. He looked, you know, as though he +didn't know in the slightest whatever he meant to do. One hand was on +the panelling and the other fluttered to his mouth. Like--SO!" + +"What sort of physique?" said Sanderson. + +"Lean. You know that sort of young man's neck that has two great +flutings down the back, here and here--so! And a little, meanish head +with scrubby hair--And rather bad ears. Shoulders bad, narrower than the +hips; turn-down collar, ready-made short jacket, trousers baggy and a +little frayed at the heels. That's how he took me. I came very quietly +up the staircase. I did not carry a light, you know--the candles are on +the landing table and there is that lamp--and I was in my list slippers, +and I saw him as I came up. I stopped dead at that--taking him in. I +wasn't a bit afraid. I think that in most of these affairs one is +never nearly so afraid or excited as one imagines one would be. I was +surprised and interested. I thought, 'Good Lord! Here's a ghost at +last! And I haven't believed for a moment in ghosts during the last +five-and-twenty years.'" + +"Um," said Wish. + +"I suppose I wasn't on the landing a moment before he found out I was +there. He turned on me sharply, and I saw the face of an immature young +man, a weak nose, a scrubby little moustache, a feeble chin. So for an +instant we stood--he looking over his shoulder at me and regarded one +another. Then he seemed to remember his high calling. He turned round, +drew himself up, projected his face, raised his arms, spread his hands +in approved ghost fashion--came towards me. As he did so his little jaw +dropped, and he emitted a faint, drawn-out 'Boo.' No, it wasn't--not a +bit dreadful. I'd dined. I'd had a bottle of champagne, and being all +alone, perhaps two or three--perhaps even four or five--whiskies, so I +was as solid as rocks and no more frightened than if I'd been assailed +by a frog. 'Boo!' I said. 'Nonsense. You don't belong to THIS place. +What are you doing here?' + +"I could see him wince. 'Boo-oo,' he said. + +"'Boo--be hanged! Are you a member?' I said; and just to show I didn't +care a pin for him I stepped through a corner of him and made to light +my candle. 'Are you a member?' I repeated, looking at him sideways. + +"He moved a little so as to stand clear of me, and his bearing became +crestfallen. 'No,' he said, in answer to the persistent interrogation of +my eye; 'I'm not a member--I'm a ghost.' + +"'Well, that doesn't give you the run of the Mermaid Club. Is there any +one you want to see, or anything of that sort?' and doing it as steadily +as possible for fear that he should mistake the carelessness of whisky +for the distraction of fear, I got my candle alight. I turned on him, +holding it. 'What are you doing here?' I said. + +"He had dropped his hands and stopped his booing, and there he stood, +abashed and awkward, the ghost of a weak, silly, aimless young man. 'I'm +haunting,' he said. + +"'You haven't any business to,' I said in a quiet voice. + +"'I'm a ghost,' he said, as if in defence. + +"'That may be, but you haven't any business to haunt here. This is a +respectable private club; people often stop here with nursemaids and +children, and, going about in the careless way you do, some poor little +mite could easily come upon you and be scared out of her wits. I suppose +you didn't think of that?' + +"'No, sir,' he said, 'I didn't.' + +"'You should have done. You haven't any claim on the place, have you? +Weren't murdered here, or anything of that sort?' + +"'None, sir; but I thought as it was old and oak-panelled--' + +"'That's NO excuse.' I regarded him firmly. 'Your coming here is a +mistake,' I said, in a tone of friendly superiority. I feigned to see +if I had my matches, and then looked up at him frankly. 'If I were you I +wouldn't wait for cock-crow--I'd vanish right away.' + +"He looked embarrassed. 'The fact IS, sir--' he began. + +"'I'd vanish,' I said, driving it home. + +"'The fact is, sir, that--somehow--I can't.' + +"'You CAN'T?' + +"'No, sir. There's something I've forgotten. I've been hanging about +here since midnight last night, hiding in the cupboards of the empty +bedrooms and things like that. I'm flurried. I've never come haunting +before, and it seems to put me out.' + +"'Put you out?' + +"'Yes, sir. I've tried to do it several times, and it doesn't come off. +There's some little thing has slipped me, and I can't get back.' + +"That, you know, rather bowled me over. He looked at me in such an +abject way that for the life of me I couldn't keep up quite the high, +hectoring vein I had adopted. 'That's queer,' I said, and as I spoke I +fancied I heard some one moving about down below. 'Come into my room and +tell me more about it,' I said. 'I didn't, of course, understand this,' +and I tried to take him by the arm. But, of course, you might as well +have tried to take hold of a puff of smoke! I had forgotten my number, +I think; anyhow, I remember going into several bedrooms--it was lucky I +was the only soul in that wing--until I saw my traps. 'Here we are,' I +said, and sat down in the arm-chair; 'sit down and tell me all about it. +It seems to me you have got yourself into a jolly awkward position, old +chap.' + +"Well, he said he wouldn't sit down! he'd prefer to flit up and down the +room if it was all the same to me. And so he did, and in a little +while we were deep in a long and serious talk. And presently, you know, +something of those whiskies and sodas evaporated out of me, and I began +to realise just a little what a thundering rum and weird business it was +that I was in. There he was, semi-transparent--the proper conventional +phantom, and noiseless except for his ghost of a voice--flitting to +and fro in that nice, clean, chintz-hung old bedroom. You could see +the gleam of the copper candlesticks through him, and the lights on the +brass fender, and the corners of the framed engravings on the wall,--and +there he was telling me all about this wretched little life of his that +had recently ended on earth. He hadn't a particularly honest face, you +know, but being transparent, of course, he couldn't avoid telling the +truth." + +"Eh?" said Wish, suddenly sitting up in his chair. + +"What?" said Clayton. + +"Being transparent--couldn't avoid telling the truth--I don't see it," +said Wish. + +"_I_ don't see it," said Clayton, with inimitable assurance. "But it IS +so, I can assure you nevertheless. I don't believe he got once a nail's +breadth off the Bible truth. He told me how he had been killed--he +went down into a London basement with a candle to look for a leakage +of gas--and described himself as a senior English master in a London +private school when that release occurred." + +"Poor wretch!" said I. + +"That's what I thought, and the more he talked the more I thought it. +There he was, purposeless in life and purposeless out of it. He talked +of his father and mother and his schoolmaster, and all who had ever been +anything to him in the world, meanly. He had been too sensitive, too +nervous; none of them had ever valued him properly or understood him, he +said. He had never had a real friend in the world, I think; he had never +had a success. He had shirked games and failed examinations. 'It's +like that with some people,' he said; 'whenever I got into the +examination-room or anywhere everything seemed to go.' Engaged to be +married of course--to another over-sensitive person, I suppose--when the +indiscretion with the gas escape ended his affairs. 'And where are you +now?' I asked. 'Not in--?' + +"He wasn't clear on that point at all. The impression he gave me was +of a sort of vague, intermediate state, a special reserve for souls too +non-existent for anything so positive as either sin or virtue. _I_ don't +know. He was much too egotistical and unobservant to give me any clear +idea of the kind of place, kind of country, there is on the Other Side +of Things. Wherever he was, he seems to have fallen in with a set of +kindred spirits: ghosts of weak Cockney young men, who were on a footing +of Christian names, and among these there was certainly a lot of talk +about 'going haunting' and things like that. Yes--going haunting! They +seemed to think 'haunting' a tremendous adventure, and most of them +funked it all the time. And so primed, you know, he had come." + +"But really!" said Wish to the fire. + +"These are the impressions he gave me, anyhow," said Clayton, modestly. +"I may, of course, have been in a rather uncritical state, but that was +the sort of background he gave to himself. He kept flitting up and down, +with his thin voice going talking, talking about his wretched self, and +never a word of clear, firm statement from first to last. He was thinner +and sillier and more pointless than if he had been real and alive. Only +then, you know, he would not have been in my bedroom here--if he HAD +been alive. I should have kicked him out." + +"Of course," said Evans, "there ARE poor mortals like that." + +"And there's just as much chance of their having ghosts as the rest of +us," I admitted. + +"What gave a sort of point to him, you know, was the fact that he did +seem within limits to have found himself out. The mess he had made of +haunting had depressed him terribly. He had been told it would be +a 'lark'; he had come expecting it to be a 'lark,' and here it was, +nothing but another failure added to his record! He proclaimed himself +an utter out-and-out failure. He said, and I can quite believe it, that +he had never tried to do anything all his life that he hadn't made a +perfect mess of--and through all the wastes of eternity he never +would. If he had had sympathy, perhaps--. He paused at that, and stood +regarding me. He remarked that, strange as it might seem to me, nobody, +not any one, ever, had given him the amount of sympathy I was doing now. +I could see what he wanted straight away, and I determined to head him +off at once. I may be a brute, you know, but being the Only Real Friend, +the recipient of the confidences of one of these egotistical weaklings, +ghost or body, is beyond my physical endurance. I got up briskly. 'Don't +you brood on these things too much,' I said. 'The thing you've got to do +is to get out of this get out of this--sharp. You pull yourself together +and TRY.' 'I can't,' he said. 'You try,' I said, and try he did." + +"Try!" said Sanderson. "HOW?" + +"Passes," said Clayton. + +"Passes?" + +"Complicated series of gestures and passes with the hands. That's how +he had come in and that's how he had to get out again. Lord! what a +business I had!" + +"But how could ANY series of passes--?" I began. + +"My dear man," said Clayton, turning on me and putting a great emphasis +on certain words, "you want EVERYTHING clear. _I_ don't know HOW. All +I know is that you DO--that HE did, anyhow, at least. After a fearful +time, you know, he got his passes right and suddenly disappeared." + +"Did you," said Sanderson, slowly, "observe the passes?" + +"Yes," said Clayton, and seemed to think. "It was tremendously queer," +he said. "There we were, I and this thin vague ghost, in that silent +room, in this silent, empty inn, in this silent little Friday-night +town. Not a sound except our voices and a faint panting he made when +he swung. There was the bedroom candle, and one candle on the +dressing-table alight, that was all--sometimes one or other would flare +up into a tall, lean, astonished flame for a space. And queer things +happened. 'I can't,' he said; 'I shall never--!' And suddenly he sat +down on a little chair at the foot of the bed and began to sob and sob. +Lord! what a harrowing, whimpering thing he seemed! + +"'You pull yourself together,' I said, and tried to pat him on the back, +and... my confounded hand went through him! By that time, you know, +I wasn't nearly so--massive as I had been on the landing. I got the +queerness of it full. I remember snatching back my hand out of him, as +it were, with a little thrill, and walking over to the dressing-table. +'You pull yourself together,' I said to him, 'and try.' And in order to +encourage and help him I began to try as well." + +"What!" said Sanderson, "the passes?" + +"Yes, the passes." + +"But--" I said, moved by an idea that eluded me for a space. + +"This is interesting," said Sanderson, with his finger in his pipe-bowl. +"You mean to say this ghost of yours gave away--" + +"Did his level best to give away the whole confounded barrier? YES." + +"He didn't," said Wish; "he couldn't. Or you'd have gone there too." + +"That's precisely it," I said, finding my elusive idea put into words +for me. + +"That IS precisely it," said Clayton, with thoughtful eyes upon the +fire. + +For just a little while there was silence. + +"And at last he did it?" said Sanderson. + +"At last he did it. I had to keep him up to it hard, but he did it at +last--rather suddenly. He despaired, we had a scene, and then he got up +abruptly and asked me to go through the whole performance, slowly, so +that he might see. 'I believe,' he said, 'if I could SEE I should spot +what was wrong at once.' And he did. '_I_ know,' he said. 'What do you +know?' said I. '_I_ know,' he repeated. Then he said, peevishly, 'I +CAN'T do it if you look at me--I really CAN'T; it's been that, partly, +all along. I'm such a nervous fellow that you put me out.' Well, we had +a bit of an argument. Naturally I wanted to see; but he was as obstinate +as a mule, and suddenly I had come over as tired as a dog--he tired me +out. 'All right,' I said, '_I_ won't look at you,' and turned towards +the mirror, on the wardrobe, by the bed. + +"He started off very fast. I tried to follow him by looking in the +looking-glass, to see just what it was had hung. Round went his arms +and his hands, so, and so, and so, and then with a rush came to the last +gesture of all--you stand erect and open out your arms--and so, don't +you know, he stood. And then he didn't! He didn't! He wasn't! I wheeled +round from the looking-glass to him. There was nothing, I was alone, +with the flaring candles and a staggering mind. What had happened? Had +anything happened? Had I been dreaming?... And then, with an absurd note +of finality about it, the clock upon the landing discovered the moment +was ripe for striking ONE. So!--Ping! And I was as grave and sober as +a judge, with all my champagne and whisky gone into the vast serene. +Feeling queer, you know--confoundedly QUEER! Queer! Good Lord!" + +He regarded his cigar-ash for a moment. "That's all that happened," he +said. + +"And then you went to bed?" asked Evans. + +"What else was there to do?" + +I looked Wish in the eye. We wanted to scoff, and there was something, +something perhaps in Clayton's voice and manner, that hampered our +desire. + +"And about these passes?" said Sanderson. + +"I believe I could do them now." + +"Oh!" said Sanderson, and produced a penknife and set himself to grub +the dottel out of the bowl of his clay. + +"Why don't you do them now?" said Sanderson, shutting his pen-knife with +a click. + +"That's what I'm going to do," said Clayton. + +"They won't work," said Evans. + +"If they do--" I suggested. + +"You know, I'd rather you didn't," said Wish, stretching out his legs. + +"Why?" asked Evans. + +"I'd rather he didn't," said Wish. + +"But he hasn't got 'em right," said Sanderson, plugging too much tobacco +in his pipe. + +"All the same, I'd rather he didn't," said Wish. + +We argued with Wish. He said that for Clayton to go through those +gestures was like mocking a serious matter. "But you don't believe--?" +I said. Wish glanced at Clayton, who was staring into the fire, weighing +something in his mind. "I do--more than half, anyhow, I do," said Wish. + +"Clayton," said I, "you're too good a liar for us. Most of it was all +right. But that disappearance... happened to be convincing. Tell us, +it's a tale of cock and bull." + +He stood up without heeding me, took the middle of the hearthrug, and +faced me. For a moment he regarded his feet thoughtfully, and then for +all the rest of the time his eyes were on the opposite wall, with an +intent expression. He raised his two hands slowly to the level of his +eyes and so began.... + +Now, Sanderson is a Freemason, a member of the lodge of the Four Kings, +which devotes itself so ably to the study and elucidation of all the +mysteries of Masonry past and present, and among the students of this +lodge Sanderson is by no means the least. He followed Clayton's motions +with a singular interest in his reddish eye. "That's not bad," he +said, when it was done. "You really do, you know, put things together, +Clayton, in a most amazing fashion. But there's one little detail out." + +"I know," said Clayton. "I believe I could tell you which." + +"Well?" + +"This," said Clayton, and did a queer little twist and writhing and +thrust of the hands. + +"Yes." + +"That, you know, was what HE couldn't get right," said Clayton. "But how +do YOU--?" + +"Most of this business, and particularly how you invented it, I don't +understand at all," said Sanderson, "but just that phase--I do." He +reflected. "These happen to be a series of gestures--connected with a +certain branch of esoteric Masonry. Probably you know. Or else--HOW?" He +reflected still further. "I do not see I can do any harm in telling you +just the proper twist. After all, if you know, you know; if you don't, +you don't." + +"I know nothing," said Clayton, "except what the poor devil let out last +night." + +"Well, anyhow," said Sanderson, and placed his churchwarden very +carefully upon the shelf over the fireplace. Then very rapidly he +gesticulated with his hands. + +"So?" said Clayton, repeating. + +"So," said Sanderson, and took his pipe in hand again. + +"Ah, NOW," said Clayton, "I can do the whole thing--right." + +He stood up before the waning fire and smiled at us all. But I think +there was just a little hesitation in his smile. "If I begin--" he said. + +"I wouldn't begin," said Wish. + +"It's all right!" said Evans. "Matter is indestructible. You don't think +any jiggery-pokery of this sort is going to snatch Clayton into the +world of shades. Not it! You may try, Clayton, so far as I'm concerned, +until your arms drop off at the wrists." + +"I don't believe that," said Wish, and stood up and put his arm on +Clayton's shoulder. "You've made me half believe in that story somehow, +and I don't want to see the thing done!" + +"Goodness!" said I, "here's Wish frightened!" + +"I am," said Wish, with real or admirably feigned intensity. "I believe +that if he goes through these motions right he'll GO." + +"He'll not do anything of the sort," I cried. "There's only one way out +of this world for men, and Clayton is thirty years from that. Besides... +And such a ghost! Do you think--?" + +Wish interrupted me by moving. He walked out from among our chairs and +stopped beside the tole and stood there. "Clayton," he said, "you're a +fool." + +Clayton, with a humorous light in his eyes, smiled back at him. "Wish," +he said, "is right and all you others are wrong. I shall go. I shall get +to the end of these passes, and as the last swish whistles through the +air, Presto!--this hearthrug will be vacant, the room will be blank +amazement, and a respectably dressed gentleman of fifteen stone will +plump into the world of shades. I'm certain. So will you be. I decline +to argue further. Let the thing be tried." + +"NO," said Wish, and made a step and ceased, and Clayton raised his +hands once more to repeat the spirit's passing. + +By that time, you know, we were all in a state of tension--largely +because of the behaviour of Wish. We sat all of us with our eyes on +Clayton--I, at least, with a sort of tight, stiff feeling about me as +though from the back of my skull to the middle of my thighs my body had +been changed to steel. And there, with a gravity that was imperturbably +serene, Clayton bowed and swayed and waved his hands and arms before us. +As he drew towards the end one piled up, one tingled in one's teeth. The +last gesture, I have said, was to swing the arms out wide open, with the +face held up. And when at last he swung out to this closing gesture I +ceased even to breathe. It was ridiculous, of course, but you know that +ghost-story feeling. It was after dinner, in a queer, old shadowy house. +Would he, after all--? + +There he stood for one stupendous moment, with his arms open and his +upturned face, assured and bright, in the glare of the hanging lamp. We +hung through that moment as if it were an age, and then came from all +of us something that was half a sigh of infinite relief and half a +reassuring "NO!" For visibly--he wasn't going. It was all nonsense. He +had told an idle story, and carried it almost to conviction, that was +all!... And then in that moment the face of Clayton, changed. + +It changed. It changed as a lit house changes when its lights are +suddenly extinguished. His eyes were suddenly eyes that were fixed, his +smile was frozen on his lips, and he stood there still. He stood there, +very gently swaying. + +That moment, too, was an age. And then, you know, chairs were scraping, +things were falling, and we were all moving. His knees seemed to give, +and he fell forward, and Evans rose and caught him in his arms.... + +It stunned us all. For a minute I suppose no one said a coherent thing. +We believed it, yet could not believe it.... I came out of a muddled +stupefaction to find myself kneeling beside him, and his vest and shirt +were torn open, and Sanderson's hand lay on his heart.... + +Well--the simple fact before us could very well wait our convenience; +there was no hurry for us to comprehend. It lay there for an hour; it +lies athwart my memory, black and amazing still, to this day. Clayton +had, indeed, passed into the world that lies so near to and so far from +our own, and he had gone thither by the only road that mortal man +may take. But whether he did indeed pass there by that poor ghost's +incantation, or whether he was stricken suddenly by apoplexy in the +midst of an idle tale--as the coroner's jury would have us believe--is +no matter for my judging; it is just one of those inexplicable riddles +that must remain unsolved until the final solution of all things shall +come. All I certainly know is that, in the very moment, in the very +instant, of concluding those passes, he changed, and staggered, and fell +down before us--dead! + + + + +7. JIMMY GOGGLES THE GOD + +"It isn't every one who's been a god," said the sunburnt man. "But it's +happened to me. Among other things." + +I intimated my sense of his condescension. + +"It don't leave much for ambition, does it?" said the sunburnt man. + +"I was one of those men who were saved from the Ocean Pioneer. Gummy! +how time flies! It's twenty years ago. I doubt if you'll remember +anything of the Ocean Pioneer?" + +The name was familiar, and I tried to recall when and where I had read +it. The Ocean Pioneer? "Something about gold dust," I said vaguely, "but +the precise--" + +"That's it," he said. "In a beastly little channel she hadn't no +business in--dodging pirates. It was before they'd put the kybosh on +that business. And there'd been volcanoes or something and all the rocks +was wrong. There's places about by Soona where you fair have to follow +the rocks about to see where they're going next. Down she went in twenty +fathoms before you could have dealt for whist, with fifty thousand +pounds worth of gold aboard, it was said, in one form or another." + +"Survivors?" + +"Three." + +"I remember the case now," I said. "There was something about salvage--" + +But at the word salvage the sunburnt man exploded into language so +extraordinarily horrible that I stopped aghast. He came down to more +ordinary swearing, and pulled himself up abruptly. "Excuse me," he said, +"but--salvage!" + +He leant over towards me. "I was in that job," he said. "Tried to make +myself a rich man, and got made a god instead. I've got my feelings-- + +"It ain't all jam being a god," said the sunburnt man, and for some time +conversed by means of such pithy but unprogressive axioms. At last he +took up his tale again. + +"There was me," said the sunburnt man, "and a seaman named Jacobs, and +Always, the mate of the Ocean Pioneer. And him it was that set the +whole thing going. I remember him now, when we was in the jolly-boat, +suggesting it all to our minds just by one sentence. He was a wonderful +hand at suggesting things. 'There was forty thousand pounds,' he said, +'on that ship, and it's for me to say just where she went down.' It +didn't need much brains to tumble to that. And he was the leader from +the first to the last. He got hold of the Sanderses and their brig; they +were brothers, and the brig was the Pride of Banya, and he it was bought +the diving-dress--a second-hand one with a compressed air apparatus +instead of pumping. He'd have done the diving too, if it hadn't made him +sick going down. And the salvage people were mucking about with a chart +he'd cooked up, as solemn as could be, at Starr Race, a hundred and +twenty miles away. + +"I can tell you we was a happy lot aboard that brig, jokes and drink +and bright hopes all the time. It all seemed so neat and clean and +straightforward, and what rough chaps call a 'cert.' And we used to +speculate how the other blessed lot, the proper salvagers, who'd started +two days before us, were getting on, until our sides fairly ached. We +all messed together in the Sanderses' cabin--it was a curious crew, all +officers and no men--and there stood the diving-dress waiting its turn. +Young Sanders was a humorous sort of chap, and there certainly was +something funny in the confounded thing's great fat head and its stare, +and he made us see it too. 'Jimmie Goggles,' he used to call it, and +talk to it like a Christian. Asked if he was married, and how Mrs. +Goggles was, and all the little Goggleses. Fit to make you split. And +every blessed day all of us used to drink the health of Jimmy Goggles in +rum, and unscrew his eye and pour a glass of rum in him, until, instead +of that nasty mackintosheriness, he smelt as nice in his inside as +a cask of rum. It was jolly times we had in those days, I can tell +you--little suspecting, poor chaps! what was a-coming. + +"We weren't going to throw away our chances by any blessed hurry, you +know, and we spent a whole day sounding our way towards where the Ocean +Pioneer had gone down, right between two chunks of ropy grey rock--lava +rocks that rose nearly out of the water. We had to lay off about half a +mile to get a safe anchorage, and there was a thundering row who should +stop on board. And there she lay just as she had gone down, so that +you could see the top of the masts that was still standing perfectly +distinctly. The row ending in all coming in the boat. I went down in the +diving-dress on Friday morning directly it was light. + +"What a surprise it was! I can see it all now quite distinctly. It was +a queer-looking place, and the light was just coming. People over here +think every blessed place in the tropics is a flat shore and palm trees +and surf, bless 'em! This place, for instance, wasn't a bit that way. +Not common rocks they were, undermined by waves; but great curved banks +like ironwork cinder heaps, with green slime below, and thorny shrubs +and things just waving upon them here and there, and the water glassy +calm and clear, and showing you a kind of dirty grey-black shine, with +huge flaring red-brown weeds spreading motionless, and crawling and +darting things going through it. And far away beyond the ditches and +pools and the heaps was a forest on the mountain flank, growing again +after the fires and cinder showers of the last eruption. And the other +way forest, too, and a kind of broken--what is it?--ambytheatre of black +and rusty cinders rising out of it all, and the sea in a kind of bay in +the middle. + +"The dawn, I say, was just coming, and there wasn't much colour about +things, and not a human being but ourselves anywhere in sight up or down +the channel. Except the Pride of Banya, lying out beyond a lump of rocks +towards the line of the sea. + +"Not a human being in sight," he repeated, and paused. + +"I don't know where they came from, not a bit. And we were feeling so +safe that we were all alone that poor young Sanders was a-singing. I was +in Jimmy Goggles, all except the helmet. 'Easy,' says Always, 'there's +her mast.' And after I'd had just one squint over the gunwale, I caught +up the bogey and almost tipped out as old Sanders brought the boat +round. When the windows were screwed and everything was all right, I +shut the valve from the air belt in order to help my sinking, and +jumped overboard, feet foremost--for we hadn't a ladder. I left the boat +pitching, and all of them staring down into the water after me, as my +head sank down into the weeds and blackness that lay about the mast. +I suppose nobody, not the most cautious chap in the world, would have +bothered about a lookout at such a desolate place. It stunk of solitude. + +"Of course you must understand that I was a greenhorn at diving. None of +us were divers. We'd had to muck about with the thing to get the way of +it, and this was the first time I'd been deep. It feels damnable. Your +ears hurt beastly. I don't know if you've ever hurt yourself yawning or +sneezing, but it takes you like that, only ten times worse. And a pain +over the eyebrows here--splitting--and a feeling like influenza in the +head. And it isn't all heaven in your lungs and things. And going down +feels like the beginning of a lift, only it keeps on. And you can't turn +your head to see what's above you, and you can't get a fair squint at +what's happening to your feet without bending down something painful. +And being deep it was dark, let alone the blackness of the ashes and mud +that formed the bottom. It was like going down out of the dawn back into +the night, so to speak. + +"The mast came up like a ghost out of the black, and then a lot of +fishes, and then a lot of flapping red seaweed, and then whack I came +with a kind of dull bang on the deck of the Ocean Pioneer, and the +fishes that had been feeding on the dead rose about me like a swarm of +flies from road stuff in summer time. I turned on the compressed air +again--for the suit was a bit thick and mackintoshery after all, in +spite of the rum--and stood recovering myself. It struck coolish down +there, and that helped take off the stuffiness a bit. + +"When I began to feel easier, I started looking about me. It was +an extraordinary sight. Even the light was extraordinary, a kind of +reddy-coloured twilight, on account of the streamers of seaweed that +floated up on either side of the ship. And far overhead just a moony, +deep green-blue. The deck of the ship, except for a slight list to +starboard, was level, and lay all dark and long between the weeds, clear +except where the masts had snapped when she rolled, and vanishing into +black night towards the forecastle. There wasn't any dead on the decks, +most were in the weeds alongside, I suppose; but afterwards I found two +skeletons lying in the passengers' cabins, where death had come to them. +It was curious to stand on that deck and recognise it all, bit by bit; a +place against the rail where I'd been fond of smoking by starlight, and +the corner where an old chap from Sydney used to flirt with a widow we +had aboard. A comfortable couple they'd been, only a month ago, and now +you couldn't have got a meal for a baby crab off either of them. + +"I've always had a bit of a philosophical turn, and I dare say I spent +the best part of five minutes in such thoughts before I went below +to find where the blessed dust was stored. It was slow work hunting, +feeling it was for the most part, pitchy dark, with confusing blue +gleams down the companion. And there were things moving about, a dab at +my glass once, and once a pinch at my leg. Crabs, I expect. I kicked a +lot of loose stuff that puzzled me, and stooped and picked up something +all knobs and spikes. What do you think? Backbone! But I never had +any particular feeling for bones. We had talked the affair over pretty +thoroughly, and Always knew just where the stuff was stowed. I found it +that trip. I lifted a box one end an inch or more." + +He broke off in his story. "I've lifted it," he said, "as near as that! +Forty thousand pounds worth of pure gold! Gold! I shouted inside my +helmet as a kind of cheer and hurt my ears. I was getting confounded +stuffy and tired by this time--I must have been down twenty-five minutes +or more--and I thought this was good enough. I went up the companion +again, and as my eyes came up flush with the deck, a thundering great +crab gave a kind of hysterical jump and went scuttling off sideways. +Quite a start it gave me. I stood up clear on deck and shut the valve +behind the helmet to let the air accumulate to carry me up again--I +noticed a kind of whacking from above, as though they were hitting the +water with an oar, but I didn't look up. I fancied they were signalling +me to come up. + +"And then something shot down by me--something heavy, and stood a-quiver +in the planks. I looked, and there was a long knife I'd seen young +Sanders handling. Thinks I, he's dropped it, and I was still calling him +this kind of fool and that--for it might have hurt me serious--when I +began to lift and drive up towards the daylight. Just about the level +of the top spars of the Ocean Pioneer, whack! I came against something +sinking down, and a boot knocked in front of my helmet. Then something +else, struggling frightful. It was a big weight atop of me, whatever it +was, and moving and twisting about. I'd have thought it a big octopus, +or some such thing, if it hadn't been for the boot. But octopuses don't +wear boots. It was all in a moment, of course. I felt myself sinking +down again, and I threw my arms about to keep steady, and the whole lot +rolled free of me and shot down as I went up--" + +He paused. + +"I saw young Sanders's face, over a naked black shoulder, and a spear +driven clean through his neck, and out of his mouth and neck what looked +like spirts of pink smoke in the water. And down they went clutching +one another, and turning over, and both too far gone to leave go. And +in another second my helmet came a whack, fit to split, against the +niggers' canoe. It was niggers! Two canoes full. + +"It was lively times, I tell you! Overboard came Always with three +spears in him. There was the legs of three or four black chaps kicking +about me in the water. I couldn't see much, but I saw the game was up at +a glance, gave my valve a tremendous twist, and went bubbling down again +after poor Always, in as awful a state of scare and astonishment as you +can well imagine. I passed young Sanders and the nigger going up again +and struggling still a bit, and in another moment I was standing in the +dim again on the deck of the Ocean Pioneer. + +"'Gummy,' thinks I, 'here's a fix!' Niggers? At first I couldn't see +anything for it but Stifle below or Stabs above. I didn't properly +understand how much air there was to last me, but I didn't feel like +standing very much more of it down below. I was hot and frightfully +heady--quite apart from the blue funk I was in. We'd never repined with +these beastly natives, filthy Papuan beasts. It wasn't any good, coming +up where I was, but I had to do something. On the spur of the moment, I +clambered over the side of the brig and landed among the weeds, and set +off through the darkness as fast as I could. I just stopped once and +knelt, and twisted back my head in the helmet and had a look up. It was +a most extraordinary bright green-blue above, and the two canoes and the +boat floating there very small and distant like a kind of twisted H. And +it made me feel sick to squint up at it, and think what the pitching and +swaying of the three meant. + +"It was just about the most horrible ten minutes I ever had, blundering +about in that darkness, pressure something awful, like being buried in +sand, pain across the chest, sick with funk, and breathing nothing as it +seemed but the smell of rum and mackintosh. Gummy! After a bit, I found +myself going up a steepish sort of slope. I had another squint to see +if anything was visible of the canoes and boats, and then kept on. I +stopped with my head a foot from the surface, and tried to see where I +was going, but, of course, nothing was to be seen but the reflection of +the bottom. Then out I dashed like knocking my head through a mirror. +Directly I got my eyes out of the water, I saw I'd come up a kind of +beach near the forest. I had a look round, but the natives and the brig +were both hidden by a big, hummucky heap of twisted lava, the born fool +in me suggested a run for the woods. I didn't take the helmet off, but +eased open one of the windows, and, after a bit of a pant, went on out +of the water. You'd hardly imagine how clean and light the air tasted. + +"Of course, with four inches of lead in your boot soles, and your head +in a copper knob the size of a football, and been thirty-five minutes +under water, you don't break any records running. I ran like a ploughboy +going to work. And half way to the trees I saw a dozen niggers or more, +coming out in a gaping, astonished sort of way to meet me. + +"I just stopped dead, and cursed myself for all the fools out of London. +I had about as much chance of cutting back to the water as a turned +turtle. I just screwed up my window again to leave my hands free, and +waited for them. There wasn't anything else for me to do. + +"But they didn't come on very much. I began to suspect why. 'Jimmy +Goggles,' I says, 'it's your beauty does it.' I was inclined to be +a little light-headed, I think, with all these dangers about and the +change in the pressure of the blessed air. 'Who're ye staring at?' +I said, as if the savages could hear me. 'What d'ye take me for? I'm +hanged if I don't give you something to stare at,' I said, and with that +I screwed up the escape valve and turned on the compressed air from the +belt, until I was swelled out like a blown frog. Regular imposing it +must have been. I'm blessed if they'd come on a step; and presently one +and then another went down on their hands and knees. They didn't know +what to make of me, and they was doing the extra polite, which was very +wise and reasonable of them. I had half a mind to edge back seaward and +cut and run, but it seemed too hopeless. A step back and they'd have +been after me. And out of sheer desperation I began to march towards +them up the beach, with slow, heavy steps, and waving my blown-out arms +about, in a dignified manner. And inside of me I was singing as small as +a tomtit. + +"But there's nothing like a striking appearance to help a man over a +difficulty,--I've found that before and since. People like ourselves, +who're up to diving-dresses by the time we're seven, can scarcely +imagine the effect of one on a simple-minded savage. One or two of these +niggers cut and run, the others started in a great hurry trying to knock +their brains out on the ground. And on I went as slow and solemn and +silly-looking and artful as a jobbing plumber. It was evident they took +me for something immense. + +"Then up jumped one and began pointing, making extraordinary gestures +to me as he did so, and all the others began sharing their attention +between me and something out at sea. 'What's the matter now?' I said. I +turned slowly on account of my dignity, and there I saw, coming round +a point, the poor old Pride of Banya towed by a couple of canoes. The +sight fairly made me sick. But they evidently expected some recognition, +so I waved my arms in a striking sort of non-committal manner. And then +I turned and stalked on towards the trees again. At that time I was +praying like mad, I remember, over and over again: 'Lord help me through +with it! Lord help me through with it!' It's only fools who know nothing +of dangers can afford to laugh at praying. + +"But these niggers weren't going to let me walk through and away like +that. They started a kind of bowing dance about me, and sort of pressed +me to take a pathway that lay through the trees. It was clear to me they +didn't take me for a British citizen, whatever else they thought of +me, and for my own part I was never less anxious to own up to the old +country. + +"You'd hardly believe it, perhaps, unless you're familiar with savages, +but these poor misguided, ignorant creatures took me straight to their +kind of joss place to present me to the blessed old black stone there. +By this time I was beginning to sort of realise the depth of their +ignorance, and directly I set eyes on this deity I took my cue. I +started a baritone howl, 'wow-wow,' very long on one note, and began +waving my arms about a lot, and then very slowly and ceremoniously +turned their image over on its side and sat down on it. I wanted to sit +down badly, for diving-dresses ain't much wear in the tropics. Or, to +put it different like, they're a sight too much. It took away their +breath, I could see, my sitting on their joss, but in less time than a +minute they made up their minds and were hard at work worshipping me. +And I can tell you I felt a bit relieved to see things turning out so +well, in spite of the weight on my shoulders and feet. + +"But what made me anxious was what the chaps in the canoes might think +when they came back. If they'd seen me in the boat before I went down, +and without the helmet on--for they might have been spying and hiding +since over night--they would very likely take a different view from the +others. I was in a deuce of a stew about that for hours, as it seemed, +until the shindy of the arrival began. + +"But they took it down--the whole blessed village took it down. At the +cost of sitting up stiff and stern, as much like those sitting Egyptian +images one sees as I could manage, for pretty nearly twelve hours, I +should guess at least, on end, I got over it. You'd hardly think what +it meant in that heat and stink. I don't think any of them dreamt of the +man inside. I was just a wonderful leathery great joss that had come +up with luck out of the water. But the fatigue! the heat! the beastly +closeness! the mackintosheriness and the rum! and the fuss! They lit a +stinking fire on a kind of lava slab there was before me, and brought +in a lot of gory muck--the worst parts of what they were feasting on +outside, the Beasts--and burnt it all in my honour. I was getting a bit +hungry, but I understand now how gods manage to do without eating, what +with the smell of burnt offerings about them. And they brought in a lot +of the stuff they'd got off the brig and, among other stuff, what I was +a bit relieved to see, the kind of pneumatic pump that was used for the +compressed air affair, and then a lot of chaps and girls came in and +danced about me something disgraceful. It's extraordinary the different +ways different people have of showing respect. If I'd had a hatchet +handy I'd have gone for the lot of them--they made me feel that wild. +All this time I sat as stiff as company, not knowing anything better to +do. And at last, when nightfall came, and the wattle joss-house place +got a bit too shadowy for their taste--all these here savages are afraid +of the dark, you know--and I started a sort of 'Moo' noise, they built +big bonfires outside and left me alone in peace in the darkness of my +hut, free to unscrew my windows a bit and think things over, and feel +just as bad as I liked. And, Lord! I was sick. + +"I was weak and hungry, and my mind kept on behaving like a beetle on a +pin, tremendous activity and nothing done at the end of it. Come round +just where it was before. There was sorrowing for the other chaps, +beastly drunkards certainly, but not deserving such a fate, and young +Sanders with the spear through his neck wouldn't go out of my mind. +There was the treasure down there in the Ocean Pioneer, and how one +might get it and hide it somewhere safer, and get away and come back for +it. And there was the puzzle where to get anything to eat. I tell you +I was fair rambling. I was afraid to ask by signs for food, for fear of +behaving too human, and so there I sat and hungered until very near +the dawn. Then the village got a bit quiet, and I couldn't stand it any +longer, and I went out and got some stuff like artichokes in a bowl +and some sour milk. What was left of these I put away among the other +offerings, just to give them a hint of my tastes. And in the morning +they came to worship, and found me sitting up stiff and respectable on +their previous god, just as they'd left me overnight. I'd got my back +against the central pillar of the hut, and, practically, I was asleep. +And that's how I became a god among the heathen--a false god no doubt, +and blasphemous, but one can't always pick and choose. + +"Now, I don't want to crack myself up as a god beyond my merits, but I +must confess that while I was god to these people they was extraordinary +successful. I don't say there's anything in it, mind you. They won +a battle with another tribe--I got a lot of offerings I didn't want +through it--they had wonderful fishing, and their crop of pourra was +exceptional fine. And they counted the capture of the brig among the +benefits I brought 'em. I must say I don't think that was a poor record +for a perfectly new hand. And, though perhaps you'd scarcely credit it, +I was the tribal god of those beastly savages for pretty nearly four +months.... + +"What else could I do, man? But I didn't wear that diving-dress all the +time. I made 'em rig me up a sort of holy of holies, and a deuce of a +time I had too, making them understand what it was I wanted them to do. +That indeed was the great difficulty--making them understand my wishes. +I couldn't let myself down by talking their lingo badly--even if I'd +been able to speak at all--and I couldn't go flapping a lot of gestures +at them. So I drew pictures in sand and sat down beside them and hooted +like one o'clock. Sometimes they did the things I wanted all right, +and sometimes they did them all wrong. They was always very willing, +certainly. All the while I was puzzling how I was to get the confounded +business settled. Every night before the dawn I used to march out in +full rig and go off to a place where I could see the channel in which +the Ocean Pioneer lay sunk, and once even, one moonlight night, I tried +to walk out to her, but the weeds and rocks and dark clean beat me. I +didn't get back till full day, and then I found all those silly niggers +out on the beach praying their sea-god to return to them. I was that +vexed and tired, messing and tumbling about, and coming up and going +down again, I could have punched their silly heads all round when they +started rejoicing. I'm hanged if I like so much ceremony. + +"And then came the missionary. That missionary! It was in the afternoon, +and I was sitting in state in my outer temple place, sitting on that old +black stone of theirs when he came. I heard a row outside and jabbering, +and then his voice speaking to an interpreter. 'They worship stocks and +stones,' he said, and I knew what was up, in a flash. I had one of my +windows out for comfort, and I sang out straight away on the spur of +the moment. 'Stocks and stones!' I says. 'You come inside,' I says, 'and +I'll punch your blooming head.' There was a kind of silence and more +jabbering, and in he came, Bible in hand, after the manner of them--a +little sandy chap in specks and a pith helmet. I flatter myself that me +sitting there in the shadows, with my copper head and my big goggles, +struck him a bit of a heap at first. 'Well,' I says, 'how's the trade in +calico?' for I don't hold with missionaries. + +"I had a lark with that missionary. He was a raw hand, and quite +outclassed with a man like me. He gasped out who was I, and I told him +to read the inscription at my feet if he wanted to know. Down he goes +to read, and his interpreter, being of course as superstitious as any of +them, took it as an act of worship and plumped down like a shot. All my +people gave a howl of triumph, and there wasn't any more business to be +done in my village after that journey, not by the likes of him. + +"But, of course, I was a fool to choke him off like that. If I'd had any +sense I should have told him straight away of the treasure and taken him +into Co. I've no doubt he'd have come into Co. A child, with a few hours +to think it over, could have seen the connection between my diving-dress +and the loss of the Ocean Pioneer. A week after he left I went out +one morning and saw the Motherhood, the salver's ship from Starr Race, +towing up the channel and sounding. The whole blessed game was up, and +all my trouble thrown away. Gummy! How wild I felt! And guying it in +that stinking silly dress! Four months!" + +The sunburnt man's story degenerated again. "Think of it," he said, when +he emerged to linguistic purity once more. "Forty thousand pounds worth +of gold." + +"Did the little missionary come back?" I asked. + +"Oh, yes! Bless him! And he pledged his reputation there was a man +inside the god, and started out to see as much with tremendous ceremony. +But there wasn't--he got sold again. I always did hate scenes and +explanations, and long before he came I was out of it all--going home to +Banya along the coast, hiding in bushes by day, and thieving food from +the villages by night. Only weapon, a spear. No clothes, no money. +Nothing. My face was my fortune, as the saying is. And just a squeak +of eight thousand pounds of gold--fifth share. But the natives cut up +rusty, thank goodness, because they thought it was him had driven their +luck away." + + + + +8. THE NEW ACCELERATOR + +Certainly, if ever a man found a guinea when he was looking for a pin +it is my good friend Professor Gibberne. I have heard before of +investigators overshooting the mark, but never quite to the extent that +he has done. He has really, this time at any rate, without any touch of +exaggeration in the phrase, found something to revolutionise human life. +And that when he was simply seeking an all-round nervous stimulant to +bring languid people up to the stresses of these pushful days. I have +tasted the stuff now several times, and I cannot do better than describe +the effect the thing had on me. That there are astonishing experiences +in store for all in search of new sensations will become apparent +enough. + +Professor Gibberne, as many people know, is my neighbour in Folkestone. +Unless my memory plays me a trick, his portrait at various ages has +already appeared in The Strand Magazine--I think late in 1899; but I am +unable to look it up because I have lent that volume to some one who has +never sent it back. The reader may, perhaps, recall the high forehead +and the singularly long black eyebrows that give such a Mephistophelian +touch to his face. He occupies one of those pleasant little detached +houses in the mixed style that make the western end of the Upper +Sandgate Road so interesting. His is the one with the Flemish gables and +the Moorish portico, and it is in the little room with the mullioned bay +window that he works when he is down here, and in which of an evening +we have so often smoked and talked together. He is a mighty jester, but, +besides, he likes to talk to me about his work; he is one of those men +who find a help and stimulus in talking, and so I have been able to +follow the conception of the New Accelerator right up from a very early +stage. Of course, the greater portion of his experimental work is not +done in Folkestone, but in Gower Street, in the fine new laboratory next +to the hospital that he has been the first to use. + +As every one knows, or at least as all intelligent people know, the +special department in which Gibberne has gained so great and deserved a +reputation among physiologists is the action of drugs upon the nervous +system. Upon soporifics, sedatives, and anaesthetics he is, I am told, +unequalled. He is also a chemist of considerable eminence, and I suppose +in the subtle and complex jungle of riddles that centres about the +ganglion cell and the axis fibre there are little cleared places of +his making, little glades of illumination, that, until he sees fit to +publish his results, are still inaccessible to every other living man. +And in the last few years he has been particularly assiduous upon this +question of nervous stimulants, and already, before the discovery of the +New Accelerator, very successful with them. Medical science has to thank +him for at least three distinct and absolutely safe invigorators +of unrivalled value to practising men. In cases of exhaustion the +preparation known as Gibberne's B Syrup has, I suppose, saved more lives +already than any lifeboat round the coast. + +"But none of these little things begin to satisfy me yet," he told me +nearly a year ago. "Either they increase the central energy without +affecting the nerves or they simply increase the available energy by +lowering the nervous conductivity; and all of them are unequal and local +in their operation. One wakes up the heart and viscera and leaves +the brain stupefied, one gets at the brain champagne fashion and does +nothing good for the solar plexus, and what I want--and what, if it's an +earthly possibility, I mean to have--is a stimulant that stimulates all +round, that wakes you up for a time from the crown of your head to the +tip of your great toe, and makes you go two--or even three--to everybody +else's one. Eh? That's the thing I'm after." + +"It would tire a man," I said. + +"Not a doubt of it. And you'd eat double or treble--and all that. But +just think what the thing would mean. Imagine yourself with a little +phial like this"--he held up a little bottle of green glass and marked +his points with it--"and in this precious phial is the power to think +twice as fast, move twice as quickly, do twice as much work in a given +time as you could otherwise do." + +"But is such a thing possible?" + +"I believe so. If it isn't, I've wasted my time for a year. These +various preparations of the hypophosphites, for example, seem to show +that something of the sort... Even if it was only one and a half times +as fast it would do." + +"It WOULD do," I said. + +"If you were a statesman in a corner, for example, time rushing up +against you, something urgent to be done, eh?" + +"He could dose his private secretary," I said. + +"And gain--double time. And think if YOU, for example, wanted to finish +a book." + +"Usually," I said, "I wish I'd never begun 'em." + +"Or a doctor, driven to death, wants to sit down and think out a case. +Or a barrister--or a man cramming for an examination." + +"Worth a guinea a drop," said I, "and more to men like that." + +"And in a duel, again," said Gibberne, "where it all depends on your +quickness in pulling the trigger." + +"Or in fencing," I echoed. + +"You see," said Gibberne, "if I get it as an all-round thing it will +really do you no harm at all--except perhaps to an infinitesimal degree +it brings you nearer old age. You will just have lived twice to other +people's once--" + +"I suppose," I meditated, "in a duel--it would be fair?" + +"That's a question for the seconds," said Gibberne. + +I harked back further. "And you really think such a thing IS possible?" +I said. + +"As possible," said Gibberne, and glanced at something that went +throbbing by the window, "as a motor-bus. As a matter of fact--" + +He paused and smiled at me deeply, and tapped slowly on the edge of his +desk with the green phial. "I think I know the stuff.... Already I've +got something coming." The nervous smile upon his face betrayed the +gravity of his revelation. He rarely talked of his actual experimental +work unless things were very near the end. "And it may be, it may be--I +shouldn't be surprised--it may even do the thing at a greater rate than +twice." + +"It will be rather a big thing," I hazarded. + +"It will be, I think, rather a big thing." + +But I don't think he quite knew what a big thing it was to be, for all +that. + +I remember we had several talks about the stuff after that. "The New +Accelerator" he called it, and his tone about it grew more confident on +each occasion. Sometimes he talked nervously of unexpected physiological +results its use might have, and then he would get a little unhappy; at +others he was frankly mercenary, and we debated long and anxiously how +the preparation might be turned to commercial account. "It's a good +thing," said Gibberne, "a tremendous thing. I know I'm giving the world +something, and I think it only reasonable we should expect the world to +pay. The dignity of science is all very well, but I think somehow I must +have the monopoly of the stuff for, say, ten years. I don't see why ALL +the fun in life should go to the dealers in ham." + +My own interest in the coming drug certainly did not wane in the time. +I have always had a queer little twist towards metaphysics in my mind. I +have always been given to paradoxes about space and time, and it seemed +to me that Gibberne was really preparing no less than the absolute +acceleration of life. Suppose a man repeatedly dosed with such a +preparation: he would live an active and record life indeed, but he +would be an adult at eleven, middle-aged at twenty-five, and by thirty +well on the road to senile decay. It seemed to me that so far Gibberne +was only going to do for any one who took his drug exactly what Nature +has done for the Jews and Orientals, who are men in their teens and aged +by fifty, and quicker in thought and act than we are all the time. The +marvel of drugs has always been great to my mind; you can madden a man, +calm a man, make him incredibly strong and alert or a helpless log, +quicken this passion and allay that, all by means of drugs, and here was +a new miracle to be added to this strange armoury of phials the doctors +use! But Gibberne was far too eager upon his technical points to enter +very keenly into my aspect of the question. + +It was the 7th or 8th of August when he told me the distillation that +would decide his failure or success for a time was going forward as we +talked, and it was on the 10th that he told me the thing was done and +the New Accelerator a tangible reality in the world. I met him as I was +going up the Sandgate Hill towards Folkestone--I think I was going to +get my hair cut, and he came hurrying down to meet me--I suppose he was +coming to my house to tell me at once of his success. I remember that +his eyes were unusually bright and his face flushed, and I noted even +then the swift alacrity of his step. + +"It's done," he cried, and gripped my hand, speaking very fast; "it's +more than done. Come up to my house and see." + +"Really?" + +"Really!" he shouted. "Incredibly! Come up and see." + +"And it does--twice? + +"It does more, much more. It scares me. Come up and see the stuff. Taste +it! Try it! It's the most amazing stuff on earth." He gripped my arm +and, walking at such a pace that he forced me into a trot, went shouting +with me up the hill. A whole char-a-banc-ful of people turned and stared +at us in unison after the manner of people in chars-a-banc. It was one +of those hot, clear days that Folkestone sees so much of, every colour +incredibly bright and every outline hard. There was a breeze, of course, +but not so much breeze as sufficed under these conditions to keep me +cool and dry. I panted for mercy. + +"I'm not walking fast, am I?" cried Gibberne, and slackened his pace to +a quick march. + +"You've been taking some of this stuff," I puffed. + +"No," he said. "At the utmost a drop of water that stood in a beaker +from which I had washed out the last traces of the stuff. I took some +last night, you know. But that is ancient history, now." + +"And it goes twice?" I said, nearing his doorway in a grateful +perspiration. + +"It goes a thousand times, many thousand times!" cried Gibberne, with a +dramatic gesture, flinging open his Early English carved oak gate. + +"Phew!" said I, and followed him to the door. + +"I don't know how many times it goes," he said, with his latch-key in +his hand. + +"And you--" + +"It throws all sorts of light on nervous physiology, it kicks the theory +of vision into a perfectly new shape!... Heaven knows how many thousand +times. We'll try all that after--The thing is to try the stuff now." + +"Try the stuff?" I said, as we went along the passage. + +"Rather," said Gibberne, turning on me in his study. "There it is in +that little green phial there! Unless you happen to be afraid?" + +I am a careful man by nature, and only theoretically adventurous. I WAS +afraid. But on the other hand there is pride. + +"Well," I haggled. "You say you've tried it?" + +"I've tried it," he said, "and I don't look hurt by it, do I? I don't +even look livery and I FEEL--" + +I sat down. "Give me the potion," I said. "If the worst comes to the +worst it will save having my hair cut, and that I think is one of the +most hateful duties of a civilised man. How do you take the mixture?" + +"With water," said Gibberne, whacking down a carafe. + +He stood up in front of his desk and regarded me in his easy chair; his +manner was suddenly affected by a touch of the Harley Street specialist. +"It's rum stuff, you know," he said. + +I made a gesture with my hand. + +"I must warn you in the first place as soon as you've got it down to +shut your eyes, and open them very cautiously in a minute or so's +time. One still sees. The sense of vision is a question of length of +vibration, and not of multitude of impacts; but there's a kind of shock +to the retina, a nasty giddy confusion just at the time, if the eyes are +open. Keep 'em shut." + +"Shut," I said. "Good!" + +"And the next thing is, keep still. Don't begin to whack about. You +may fetch something a nasty rap if you do. Remember you will be going +several thousand times faster than you ever did before, heart, lungs, +muscles, brain--everything--and you will hit hard without knowing +it. You won't know it, you know. You'll feel just as you do now. Only +everything in the world will seem to be going ever so many thousand +times slower than it ever went before. That's what makes it so deuced +queer." + +"Lor'," I said. "And you mean--" + +"You'll see," said he, and took up a little measure. He glanced at the +material on his desk. "Glasses," he said, "water. All here. Mustn't take +too much for the first attempt." + +The little phial glucked out its precious contents. + +"Don't forget what I told you," he said, turning the contents of the +measure into a glass in the manner of an Italian waiter measuring +whisky. "Sit with the eyes tightly shut and in absolute stillness for +two minutes," he said. "Then you will hear me speak." + +He added an inch or so of water to the little dose in each glass. + +"By-the-by," he said, "don't put your glass down. Keep it in your hand +and rest your hand on your knee. Yes--so. And now--" + +He raised his glass. + +"The New Accelerator," I said. + +"The New Accelerator," he answered, and we touched glasses and drank, +and instantly I closed my eyes. + +You know that blank non-existence into which one drops when one has +taken "gas." For an indefinite interval it was like that. Then I heard +Gibberne telling me to wake up, and I stirred and opened my eyes. There +he stood as he had been standing, glass still in hand. It was empty, +that was all the difference. + +"Well?" said I. + +"Nothing out of the way?" + +"Nothing. A slight feeling of exhilaration, perhaps. Nothing more." + +"Sounds?" + +"Things are still," I said. "By Jove! yes! They ARE still. Except the +sort of faint pat, patter, like rain falling on different things. What +is it?" + +"Analysed sounds," I think he said, but I am not sure. He glanced at the +window. "Have you ever seen a curtain before a window fixed in that way +before?" + +I followed his eyes, and there was the end of the curtain, frozen, as it +were, corner high, in the act of flapping briskly in the breeze. + +"No," said I; "that's odd." + +"And here," he said, and opened the hand that held the glass. Naturally +I winced, expecting the glass to smash. But so far from smashing it did +not even seem to stir; it hung in mid-air--motionless. + +"Roughly speaking," said Gibberne, "an object in these latitudes falls +16 feet in the first second. This glass is falling 16 feet in a second +now. Only, you see, it hasn't been falling yet for the hundredth part of +a second. That gives you some idea of the pace of my Accelerator." And +he waved his hand round and round, over and under the slowly sinking +glass. Finally, he took it by the bottom, pulled it down, and placed it +very carefully on the table. "Eh?" he said to me, and laughed. + +"That seems all right," I said, and began very gingerly to raise myself +from my chair. I felt perfectly well, very light and comfortable, and +quite confident in my mind. I was going fast all over. My heart, for +example, was beating a thousand times a second, but that caused me no +discomfort at all. I looked out of the window. An immovable cyclist, +head down and with a frozen puff of dust behind his driving-wheel, +scorched to overtake a galloping char-a-banc that did not stir. I gaped +in amazement at this incredible spectacle. "Gibberne," I cried, "how +long will this confounded stuff last?" + +"Heaven knows!" he answered. "Last time I took it I went to bed and +slept it off. I tell you, I was frightened. It must have lasted some +minutes, I think--it seemed like hours. But after a bit it slows down +rather suddenly, I believe." + +I was proud to observe that I did not feel frightened--I suppose because +there were two of us. "Why shouldn't we go out?" I asked. + +"Why not?" + +"They'll see us." + +"Not they. Goodness, no! Why, we shall be going a thousand times faster +than the quickest conjuring trick that was ever done. Come along! Which +way shall we go? Window, or door?" + +And out by the window we went. + +Assuredly of all the strange experiences that I have ever had, or +imagined, or read of other people having or imagining, that little raid +I made with Gibberne on the Folkestone Leas, under the influence of the +New Accelerator, was the strangest and maddest of all. We went out by +his gate into the road, and there we made a minute examination of the +statuesque passing traffic. The tops of the wheels and some of the legs +of the horses of this char-a-banc, the end of the whip-lash and the +lower jaw of the conductor--who was just beginning to yawn--were +perceptibly in motion, but all the rest of the lumbering conveyance +seemed still. And quite noiseless except for a faint rattling that came +from one man's throat! And as parts of this frozen edifice there were a +driver, you know, and a conductor, and eleven people! The effect as we +walked about the thing began by being madly queer, and ended by being +disagreeable. There they were, people like ourselves and yet not like +ourselves, frozen in careless attitudes, caught in mid-gesture. A girl +and a man smiled at one another, a leering smile that threatened to last +for evermore; a woman in a floppy capelline rested her arm on the rail +and stared at Gibberne's house with the unwinking stare of eternity; a +man stroked his moustache like a figure of wax, and another stretched a +tiresome stiff hand with extended fingers towards his loosened hat. We +stared at them, we laughed at them, we made faces at them, and then +a sort of disgust of them came upon us, and we turned away and walked +round in front of the cyclist towards the Leas. + +"Goodness!" cried Gibberne, suddenly; "look there!" + +He pointed, and there at the tip of his finger and sliding down the air +with wings flapping slowly and at the speed of an exceptionally languid +snail--was a bee. + +And so we came out upon the Leas. There the thing seemed madder than +ever. The band was playing in the upper stand, though all the sound it +made for us was a low-pitched, wheezy rattle, a sort of prolonged last +sigh that passed at times into a sound like the slow, muffled ticking +of some monstrous clock. Frozen people stood erect, strange, silent, +self-conscious-looking dummies hung unstably in mid-stride, promenading +upon the grass. I passed close to a little poodle dog suspended in the +act of leaping, and watched the slow movement of his legs as he sank +to earth. "Lord, look here!" cried Gibberne, and we halted for a moment +before a magnificent person in white faint-striped flannels, white +shoes, and a Panama hat, who turned back to wink at two gaily dressed +ladies he had passed. A wink, studied with such leisurely deliberation +as we could afford, is an unattractive thing. It loses any quality of +alert gaiety, and one remarks that the winking eye does not completely +close, that under its drooping lid appears the lower edge of an eyeball +and a little line of white. "Heaven give me memory," said I, "and I will +never wink again." + +"Or smile," said Gibberne, with his eye on the lady's answering teeth. + +"It's infernally hot, somehow," said I. "Let's go slower." + +"Oh, come along!" said Gibberne. + +We picked our way among the bath-chairs in the path. Many of the people +sitting in the chairs seemed almost natural in their passive poses, but +the contorted scarlet of the bandsmen was not a restful thing to see. +A purple-faced little gentleman was frozen in the midst of a violent +struggle to refold his newspaper against the wind; there were many +evidences that all these people in their sluggish way were exposed to +a considerable breeze, a breeze that had no existence so far as our +sensations went. We came out and walked a little way from the crowd, and +turned and regarded it. To see all that multitude changed, to a picture, +smitten rigid, as it were, into the semblance of realistic wax, was +impossibly wonderful. It was absurd, of course; but it filled me with an +irrational, an exultant sense of superior advantage. Consider the wonder +of it! All that I had said, and thought, and done since the stuff had +begun to work in my veins had happened, so far as those people, so +far as the world in general went, in the twinkling of an eye. "The New +Accelerator--" I began, but Gibberne interrupted me. + +"There's that infernal old woman!" he said. + +"What old woman?" + +"Lives next door to me," said Gibberne. "Has a lapdog that yaps. Gods! +The temptation is strong!" + +There is something very boyish and impulsive about Gibberne at times. +Before I could expostulate with him he had dashed forward, snatched the +unfortunate animal out of visible existence, and was running violently +with it towards the cliff of the Leas. It was most extraordinary. The +little brute, you know, didn't bark or wriggle or make the slightest +sign of vitality. It kept quite stiffly in an attitude of somnolent +repose, and Gibberne held it by the neck. It was like running about with +a dog of wood. "Gibberne," I cried, "put it down!" Then I said something +else. "If you run like that, Gibberne," I cried, "you'll set your +clothes on fire. Your linen trousers are going brown as it is!" + +He clapped his hand on his thigh and stood hesitating on the verge. +"Gibberne," I cried, coming up, "put it down. This heat is too much! +It's our running so! Two or three miles a second! Friction of the air!" + +"What?" he said, glancing at the dog. + +"Friction of the air," I shouted. "Friction of the air. Going too fast. +Like meteorites and things. Too hot. And, Gibberne! Gibberne! I'm all +over pricking and a sort of perspiration. You can see people stirring +slightly. I believe the stuff's working off! Put that dog down." + +"Eh?" he said. + +"It's working off," I repeated. "We're too hot and the stuff's working +off! I'm wet through." + +He stared at me. Then at the band, the wheezy rattle of whose +performance was certainly going faster. Then with a tremendous sweep +of the arm he hurled the dog away from him and it went spinning upward, +still inanimate, and hung at last over the grouped parasols of a knot of +chattering people. Gibberne was gripping my elbow. "By Jove!" he cried. +"I believe--it is! A sort of hot pricking and--yes. That man's moving +his pocket-handkerchief! Perceptibly. We must get out of this sharp." + +But we could not get out of it sharply enough. Luckily, perhaps! For we +might have run, and if we had run we should, I believe, have burst into +flames. Almost certainly we should have burst into flames! You know we +had neither of us thought of that.... But before we could even begin to +run the action of the drug had ceased. It was the business of a minute +fraction of a second. The effect of the New Accelerator passed like +the drawing of a curtain, vanished in the movement of a hand. I heard +Gibberne's voice in infinite alarm. "Sit down," he said, and flop, down +upon the turf at the edge of the Leas I sat--scorching as I sat. There +is a patch of burnt grass there still where I sat down. The whole +stagnation seemed to wake up as I did so, the disarticulated vibration +of the band rushed together into a blast of music, the promenaders +put their feet down and walked their ways, the papers and flags began +flapping, smiles passed into words, the winker finished his wink and +went on his way complacently, and all the seated people moved and spoke. + +The whole world had come alive again, was going as fast as we were, or +rather we were going no faster than the rest of the world. It was like +slowing down as one comes into a railway station. Everything seemed +to spin round for a second or two, I had the most transient feeling of +nausea, and that was all. And the little dog which had seemed to hang +for a moment when the force of Gibberne's arm was expended fell with a +swift acceleration clean through a lady's parasol! + +That was the saving of us. Unless it was for one corpulent old gentleman +in a bath-chair, who certainly did start at the sight of us and +afterwards regarded us at intervals with a darkly suspicious eye, and, +finally, I believe, said something to his nurse about us, I doubt if a +solitary person remarked our sudden appearance among them. Plop! We must +have appeared abruptly. We ceased to smoulder almost at once, though +the turf beneath me was uncomfortably hot. The attention of every +one--including even the Amusements' Association band, which on this +occasion, for the only time in its history, got out of tune--was +arrested by the amazing fact, and the still more amazing yapping and +uproar caused by the fact that a respectable, over-fed lap-dog sleeping +quietly to the east of the bandstand should suddenly fall through the +parasol of a lady on the west--in a slightly singed condition due to the +extreme velocity of its movements through the air. In these absurd +days, too, when we are all trying to be as psychic, and silly, and +superstitious as possible! People got up and trod on other people, +chairs were overturned, the Leas policeman ran. How the matter settled +itself I do not know--we were much too anxious to disentangle ourselves +from the affair and get out of range of the eye of the old gentleman in +the bath-chair to make minute inquiries. As soon as we were sufficiently +cool and sufficiently recovered from our giddiness and nausea and +confusion of mind to do so we stood up and, skirting the crowd, directed +our steps back along the road below the Metropole towards Gibberne's +house. But amidst the din I heard very distinctly the gentleman who +had been sitting beside the lady of the ruptured sunshade using quite +unjustifiable threats and language to one of those chair-attendants who +have "Inspector" written on their caps. "If you didn't throw the dog," +he said, "who DID?" + +The sudden return of movement and familiar noises, and our natural +anxiety about ourselves (our clothe's were still dreadfully hot, and +the fronts of the thighs of Gibberne's white trousers were scorched a +drabbish brown), prevented the minute observations I should have liked +to make on all these things. Indeed, I really made no observations of +any scientific value on that return. The bee, of course, had gone. I +looked for that cyclist, but he was already out of sight as we came into +the Upper Sandgate Road or hidden from us by traffic; the char-a-banc, +however, with its people now all alive and stirring, was clattering +along at a spanking pace almost abreast of the nearer church. + +We noted, however, that the window-sill on which we had stepped in +getting out of the house was slightly singed, and that the impressions +of our feet on the gravel of the path were unusually deep. + +So it was I had my first experience of the New Accelerator. Practically +we had been running about and saying and doing all sorts of things in +the space of a second or so of time. We had lived half an hour while the +band had played, perhaps, two bars. But the effect it had upon us +was that the whole world had stopped for our convenient inspection. +Considering all things, and particularly considering our rashness in +venturing out of the house, the experience might certainly have been +much more disagreeable than it was. It showed, no doubt, that Gibberne +has still much to learn before his preparation is a manageable +convenience, but its practicability it certainly demonstrated beyond all +cavil. + +Since that adventure he has been steadily bringing its use under +control, and I have several times, and without the slightest bad result, +taken measured doses under his direction; though I must confess I have +not yet ventured abroad again while under its influence. I may mention, +for example, that this story has been written at one sitting and without +interruption, except for the nibbling of some chocolate, by its means. +I began at 6.25, and my watch is now very nearly at the minute past the +half-hour. The convenience of securing a long, uninterrupted spell of +work in the midst of a day full of engagements cannot be exaggerated. +Gibberne is now working at the quantitative handling of his preparation, +with especial reference to its distinctive effects upon different types +of constitution. He then hopes to find a Retarder with which to dilute +its present rather excessive potency. The Retarder will, of course, have +the reverse effect to the Accelerator; used alone it should enable the +patient to spread a few seconds over many hours of ordinary time,--and +so to maintain an apathetic inaction, a glacier-like absence of +alacrity, amidst the most animated or irritating surroundings. The two +things together must necessarily work an entire revolution in civilised +existence. It is the beginning of our escape from that Time Garment +of which Carlyle speaks. While this Accelerator will enable us to +concentrate ourselves with tremendous impact upon any moment or occasion +that demands our utmost sense and vigour, the Retarder will enable us +to pass in passive tranquillity through infinite hardship and tedium. +Perhaps I am a little optimistic about the Retarder, which has indeed +still to be discovered, but about the Accelerator there is no possible +sort of doubt whatever. Its appearance upon the market in a convenient, +controllable, and assimilable form is a matter of the next few months. +It will be obtainable of all chemists and druggists, in small green +bottles, at a high but, considering its extraordinary qualities, by no +means excessive price. Gibberne's Nervous Accelerator it will be called, +and he hopes to be able to supply it in three strengths: one in 200, one +in 900, and one in 2000, distinguished by yellow, pink, and white labels +respectively. + +No doubt its use renders a great number of very extraordinary things +possible; for, of course, the most remarkable and, possibly, even +criminal proceedings may be effected with impunity by thus dodging, as +it were, into the interstices of time. Like all potent preparations it +will be liable to abuse. We have, however, discussed this aspect of +the question very thoroughly, and we have decided that this is purely a +matter of medical jurisprudence and altogether outside our province. +We shall manufacture and sell the Accelerator, and, as for the +consequences--we shall see. + + + + +9. MR. LEDBETTER'S VACATION + +My friend, Mr. Ledbetter, is a round-faced little man, whose natural +mildness of eye is gigantically exaggerated when you catch the beam +through his glasses, and whose deep, deliberate voice irritates +irritable people. A certain elaborate clearness of enunciation has come +with him to his present vicarage from his scholastic days, an elaborate +clearness of enunciation and a certain nervous determination to be firm +and correct upon all issues, important and unimportant alike. He is a +sacerdotalist and a chess player, and suspected by many of the secret +practice of the higher mathematics--creditable rather than interesting +things. His conversation is copious and given much to needless detail. +By many, indeed, his intercourse is condemned, to put it plainly, as +"boring," and such have even done me the compliment to wonder why I +countenance him. But, on the other hand, there is a large faction +who marvel at his countenancing such a dishevelled, discreditable +acquaintance as myself. Few appear to regard our friendship with +equanimity. But that is because they do not know of the link that binds +us, of my amiable connection via Jamaica with Mr. Ledbetter's past. + +About that past he displays an anxious modesty. "I do not KNOW what I +should do if it became known," he says; and repeats, impressively, "I do +not know WHAT I should do." As a matter of fact, I doubt if he would do +anything except get very red about the ears. But that will appear +later; nor will I tell here of our first encounter, since, as a general +rule--though I am prone to break it--the end of a story should come +after, rather than before, the beginning. And the beginning of the story +goes a long way back; indeed, it is now nearly twenty years since +Fate, by a series of complicated and startling manoeuvres, brought Mr. +Ledbetter, so to speak, into my hands. + +In those days I was living in Jamaica, and Mr. Ledbetter was a +schoolmaster in England. He was in orders, and already recognisably the +same man that he is to-day: the same rotundity of visage, the same or +similar glasses, and the same faint shadow of surprise in his resting +expression. He was, of course, dishevelled when I saw him, and his +collar less of a collar than a wet bandage, and that may have helped to +bridge the natural gulf between us--but of that, as I say, later. + +The business began at Hithergate-on-Sea, and simultaneously with Mr. +Ledbetter's summer vacation. Thither he came for a greatly needed rest, +with a bright brown portmanteau marked "F. W. L.", a new white-and-black +straw hat, and two pairs of white flannel trousers. He was naturally +exhilarated at his release from school--for he was not very fond of the +boys he taught. After dinner he fell into a discussion with a talkative +person established in the boarding-house to which, acting on the advice +of his aunt, he had resorted. This talkative person was the only +other man in the house. Their discussion concerned the melancholy +disappearance of wonder and adventure in these latter days, the +prevalence of globe-trotting, the abolition of distance by steam and +electricity, the vulgarity of advertisement, the degradation of men +by civilisation, and many such things. Particularly was the talkative +person eloquent on the decay of human courage through security, a +security Mr. Ledbetter rather thoughtlessly joined him in deploring. Mr. +Ledbetter, in the first delight of emancipation from "duty," and being +anxious, perhaps, to establish a reputation for manly conviviality, +partook, rather more freely than was advisable, of the excellent whisky +the talkative person produced. But he did not become intoxicated, he +insists. + +He was simply eloquent beyond his sober wont, and with the finer edge +gone from his judgment. And after that long talk of the brave old days +that were past forever, he went out into moonlit Hithergate--alone and +up the cliff road where the villas cluster together. + +He had bewailed, and now as he walked up the silent road he still +bewailed, the fate that had called him to such an uneventful life as +a pedagogue's. What a prosaic existence he led, so stagnant, so +colourless! Secure, methodical, year in year out, what call was there +for bravery? He thought enviously of those roving, mediaeval days, so +near and so remote, of quests and spies and condottieri and many a risky +blade-drawing business. And suddenly came a doubt, a strange doubt, +springing out of some chance thought of tortures, and destructive +altogether of the position he had assumed that evening. + +Was he--Mr. Ledbetter--really, after all, so brave as he assumed? Would +he really be so pleased to have railways, policemen, and security vanish +suddenly from the earth? + +The talkative man had spoken enviously of crime. "The burglar," he said, +"is the only true adventurer left on earth. Think of his single-handed +fight against the whole civilised world!" And Mr. Ledbetter had echoed +his envy. "They DO have some fun out of life," Mr. Ledbetter had said. +"And about the only people who do. Just think how it must feel to wire +a lawn!" And he had laughed wickedly. Now, in this franker intimacy of +self-communion he found himself instituting a comparison between his +own brand of courage and that of the habitual criminal. He tried to +meet these insidious questionings with blank assertion. "I could do all +that," said Mr. Ledbetter. "I long to do all that. Only I do not give +way to my criminal impulses. My moral courage restrains me." But he +doubted even while he told himself these things. + +Mr. Ledbetter passed a large villa standing by itself. Conveniently +situated above a quiet, practicable balcony was a window, gaping black, +wide open. At the time he scarcely marked it, but the picture of it came +with him, wove into his thoughts. He figured himself climbing up that +balcony, crouching--plunging into that dark, mysterious interior. "Bah! +You would not dare," said the Spirit of Doubt. "My duty to my fellow-men +forbids," said Mr. Ledbetter's self-respect. + +It was nearly eleven, and the little seaside town was already very +still. The whole world slumbered under the moonlight. Only one warm +oblong of window-blind far down the road spoke of waking life. He turned +and came back slowly towards the villa of the open window. He stood for +a time outside the gate, a battlefield of motives. "Let us put things +to the test," said Doubt. "For the satisfaction of these intolerable +doubts, show that you dare go into that house. Commit a burglary in +blank. That, at any rate, is no crime." Very softly he opened and +shut the gate and slipped into the shadow of the shrubbery. "This is +foolish," said Mr. Ledbetter's caution. "I expected that," said Doubt. +His heart was beating fast, but he was certainly not afraid. He was NOT +afraid. He remained in that shadow for some considerable time. + +The ascent of the balcony, it was evident, would have to be done in a +rush, for it was all in clear moonlight, and visible from the gate into +the avenue. A trellis thinly set with young, ambitious climbing roses +made the ascent ridiculously easy. There, in that black shadow by the +stone vase of flowers, one might crouch and take a closer view of this +gaping breach in the domestic defences, the open window. For a while +Mr. Ledbetter was as still as the night, and then that insidious whisky +tipped the balance. He dashed forward. He went up the trellis with +quick, convulsive movements, swung his legs over the parapet of the +balcony, and dropped panting in the shadow even as he had designed. He +was trembling violently, short of breath, and his heart pumped noisily, +but his mood was exultation. He could have shouted to find he was so +little afraid. + +A happy line that he had learnt from Wills's "Mephistopheles" came into +his mind as he crouched there. "I feel like a cat on the tiles," he +whispered to himself. It was far better than he had expected--this +adventurous exhilaration. He was sorry for all poor men to whom burglary +was unknown. Nothing happened. He was quite safe. And he was acting in +the bravest manner! + +And now for the window, to make the burglary complete! Must he dare +do that? Its position above the front door defined it as a landing or +passage, and there were no looking-glasses or any bedroom signs about +it, or any other window on the first floor, to suggest the possibility +of a sleeper within. For a time he listened under the ledge, then raised +his eyes above the sill and peered in. Close at hand, on a pedestal, +and a little startling at first, was a nearly life-size gesticulating +bronze. He ducked, and after some time he peered again. Beyond was a +broad landing, faintly gleaming; a flimsy fabric of bead curtain, very +black and sharp, against a further window; a broad staircase, plunging +into a gulf of darkness below; and another ascending to the second +floor. He glanced behind him, but the stillness of the night was +unbroken. "Crime," he whispered, "crime," and scrambled softly and +swiftly over the sill into the house. His feet fell noiselessly on a mat +of skin. He was a burglar indeed! + +He crouched for a time, all ears and peering eyes. Outside was a +scampering and rustling, and for a moment he repented of his enterprise. +A short "miaow," a spitting, and a rush into silence, spoke reassuringly +of cats. His courage grew. He stood up. Every one was abed, it seemed. +So easy is it to commit a burglary, if one is so minded. He was glad he +had put it to the test. He determined to take some petty trophy, just to +prove his freedom from any abject fear of the law, and depart the way he +had come. + +He peered about him, and suddenly the critical spirit arose again. +Burglars did far more than such mere elementary entrance as this: they +went into rooms, they forced safes. Well--he was not afraid. He could +not force safes, because that would be a stupid want of consideration +for his hosts. But he would go into rooms--he would go upstairs. More: +he told himself that he was perfectly secure; an empty house could not +be more reassuringly still. He had to clench his hands, nevertheless, +and summon all his resolution before he began very softly to ascend the +dim staircase, pausing for several seconds between each step. Above was +a square landing with one open and several closed doors; and all the +house was still. For a moment he stood wondering what would happen if +some sleeper woke suddenly and emerged. The open door showed a moonlit +bedroom, the coverlet white and undisturbed. Into this room he crept in +three interminable minutes and took a piece of soap for his plunder--his +trophy. He turned to descend even more softly than he had ascended. It +was as easy as-- + +Hist!... + +Footsteps! On the gravel outside the house--and then the noise of a +latchkey, the yawn and bang of a door, and the spitting of a match in +the hall below. Mr. Ledbetter stood petrified by the sudden discovery +of the folly upon which he had come. "How on earth am I to get out of +this?" said Mr. Ledbetter. + +The hall grew bright with a candle flame, some heavy object bumped +against the umbrella-stand, and feet were ascending the staircase. In a +flash Mr. Ledbetter realised that his retreat was closed. He stood for +a moment, a pitiful figure of penitent confusion. "My goodness! What +a FOOL I have been!" he whispered, and then darted swiftly across the +shadowy landing into the empty bedroom from which he had just come. +He stood listening--quivering. The footsteps reached the first-floor +landing. + +Horrible thought! This was possibly the latecomer's room! Not a moment +was to be lost! Mr. Ledbetter stooped beside the bed, thanked Heaven for +a valance, and crawled within its protection not ten seconds too soon. +He became motionless on hands and knees. The advancing candle-light +appeared through the thinner stitches of the fabric, the shadows ran +wildly about, and became rigid as the candle was put down. + +"Lord, what a day!" said the newcomer, blowing noisily, and it seemed he +deposited some heavy burthen on what Mr. Ledbetter, judging by the feet, +decided to be a writing-table. The unseen then went to the door and +locked it, examined the fastenings of the windows carefully and pulled +down the blinds, and returning sat down upon the bed with startling +ponderosity. + +"WHAT a day!" he said. "Good Lord!" and blew again, and Mr. Ledbetter +inclined to believe that the person was mopping his face. His boots were +good stout boots; the shadows of his legs upon the valance suggested +a formidable stoutness of aspect. After a time he removed some upper +garments--a coat and waistcoat, Mr. Ledbetter inferred--and casting +them over the rail of the bed remained breathing less noisily, and as it +seemed cooling from a considerable temperature. At intervals he muttered +to himself, and once he laughed softly. And Mr. Ledbetter muttered to +himself, but he did not laugh. "Of all the foolish things," said Mr. +Ledbetter. "What on earth am I to do now?" + +His outlook was necessarily limited. The minute apertures between the +stitches of the fabric of the valance admitted a certain amount of +light, but permitted no peeping. The shadows upon this curtain, save +for those sharply defined legs, were enigmatical, and intermingled +confusingly with the florid patterning of the chintz. Beneath the +edge of the valance a strip of carpet was visible, and, by cautiously +depressing his eye, Mr. Ledbetter found that this strip broadened until +the whole area of the floor came into view. The carpet was a luxurious +one, the room spacious, and, to judge by the castors and so forth of the +furniture, well equipped. + +What he should do he found it difficult to imagine. To wait until this +person had gone to bed, and then, when he seemed to be sleeping, to +creep to the door, unlock it, and bolt headlong for that balcony seemed +the only possible thing to do. Would it be possible to jump from the +balcony? The danger of it! When he thought of the chances against him, +Mr. Ledbetter despaired. He was within an ace of thrusting forth his +head beside the gentleman's legs, coughing if necessary to attract his +attention, and then, smiling, apologising and explaining his unfortunate +intrusion by a few well-chosen sentences. But he found these sentences +hard to choose. "No doubt, sir, my appearance is peculiar," or, "I +trust, sir, you will pardon my somewhat ambiguous appearance from +beneath you," was about as much as he could get. + +Grave possibilities forced themselves on his attention. Suppose they did +not believe him, what would they do to him? Would his unblemished +high character count for nothing? Technically he was a burglar, beyond +dispute. Following out this train of thought, he was composing a lucid +apology for "this technical crime I have committed," to be delivered +before sentence in the dock, when the stout gentleman got up and +began walking about the room. He locked and unlocked drawers, and Mr. +Ledbetter had a transient hope that he might be undressing. But, no! He +seated himself at the writing-table, and began to write and then tear up +documents. Presently the smell of burning cream-laid paper mingled with +the odour of cigars in Mr. Ledbetter's nostrils. + +"The position I had assumed," said Mr. Ledbetter when he told me of +these things, "was in many respects an ill-advised one. A transverse bar +beneath the bed depressed my head unduly, and threw a disproportionate +share of my weight upon my hands. After a time, I experienced what is +called, I believe, a crick in the neck. The pressure of my hands on the +coarsely-stitched carpet speedily became painful. My knees, too, were +painful, my trousers being drawn tightly over them. At that time I wore +rather higher collars than I do now--two and a half inches, in fact--and +I discovered what I had not remarked before, that the edge of the one +I wore was frayed slightly under the chin. But much worse than these +things was an itching of my face, which I could only relieve by violent +grimacing--I tried to raise my hand, but the rustle of the sleeve +alarmed me. After a time I had to desist from this relief also, +because--happily in time--I discovered that my facial contortions were +shifting my glasses down my nose. Their fall would, of course, have +exposed me, and as it was they came to rest in an oblique position of +by no means stable equilibrium. In addition I had a slight cold, and an +intermittent desire to sneeze or sniff caused me inconvenience. In +fact, quite apart from the extreme anxiety of my position, my physical +discomfort became in a short time very considerable indeed. But I had to +stay there motionless, nevertheless." + +After an interminable time, there began a chinking sound. This deepened +into a rhythm: chink, chink, chink--twenty-five chinks--a rap on the +writing-table, and a grunt from the owner of the stout legs. It dawned +upon Mr. Ledbetter that this chinking was the chinking of gold. He +became incredulously curious as it went on. His curiosity grew. Already, +if that was the case, this extraordinary man must have counted some +hundreds of pounds. At last Mr. Ledbetter could resist it no longer, +and he began very cautiously to fold his arms and lower his head to the +level of the floor, in the hope of peeping under the valance. He moved +his feet, and one made a slight scraping on the floor. Suddenly the +chinking ceased. Mr. Ledbetter became rigid. After a while the chinking +was resumed. Then it ceased again, and everything was still, except Mr. +Ledbetter's heart--that organ seemed to him to be beating like a drum. + +The stillness continued. Mr. Ledbetter's head was now on the floor, and +he could see the stout legs as far as the shins. They were quite still. +The feet were resting on the toes and drawn back, as it seemed, under +the chair of the owner. Everything was quite still, everything continued +still. A wild hope came to Mr. Ledbetter that the unknown was in a fit +or suddenly dead, with his head upon the writing-table.... + +The stillness continued. What had happened? The desire to peep became +irresistible. Very cautiously Mr. Ledbetter shifted his hand forward, +projected a pioneer finger, and began to lift the valance immediately +next his eye. Nothing broke the stillness. He saw now the stranger's +knees, saw the back of the writing-table, and then--he was staring at +the barrel of a heavy revolver pointed over the writing-table at his +head. + +"Come out of that, you scoundrel!" said the voice of the stout gentleman +in a tone of quiet concentration. "Come out. This side, and now. None of +your hanky-panky--come right out, now." + +Mr. Ledbetter came right out, a little reluctantly perhaps, but without +any hanky-panky, and at once, even as he was told. + +"Kneel," said the stout gentleman, "and hold up your hands." + +The valance dropped again behind Mr. Ledbetter, and he rose from +all-fours and held up his hands. "Dressed like a parson," said the stout +gentleman. "I'm blest if he isn't! A little chap, too! You SCOUNDREL! +What the deuce possessed you to come here to-night? What the deuce +possessed you to get under my bed?" + +He did not appear to require an answer, but proceeded at once to several +very objectionable remarks upon Mr. Ledbetter's personal appearance. He +was not a very big man, but he looked strong to Mr. Ledbetter: he was as +stout as his legs had promised, he had rather delicately-chiselled small +features distributed over a considerable area of whitish face, and quite +a number of chins. And the note of his voice had a sort of whispering +undertone. + +"What the deuce, I say, possessed you to get under my bed?" + +Mr. Ledbetter, by an effort, smiled a wan propitiatory smile. He +coughed. "I can quite understand--" he said. + +"Why! What on earth? It's SOAP! No!--you scoundrel. Don't you move that +hand." + +"It's soap," said Mr. Ledbetter. "From your washstand. No doubt it--" + +"Don't talk," said the stout man. "I see it's soap. Of all incredible +things." + +"If I might explain--" + +"Don't explain. It's sure to be a lie, and there's no time for +explanations. What was I going to ask you? Ah! Have you any mates?" + +"In a few minutes, if you--" + +"Have you any mates? Curse you. If you start any soapy palaver I'll +shoot. Have you any mates?" + +"No," said Mr. Ledbetter. + +"I suppose it's a lie," said the stout man. "But you'll pay for it if +it is. Why the deuce didn't you floor me when I came upstairs? You won't +get a chance to now, anyhow. Fancy getting under the bed! I reckon it's +a fair cop, anyhow, so far as you are concerned." + +"I don't see how I could prove an alibi," remarked Mr. Ledbetter, trying +to show by his conversation that he was an educated man. There was a +pause. Mr. Ledbetter perceived that on a chair beside his captor was a +large black bag on a heap of crumpled papers, and that there were torn +and burnt papers on the table. And in front of these, and arranged +methodically along the edge were rows and rows of little yellow +rouleaux--a hundred times more gold than Mr. Ledbetter had seen in all +his life before. The light of two candles, in silver candlesticks, fell +upon these. The pause continued. "It is rather fatiguing holding up my +hands like this," said Mr. Ledbetter, with a deprecatory smile. + +"That's all right," said the fat man. "But what to do with you I don't +exactly know." + +"I know my position is ambiguous." + +"Lord!" said the fat man, "ambiguous! And goes about with his own +soap, and wears a thundering great clerical collar. You ARE a blooming +burglar, you are--if ever there was one!" + +"To be strictly accurate," said Mr. Ledbetter, and suddenly his glasses +slipped off and clattered against his vest buttons. + +The fat man changed countenance, a flash of savage resolution crossed +his face, and something in the revolver clicked. He put his other hand +to the weapon. And then he looked at Mr. Ledbetter, and his eye went +down to the dropped pince-nez. + +"Full-cock now, anyhow," said the fat man, after a pause, and his breath +seemed to catch. "But I'll tell you, you've never been so near death +before. Lord! I'M almost glad. If it hadn't been that the revolver +wasn't cocked you'd be lying dead there now." + +Mr. Ledbetter said nothing, but he felt that the room was swaying. + +"A miss is as good as a mile. It's lucky for both of us it wasn't. +Lord!" He blew noisily. "There's no need for you to go pale-green for a +little thing like that." + +"If I can assure you, sir--" said Mr. Ledbetter, with an effort. + +"There's only one thing to do. If I call in the police, I'm bust--a +little game I've got on is bust. That won't do. If I tie you up and +leave you again, the thing may be out to-morrow. Tomorrow's Sunday, and +Monday's Bank Holiday--I've counted on three clear days. Shooting +you's murder--and hanging; and besides, it will bust the whole blooming +kernooze. I'm hanged if I can think what to do--I'm hanged if I can." + +"Will you permit me--" + +"You gas as much as if you were a real parson, I'm blessed if you don't. +Of all the burglars you are the--Well! No!--I WON'T permit you. There +isn't time. If you start off jawing again, I'll shoot right in your +stomach. See? But I know now-I know now! What we're going to do first, +my man, is an examination for concealed arms--an examination for +concealed arms. And look here! When I tell you to do a thing, don't +start off at a gabble--do it brisk." + +And with many elaborate precautions, and always pointing the pistol at +Mr. Ledbetter's head, the stout man stood him up and searched him for +weapons. "Why, you ARE a burglar!" he said "You're a perfect amateur. +You haven't even a pistol-pocket in the back of your breeches. No, you +don't! Shut up, now." + +So soon as the issue was decided, the stout man made Mr. Ledbetter take +off his coat and roll up his shirt-sleeves, and, with the revolver at +one ear, proceed with the packing his appearance had interrupted. From +the stout man's point of view that was evidently the only possible +arrangement, for if he had packed, he would have had to put down +the revolver. So that even the gold on the table was handled by Mr. +Ledbetter. This nocturnal packing was peculiar. The stout man's idea was +evidently to distribute the weight of the gold as unostentatiously +as possible through his luggage. It was by no means an inconsiderable +weight. There was, Mr. Ledbetter says, altogether nearly L18,000 in gold +in the black bag and on the table. There were also many little rolls +of L5 bank-notes. Each rouleau of L25 was wrapped by Mr. Ledbetter +in paper. These rouleaux were then put neatly in cigar boxes and +distributed between a travelling trunk, a Gladstone bag, and a hatbox. +About L600 went in a tobacco tin in a dressing-bag. L10 in gold and a +number of L5 notes the stout man pocketed. Occasionally he objurgated +Mr. Ledbetter's clumsiness, and urged him to hurry, and several times he +appealed to Mr. Ledbetter's watch for information. + +Mr. Ledbetter strapped the trunk and bag, and returned the stout man +the keys. It was then ten minutes to twelve, and until the stroke of +midnight the stout man made him sit on the Gladstone bag, while he sat +at a reasonably safe distance on the trunk and held the revolver handy +and waited. He appeared to be now in a less aggressive mood, and having +watched Mr. Ledbetter for some time, he offered a few remarks. + +"From your accent I judge you are a man of some education," he said, +lighting a cigar. "No--DON'T begin that explanation of yours. I know it +will be long-winded from your face, and I am much too old a liar to be +interested in other men's lying. You are, I say, a person of education. +You do well to dress as a curate. Even among educated people you might +pass as a curate." + +"I AM a curate," said Mr. Ledbetter, "or, at least--" + +"You are trying to be. I know. But you didn't ought to burgle. You are +not the man to burgle. You are, if I may say it--the thing will have +been pointed out to you before--a coward." + +"Do you know," said Mr. Ledbetter, trying to get a final opening, "it +was that very question--" + +The stout man waved him into silence. + +"You waste your education in burglary. You should do one of two things. +Either you should forge or you should embezzle. For my own part, I +embezzle. Yes; I embezzle. What do you think a man could be doing with +all this gold but that? Ah! Listen! Midnight!... Ten. Eleven. Twelve. +There is something very impressive to me in that slow beating of the +hours. Time--space; what mysteries they are! What mysteries.... It's +time for us to be moving. Stand up!" + +And then kindly, but firmly, he induced Mr. Ledbetter to sling the +dressing bag over his back by a string across his chest, to shoulder the +trunk, and, overruling a gasping protest, to take the Gladstone bag in +his disengaged hand. So encumbered, Mr. Ledbetter struggled perilously +downstairs. The stout gentleman followed with an overcoat, the hatbox, +and the revolver, making derogatory remarks about Mr. Ledbetter's +strength, and assisting him at the turnings of the stairs. + +"The back door," he directed, and Mr. Ledbetter staggered through a +conservatory, leaving a wake of smashed flower-pots behind him. "Never +mind the crockery," said the stout man; "it's good for trade. We wait +here until a quarter past. You can put those things down. You have!" + +Mr. Ledbetter collapsed panting on the trunk. "Last night," he gasped, +"I was asleep in my little room, and I no more dreamt--" + +"There's no need for you to incriminate yourself," said the stout +gentleman, looking at the lock of the revolver. He began to hum. Mr. +Ledbetter made to speak, and thought better of it. + +There presently came the sound of a bell, and Mr. Ledbetter was taken to +the back door and instructed to open it. A fair-haired man in yachting +costume entered. At the sight of Mr. Ledbetter he started violently and +clapped his hand behind him. Then he saw the stout man. "Bingham!" he +cried, "who's this?" + +"Only a little philanthropic do of mine--burglar I'm trying to reform. +Caught him under my bed just now. He's all right. He's a frightful ass. +He'll be useful to carry some of our things." + +The newcomer seemed inclined to resent Mr. Ledbetter's presence at +first, but the stout man reassured him. + +"He's quite alone. There's not a gang in the world would own him. +No!--don't start talking, for goodness' sake." + +They went out into the darkness of the garden with the trunk still +bowing Mr. Ledbetter's shoulders. The man in the yachting costume walked +in front with the Gladstone bag and a pistol; then came Mr. Ledbetter +like Atlas; Mr. Bingham followed with the hat-box, coat, and revolver as +before. The house was one of those that have their gardens right up to +the cliff. At the cliff was a steep wooden stairway, descending to a +bathing tent dimly visible on the beach. Below was a boat pulled up, and +a silent little man with a black face stood beside it. "A few moments' +explanation," said Mr. Ledbetter; "I can assure you--" Somebody kicked +him, and he said no more. + +They made him wade to the boat, carrying the trunk, they pulled him +aboard by the shoulders and hair, they called him no better name than +"scoundrel" and "burglar" all that night. But they spoke in undertones +so that the general public was happily unaware of his ignominy. They +hauled him aboard a yacht manned by strange, unsympathetic Orientals, +and partly they thrust him and partly he fell down a gangway into a +noisome, dark place, where he was to remain many days--how many he does +not know, because he lost count among other things when he was seasick. +They fed him on biscuits and incomprehensible words; they gave him water +to drink mixed with unwished-for rum. And there were cockroaches +where they put him, night and day there were cockroaches, and in the +night-time there were rats. The Orientals emptied his pockets and took +his watch--but Mr. Bingham, being appealed to, took that himself. +And five or six times the five Lascars--if they were Lascars--and the +Chinaman and the negro who constituted the crew, fished him out and +took him aft to Bingham and his friend to play cribbage and euchre and +three-anded whist, and to listen to their stories and boastings in an +interested manner. + +Then these principals would talk to him as men talk to those who have +lived a life of crime. Explanations they would never permit, though they +made it abundantly clear to him that he was the rummiest burglar they +had ever set eyes on. They said as much again and again. The fair man +was of a taciturn disposition and irascible at play; but Mr. Bingham, +now that the evident anxiety of his departure from England was assuaged, +displayed a vein of genial philosophy. He enlarged upon the mystery of +space and time, and quoted Kant and Hegel--or, at least, he said he did. +Several times Mr. Ledbetter got as far as: "My position under your bed, +you know--," but then he always had to cut, or pass the whisky, or do +some such intervening thing. After his third failure, the fair man got +quite to look for this opening, and whenever Mr. Ledbetter began after +that, he would roar with laughter and hit him violently on the back. +"Same old start, same old story; good old burglar!" the fair-haired man +would say. + +So Mr. Ledbetter suffered for many days, twenty perhaps; and one evening +he was taken, together with some tinned provisions, over the side and +put ashore on a rocky little island with a spring. Mr. Bingham came in +the boat with him, giving him good advice all the way, and waving his +last attempts at an explanation aside. + +"I am really NOT a burglar," said Mr. Ledbetter. + +"You never will be," said Mr. Bingham. "You'll never make a burglar. I'm +glad you are beginning to see it. In choosing a profession a man must +study his temperament. If you don't, sooner or later you will fail. +Compare myself, for example. All my life I have been in banks--I have +got on in banks. I have even been a bank manager. But was I happy? No. +Why wasn't I happy? Because it did not suit my temperament. I am too +adventurous--too versatile. Practically I have thrown it over. I do not +suppose I shall ever manage a bank again. They would be glad to get me, +no doubt; but I have learnt the lesson of my temperament--at last.... +No! I shall never manage a bank again. + +"Now, your temperament unfits you for crime--just as mine unfits me +for respectability. I know you better than I did, and now I do not even +recommend forgery. Go back to respectable courses, my man. YOUR lay +is the philanthropic lay--that is your lay. With that voice--the +Association for the Promotion of Snivelling among the Young--something +in that line. You think it over. + +"The island we are approaching has no name apparently--at least, there +is none on the chart. You might think out a name for it while you are +there--while you are thinking about all these things. It has quite +drinkable water, I understand. It is one of the Grenadines--one of the +Windward Islands. Yonder, dim and blue, are others of the Grenadines. +There are quantities of Grenadines, but the majority are out of sight. +I have often wondered what these islands are for--now, you see, I am +wiser. This one at least is for you. Sooner or later some simple native +will come along and take you off. Say what you like about us then--abuse +us, if you like--we shan't care a solitary Grenadine! And here--here +is half a sovereign's worth of silver. Do not waste that in foolish +dissipation when you return to civilisation. Properly used, it may give +you a fresh start in life. And do not--Don't beach her, you beggars, +he can wade!--Do not waste the precious solitude before you in foolish +thoughts. Properly used, it may be a turning-point in your career. Waste +neither money nor time. You will die rich. I'm sorry, but I must ask you +to carry your tucker to land in your arms. No; it's not deep. Curse +that explanation of yours! There's not time. No, no, no! I won't listen. +Overboard you go!" + +And the falling night found Mr. Ledbetter--the Mr. Ledbetter who had +complained that adventure was dead--sitting beside his cans of food, +his chin resting upon his drawn-up knees, staring through his glasses in +dismal mildness over the shining, vacant sea. + +He was picked up in the course of three days by a negro fisherman +and taken to St. Vincent's, and from St. Vincent's he got, by the +expenditure of his last coins, to Kingston, in Jamaica. And there he +might have foundered. Even nowadays he is not a man of affairs, and then +he was a singularly helpless person. He had not the remotest idea what +he ought to do. The only thing he seems to have done was to visit all +the ministers of religion he could find in the place to borrow a passage +home. But he was much too dirty and incoherent--and his story far +too incredible for them. I met him quite by chance. It was close upon +sunset, and I was walking out after my siesta on the road to Dunn's +Battery, when I met him--I was rather bored, and with a whole evening +on my hands--luckily for him. He was trudging dismally towards the +town. His woebegone face and the quasi-clerical cut of his dust-stained, +filthy costume caught my humour. Our eyes met. He hesitated. "Sir," he +said, with a catching of the breath, "could you spare a few minutes for +what I fear will seem an incredible story?" + +"Incredible!" I said. + +"Quite," he answered eagerly. "No one will believe it, alter it though I +may. Yet I can assure you, sir--" + +He stopped hopelessly. The man's tone tickled me. He seemed an odd +character. "I am," he said, "one of the most unfortunate beings alive." + +"Among other things, you haven't dined?" I said, struck with an idea. + +"I have not," he said solemnly, "for many days." + +"You'll tell it better after that," I said; and without more ado led the +way to a low place I knew, where such a costume as his was unlikely to +give offence. And there--with certain omissions which he subsequently +supplied--I got his story. At first I was incredulous, but as the wine +warmed him, and the faint suggestion of cringing which his misfortunes +had added to his manner disappeared, I began to believe. At last, I was +so far convinced of his sincerity that I got him a bed for the night, +and next day verified the banker's reference he gave me through my +Jamaica banker. And that done, I took him shopping for underwear +and such like equipments of a gentleman at large. Presently came the +verified reference. His astonishing story was true. I will not amplify +our subsequent proceedings. He started for England in three days' time. + +"I do not know how I can possibly thank you enough," began the letter he +wrote me from England, "for all your kindness to a total stranger," and +proceeded for some time in a similar strain. "Had it not been for your +generous assistance, I could certainly never have returned in time for +the resumption of my scholastic duties, and my few minutes of reckless +folly would, perhaps, have proved my ruin. As it is, I am entangled in +a tissue of lies and evasions, of the most complicated sort, to account +for my sunburnt appearance and my whereabouts. I have rather carelessly +told two or three different stories, not realising the trouble this +would mean for me in the end. The truth I dare not tell. I have +consulted a number of law-books in the British Museum, and there is +not the slightest doubt that I have connived at and abetted and aided a +felony. That scoundrel Bingham was the Hithergate bank manager, I find, +and guilty of the most flagrant embezzlement. Please, please burn this +letter when read--I trust you implicitly. The worst of it is, neither my +aunt nor her friend who kept the boarding-house at which I was staying +seem altogether to believe a guarded statement I have made them +practically of what actually happened. They suspect me of some +discreditable adventure, but what sort of discreditable adventure they +suspect me of, I do not know. My aunt says she would forgive me if I +told her everything. I have--I have told her MORE than everything, and +still she is not satisfied. It would never do to let them know the truth +of the case, of course, and so I represent myself as having been waylaid +and gagged upon the beach. My aunt wants to know WHY they waylaid and +gagged me, why they took me away in their yacht. I do not know. Can +you suggest any reason? I can think of nothing. If, when you wrote, you +could write on TWO sheets so that I could show her one, and on that one +if you could show clearly that I really WAS in Jamaica this summer, +and had come there by being removed from a ship, it would be of great +service to me. It would certainly add to the load of my obligation +to you--a load that I fear I can never fully repay. Although if +gratitude..." And so forth. At the end he repeated his request for me to +burn the letter. + +So the remarkable story of Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation ends. That breach +with his aunt was not of long duration. The old lady had forgiven him +before she died. + + + + +10. THE STOLEN BODY + +Mr. Bessel was the senior partner in the firm of Bessel, Hart, and +Brown, of St. Paul's Churchyard, and for many years he was well known +among those interested in psychical research as a liberal-minded and +conscientious investigator. He was an unmarried man, and instead of +living in the suburbs, after the fashion of his class, he occupied rooms +in the Albany, near Piccadilly. He was particularly interested in the +questions of thought transference and of apparitions of the living, and +in November, 1896, he commenced a series of experiments in conjunction +with Mr. Vincey, of Staple Inn, in order to test the alleged possibility +of projecting an apparition of one's self by force of will through +space. + +Their experiments were conducted in the following manner: At a +pre-arranged hour Mr. Bessel shut himself in one of his rooms in the +Albany and Mr. Vincey in his sitting-room in Staple Inn, and each then +fixed his mind as resolutely as possible on the other. Mr. Bessel +had acquired the art of self-hypnotism, and, so far as he could, he +attempted first to hypnotise himself and then to project himself as a +"phantom of the living" across the intervening space of nearly two miles +into Mr. Vincey's apartment. On several evenings this was tried without +any satisfactory result, but on the fifth or sixth occasion Mr. Vincey +did actually see or imagine he saw an apparition of Mr. Bessel standing +in his room. He states that the appearance, although brief, was very +vivid and real. He noticed that Mr. Bessel's face was white and his +expression anxious, and, moreover, that his hair was disordered. For +a moment Mr. Vincey, in spite of his state of expectation, was too +surprised to speak or move, and in that moment it seemed to him as +though the figure glanced over its shoulder and incontinently vanished. + +It had been arranged that an attempt should be made to photograph any +phantasm seen, but Mr. Vincey had not the instant presence of mind to +snap the camera that lay ready on the table beside him, and when he +did so he was too late. Greatly elated, however, even by this partial +success, he made a note of the exact time, and at once took a cab to the +Albany to inform Mr. Bessel of this result. + +He was surprised to find Mr. Bessel's outer door standing open to the +night, and the inner apartments lit and in an extraordinary disorder. +An empty champagne magnum lay smashed upon the floor; its neck had +been broken off against the inkpot on the bureau and lay beside it. +An octagonal occasional table, which carried a bronze statuette and +a number of choice books, had been rudely overturned, and down the +primrose paper of the wall inky fingers had been drawn, as it seemed for +the mere pleasure of defilement. One of the delicate chintz curtains had +been violently torn from its rings and thrust upon the fire, so that +the smell of its smouldering filled the room. Indeed the whole place was +disarranged in the strangest fashion. For a few minutes Mr. Vincey, who +had entered sure of finding Mr. Bessel in his easy chair awaiting him, +could scarcely believe his eyes, and stood staring helplessly at these +unanticipated things. + +Then, full of a vague sense of calamity, he sought the porter at the +entrance lodge. "Where is Mr. Bessel?" he asked. "Do you know that all +the furniture is broken in Mr. Bessel's room?" The porter said nothing, +but, obeying his gestures, came at once to Mr. Bessel's apartment to see +the state of affairs. "This settles it," he said, surveying the lunatic +confusion. "I didn't know of this. Mr. Bessel's gone off. He's mad!" + +He then proceeded to tell Mr. Vincey that about half an hour previously, +that is to say, at about the time of Mr. Bessel's apparition in Mr. +Vincey's rooms, the missing gentleman had rushed out of the gates of +the Albany into Vigo Street, hatless and with disordered hair, and had +vanished into the direction of Bond Street. "And as he went past me," +said the porter, "he laughed--a sort of gasping laugh, with his mouth +open and his eyes glaring--I tell you, sir, he fair scared me!--like +this." + +According to his imitation it was anything but a pleasant laugh. "He +waved his hand, with all his fingers crooked and clawing--like that. +And he said, in a sort of fierce whisper, 'LIFE!' Just that one word, +'LIFE!'" + +"Dear me," said Mr. Vincey. "Tut, tut," and "Dear me!" He could think +of nothing else to say. He was naturally very much surprised. He turned +from the room to the porter and from the porter to the room in the +gravest perplexity. Beyond his suggestion that probably Mr. Bessel would +come back presently and explain what had happened, their conversation +was unable to proceed. "It might be a sudden toothache," said +the porter, "a very sudden and violent toothache, jumping on him +suddenly-like and driving him wild. I've broken things myself before now +in such a case..." He thought. "If it was, why should he say 'LIFE' to +me as he went past?" + +Mr. Vincey did not know. Mr. Bessel did not return, and at last Mr. +Vincey, having done some more helpless staring, and having addressed +a note of brief inquiry and left it in a conspicuous position on the +bureau, returned in a very perplexed frame of mind to his own premises +in Staple Inn. This affair had given him a shock. He was at a loss to +account for Mr. Bessel's conduct on any sane hypothesis. He tried to +read, but he could not do so; he went for a short walk, and was so +preoccupied that he narrowly escaped a cab at the top of Chancery Lane; +and at last--a full hour before his usual time--he went to bed. For a +considerable time he could not sleep because of his memory of the silent +confusion of Mr. Bessel's apartment, and when at length he did attain an +uneasy slumber it was at once disturbed by a very vivid and distressing +dream of Mr. Bessel. + +He saw Mr. Bessel gesticulating wildly, and with his face white and +contorted. And, inexplicably mingled with his appearance, suggested +perhaps by his gestures, was an intense fear, an urgency to act. He +even believes that he heard the voice of his fellow experimenter calling +distressfully to him, though at the time he considered this to be an +illusion. The vivid impression remained though Mr. Vincey awoke. For a +space he lay awake and trembling in the darkness, possessed with that +vague, unaccountable terror of unknown possibilities that comes out of +dreams upon even the bravest men. But at last he roused himself, and +turned over and went to sleep again, only for the dream to return with +enhanced vividness. + +He awoke with such a strong conviction that Mr. Bessel was in +overwhelming distress and need of help that sleep was no longer +possible. He was persuaded that his friend had rushed out to some dire +calamity. For a time he lay reasoning vainly against this belief, but at +last he gave way to it. He arose, against all reason, lit his gas, and +dressed, and set out through the deserted streets--deserted, save for a +noiseless policeman or so and the early news carts--towards Vigo Street +to inquire if Mr. Bessel had returned. + +But he never got there. As he was going down Long Acre some +unaccountable impulse turned him aside out of that street towards Covent +Garden, which was just waking to its nocturnal activities. He saw the +market in front of him--a queer effect of glowing yellow lights and busy +black figures. He became aware of a shouting, and perceived a figure +turn the corner by the hotel and run swiftly towards him. He knew at +once that it was Mr. Bessel. But it was Mr. Bessel transfigured. He +was hatless and dishevelled, his collar was torn open, he grasped a +bone-handled walking-cane near the ferrule end, and his mouth was pulled +awry. And he ran, with agile strides, very rapidly. Their encounter was +the affair of an instant. "Bessel!" cried Vincey. + +The running man gave no sign of recognition either of Mr. Vincey or of +his own name. Instead, he cut at his friend savagely with the stick, +hitting him in the face within an inch of the eye. Mr. Vincey, stunned +and astonished, staggered back, lost his footing, and fell heavily on +the pavement. It seemed to him that Mr. Bessel leapt over him as he +fell. When he looked again Mr. Bessel had vanished, and a policeman and +a number of garden porters and salesmen were rushing past towards Long +Acre in hot pursuit. + +With the assistance of several passers-by--for the whole street was +speedily alive with running people--Mr. Vincey struggled to his feet. +He at once became the centre of a crowd greedy to see his injury. A +multitude of voices competed to reassure him of his safety, and then to +tell him of the behaviour of the madman, as they regarded Mr. Bessel. +He had suddenly appeared in the middle of the market screaming "LIFE! +LIFE!" striking left and right with a blood-stained walking-stick, and +dancing and shouting with laughter at each successful blow. A lad and +two women had broken heads, and he had smashed a man's wrist; a little +child had been knocked insensible, and for a time he had driven every +one before him, so furious and resolute had his behaviour been. Then he +made a raid upon a coffee stall, hurled its paraffin flare through +the window of the post office, and fled laughing, after stunning the +foremost of the two policemen who had the pluck to charge him. + +Mr. Vincey's first impulse was naturally to join in the pursuit of +his friend, in order if possible to save him from the violence of the +indignant people. But his action was slow, the blow had half stunned +him, and while this was still no more than a resolution came the news, +shouted through the crowd, that Mr. Bessel had eluded his pursuers. At +first Mr. Vincey could scarcely credit this, but the universality of +the report, and presently the dignified return of two futile policemen, +convinced him. After some aimless inquiries he returned towards Staple +Inn, padding a handkerchief to a now very painful nose. + +He was angry and astonished and perplexed. It appeared to him +indisputable that Mr. Bessel must have gone violently mad in the midst +of his experiment in thought transference, but why that should make him +appear with a sad white face in Mr. Vincey's dreams seemed a problem +beyond solution. He racked his brains in vain to explain this. It seemed +to him at last that not simply Mr. Bessel, but the order of things +must be insane. But he could think of nothing to do. He shut himself +carefully into his room, lit his fire--it was a gas fire with asbestos +bricks--and, fearing fresh dreams if he went to bed, remained bathing +his injured face, or holding up books in a vain attempt to read, until +dawn. Throughout that vigil he had a curious persuasion that Mr. Bessel +was endeavouring to speak to him, but he would not let himself attend to +any such belief. + +About dawn, his physical fatigue asserted itself, and he went to bed and +slept at last in spite of dreaming. He rose late, unrested and anxious, +and in considerable facial pain. The morning papers had no news of +Mr. Bessel's aberration--it had come too late for them. Mr. Vincey's +perplexities, to which the fever of his bruise added fresh irritation, +became at last intolerable, and, after a fruitless visit to the Albany, +he went down to St. Paul's Churchyard to Mr. Hart, Mr. Bessel's partner, +and, so far as Mr. Vincey knew, his nearest friend. + +He was surprised to learn that Mr. Hart, although he knew nothing of the +outbreak, had also been disturbed by a vision, the very vision that Mr. +Vincey had seen--Mr. Bessel, white and dishevelled, pleading earnestly +by his gestures for help. That was his impression of the import of his +signs. "I was just going to look him up in the Albany when you arrived," +said Mr. Hart. "I was so sure of something being wrong with him." + +As the outcome of their consultation the two gentlemen decided to +inquire at Scotland Yard for news of their missing friend. "He is bound +to be laid by the heels," said Mr. Hart. "He can't go on at that pace +for long." But the police authorities had not laid Mr. Bessel by the +heels. They confirmed Mr. Vincey's overnight experiences and added fresh +circumstances, some of an even graver character than those he knew--a +list of smashed glass along the upper half of Tottenham Court Road, an +attack upon a policeman in Hampstead Road, and an atrocious assault upon +a woman. All these outrages were committed between half-past twelve and +a quarter to two in the morning, and between those hours--and, indeed, +from the very moment of Mr. Bessel's first rush from his rooms at +half-past nine in the evening--they could trace the deepening violence +of his fantastic career. For the last hour, at least from before one, +that is, until a quarter to two, he had run amuck through London, +eluding with amazing agility every effort to stop or capture him. + +But after a quarter to two he had vanished. Up to that hour witnesses +were multitudinous. Dozens of people had seen him, fled from him or +pursued him, and then things suddenly came to an end. At a quarter to +two he had been seen running down the Euston Road towards Baker Street, +flourishing a can of burning colza oil and jerking splashes of flame +therefrom at the windows of the houses he passed. But none of the +policemen on Euston Road beyond the Waxwork Exhibition, nor any of +those in the side streets down which he must have passed had he left the +Euston Road, had seen anything of him. Abruptly he disappeared. Nothing +of his subsequent doings came to light in spite of the keenest inquiry. + +Here was a fresh astonishment for Mr. Vincey. He had found considerable +comfort in Mr. Hart's conviction: "He is bound to be laid by the heels +before long," and in that assurance he had been able to suspend his +mental perplexities. But any fresh development seemed destined to add +new impossibilities to a pile already heaped beyond the powers of his +acceptance. He found himself doubting whether his memory might not have +played him some grotesque trick, debating whether any of these things +could possibly have happened; and in the afternoon he hunted up Mr. Hart +again to share the intolerable weight on his mind. He found Mr. Hart +engaged with a well-known private detective, but as that gentleman +accomplished nothing in this case, we need not enlarge upon his +proceedings. + +All that day Mr. Bessel's whereabouts eluded an unceasingly active +inquiry, and all that night. And all that day there was a persuasion in +the back of Vincey's mind that Mr. Bessel sought his attention, and all +through the night Mr. Bessel with a tear-stained face of anguish pursued +him through his dreams. And whenever he saw Mr. Bessel in his dreams he +also saw a number of other faces, vague but malignant, that seemed to be +pursuing Mr. Bessel. + +It was on the following day, Sunday, that Mr. Vincey recalled certain +remarkable stories of Mrs. Bullock, the medium, who was then attracting +attention for the first time in London. He determined to consult her. +She was staying at the house of that well-known inquirer, Dr. Wilson +Paget, and Mr. Vincey, although he had never met that gentleman before, +repaired to him forthwith with the intention of invoking her help. +But scarcely had he mentioned the name of Bessel when Doctor Paget +interrupted him. "Last night--just at the end," he said, "we had a +communication." + +He left the room, and returned with a slate on which were certain words +written in a handwriting, shaky indeed, but indisputably the handwriting +of Mr. Bessel! + +"How did you get this?" said Mr. Vincey. "Do you mean--?" + +"We got it last night," said Doctor Paget. With numerous interruptions +from Mr. Vincey, he proceeded to explain how the writing had been +obtained. It appears that in her seances, Mrs. Bullock passes into a +condition of trance, her eyes rolling up in a strange way under her +eyelids, and her body becoming rigid. She then begins to talk very +rapidly, usually in voices other than her own. At the same time one +or both of her hands may become active, and if slates and pencils are +provided they will then write messages simultaneously with and quite +independently of the flow of words from her mouth. By many she is +considered an even more remarkable medium than the celebrated Mrs. +Piper. It was one of these messages, the one written by her left hand, +that Mr. Vincey now had before him. It consisted of eight words written +disconnectedly: "George Bessel... trial excavn.... Baker Street... +help... starvation." Curiously enough, neither Doctor Paget nor the two +other inquirers who were present had heard of the disappearance of +Mr. Bessel--the news of it appeared only in the evening papers of +Saturday--and they had put the message aside with many others of a vague +and enigmatical sort that Mrs. Bullock has from time to time delivered. + +When Doctor Paget heard Mr. Vincey's story, he gave himself at once with +great energy to the pursuit of this clue to the discovery of Mr. Bessel. +It would serve no useful purpose here to describe the inquiries of Mr. +Vincey and himself; suffice it that the clue was a genuine one, and that +Mr. Bessel was actually discovered by its aid. + +He was found at the bottom of a detached shaft which had been sunk and +abandoned at the commencement of the work for the new electric railway +near Baker Street Station. His arm and leg and two ribs were broken. +The shaft is protected by a hoarding nearly 20 feet high, and over this, +incredible as it seems, Mr. Bessel, a stout, middle-aged gentleman, +must have scrambled in order to fall down the shaft. He was saturated in +colza oil, and the smashed tin lay beside him, but luckily the flame +had been extinguished by his fall. And his madness had passed from him +altogether. But he was, of course, terribly enfeebled, and at the sight +of his rescuers he gave way to hysterical weeping. + +In view of the deplorable state of his flat, he was taken to the house +of Dr. Hatton in Upper Baker Street. Here he was subjected to a sedative +treatment, and anything that might recall the violent crisis through +which he had passed was carefully avoided. But on the second day he +volunteered a statement. + +Since that occasion Mr. Bessel has several times repeated this +statement--to myself among other people--varying the details as the +narrator of real experiences always does, but never by any chance +contradicting himself in any particular. And the statement he makes is +in substance as follows. + +In order to understand it clearly it is necessary to go back to his +experiments with Mr. Vincey before his remarkable attack. Mr. Bessel's +first attempts at self-projection, in his experiments with Mr. Vincey, +were, as the reader will remember, unsuccessful. But through all of +them he was concentrating all his power and will upon getting out of the +body--"willing it with all my might," he says. At last, almost against +expectation, came success. And Mr. Bessel asserts that he, being alive, +did actually, by an effort of will, leave his body and pass into some +place or state outside this world. + +The release was, he asserts, instantaneous. "At one moment I was seated +in my chair, with my eyes tightly shut, my hands gripping the arms of +the chair, doing all I could to concentrate my mind on Vincey, and then +I perceived myself outside my body--saw my body near me, but certainly +not containing me, with the hands relaxing and the head drooping forward +on the breast." + +Nothing shakes him in his assurance of that release. He describes in a +quiet, matter-of-fact way the new sensation he experienced. He felt he +had become impalpable--so much he had expected, but he had not expected +to find himself enormously large. So, however, it would seem he became. +"I was a great cloud--if I may express it that way--anchored to my body. +It appeared to me, at first, as if I had discovered a greater self of +which the conscious being in my brain was only a little part. I saw the +Albany and Piccadilly and Regent Street and all the rooms and places in +the houses, very minute and very bright and distinct, spread out below +me like a little city seen from a balloon. Every now and then vague +shapes like drifting wreaths of smoke made the vision a little +indistinct, but at first I paid little heed to them. The thing that +astonished me most, and which astonishes me still, is that I saw quite +distinctly the insides of the houses as well as the streets, saw little +people dining and talking in the private houses, men and women dining, +playing billiards, and drinking in restaurants and hotels, and several +places of entertainment crammed with people. It was like watching the +affairs of a glass hive." + +Such were Mr. Bessel's exact words as I took them down when he told +me the story. Quite forgetful of Mr. Vincey, he remained for a space +observing these things. Impelled by curiosity, he says, he stooped down, +and, with the shadowy arm he found himself possessed of, attempted to +touch a man walking along Vigo Street. But he could not do so, though +his finger seemed to pass through the man. Something prevented his doing +this, but what it was he finds it hard to describe. He compares the +obstacle to a sheet of glass. + +"I felt as a kitten may feel," he said, "when it goes for the first time +to pat its reflection in a mirror." Again and again, on the occasion +when I heard him tell this story, Mr. Bessel returned to that comparison +of the sheet of glass. Yet it was not altogether a precise comparison, +because, as the reader will speedily see, there were interruptions of +this generally impermeable resistance, means of getting through the +barrier to the material world again. But, naturally, there is a very +great difficulty in expressing these unprecedented impressions in the +language of everyday experience. + +A thing that impressed him instantly, and which weighed upon him +throughout all this experience, was the stillness of this place--he was +in a world without sound. + +At first Mr. Bessel's mental state was an unemotional wonder. His +thought chiefly concerned itself with where he might be. He was out of +the body--out of his material body, at any rate--but that was not all. +He believes, and I for one believe also, that he was somewhere out of +space, as we understand it, altogether. By a strenuous effort of will +he had passed out of his body into a world beyond this world, a world +undreamt of, yet lying so close to it and so strangely situated with +regard to it that all things on this earth are clearly visible both from +without and from within in this other world about us. For a long time, +as it seemed to him, this realisation occupied his mind to the exclusion +of all other matters, and then he recalled the engagement with Mr. +Vincey, to which this astonishing experience was, after all, but a +prelude. + +He turned his mind to locomotion in this new body in which he found +himself. For a time he was unable to shift himself from his attachment +to his earthly carcass. For a time this new strange cloud body of +his simply swayed, contracted, expanded, coiled, and writhed with his +efforts to free himself, and then quite suddenly the link that bound +him snapped. For a moment everything was hidden by what appeared to be +whirling spheres of dark vapour, and then through a momentary gap he saw +his drooping body collapse limply, saw his lifeless head drop sideways, +and found he was driving along like a huge cloud in a strange place of +shadowy clouds that had the luminous intricacy of London spread like a +model below. + +But now he was aware that the fluctuating vapour about him was something +more than vapour, and the temerarious excitement of his first essay +was shot with fear. For he perceived, at first indistinctly, and then +suddenly very clearly, that he was surrounded by FACES! that each roll +and coil of the seeming cloud-stuff was a face. And such faces! Faces of +thin shadow, faces of gaseous tenuity. Faces like those faces that glare +with intolerable strangeness upon the sleeper in the evil hours of his +dreams. Evil, greedy eyes that were full of a covetous curiosity, faces +with knit brows and snarling, smiling lips; their vague hands clutched +at Mr. Bessel as he passed, and the rest of their bodies was but an +elusive streak of trailing darkness. Never a word they said, never a +sound from the mouths that seemed to gibber. All about him they pressed +in that dreamy silence, passing freely through the dim mistiness that +was his body, gathering ever more numerously about him. And the shadowy +Mr. Bessel, now suddenly fear-stricken, drove through the silent, active +multitude of eyes and clutching hands. + +So inhuman were these faces, so malignant their staring eyes, and +shadowy, clawing gestures, that it did not occur to Mr. Bessel to +attempt intercourse with these drifting creatures. Idiot phantoms, they +seemed, children of vain desire, beings unborn and forbidden the boon of +being, whose only expressions and gestures told of the envy and craving +for life that was their one link with existence. + +It says much for his resolution that, amidst the swarming cloud of these +noiseless spirits of evil, he could still think of Mr. Vincey. He made +a violent effort of will and found himself, he knew not how, stooping +towards Staple Inn, saw Vincey sitting attentive and alert in his +arm-chair by the fire. + +And clustering also about him, as they clustered ever about all that +lives and breathes, was another multitude of these vain voiceless +shadows, longing, desiring, seeking some loophole into life. + +For a space Mr. Bessel sought ineffectually to attract his friend's +attention. He tried to get in front of his eyes, to move the objects in +his room, to touch him. But Mr. Vincey remained unaffected, ignorant of +the being that was so close to his own. The strange something that Mr. +Bessel has compared to a sheet of glass separated them impermeably. + +And at last Mr. Bessel did a desperate thing. I have told how that in +some strange way he could see not only the outside of a man as we see +him, but within. He extended his shadowy hand and thrust his vague black +fingers, as it seemed, through the heedless brain. + +Then, suddenly, Mr. Vincey started like a man who recalls his attention +from wandering thoughts, and it seemed to Mr. Bessel that a little +dark-red body situated in the middle of Mr. Vincey's brain swelled and +glowed as he did so. Since that experience he has been shown anatomical +figures of the brain, and he knows now that this is that useless +structure, as doctors call it, the pineal eye. For, strange as it will +seem to many, we have, deep in our brains--where it cannot possibly +see any earthly light--an eye! At the time this, with the rest of the +internal anatomy of the brain, was quite new to him. At the sight of +its changed appearance, however, he thrust forth his finger, and, +rather fearful still of the consequences, touched this little spot. And +instantly Mr. Vincey started, and Mr. Bessel knew that he was seen. + +And at that instant it came to Mr. Bessel that evil had happened to his +body, and behold! a great wind blew through all that world of shadows +and tore him away. So strong was this persuasion that he thought no more +of Mr. Vincey, but turned about forthwith, and all the countless faces +drove back with him like leaves before a gale. But he returned too +late. In an instant he saw the body that he had left inert and +collapsed--lying, indeed, like the body of a man just dead--had arisen, +had arisen by virtue of some strength and will beyond his own. It stood +with staring eyes, stretching its limbs in dubious fashion. + +For a moment he watched it in wild dismay, and then he stooped towards +it. But the pane of glass had closed against him again, and he was +foiled. He beat himself passionately against this, and all about him the +spirits of evil grinned and pointed and mocked. He gave way to furious +anger. He compares himself to a bird that has fluttered heedlessly +into a room and is beating at the window-pane that holds it back from +freedom. + +And behold! the little body that had once been his was now dancing with +delight. He saw it shouting, though he could not hear its shouts; he saw +the violence of its movements grow. He watched it fling his cherished +furniture about in the mad delight of existence, rend his books apart, +smash bottles, drink heedlessly from the jagged fragments, leap and +smite in a passionate acceptance of living. He watched these actions +in paralysed astonishment. Then once more he hurled himself against the +impassable barrier, and then with all that crew of mocking ghosts about +him, hurried back in dire confusion to Vincey to tell him of the outrage +that had come upon him. + +But the brain of Vincey was now closed against apparitions, and the +disembodied Mr. Bessel pursued him in vain as he hurried out into +Holborn to call a cab. Foiled and terror-stricken, Mr. Bessel swept back +again, to find his desecrated body whooping in a glorious frenzy down +the Burlington Arcade.... + +And now the attentive reader begins to understand Mr. Bessel's +interpretation of the first part of this strange story. The being whose +frantic rush through London had inflicted so much injury and disaster +had indeed Mr. Bessel's body, but it was not Mr. Bessel. It was an evil +spirit out of that strange world beyond existence, into which Mr. Bessel +had so rashly ventured. For twenty hours it held possession of him, and +for all those twenty hours the dispossessed spirit-body of Mr. Bessel +was going to and fro in that unheard-of middle world of shadows seeking +help in vain. He spent many hours beating at the minds of Mr. Vincey and +of his friend Mr. Hart. Each, as we know, he roused by his efforts. But +the language that might convey his situation to these helpers across the +gulf he did not know; his feeble fingers groped vainly and powerlessly +in their brains. Once, indeed, as we have already told, he was able to +turn Mr. Vincey aside from his path so that he encountered the stolen +body in its career, but he could not make him understand the thing that +had happened: he was unable to draw any help from that encounter.... + +All through those hours the persuasion was overwhelming in Mr. Bessel's +mind that presently his body would be killed by its furious tenant, and +he would have to remain in this shadow-land for evermore. So that those +long hours were a growing agony of fear. And ever as he hurried to and +fro in his ineffectual excitement, innumerable spirits of that world +about him mobbed him and confused his mind. And ever an envious +applauding multitude poured after their successful fellow as he went +upon his glorious career. + +For that, it would seem, must be the life of these bodiless things of +this world that is the shadow of our world. Ever they watch, coveting +a way into a mortal body, in order that they may descend, as furies and +frenzies, as violent lusts and mad, strange impulses, rejoicing in the +body they have won. For Mr. Bessel was not the only human soul in that +place. Witness the fact that he met first one, and afterwards several +shadows of men, men like himself, it seemed, who had lost their bodies +even it may be as he had lost his, and wandered, despairingly, in that +lost world that is neither life nor death. They could not speak because +that world is silent, yet he knew them for men because of their dim +human bodies, and because of the sadness of their faces. + +But how they had come into that world he could not tell, nor where the +bodies they had lost might be, whether they still raved about the earth, +or whether they were closed forever in death against return. That they +were the spirits of the dead neither he nor I believe. But Doctor Wilson +Paget thinks they are the rational souls of men who are lost in madness +on the earth. + +At last Mr. Bessel chanced upon a place where a little crowd of such +disembodied silent creatures was gathered, and thrusting through them +he saw below a brightly-lit room, and four or five quiet gentlemen and a +woman, a stoutish woman dressed in black bombazine and sitting awkwardly +in a chair with her head thrown back. He knew her from her portraits to +be Mrs. Bullock, the medium. And he perceived that tracts and structures +in her brain glowed and stirred as he had seen the pineal eye in the +brain of Mr. Vincey glow. The light was very fitful; sometimes it was a +broad illumination, and sometimes merely a faint twilight spot, and it +shifted slowly about her brain. She kept on talking and writing with one +hand. And Mr. Bessel saw that the crowding shadows of men about him, +and a great multitude of the shadow spirits of that shadowland, were all +striving and thrusting to touch the lighted regions of her brain. As one +gained her brain or another was thrust away, her voice and the writing +of her hand changed. So that what she said was disorderly and confused +for the most part; now a fragment of one soul's message, and now a +fragment of another's, and now she babbled the insane fancies of the +spirits of vain desire. Then Mr. Bessel understood that she spoke +for the spirit that had touch of her, and he began to struggle very +furiously towards her. But he was on the outside of the crowd and at +that time he could not reach her, and at last, growing anxious, he went +away to find what had happened meanwhile to his body. For a long time +he went to and fro seeking it in vain and fearing that it must have been +killed, and then he found it at the bottom of the shaft in Baker Street, +writhing furiously and cursing with pain. Its leg and an arm and two +ribs had been broken by its fall. Moreover, the evil spirit was angry +because his time had been so short and because of the painmaking violent +movements and casting his body about. + +And at that Mr. Bessel returned with redoubled earnestness to the room +where the seance was going on, and so soon as he had thrust himself +within sight of the place he saw one of the men who stood about the +medium looking at his watch as if he meant that the seance should +presently end. At that a great number of the shadows who had been +striving turned away with gestures of despair. But the thought that the +seance was almost over only made Mr. Bessel the more earnest, and he +struggled so stoutly with his will against the others that presently he +gained the woman's brain. It chanced that just at that moment it glowed +very brightly, and in that instant she wrote the message that Doctor +Wilson Paget preserved. And then the other shadows and the cloud of evil +spirits about him had thrust Mr. Bessel away from her, and for all the +rest of the seance he could regain her no more. + +So he went back and watched through the long hours at the bottom of +the shaft where the evil spirit lay in the stolen body it had maimed, +writhing and cursing, and weeping and groaning, and learning the lesson +of pain. And towards dawn the thing he had waited for happened, the +brain glowed brightly and the evil spirit came out, and Mr. Bessel +entered the body he had feared he should never enter again. As he did +so, the silence--the brooding silence--ended; he heard the tumult of +traffic and the voices of people overhead, and that strange world that +is the shadow of our world--the dark and silent shadows of ineffectual +desire and the shadows of lost men--vanished clean away. + +He lay there for the space of about three hours before he was found. And +in spite of the pain and suffering of his wounds, and of the dim damp +place in which he lay; in spite of the tears--wrung from him by his +physical distress--his heart was full of gladness to know that he was +nevertheless back once more in the kindly world of men. + + + + +11. MR. BRISHER'S TREASURE + +"You can't be TOO careful WHO you marry," said Mr. Brisher, and pulled +thoughtfully with a fat-wristed hand at the lank moustache that hides +his want of chin. + +"That's why--" I ventured. + +"Yes," said Mr. Brisher, with a solemn light in his bleary, blue-grey +eyes, moving his head expressively and breathing alcohol INTIMATELY at +me. "There's lots as 'ave 'ad a try at me--many as I could name in this +town--but none 'ave done it--none." + +I surveyed the flushed countenance, the equatorial expansion, the +masterly carelessness of his attire, and heaved a sigh to think that +by reason of the unworthiness of women he must needs be the last of his +race. + +"I was a smart young chap when I was younger," said Mr. Brisher. "I 'ad +my work cut out. But I was very careful--very. And I got through..." + +He leant over the taproom table and thought visibly on the subject of my +trustworthiness. I was relieved at last by his confidence. + +"I was engaged once," he said at last, with a reminiscent eye on the +shuv-a'penny board. + +"So near as that?" + +He looked at me. "So near as that. Fact is--" He looked about him, +brought his face close to mine, lowered his voice, and fenced off an +unsympathetic world with a grimy hand. "If she ain't dead or married to +some one else or anything--I'm engaged still. Now." He confirmed this +statement with nods and facial contortions. "STILL," he said, ending the +pantomime, and broke into a reckless smile at my surprise. "ME!" + +"Run away," he explained further, with coruscating eyebrows. "Come 'ome. + +"That ain't all. + +"You'd 'ardly believe it," he said, "but I found a treasure. Found a +regular treasure." + +I fancied this was irony, and did not, perhaps, greet it with proper +surprise. "Yes," he said, "I found a treasure. And come 'ome. I tell you +I could surprise you with things that has happened to me." And for some +time he was content to repeat that he had found a treasure--and left it. + +I made no vulgar clamour for a story, but I became attentive to Mr. +Brisher's bodily needs, and presently I led him back to the deserted +lady. + +"She was a nice girl," he said--a little sadly, I thought. "AND +respectable." + +He raised his eyebrows and tightened his mouth to express extreme +respectability--beyond the likes of us elderly men. + +"It was a long way from 'ere. Essex, in fact. Near Colchester. It was +when I was up in London--in the buildin' trade. I was a smart young +chap then, I can tell you. Slim. 'Ad best clo'es 's good as anybody. +'At--SILK 'at, mind you." Mr. Brisher's hand shot above his head towards +the infinite to indicate it silk hat of the highest. "Umbrella--nice +umbrella with a 'orn 'andle. Savin's. Very careful I was...." + +He was pensive for a little while, thinking, as we must all come to +think sooner or later, of the vanished brightness of youth. But he +refrained, as one may do in taprooms, from the obvious moral. + +"I got to know 'er through a chap what was engaged to 'er sister. She +was stopping in London for a bit with an aunt that 'ad a 'am an' beef +shop. This aunt was very particular--they was all very particular +people, all 'er people was--and wouldn't let 'er sister go out with this +feller except 'er other sister, MY girl that is, went with them. So 'e +brought me into it, sort of to ease the crowding. We used to go walks in +Battersea Park of a Sunday afternoon. Me in my topper, and 'im in 'is; +and the girl's--well--stylish. There wasn't many in Battersea Park 'ad +the larf of us. She wasn't what you'd call pretty, but a nicer girl I +never met. _I_ liked 'er from the start, and, well--though I say it who +shouldn't--she liked me. You know 'ow it is, I dessay?" + +I pretended I did. + +"And when this chap married 'er sister--'im and me was great +friends--what must 'e do but arst me down to Colchester, close by where +She lived. Naturally I was introjuced to 'er people, and well, very +soon, her and me was engaged." + +He repeated "engaged." + +"She lived at 'ome with 'er father and mother, quite the lady, in a very +nice little 'ouse with a garden--and remarkable respectable people they +was. Rich you might call 'em a'most. They owned their own 'ouse--got +it out of the Building Society, and cheap because the chap who had it +before was a burglar and in prison--and they 'ad a bit of free'old land, +and some cottages and money 'nvested--all nice and tight: they was what +you'd call snug and warm. I tell you, I was On. Furniture too. Why! They +'ad a pianner. Jane--'er name was Jane--used to play it Sundays, and +very nice she played too. There wasn't 'ardly a 'im toon in the book she +COULDN'T play... + +"Many's the evenin' we've met and sung 'ims there, me and 'er and the +family. + +"'Er father was quite a leadin' man in chapel. You should ha' seen him +Sundays, interruptin' the minister and givin' out 'ims. He had gold +spectacles, I remember, and used to look over 'em at you while he sang +hearty--he was always great on singing 'earty to the Lord--and when HE +got out o' toon 'arf the people went after 'im--always. 'E was that sort +of man. And to walk be'ind 'im in 'is nice black clo'es--'is 'at was a +brimmer--made one regular proud to be engaged to such a father-in-law. +And when the summer came I went down there and stopped a fortnight. + +"Now, you know there was a sort of Itch," said Mr. Brisher. "We wanted +to marry, me and Jane did, and get things settled. But 'E said I 'ad +to get a proper position first. Consequently there was a Itch. +Consequently, when I went down there, I was anxious to show that I was a +good useful sort of chap like. Show I could do pretty nearly everything +like. See?" + +I made a sympathetic noise. + +"And down at the bottom of their garden was a bit of wild part like. So +I says to 'im, 'Why don't you 'ave a rockery 'ere?' I says. 'It 'ud look +nice.' + +"'Too much expense,' he says. + +"'Not a penny,' says I. 'I'm a dab at rockeries. Lemme make you one.' +You see, I'd 'elped my brother make a rockery in the beer garden be'ind +'is tap, so I knew 'ow to do it to rights. 'Lemme make you one,' I says. +'It's 'olidays, but I'm that sort of chap, I 'ate doing nothing,' I +says. 'I'll make you one to rights.' And the long and the short of it +was, he said I might. + +"And that's 'ow I come on the treasure." + +"What treasure?" I asked. + +"Why!" said Mr. Brisher, "the treasure I'm telling you about, what's the +reason why I never married." + +"What!--a treasure--dug up?" + +"Yes--buried wealth--treasure trove. Come out of the ground. What I +kept on saying--regular treasure...." He looked at me with unusual +disrespect. + +"It wasn't more than a foot deep, not the top of it," he said. "I'd +'ardly got thirsty like, before I come on the corner." + +"Go on," I said. "I didn't understand." + +"Why! Directly I 'it the box I knew it was treasure. A sort of instinct +told me. Something seemed to shout inside of me--'Now's your chance--lie +low.' It's lucky I knew the laws of treasure trove or I'd 'ave been +shoutin' there and then. I daresay you know--" + +"Crown bags it," I said, "all but one per cent. Go on. It's a shame. +What did you do?" + +"Uncovered the top of the box. There wasn't anybody in the garden or +about like. Jane was 'elping 'er mother do the 'ouse. I WAS excited--I +tell you. I tried the lock and then gave a whack at the hinges. Open it +came. Silver coins--full! Shining. It made me tremble to see 'em. And +jest then--I'm blessed if the dustman didn't come round the back of the +'ouse. It pretty nearly gave me 'eart disease to think what a fool I +was to 'ave that money showing. And directly after I 'eard the chap next +door--'e was 'olidaying, too--I 'eard him watering 'is beans. If only +'e'd looked over the fence!" + +"What did you do?" + +"Kicked the lid on again and covered it up like a shot, and went on +digging about a yard away from it--like mad. And my face, so to speak, +was laughing on its own account till I had it hid. I tell you I was +regular scared like at my luck. I jest thought that it 'ad to be +kep' close and that was all. 'Treasure,' I kep' whisperin' to myself, +'Treasure' and ''undreds of pounds, 'undreds, 'undreds of pounds.' +Whispering to myself like, and digging like blazes. It seemed to me the +box was regular sticking out and showing, like your legs do under the +sheets in bed, and I went and put all the earth I'd got out of my 'ole +for the rockery slap on top of it. I WAS in a sweat. And in the midst of +it all out toddles 'er father. He didn't say anything to me, jest stood +behind me and stared, but Jane tole me afterwards when he went indoors, +'e says, 'That there jackanapes of yours, Jane'--he always called me +a jackanapes some'ow--'knows 'ow to put 'is back into it after all.' +Seemed quite impressed by it, 'e did." + +"How long was the box?" I asked, suddenly. + +"'Ow long?" said Mr. Brisher. + +"Yes--in length?" + +"Oh! 'bout so-by-so." Mr. Brisher indicated a moderate-sized trunk. + +"FULL?" said I. + +"Full up of silver coins--'arf-crowns, I believe." + +"Why!" I cried, "that would mean--hundreds of pounds." + +"Thousands," said Mr. Brisher, in a sort of sad calm. "I calc'lated it +out." + +"But how did they get there?" + +"All I know is what I found. What I thought at the time was this. The +chap who'd owned the 'ouse before 'er father 'd been a regular slap-up +burglar. What you'd call a 'igh-class criminal. Used to drive 'is +trap--like Peace did." Mr. Brisher meditated on the difficulties of +narration and embarked on a complicated parenthesis. "I don't know if I +told you it'd been a burglar's 'ouse before it was my girl's father's, +and I knew 'e'd robbed a mail train once, I did know that. It seemed to +me--" + +"That's very likely," I said. "But what did you do?" + +"Sweated," said Mr. Brisher. "Regular run orf me. All that morning," +said Mr. Brisher, "I was at it, pretending to make that rockery and +wondering what I should do. I'd 'ave told 'er father p'r'aps, only I was +doubtful of 'is honesty--I was afraid he might rob me of it like, and +give it up to the authorities--and besides, considering I was marrying +into the family, I thought it would be nicer like if it came through me. +Put me on a better footing, so to speak. Well, I 'ad three days before +me left of my 'olidays, so there wasn't no hurry, so I covered it up and +went on digging, and tried to puzzle out 'ow I was to make sure of it. +Only I couldn't. + +"I thought," said Mr. Brisher, "AND I thought. Once I got regular +doubtful whether I'd seen it or not, and went down to it and 'ad it +uncovered again, just as her ma came out to 'ang up a bit of washin' +she'd done. Jumps again! Afterwards I was just thinking I'd 'ave another +go at it, when Jane comes to tell me dinner was ready. 'You'll want it,' +she said, 'seeing all the 'ole you've dug.' + +"I was in a regular daze all dinner, wondering whether that chap next +door wasn't over the fence and filling 'is pockets. But in the afternoon +I got easier in my mind--it seemed to me it must 'ave been there so long +it was pretty sure to stop a bit longer--and I tried to get up a bit of +a discussion to dror out the old man and see what 'E thought of treasure +trove." + +Mr. Brisher paused, and affected amusement at the memory. + +"The old man was a scorcher," he said; "a regular scorcher." + +"What!" said I; "did he--?" + +"It was like this," explained Mr. Brisher, laying a friendly hand on my +arm and breathing into my face to calm me. "Just to dror 'im out, I told +a story of a chap I said I knew--pretendin', you know--who'd found a +sovring in a novercoat 'e'd borrowed. I said 'e stuck to it, but I said +I wasn't sure whether that was right or not. And then the old man +began. Lor'! 'e DID let me 'ave it!" Mr. Brisher affected an insincere +amusement. "'E was, well--what you might call a rare 'and at Snacks. +Said that was the sort of friend 'e'd naturally expect me to 'ave. Said +'e'd naturally expect that from the friend of a out-of-work loafer who +took up with daughters who didn't belong to 'im. There! I couldn't tell +you 'ARF 'e said. 'E went on most outrageous. I stood up to 'im about +it, just to dror 'im out. 'Wouldn't you stick to a 'arf-sov', not if you +found it in the street?' I says. 'Certainly not,' 'e says; 'certainly +I wouldn't.' 'What! not if you found it as a sort of treasure?' +'Young man,' 'e says, 'there's 'i'er 'thority than mine--Render unto +Caesar'--what is it? Yes. Well, he fetched up that. A rare 'and at +'itting you over the 'ed with the Bible, was the old man. And so he +went on. 'E got to such Snacks about me at last I couldn't stand it. I'd +promised Jane not to answer 'im back, but it got a bit TOO thick. I--I +give it 'im..." + +Mr. Brisher, by means of enigmatical facework, tried to make me think he +had had the best of that argument, but I knew better. + +"I went out in a 'uff at last. But not before I was pretty sure I 'ad +to lift that treasure by myself. The only thing that kep' me up was +thinking 'ow I'd take it out of 'im when I 'ad the cash." + +There was a lengthy pause. + +"Now, you'd 'ardly believe it, but all them three days I never 'ad a +chance at the blessed treasure, never got out not even a 'arf-crown. +There was always a Somethink--always. + +"'Stonishing thing it isn't thought of more," said Mr. Brisher. "Finding +treasure's no great shakes. It's gettin' it. I don't suppose I slep' a +wink any of those nights, thinking where I was to take it, what I was to +do with it, 'ow I was to explain it. It made me regular ill. And days I +was that dull, it made Jane regular 'uffy. 'You ain't the same chap you +was in London,' she says, several times. I tried to lay it on 'er father +and 'is Snacks, but bless you, she knew better. What must she 'ave but +that I'd got another girl on my mind! Said I wasn't True. Well, we had a +bit of a row. But I was that set on the Treasure, I didn't seem to mind +a bit Anything she said. + +"Well, at last I got a sort of plan. I was always a bit good at +planning, though carrying out isn't so much in my line. I thought it +all out and settled on a plan. First, I was going to take all my pockets +full of these 'ere 'arf-crowns--see?--and afterwards as I shall tell. + +"Well, I got to that state I couldn't think of getting at the Treasure +again in the daytime, so I waited until the night before I had to go, +and then, when everything was still, up I gets and slips down to +the back door, meaning to get my pockets full. What must I do in the +scullery but fall over a pail! Up gets 'er father with a gun--'e was a +light sleeper was 'er father, and very suspicious and there was me: 'ad +to explain I'd come down to the pump for a drink because my water-bottle +was bad. 'E didn't let me off a Snack or two over that bit, you lay a +bob." + +"And you mean to say--" I began. + +"Wait a bit," said Mr. Brisher. "I say, I'd made my plan. That put the +kybosh on one bit, but it didn't 'urt the general scheme not a bit. +I went and I finished that rockery next day, as though there wasn't a +Snack in the world; cemented over the stones, I did, dabbed it green and +everythink. I put a dab of green just to show where the box was. They +all came and looked at it, and sai 'ow nice it was--even 'e was a bit +softer like to see it, and all he said was, 'It's a pity you can't +always work like that, then you might get something definite to do,' he +says. + +"'Yes,' I says--I couldn't 'elp it--'I put a lot in that rockery,' I +says, like that. See? 'I put a lot in that rockery'--meaning--" + +"I see," said I--for Mr. Brisher is apt to overelaborate his jokes. + +"_'E_ didn't," said Mr. Brisher. "Not then, anyhow. + +"Ar'ever--after all that was over, off I set for London.... Orf I set +for London." + +Pause. + +"On'y I wasn't going to no London," said Mr. Brisher, with sudden +animation, and thrusting his face into mine. "No fear! What do YOU +think? + +"I didn't go no further than Colchester--not a yard. + +"I'd left the spade just where I could find it. I'd got everything +planned and right. I 'ired a little trap in Colchester, and pretended I +wanted to go to Ipswich and stop the night, and come back next day, and +the chap I 'ired it from made me leave two sovrings on it right away, +and off I set. + +"I didn't go to no Ipswich neither. + +"Midnight the 'orse and trap was 'itched by the little road that ran by +the cottage where 'e lived--not sixty yards off, it wasn't--and I was at +it like a good 'un. It was jest the night for such games--overcast--but +a trifle too 'ot, and all round the sky there was summer lightning and +presently a thunderstorm. Down it came. First big drops in a sort of +fizzle, then 'ail. I kep'on. I whacked at it--I didn't dream the old man +would 'ear. I didn't even trouble to go quiet with the spade, and the +thunder and lightning and 'ail seemed to excite me like. I shouldn't +wonder if I was singing. I got so 'ard at it I clean forgot the thunder +and the 'orse and trap. I precious soon got the box showing, and started +to lift it...." + +"Heavy?" I said. + +"I couldn't no more lift it than fly. I WAS sick. I'd never thought of +that I got regular wild--I tell you, I cursed. I got sort of outrageous. +I didn't think of dividing it like for the minute, and even then I +couldn't 'ave took money about loose in a trap. I hoisted one end sort +of wild like, and over the whole show went with a tremenjous noise. +Perfeck smash of silver. And then right on the heels of that, Flash! +Lightning like the day! and there was the back door open and the old +man coming down the garden with 'is blooming old gun. He wasn't not a +'undred yards away! + +"I tell you I was that upset--I didn't think what I was doing. I never +stopped-not even to fill my pockets. I went over the fence like a shot, +and ran like one o'clock for the trap, cussing and swearing as I went. I +WAS in a state.... + +"And will you believe me, when I got to the place where I'd left the +'orse and trap, they'd gone. Orf! When I saw that I 'adn't a cuss left +for it. I jest danced on the grass, and when I'd danced enough I started +off to London.... I was done." + +Mr. Brisher was pensive for an interval. "I was done," he repeated, very +bitterly. + +"Well?" I said. + +"That's all," said Mr. Brisher. + +"You didn't go back?" + +"No fear. I'd 'ad enough of THAT blooming treasure, any'ow for a bit. +Besides, I didn't know what was done to chaps who tried to collar a +treasure trove. I started off for London there and then...." + +"And you never went back?" + +"Never." + +"But about Jane? Did you write?" + +"Three times, fishing like. And no answer. We'd parted in a bit of a +'uff on account of 'er being jealous. So that I couldn't make out for +certain what it meant. + +"I didn't know what to do. I didn't even know whether the old man knew +it was me. I sort of kep' an eye open on papers to see when he'd give +up that treasure to the Crown, as I hadn't a doubt 'e would, considering +'ow respectable he'd always been." + +"And did he?" + +Mr. Brisher pursed his mouth and moved his head slowly from side to +side. "Not 'IM," he said. + +"Jane was a nice girl," he said, "a thorough nice girl mind you, if +jealous, and there's no knowing I mightn't 'ave gone back to 'er after a +bit. I thought if he didn't give up the treasure I might 'ave a sort +of 'old on 'im.... Well, one day I looks as usual under Colchester--and +there I saw 'is name. What for, d'yer think?" + +I could not guess. + +Mr. Brisher's voice sank to a whisper, and once more he spoke behind +his hand. His manner was suddenly suffused with a positive joy. "Issuing +counterfeit coins," he said. "Counterfeit coins!" + +"You don't mean to say--?" + +"Yes-It. Bad. Quite a long case they made of it. But they got 'im, +though he dodged tremenjous. Traced 'is 'aving passed, oh!--nearly a +dozen bad 'arf-crowns." + +"And you didn't--?" + +"No fear. And it didn't do 'IM much good to say it was treasure trove." + + + + +12. MISS WINCHELSEA'S HEART + +Miss Winchelsea was going to Rome. The matter had filled her mind for +a month or more, and had overflowed so abundantly into her conversation +that quite a number of people who were not going to Rome, and who were +not likely to go to Rome, had made it a personal grievance against her. +Some indeed had attempted quite unavailingly to convince her that Rome +was not nearly such a desirable place as it was reported to be, and +others had gone so far as to suggest behind her back that she was +dreadfully "stuck up" about "that Rome of hers." And little Lily +Hardhurst had told her friend Mr. Binns that so far as she was concerned +Miss Winchelsea might "go to her old Rome and stop there; SHE (Miss Lily +Hardhurst) wouldn't grieve." And the way in which Miss Winchelsea put +herself upon terms of personal tenderness with Horace and Benvenuto +Cellini and Raphael and Shelley and Keats--if she had been Shelley's +widow she could not have professed a keener interest in his grave--was +a matter of universal astonishment. Her dress was a triumph of tactful +discretion, sensible, but not too "touristy"--Miss Winchelsea, had a +great dread of being "touristy"--and her Baedeker was carried in a cover +of grey to hide its glaring red. She made a prim and pleasant little +figure on the Charing Cross platform, in spite of her swelling pride, +when at last the great day dawned, and she could start for Rome. The +day was bright, the Channel passage would be pleasant, and all the +omens promised well. There was the gayest sense of adventure in this +unprecedented departure. + +She was going with two friends who had been fellow-students with her +at the training college, nice honest girls both, though not so good at +history and literature as Miss Winchelsea. They both looked up to her +immensely, though physically they had to look down, and she anticipated +some pleasant times to be spent in "stirring them up" to her own pitch +of aesthetic and historical enthusiasm. They had secured seats already, +and welcomed her effusively at the carriage door. In the instant +criticism of the encounter she noted that Fanny had a slightly +"touristy" leather strap, and that Helen had succumbed to a serge jacket +with side pockets, into which her hands were thrust. But they were much +too happy with themselves and the expedition for their friend to +attempt any hint at the moment about these things. As soon as the first +ecstasies were over--Fanny's enthusiasm was a little noisy and crude, +and consisted mainly in emphatic repetitions of "Just FANCY! we're +going to Rome, my dear!--Rome!"--they gave their attention to their +fellow-travellers. Helen was anxious to secure a compartment to +themselves, and, in order to discourage intruders, got out and planted +herself firmly on the step. Miss Winchelsea peeped out over her +shoulder, and made sly little remarks about the accumulating people on +the platform, at which Fanny laughed gleefully. + +They were travelling with one of Mr. Thomas Gunn's parties--fourteen +days in Rome for fourteen pounds. They did not belong to the personally +conducted party of course--Miss Winchelsea had seen to that--but they +travelled with it because of the convenience of that arrangement. The +people were the oddest mixture, and wonderfully amusing. There was a +vociferous red-faced polyglot personal conductor in a pepper-and-salt +suit, very long in the arms and legs and very active. He shouted +proclamations. When he wanted to speak to people he stretched out an arm +and held them until his purpose was accomplished. One hand was full of +papers, tickets, counterfoils of tourists. The people of the personally +conducted party were, it seemed, of two sorts; people the conductor +wanted and could not find, and people he did not want and who followed +him in a steadily growing tail up and down the platform. These people +seemed, indeed, to think that their one chance of reaching Rome lay +in keeping close to him. Three little old ladies were particularly +energetic in his pursuit, and at last maddened him to the pitch of +clapping them into a carriage and daring them to emerge again. For the +rest of the time, one, two, or three of their heads protruded from the +window wailing enquiries about "a little wickerwork box" whenever he +drew near. There was a very stout man with a very stout wife in shiny +black; there was a little old man like an aged hostler. + +"What CAN such people want in Rome?" asked Miss Winchelsea. "What can it +mean to them?" There was a very tall curate in a very small straw hat, +and a very short curate encumbered by a long camera stand. The contrast +amused Fanny very much. Once they heard some one calling for "Snooks." +"I always thought that name was invented by novelists," said Miss +Winchelsea. "Fancy! Snooks. I wonder which IS Mr. Snooks." Finally they +picked out a very stout and resolute little man in a large check suit. +"If he isn't Snooks, he ought to be," said Miss Winchelsea. + +Presently the conductor discovered Helen's attempt at a corner in +carriages. "Room for five," he bawled with a parallel translation on +his fingers. A party of four together--mother, father, and two +daughters--blundered in, all greatly excited. "It's all right, Ma, you +let me," said one of the daughters, hitting her mother's bonnet with +a handbag she struggled to put in the rack. Miss Winchelsea detested +people who banged about and called their mother "Ma." A young man +travelling alone followed. He was not at all "touristy" in his costume, +Miss Winchelsea observed; his Gladstone bag was of good pleasant leather +with labels reminiscent of Luxembourg and Ostend, and his boots, though +brown, were not vulgar. He carried an overcoat on his arm. Before these +people had properly settled in their places, came an inspection of +tickets and a slamming of doors, and behold! they were gliding out of +Charing Cross station on their way to Rome. + +"Fancy!" cried Fanny, "we are going to Rome, my dear! Rome! I don't seem +to believe it, even now." + +Miss Winchelsea suppressed Fanny's emotions with a little smile, and +the lady who was called "Ma" explained to people in general why they +had "cut it so close" at the station. The two daughters called her "Ma" +several times, toned her down in a tactless effective way, and drove her +at last to the muttered inventory of a basket of travelling requisites. +Presently she looked up. "Lor'!" she said, "I didn't bring THEM!" +Both the daughters said "Oh, Ma!" but what "them" was did not appear. +Presently Fanny produced Hare's Walks in Rome, a sort of mitigated +guide-book very popular among Roman visitors; and the father of the two +daughters began to examine his books of tickets minutely, apparently in +a search after English words. When he had looked at the tickets for a +long time right way up, he turned them upside down. Then he produced +a fountain pen and dated them with considerable care. The young man, +having completed an unostentatious survey of his fellow travellers, +produced a book and fell to reading. When Helen and Fanny were looking +out of the window at Chiselhurst--the place interested Fanny because the +poor dear Empress of the French used to live there--Miss Winchelsea took +the opportunity to observe the book the young man held. It was not a +guide-book, but a little thin volume of poetry--BOUND. She glanced at +his face--it seemed a refined pleasant face to her hasty glance. He wore +a little gilt pince-nez. "Do you think she lives there now?" said Fanny, +and Miss Winchelsea's inspection came to an end. + +For the rest of the journey Miss Winchelsea talked little, and what she +said was as pleasant and as stamped with refinement as she could make +it. Her voice was always low and clear and pleasant, and she took care +that on this occasion it was particularly low and clear and pleasant. +As they came under the white cliffs the young man put his book of poetry +away, and when at last the train stopped beside the boat, he displayed +a graceful alacrity with the impedimenta of Miss Winchelsea and her +friends. Miss Winchelsea hated nonsense, but she was pleased to see +the young man perceived at once that they were ladies, and helped +them without any violent geniality; and how nicely he showed that his +civilities were to be no excuse for further intrusions. None of her +little party had been out of England before, and they were all excited +and a little nervous at the Channel passage. They stood in a little +group in a good place near the middle of the boat--the young man had +taken Miss Winchelsea's carry-all there and had told her it was a good +place--and they watched the white shores of Albion recede and quoted +Shakespeare and made quiet fun of their fellow travellers in the English +way. + +They were particularly amused at the precautions the bigger-sized people +had taken against the little waves--cut lemons and flasks prevailed, one +lady lay full-length in a deck chair with a handkerchief over her face, +and a very broad resolute man in a bright brown "touristy" suit walked +all the way from England to France along the deck, with his legs +as widely apart as Providence permitted. These were all excellent +precautions, and, nobody was ill. The personally conducted party pursued +the conductor about the deck with enquiries in a manner that suggested +to Helen's mind the rather vulgar image of hens with a piece of bacon +peel, until at last he went into hiding below. And the young man with +the thin volume of poetry stood at the stern watching England receding, +looking rather lonely and sad to Miss Winchelsea's eye. + +And then came Calais and tumultuous novelties, and the young man had not +forgotten Miss Winchelsea's hold-all and the other little things. All +three girls, though they had passed government examinations in French +to any extent, were stricken with a dumb shame of their accents, and +the young man was very useful. And he did not intrude. He put them in a +comfortable carriage and raised his hat and went away. Miss Winchelsea +thanked him in her best manner--a pleasing, cultivated manner--and Fanny +said he was "nice" almost before he was out of earshot. "I wonder what +he can be," said Helen. "He's going to Italy, because I noticed green +tickets in his book." Miss Winchelsea almost told them of the poetry, +and decided not to do so. And presently the carriage windows seized hold +upon them and the young man was forgotten. It made them feel that they +were doing an educated sort of thing to travel through a country whose +commonest advertisements were in idiomatic French, and Miss Winchelsea +made unpatriotic comparisons because there were weedy little sign-board +advertisements by the rail side instead of the broad hoardings that +deface the landscape in our land. But the north of France is really +uninteresting country, and after a time Fanny reverted to Hare's Walks +and Helen initiated lunch. Miss Winchelsea awoke out of a happy reverie; +she had been trying to realise, she said, that she was actually going to +Rome, but she perceived at Helen's suggestion that she was hungry, and +they lunched out of their baskets very cheerfully. In the afternoon they +were tired and silent until Helen made tea. Miss Winchelsea might have +dozed, only she knew Fanny slept with her mouth open; and as their +fellow passengers were two rather nice critical-looking ladies of +uncertain age--who knew French well enough to talk it--she employed +herself in keeping Fanny awake. The rhythm of the train became +insistent, and the streaming landscape outside became at last quite +painful to the eye. They were already dreadfully tired of travelling +before their night's stoppage came. + +The stoppage for the night was brightened by the appearance of the young +man, and his manners were all that could be desired and his French quite +serviceable. His coupons availed for the same hotel as theirs, and by +chance as it seemed he sat next Miss Winchelsea at the table d'hote. +In spite of her enthusiasm for Rome, she had thought out some such +possibility very thoroughly, and when he ventured to make a remark upon +the tediousness of travelling--he let the soup and fish go by before he +did this--she did not simply assent to his proposition, but responded +with another. They were soon comparing their journeys, and Helen and +Fanny were cruelly overlooked in the conversation. It was to be the same +journey, they found; one day for the galleries at Florence--"from what I +hear," said the young man, "it is barely enough,"--and the rest at Rome. +He talked of Rome very pleasantly; he was evidently quite well read, and +he quoted Horace about Soracte. Miss Winchelsea had "done" that book of +Horace for her matriculation, and was delighted to cap his quotation. It +gave a sort of tone to things, this incident--a touch of refinement to +mere chatting. Fanny expressed a few emotions, and Helen interpolated +a few sensible remarks, but the bulk of the talk on the girls' side +naturally fell to Miss Winchelsea. + +Before they reached Rome this young man was tacitly of their party. They +did not know his name nor what he was, but it seemed he taught, and Miss +Winchelsea had a shrewd idea he was an extension lecturer. At any rate +he was something of that sort, something gentlemanly and refined without +being opulent and impossible. She tried once or twice to ascertain +whether he came from Oxford or Cambridge, but he missed her timid +importunities. She tried to get him to make remarks about those places +to see if he would say "come up" to them instead of "go down"--she knew +that was how you told a 'Varsity man. He used the word "'Varsity"--not +university--in quite the proper way. + +They saw as much of Mr. Ruskin's Florence as the brief time permitted; +he met them in the Pitti Gallery and went round with them, chatting +brightly, and evidently very grateful for their recognition. He knew a +great deal about art, and all four enjoyed the morning immensely. It was +fine to go round recognising old favourites and finding new beauties, +especially while so many people fumbled helplessly with Baedeker. Nor +was he a bit of a prig, Miss Winchelsea said, and indeed she detested +prigs. He had a distinct undertone of humour, and was funny, for +example, without being vulgar, at the expense of the quaint work of +Beato Angelico. He had a grave seriousness beneath it all, and was quick +to seize the moral lessons of the pictures. Fanny went softly among +these masterpieces; she admitted "she knew so little about them," and +she confessed that to her they were "all beautiful." Fanny's "beautiful" +inclined to be a little monotonous, Miss Winchelsea thought. She had +been quite glad when the last sunny Alp had vanished, because of the +staccato of Fanny's admiration. Helen said little, but Miss Winchelsea +had found her a little wanting on the aesthetic side in the old days and +was not surprised; sometimes she laughed at the young man's hesitating +delicate little jests and sometimes she didn't, and sometimes she seemed +quite lost to the art about them in the contemplation of the dresses of +the other visitors. + +At Rome the young man was with them intermittently. A rather "touristy" +friend of his took him away at times. He complained comically to Miss +Winchelsea. "I have only two short weeks in Rome," he said, "and my +friend Leonard wants to spend a whole day at Tivoli, looking at a +waterfall." + +"What is your friend Leonard?" asked Miss Winchelsea abruptly. + +"He's the most enthusiastic pedestrian I ever met," the young man +replied, amusingly, but a little unsatisfactorily, Miss Winchelsea +thought. They had some glorious times, and Fanny could not think what +they would have done without him. Miss Winchelsea's interest and +Fanny's enormous capacity for admiration were insatiable. They never +flagged--through pictures and sculpture galleries, immense crowded +churches, ruins and museums, Judas trees and prickly pears, wine carts +and palaces, they admired their way unflinchingly. They never saw a +stone pine or a eucalyptus but they named and admired it; they never +glimpsed Soracte but they exclaimed. Their common ways were made +wonderful by imaginative play. "Here Caesar may have walked," they would +say. "Raphael may have seen Soracte from this very point." They happened +on the tomb of Bibulus. "Old Bibulus," said the young man. "The oldest +monument of Republican Rome!" said Miss Winchelsea. + +"I'm dreadfully stupid," said Fanny, "but who WAS Bibulus?" + +There was a curious little pause. + +"Wasn't he the person who built the wall?" said Helen. + +The young man glanced quickly at her and laughed. "That was Balbus," he +said. Helen reddened, but neither he nor Miss Winchelsea threw any light +upon Fanny's ignorance about Bibulus. + +Helen was more taciturn than the other three, but then she was always +taciturn, and usually she took care of the tram tickets and things like +that, or kept her eye on them if the young man took them, and told him +where they were when he wanted them. Glorious times they had, these +young people, in that pale brown cleanly city of memories that was once +the world. Their only sorrow was the shortness of the time. They said +indeed that the electric trams and the '70 buildings, and that criminal +advertisement that glares upon the Forum, outraged their aesthetic +feelings unspeakably; but that was only part of the fun. And indeed Rome +is such a wonderful place that it made Miss Winchelsea forget some +of her most carefully prepared enthusiasms at times, and Helen, taken +unawares, would suddenly admit the beauty of unexpected things. Yet +Fanny and Helen would have liked a shop window or so in the English +quarter if Miss Winchelsea's uncompromising hostility to all other +English visitors had not rendered that district impossible. + +The intellectual and aesthetic fellowship of Miss Winchelsea and the +scholarly young man passed insensibly towards a deeper feeling. +The exuberant Fanny did her best to keep pace with their recondite +admiration by playing her "beautiful," with vigour, and saying "Oh! +LET'S go," with enormous appetite whenever a new place of interest was +mentioned. But Helen developed a certain want of sympathy towards the +end, that disappointed Miss Winchelsea a little. She refused to "see +anything" in the face of Beatrice Cenci--Shelley's Beatrice Cenci!--in +the Barberini gallery; and one day, when they were deploring the +electric trams, she said rather snappishly that "people must get about +somehow, and it's better than torturing horses up these horrid little +hills." She spoke of the Seven Hills of Rome as "horrid little hills!" + +And the day they went on the Palatine--though Miss Winchelsea did not +know of this--she remarked suddenly to Fanny, "Don't hurry like that, +my dear; THEY don't want us to overtake them. And we don't say the right +things for them when we DO get near." + +"I wasn't trying to overtake them," said Fanny, slackening her excessive +pace; "I wasn't indeed." And for a minute she was short of breath. + +But Miss Winchelsea had come upon happiness. It was only when she came +to look back across an intervening tragedy that she quite realised +how happy she had been, pacing among the cypress-shadowed ruins, and +exchanging the very highest class of information the human mind +can possess, the most refined impressions it is possible to convey. +Insensibly emotion crept into their intercourse, sunning itself +openly and pleasantly at last when Helen's modernity was not too near. +Insensibly their interest drifted from the wonderful associations about +them to their more intimate and personal feelings. In a tentative way +information was supplied; she spoke allusively of her school, of her +examination successes, of her gladness that the days of "Cram" were +over. He made it quite clear that he also was a teacher. They spoke of +the greatness of their calling, of the necessity of sympathy to face its +irksome details, of a certain loneliness they sometimes felt. + +That was in the Colosseum, and it was as far as they got that day, +because Helen returned with Fanny--she had taken her into the upper +galleries. Yet the private dreams of Miss Winchelsea, already vivid and +concrete enough, became now realistic in the highest degree. She figured +that pleasant young man, lecturing in the most edifying way to his +students, herself modestly prominent as his intellectual mate and +helper; she figured a refined little home, with two bureaus, with white +shelves of high-class books, and autotypes of the pictures of Rossetti +and Burne-Jones, with Morris's wall papers and flowers in pots of beaten +copper. Indeed she figured many things. On the Pincio the two had a few +precious moments together, while Helen marched Fanny off to see the muro +Torto, and he spoke at once plainly. He said he hoped their friendship +was only beginning, that he already found her company very precious to +him, that indeed it was more than that. + +He became nervous, thrusting at his glasses with trembling fingers as +though he fancied his emotions made them unstable. "I should of course," +he said, "tell you things about myself. I know it is rather unusual my +speaking to you like this. Only our meeting has been so accidental--or +providential--and I am snatching at things. I came to Rome expecting +a lonely tour... and I have been so very happy, so very happy. Quite +recently I found myself in a position--I have dared to think--. And--" + +He glanced over his shoulder and stopped. He said "Damn!" quite +distinctly--and she did not condemn him for that manly lapse into +profanity. She looked and saw his friend Leonard advancing. He drew +nearer; he raised his hat to Miss Winchelsea, and his smile was almost +a grin. "I've been looking for you everywhere, Snooks," he said. "You +promised to be on the Piazza steps half an hour ago." + +Snooks! The name struck Miss Winchelsea like a blow in the face. She +did not hear his reply. She thought afterwards that Leonard must have +considered her the vaguest-minded person. To this day she is not sure +whether she was introduced to Leonard or not, nor what she said to +him. A sort of mental paralysis was upon her. Of all offensive +surnames--Snooks! + +Helen and Fanny were returning, there were civilities, and the young +men were receding. By a great effort she controlled herself to face the +enquiring eyes of her friends. All that afternoon she lived the life +of a heroine under the indescribable outrage of that name, chatting, +observing, with "Snooks" gnawing at her heart. From the moment that it +first rang upon her ears, the dream of her happiness was prostrate in +the dust. All the refinement she had figured was ruined and defaced by +that cognomen's unavoidable vulgarity. + +What was that refined little home to her now, spite of autotypes, Morris +papers, and bureaus? Athwart it in letters of fire ran an incredible +inscription: "Mrs. Snooks." That may seem a little thing to the reader, +but consider the delicate refinement of Miss Winchelsea's mind. Be as +refined as you can and then think of writing yourself down:--"Snooks." +She conceived herself being addressed as Mrs. Snooks by all the people +she liked least, conceived the patronymic touched with a vague quality +of insult. She figured a card of grey and silver bearing "Winchelsea," +triumphantly effaced by an arrow, Cupid's arrow, in favour of "Snooks." +Degrading confession of feminine weakness! She imagined the terrible +rejoicings of certain girl friends, of certain grocer cousins from whom +her growing refinement had long since estranged her. How they would +make it sprawl across the envelope that would bring their sarcastic +congratulations. Would even his pleasant company compensate her for +that? "It is impossible," she muttered; "impossible! SNOOKS!" + +She was sorry for him, but not so sorry as she was for herself. For him +she had a touch of indignation. To be so nice, so refined, while all the +time he was "Snooks," to hide under a pretentious gentility of demeanour +the badge sinister of his surname seemed a sort of treachery. To put it +in the language of sentimental science she felt he had "led her on." + +There were of course moments of terrible vacillation, a period even when +something almost like passion bid her throw refinement to the winds. And +there was something in her, an unexpurgated vestige of vulgarity, that +made a strenuous attempt at proving that Snooks was not so very bad a +name after all. Any hovering hesitation flew before Fanny's manner, when +Fanny came with an air of catastrophe to tell that she also knew the +horror. Fanny's voice fell to a whisper when she said SNOOKS. Miss +Winchelsea would not give him any answer when at last, in the Borghese, +she could have a minute with him; but she promised him a note. + +She handed him that note in the little book of poetry he had lent her, +the little book that had first drawn them together. Her refusal was +ambiguous, allusive. She could no more tell him why she rejected +him than she could have told a cripple of his hump. He too must feel +something of the unspeakable quality of his name. Indeed he had avoided +a dozen chances of telling it, she now perceived. So she spoke of +"obstacles she could not reveal"--"reasons why the thing he spoke of was +impossible." She addressed the note with a shiver, "E. K. Snooks." + +Things were worse than she had dreaded; he asked her to explain. How +COULD she explain? Those last two days in Rome were dreadful. She was +haunted by his air of astonished perplexity. She knew she had given him +intimate hopes, she had not the courage to examine her mind thoroughly +for the extent of her encouragement. She knew he must think her the most +changeable of beings. Now that she was in full retreat, she would not +even perceive his hints of a possible correspondence. But in that matter +he did a thing that seemed to her at once delicate and romantic. He made +a go-between of Fanny. Fanny could not keep the secret, and came and +told her that night under a transparent pretext of needed advice. "Mr. +Snooks," said Fanny, "wants to write to me. Fancy! I had no idea. But +should I let him?" They talked it over long and earnestly, and Miss +Winchelsea was careful to keep the veil over her heart. She was +already repenting his disregarded hints. Why should she not hear of +him sometimes--painful though his name must be to her? Miss Winchelsea +decided it might be permitted, and Fanny kissed her good-night with +unusual emotion. After she had gone Miss Winchelsea sat for a long time +at the window of her little room. It was moonlight, and down the street +a man sang "Santa Lucia" with almost heart-dissolving tenderness.... She +sat very still. + +She breathed a word very softly to herself. The word was "SNOOKS." Then +she got up with a profound sigh, and went to bed. The next morning he +said to her meaningly, "I shall hear of you through your friend." + +Mr. Snooks saw them off from Rome with that pathetic interrogative +perplexity still on his face, and if it had not been for Helen he +would have retained Miss Winchelsea's hold-all in his hand as a sort of +encyclopaedic keepsake. On their way back to England Miss Winchelsea on +six separate occasions made Fanny promise to write to her the longest of +long letters. Fanny, it seemed, would be quite near Mr. Snooks. Her new +school--she was always going to new schools--would be only five miles +from Steely Bank, and it was in the Steely Bank Polytechnic, and one or +two first-class schools, that Mr. Snooks did his teaching. He might even +see her at times. They could not talk much of him--she and Fanny always +spoke of "him," never of Mr. Snooks,--because Helen was apt to say +unsympathetic things about him. Her nature had coarsened very much, +Miss Winchelsea perceived, since the old Training College days; she +had become hard and cynical. She thought he had a weak face, mistaking +refinement for weakness as people of her stamp are apt to do, and when +she heard his name was Snooks, she said she had expected something of +the sort. Miss Winchelsea was careful to spare her own feelings after +that, but Fanny was less circumspect. + +The girls parted in London, and Miss Winchelsea returned, with a new +interest in life, to the Girls' High School in which she had been +an increasingly valuable assistant for the last three years. Her new +interest in life was Fanny as a correspondent, and to give her a lead +she wrote her a lengthy descriptive letter within a fortnight of her +return. Fanny answered, very disappointingly. Fanny indeed had no +literary gift, but it was new to Miss Winchelsea to find herself +deploring the want of gifts in a friend. That letter was even criticised +aloud in the safe solitude of Miss Winchelsea's study, and her +criticism, spoken with great bitterness, was "Twaddle!" It was full of +just the things Miss Winchelsea's letter had been full of, particulars +of the school. And of Mr. Snooks, only this much: "I have had a +letter from Mr. Snooks, and he has been over to see me on two Saturday +afternoons running. He talked about Rome and you; we both talked about +you. Your ears must have burnt, my dear...." + +Miss Winchelsea repressed a desire to demand more explicit information, +and wrote the sweetest long letter again. "Tell me all about yourself, +dear. That journey has quite refreshed our ancient friendship, and I do +so want to keep in touch with you." About Mr. Snooks she simply wrote +on the fifth page that she was glad Fanny had seen him, and that if +he SHOULD ask after her, she was to be remembered to him VERY KINDLY +(underlined). And Fanny replied most obtusely in the key of that +"ancient friendship," reminding Miss Winchelsea of a dozen foolish +things of those old schoolgirl days at the training college, and saying +not a word about Mr. Snooks! + +For nearly a week Miss Winchelsea was so angry at the failure of Fanny +as a go-between that she could not write to her. And then she wrote less +effusively, and in her letter she asked point-blank, "Have you seen Mr. +Snooks?" Fanny's letter was unexpectedly satisfactory. "I HAVE seen Mr. +Snooks," she wrote, and having once named him she kept on about him; +it was all Snooks--Snooks this and Snooks that. He was to give a public +lecture, said Fanny, among other things. Yet Miss Winchelsea, after +the first glow of gratification, still found this letter a little +unsatisfactory. Fanny did not report Mr. Snooks as saying anything about +Miss Winchelsea, nor as looking a little white and worn, as he ought +to have been doing. And behold! before she had replied, came a second +letter from Fanny on the same theme, quite a gushing letter, and +covering six sheets with her loose feminine hand. + +And about this second letter was a rather odd little thing that Miss +Winchelsea only noticed as she re-read it the third time. Fanny's +natural femininity had prevailed even against the round and clear +traditions of the training college; she was one of those she-creatures +born to make all her m's and n's and u's and r's and e's alike, and to +leave her o's and a's open and her i's undotted. So that it was only +after an elaborate comparison of word with word that Miss Winchelsea +felt assured Mr. Snooks was not really "Mr. Snooks" at all! In Fanny's +first letter of gush he was Mr. "Snooks," in her second the spelling was +changed to Mr. "Senoks." Miss Winchelsea's hand positively trembled as +she turned the sheet over--it meant so much to her. For it had already +begun to seem to her that even the name of Mrs. Snooks might be avoided +at too great a price, and suddenly--this possibility! She turned over +the six sheets, all dappled with that critical name, and everywhere the +first letter had the form of an E! For a time she walked the room with a +hand pressed upon her heart. + +She spent a whole day pondering this change, weighing a letter of +inquiry that should be at once discreet and effectual, weighing too what +action she should take after the answer came. She was resolved that if +this altered spelling was anything more than a quaint fancy of Fanny's, +she would write forthwith to Mr. Snooks. She had now reached a stage +when the minor refinements of behaviour disappear. Her excuse remained +uninvented, but she had the subject of her letter clear in her mind, +even to the hint that "circumstances in my life have changed very +greatly since we talked together." But she never gave that hint. There +came a third letter from that fitful correspondent Fanny. The first line +proclaimed her "the happiest girl alive." + +Miss Winchelsea crushed the letter in her hand--the rest unread--and +sat with her face suddenly very still. She had received it just before +morning school, and had opened it when the junior mathematicians were +well under way. Presently she resumed reading with an appearance of +great calm. But after the first sheet she went on reading the third +without discovering the error:--"told him frankly I did not like +his name," the third sheet began. "He told me he did not like it +himself--you know that sort of sudden frank way he has"--Miss Winchelsea +did know. "So I said 'Couldn't you change it?' He didn't see it at +first. Well, you know, dear, he had told me what it really meant; it +means Sevenoaks, only it has got down to Snooks--both Snooks and Noaks, +dreadfully vulgar surnames though they be, are really worn forms of +Sevenoaks. So I said--even I have my bright ideas at times--'if it +got down from Sevenoaks to Snooks, why not get it back from Snooks +to Sevenoaks?' And the long and the short of it is, dear, he couldn't +refuse me, and he changed his spelling there and then to Senoks for the +bills of the new lecture. And afterwards, when we are married, we shall +put in the apostrophe and make it Se'noks. Wasn't it kind of him to mind +that fancy of mine, when many men would have taken offence? But it is +just like him all over; he is as kind as he is clever. Because he knew +as well as I did that I would have had him in spite of it, had he been +ten times Snooks. But he did it all the same." + +The class was startled by the sound of paper being viciously torn, and +looked up to see Miss Winchelsea white in the face, and with some very +small pieces of paper clenched in one hand. For a few seconds they +stared at her stare, and then her expression changed back to a more +familiar one. "Has any one finished number three?" she asked in an even +tone. She remained calm after that. But impositions ruled high that day. +And she spent two laborious evenings writing letters of various sorts +to Fanny, before she found a decent congratulatory vein. Her reason +struggled hopelessly against the persuasion that Fanny had behaved in an +exceedingly treacherous manner. + +One may be extremely refined and still capable of a very sore heart. +Certainly Miss Winchelsea's heart was very sore. She had moods of sexual +hostility, in which she generalised uncharitably about mankind. "He +forgot himself with me," she said. "But Fanny is pink and pretty and +soft and a fool--a very excellent match for a Man." And by way of a +wedding present she sent Fanny a gracefully bound volume of poetry by +George Meredith, and Fanny wrote back a grossly happy letter to say that +it was "ALL beautiful." Miss Winchelsea hoped that some day Mr. Senoks +might take up that slim book and think for a moment of the donor. Fanny +wrote several times before and about her marriage, pursuing that fond +legend of their "ancient friendship," and giving her happiness in the +fullest detail. And Miss Winchelsea wrote to Helen for the first +time after the Roman journey, saying nothing about the marriage, but +expressing very cordial feelings. + +They had been in Rome at Easter, and Fanny was married in the August +vacation. She wrote a garrulous letter to Miss Winchelsea, describing +her home-coming, and the astonishing arrangements of their "teeny weeny" +little house. Mr. Se'noks was now beginning to assume a refinement in +Miss Winchelsea's memory out of all proportion to the facts of the case, +and she tried in vain to imagine his cultured greatness in a "teeny +weeny" little house. "Am busy enamelling a cosey corner," said Fanny, +sprawling to the end of her third sheet, "so excuse more." Miss +Winchelsea answered in her best style, gently poking fun at Fanny's +arrangements and hoping intensely that Mr. Sen'oks might see the letter. +Only this hope enabled her to write at all, answering not only that +letter but one in November and one at Christmas. + +The two latter communications contained urgent invitations for her to +come to Steely Bank on a Visit during the Christmas holidays. She tried +to think that HE had told her to ask that, but it was too much like +Fanny's opulent good-nature. She could not but believe that he must be +sick of his blunder by this time; and she had more than a hope that he +would presently write her a letter beginning "Dear Friend." Something +subtly tragic in the separation was a great support to her, a sad +misunderstanding. To have been jilted would have been intolerable. But +he never wrote that letter beginning "Dear Friend." + +For two years Miss Winchelsea could not go to see her friends, in +spite of the reiterated invitations of Mrs. Sevenoaks--it became full +Sevenoaks in the second year. Then one day near the Easter rest she felt +lonely and without a soul to understand her in the world, and her mind +ran once more on what is called Platonic friendship. Fanny was clearly +happy and busy in her new sphere of domesticity, but no doubt HE had his +lonely hours. Did he ever think of those days in Rome--gone now beyond +recalling? No one had understood her as he had done; no one in all the +world. It would be a sort of melancholy pleasure to talk to him again, +and what harm could it do? Why should she deny herself? That night she +wrote a sonnet, all but the last two lines of the octave--which would +not come, and the next day she composed a graceful little note to tell +Fanny she was coming down. + +And so she saw him again. + +Even at the first encounter it was evident he had changed; he seemed +stouter and less nervous, and it speedily appeared that his conversation +had already lost much of its old delicacy. There even seemed a +justification for Helen's description of weakness in his face--in +certain lights it WAS weak. He seemed busy and preoccupied about his +affairs, and almost under the impression that Miss Winchelsea had +come for the sake of Fanny. He discussed his dinner with Fanny in an +intelligent way. They only had one good long talk together, and that +came to nothing. He did not refer to Rome, and spent some time abusing a +man who had stolen an idea he had had for a text-book. It did not seem a +very wonderful idea to Miss Winchelsea. She discovered he had forgotten +the names of more than half the painters whose work they had rejoiced +over in Florence. + +It was a sadly disappointing week, and Miss Winchelsea was glad when it +came to an end. Under various excuses she avoided visiting them again. +After a time the visitor's room was occupied by their two little boys, +and Fanny's invitations ceased. The intimacy of her letters had long +since faded away. + + + + +13. A DREAM OF ARMAGEDDON + +The man with the white face entered the carriage at Rugby. He moved +slowly in spite of the urgency of his porter, and even while he was +still on the platform I noted how ill he seemed. He dropped into the +corner over against me with a sigh, made an incomplete attempt to +arrange his travelling shawl, and became motionless, with his eyes +staring vacantly. Presently he was moved by a sense of my observation, +looked up at me, and put out a spiritless hand for his newspaper. Then +he glanced again in my direction. + +I feigned to read. I feared I had unwittingly embarrassed him, and in a +moment I was surprised to find him speaking. + +"I beg your pardon?" said I. + +"That book," he repeated, pointing a lean finger, "is about dreams." + +"Obviously," I answered, for it was Fortnum-Roscoe's Dream States, and +the title was on the cover. He hung silent for a space as if he sought +words. "Yes," he said at last, "but they tell you nothing." I did not +catch his meaning for a second. + +"They don't know," he added. + +I looked a little more attentively at his face. + +"There are dreams," he said, "and dreams." + +That sort of proposition I never dispute. + +"I suppose--" he hesitated. "Do you ever dream? I mean vividly." + +"I dream very little," I answered. "I doubt if I have three vivid dreams +in a year." + +"Ah!" he said, and seemed for a moment to collect his thoughts. + +"Your dreams don't mix with your memories?" he asked abruptly. "You +don't find yourself in doubt; did this happen or did it not?" + +"Hardly ever. Except just for a momentary hesitation now and then. I +suppose few people do." + +"Does HE say--" he indicated the book. + +"Says it happens at times and gives the usual explanation about +intensity of impression and the like to account for its not happening as +a rule. I suppose you know something of these theories--" + +"Very little--except that they are wrong." + +His emaciated hand played with the strap of the window for a time. I +prepared to resume reading, and that seemed to precipitate his next +remark. He leant forward almost as though he would touch me. + +"Isn't there something called consecutive dreaming--that goes on night +after night?" + +"I believe there is. There are cases given in most books on mental +trouble." + +"Mental trouble! Yes. I dare say there are. It's the right place for +them. But what I mean--" He looked at his bony knuckles. "Is that sort +of thing always dreaming? IS it dreaming? Or is it something else? +Mightn't it be something else?" + +I should have snubbed his persistent conversation but for the drawn +anxiety of his face. I remember now the look of his faded eyes and the +lids red-stained--perhaps you know that look. + +"I'm not just arguing about a matter of opinion," he said. "The thing's +killing me." + +"Dreams?" + +"If you call them dreams. Night after night. Vivid!--so vivid... this--" +(he indicated the landscape that went streaming by the window) "seems +unreal in comparison! I can scarcely remember who I am, what business I +am on...." + +He paused. "Even now--" + +"The dream is always the same--do you mean?" I asked. + +"It's over." + +"You mean?" + +"I died." + +"Died?" + +"Smashed and killed, and now, so much of me as that dream was, is +dead. Dead for ever. I dreamt I was another man, you know, living in a +different part of the world and in a different time. I dreamt that night +after night. Night after night I woke into that other life. Fresh scenes +and fresh happenings--until I came upon the last--" + +"When you died?" + +"When I died." + +"And since then--" + +"No," he said. "Thank God! That was the end of the dream...." + +It was clear I was in for this dream. And after all, I had an hour +before me, the light was fading fast, and Fortnum-Roscoe has a dreary +way with him. "Living in a different time," I said: "do you mean in some +different age?" + +"Yes." + +"Past?" + +"No, to come--to come." + +"The year three thousand, for example?" + +"I don't know what year it was. I did when I was asleep, when I was +dreaming, that is, but not now--not now that I am awake. There's a lot +of things I have forgotten since I woke out of these dreams, though I +knew them at the time when I was--I suppose it was dreaming. They called +the year differently from our way of calling the year.... What DID they +call it?" He put his hand to his forehead. "No," said he, "I forget." + +He sat smiling weakly. For a moment I feared he did not mean to tell +me his dream. As a rule I hate people who tell their dreams, but this +struck me differently. I proffered assistance even. "It began--" I +suggested. + +"It was vivid from the first. I seemed to wake up in it suddenly. And +it's curious that in these dreams I am speaking of I never remembered +this life I am living now. It seemed as if the dream life was enough +while it lasted. Perhaps--But I will tell you how I find myself when I +do my best to recall it all. I don't remember anything dearly until I +found myself sitting in a sort of loggia looking out over the sea. I +had been dozing, and suddenly I woke up--fresh and vivid--not a bit +dream-like--because the girl had stopped fanning me." + +"The girl?" + +"Yes, the girl. You must not interrupt or you will put me out." + +He stopped abruptly. "You won't think I'm mad?" he said. + +"No," I answered; "you've been dreaming. Tell me your dream." + +"I woke up, I say, because the girl had stopped fanning me. I was not +surprised to find myself there or anything of that sort, you understand. +I did not feel I had fallen into it suddenly. I simply took it up at +that point. Whatever memory I had of THIS life, this nineteenth-century +life, faded as I woke, vanished like a dream. I knew all about myself, +knew that my name was no longer Cooper but Hedon, and all about my +position in the world. I've forgotten a lot since I woke--there's a want +of connection--but it was all quite clear and matter of fact then." + +He hesitated again, gripping the window strap, putting his face forward +and looking up at me appealingly. + +"This seems bosh to you?" + +"No, no!" I cried. "Go on. Tell me what this loggia was like." + +"It was not really a loggia--I don't know what to call it. It faced +south. It was small. It was all in shadow except the semicircle above +the balcony that showed the sky and sea and the corner where the +girl stood. I was on a couch--it was a metal couch with light striped +cushions-and the girl was leaning over the balcony with her back to me. +The light of the sunrise fell on her ear and cheek. Her pretty white +neck and the little curls that nestled there, and her white shoulder +were in the sun, and all the grace of her body was in the cool blue +shadow. She was dressed--how can I describe it? It was easy and flowing. +And altogether there she stood, so that it came to me how beautiful and +desirable she was, as though I had never seen her before. And when at +last I sighed and raised myself upon my arm she turned her face to me--" + +He stopped. + +"I have lived three-and-fifty years in this world. I have had mother, +sisters, friends, wife, and daughters--all their faces, the play of +their faces, I know. But the face of this girl--it is much more real to +me. I can bring it back into memory so that I see it again--I could draw +it or paint it. And after all--" + +He stopped--but I said nothing. + +"The face of a dream--the face of a dream. She was beautiful. Not that +beauty which is terrible, cold, and worshipful, like the beauty of +a saint; nor that beauty that stirs fierce passions; but a sort of +radiation, sweet lips that softened into smiles, and grave grey eyes. +And she moved gracefully, she seemed to have part with all pleasant and +gracious things--" + +He stopped, and his face was downcast and hidden. Then he looked up +at me and went on, making no further attempt to disguise his absolute +belief in the reality of his story. + +"You see, I had thrown up my plans and ambitions, thrown up all I had +ever worked for or desired for her sake. I had been a master man away +there in the north, with influence and property and a great reputation, +but none of it had seemed worth having beside her. I had come to the +place, this city of sunny pleasures, with her, and left all those things +to wreck and ruin just to save a remnant at least of my life. While I +had been in love with her before I knew that she had any care for me, +before I had imagined that she would dare--that we should dare, all my +life had seemed vain and hollow, dust and ashes. It WAS dust and ashes. +Night after night and through the long days I had longed and desired--my +soul had beaten against the thing forbidden! + +"But it is impossible for one man to tell another just these things. +It's emotion, it's a tint, a light that comes and goes. Only while it's +there, everything changes, everything. The thing is I came away and left +them in their Crisis to do what they could." + +"Left whom?" I asked, puzzled. + +"The people up in the north there. You see--in this dream, anyhow--I +had been a big man, the sort of man men come to trust in, to group +themselves about. Millions of men who had never seen me were ready to +do things and risk things because of their confidence in me. I had +been playing that game for years, that big laborious game, that vague, +monstrous political game amidst intrigues and betrayals, speech and +agitation. It was a vast weltering world, and at last I had a sort of +leadership against the Gang--you know it was called the Gang--a sort of +compromise of scoundrelly projects and base ambitions and vast public +emotional stupidities and catchwords--the Gang that kept the world noisy +and blind year by year, and all the while that it was drifting, drifting +towards infinite disaster. But I can't expect you to understand the +shades and complications of the year--the year something or other ahead. +I had it all down to the smallest details--in my dream. I suppose I had +been dreaming of it before I awoke, and the fading outline of some queer +new development I had imagined still hung about me as I rubbed my eyes. +It was some grubby affair that made me thank God for the sunlight. I +sat up on the couch and remained looking at the woman and +rejoicing--rejoicing that I had come away out of all that tumult and +folly and violence before it was too late. After all, I thought, this is +life--love and beauty, desire and delight, are they not worth all those +dismal struggles for vague, gigantic ends? And I blamed myself for +having ever sought to be a leader when I might have given my days to +love. But then, thought I, if I had not spent my early days sternly and +austerely, I might have wasted myself upon vain and worthless women, and +at the thought all my being went out in love and tenderness to my dear +mistress, my dear lady, who had come at last and compelled me--compelled +me by her invincible charm for me--to lay that life aside. + +"'You are worth it,' I said, speaking without intending her to hear; +'you are worth it, my dearest one; worth pride and praise and all +things. Love! to have YOU is worth them all together.' And at the murmur +of my voice she turned about. + +"'Come and see,' she cried--I can hear her now--'come and see the +sunrise upon Monte Solaro.' + +"I remember how I sprang to my feet and joined her at the balcony. She +put a white hand upon my shoulder and pointed towards great masses of +limestone, flushing, as it were, into life. I looked. But first I noted +the sunlight on her face caressing the lines of her cheeks and neck. How +can I describe to you the scene we had before us? We were at Capri--" + +"I have been there," I said. "I have clambered up Monte Solaro and drunk +vero Capri--muddy stuff like cider--at the summit." + +"Ah!" said the man with the white face; "then perhaps you can tell +me--you will know if this was indeed Capri. For in this life I have +never been there. Let me describe it. We were in a little room, one of a +vast multitude of little rooms, very cool and sunny, hollowed out of the +limestone of a sort of cape, very high above the sea. The whole island, +you know, was one enormous hotel, complex beyond explaining, and on the +other side there were miles of floating hotels, and huge floating stages +to which the flying machines came. They called it a pleasure city. Of +course, there was none of that in your time rather, I should say, IS +none of that NOW. Of course. Now!--yes. + +"Well, this room of ours was at the extremity of the cape, so that one +could see east and west. Eastward was a great cliff--a thousand feet +high perhaps--coldly grey except for one bright edge of gold, and beyond +it the Isle of the Sirens, and a falling coast that faded and passed +into the hot sunrise. And when one turned to the west, distinct and near +was a little bay, a little beach still in shadow. And out of that shadow +rose Solaro straight and tall, flushed and golden crested, like a beauty +throned, and the white moon was floating behind her in the sky. And +before us from east to west stretched the many-tinted sea all dotted +with little sailing boats. + +"To the eastward, of course, these little boats were grey and very +minute and clear, but to the westward they were little boats of +gold--shining gold--almost like little flames. And just below us was a +rock with an arch worn through it. The blue sea-water broke to green and +foam all round the rock, and a galley came gliding out of the arch." + +"I know that rock," I said. "I was nearly drowned there. It is called +the Faraglioni." + +"I Faraglioni? Yes, she called it that," answered the man with the white +face. "There was some story--but that--" + +He put his hand to his forehead again. "No," he said, "I forget that +story." + +"Well, that is the first thing I remember, the first dream I had, that +little shaded room and the beautiful air and sky and that dear lady of +mine, with her shining arms and her graceful robe, and how we sat +and talked in half whispers to one another. We talked in whispers not +because there was any one to hear, but because there was still such a +freshness of mind between us that our thoughts were a little frightened, +I think, to find themselves at last in words. And so they went softly. + +"Presently we were hungry and we went from our apartment, going by +a strange passage with a moving floor, until we came to the great +breakfast room--there was a fountain and music. A pleasant and joyful +place it was, with its sunlight and splashing, and the murmur of plucked +strings. And we sat and ate and smiled at one another, and I would not +heed a man who was watching me from a table near by. + +"And afterwards we went on to the dancing-hall. But I cannot describe +that hall. The place was enormous--larger than any building you have +ever seen--and in one place there was the old gate of Capri, caught into +the wall of a gallery high overhead. Light girders, stems and threads +of gold, burst from the pillars like fountains, streamed like an Aurora +across the roof and interlaced, like--like conjuring tricks. All about +the great circle for the dancers there were beautiful figures, strange +dragons, and intricate and wonderful grotesques bearing lights. The +place was inundated with artificial light that shamed the newborn day. +And as we went through the throng the people turned about and looked at +us, for all through the world my name and face were known, and how I had +suddenly thrown up pride and struggle to come to this place. And they +looked also at the lady beside me, though half the story of how at last +she had come to me was unknown or mistold. And few of the men who were +there, I know, but judged me a happy man, in spite of all the shame and +dishonour that had come upon my name. + +"The air was full of music, full of harmonious scents, full of the +rhythm of beautiful motions. Thousands of beautiful people swarmed about +the hall, crowded the galleries, sat in a myriad recesses; they were +dressed in splendid colours and crowned with flowers; thousands danced +about the great circle beneath the white images of the ancient gods, and +glorious processions of youths and maidens came and went. We two danced, +not the dreary monotonies of your days--of this time, I mean--but +dances that were beautiful, intoxicating. And even now I can see my lady +dancing--dancing joyously. She danced, you know, with a serious face; +she danced with a serious dignity, and yet she was smiling at me and +caressing me--smiling and caressing with her eyes. + +"The music was different," he murmured. "It went--I cannot describe it; +but it was infinitely richer and more varied than any music that has +ever come to me awake. + +"And then--it was when we had done dancing--a man came to speak to +me. He was a lean, resolute man, very soberly clad for that place, and +already I had marked his face watching me in the breakfasting hall, and +afterwards as we went along the passage I had avoided his eye. But now, +as we sat in a little alcove, smiling at the pleasure of all the people +who went to and fro across the shining floor, he came and touched me, +and spoke to me so that I was forced to listen. And he asked that he +might speak to me for a little time apart. + +"'No,' I said. 'I have no secrets from this lady. What do you want to +tell me?' + +"He said it was a trivial matter, or at least a dry matter, for a lady +to hear. + +"'Perhaps for me to hear,' said I. + +"He glanced at her, as though almost he would appeal to her. Then he +asked me suddenly if I had heard of a great and avenging declaration +that Evesham had made. Now, Evesham had always before been the man next +to myself in the leadership of that great party in the north. He was a +forcible, hard and tactless man, and only I had been able to control and +soften him. It was on his account even more than my own, I think, that +the others had been so dismayed at my retreat. So this question about +what he had done reawakened my old interest in the life I had put aside +just for a moment. + +"'I have taken no heed of any news for many days,' I said. 'What has +Evesham been saying?' + +"And with that the man began, nothing loath, and I must confess even I +was struck by Evesham's reckless folly in the wild and threatening words +he had used. And this messenger they had sent to me not only told me of +Evesham's speech, but went on to ask counsel and to point out what +need they had of me. While he talked, my lady sat a little forward and +watched his face and mine. + +"My old habits of scheming and organising reasserted themselves. I could +even see myself suddenly returning to the north, and all the dramatic +effect of it. All that this man said witnessed to the disorder of the +party indeed, but not to its damage. I should go back stronger than I +had come. And then I thought of my lady. You see--how can I tell you? +There were certain peculiarities of our relationship--as things are I +need not tell you about that--which would render her presence with me +impossible. I should have had to leave her; indeed, I should have had to +renounce her clearly and openly, if I was to do all that I could do in +the north. And the man knew THAT, even as he talked to her and me, knew +it as well as she did, that my steps to duty were--first, separation, +then abandonment. At the touch of that thought my dream of a return +was shattered. I turned on the man suddenly, as he was imagining his +eloquence was gaining ground with me. + +"'What have I to do with these things now?' I said. 'I have done with +them. Do you think I am coquetting with your people in coming here?' + +"'No,' he said; 'but--' + +"'Why cannot you leave me alone? I have done with these things. I have +ceased to be anything but a private man.' + +"'Yes,' he answered. 'But have you thought?--this talk of war, these +reckless challenges, these wild aggressions--' + +"I stood up. + +"'No,' I cried. 'I won't hear you. I took count of all those things, I +weighed them--and I have come away.' + +"He seemed to consider the possibility of persistence. He looked from me +to where the lady sat regarding us. + +"'War,' he said, as if he were speaking to himself, and then turned +slowly from me and walked away. I stood, caught in the whirl of thoughts +his appeal had set going. + +"I heard my lady's voice. + +"'Dear,' she said; 'but if they have need of you--' + +"She did not finish her sentence, she let it rest there. I turned to her +sweet face, and the balance of my mood swayed and reeled. + +"'They want me only to do the thing they dare not do themselves,' I +said. 'If they distrust Evesham they must settle with him themselves.' + +"She looked at me doubtfully. + +"'But war--' she said. + +"I saw a doubt on her face that I had seen before, a doubt of herself +and me, the first shadow of the discovery that, seen strongly and +completely, must drive us apart for ever. + +"Now, I was an older mind than hers, and I could sway her to this belief +or that. + +"'My dear one,' I said, 'you must not trouble over these things. There +will be no war. Certainly there will be no war. The age of wars is past. +Trust me to know the justice of this case. They have no right upon me, +dearest, and no one has a right upon me. I have been free to choose my +life, and I have chosen this.' + +"'But WAR--' she said. + +"I sat down beside her. I put an arm behind her and took her hand in +mine. I set myself to drive that doubt away--I set myself to fill her +mind with pleasant things again. I lied to her, and in lying to her I +lied also to myself. And she was only too ready to believe me, only too +ready to forget. + +"Very soon the shadow had gone again, and we were hastening to our +bathing-place in the Grotta del Bovo Marino, where it was our custom to +bathe every day. We swam and splashed one another, and in that buoyant +water I seemed to become something lighter and stronger than a man. And +at last we came out dripping and rejoicing and raced among the rocks. +And then I put on a dry bathing-dress, and we sat to bask in the sun, +and presently I nodded, resting my head against her knee, and she put +her hand upon my hair and stroked it softly and I dozed. And behold! as +it were with the snapping of the string of a violin, I was awakening, +and I was in my own bed in Liverpool, in the life of to-day. + +"Only for a time I could not believe that all these vivid moments had +been no more than the substance of a dream. + +"In truth, I could not believe it a dream for all the sobering reality +of things about me. I bathed and dressed as it were by habit, and as I +shaved I argued why I of all men should leave the woman I loved to go +back to fantastic politics in the hard and strenuous north. Even if +Evesham did force the world back to war, what was that to me? I was a +man, with the heart of a man, and why should I feel the responsibility +of a deity for the way the world might go? + +"You know that is not quite the way I think about affairs, about my real +affairs. I am a solicitor, you know, with a point of view. + +"The vision was so real, you must understand, so utterly unlike a dream +that I kept perpetually recalling little irrelevant details; even the +ornament of a book-cover that lay on my wife's sewing-machine in the +breakfast-room recalled with the utmost vividness the gilt line that ran +about the seat in the alcove where I had talked with the messenger from +my deserted party. Have you ever heard of a dream that had a quality +like that?" + +"Like--?" + +"So that afterwards you remembered little details you had forgotten." + +I thought. I had never noticed the point before, but he was right. + +"Never," I said. "That is what you never seem to do with dreams." + +"No," he answered. "But that is just what I did. I am a solicitor, you +must understand, in Liverpool, and I could not help wondering what the +clients and business people I found myself talking to in my office would +think if I told them suddenly I was in love with a girl who would +be born a couple of hundred years or so hence, and worried about the +politics of my great-great-great-grandchildren. I was chiefly busy that +day negotiating a ninety-nine-year building lease. It was a private +builder in a hurry, and we wanted to tie him in every possible way. I +had an interview with him, and he showed a certain want of temper that +sent me to bed still irritated. That night I had no dream. Nor did I +dream the next night, at least, to remember. + +"Something of that intense reality of conviction vanished. I began to +feel sure it WAS a dream. And then it came again. + +"When the dream came again, nearly four days later, it was very +different. I think it certain that four days had also elapsed in the +dream. Many things had happened in the north, and the shadow of them was +back again between us, and this time it was not so easily dispelled. +I began, I know, with moody musings. Why, in spite of all, should I go +back, go back for all the rest of my days to toil and stress, insults +and perpetual dissatisfaction, simply to save hundreds of millions of +common people, whom I did not love, whom too often I could do no other +than despise, from the stress and anguish of war and infinite misrule? +And after all I might fail. THEY all sought their own narrow ends, and +why should not I--why should not I also live as a man? And out of such +thoughts her voice summoned me, and I lifted my eyes. + +"I found myself awake and walking. We had come out above the Pleasure +City, we were near the summit of Monte Solaro and looking towards the +bay. It was the late afternoon and very clear. Far away to the left +Ischia hung in a golden haze between sea and sky, and Naples was coldly +white against the hills, and before us was Vesuvius with a tall and +slender streamer feathering at last towards the south, and the ruins of +Torre dell' Annunziata and Castellamare glittering and near." + +I interrupted suddenly: "You have been to Capri, of course?" + +"Only in this dream," he said, "only in this dream. All across the bay +beyond Sorrento were the floating palaces of the Pleasure City moored +and chained. And northward were the broad floating stages that received +the aeroplanes. Aeroplanes fell out of the sky every afternoon, each +bringing its thousands of pleasure-seekers from the uttermost parts of +the earth to Capri and its delights. All these things, I say, stretched +below. + +"But we noticed them only incidentally because of an unusual sight that +evening had to show. Five war aeroplanes that had long slumbered useless +in the distant arsenals of the Rhinemouth were manoeuvring now in the +eastward sky. Evesham had astonished the world by producing them and +others, and sending them to circle here and there. It was the threat +material in the great game of bluff he was playing, and it had taken +even me by surprise. He was one of those incredibly stupid energetic +people who seem sent by Heaven to create disasters. His energy to +the first glance seemed so wonderfully like capacity! But he had no +imagination, no invention, only a stupid, vast, driving force of will, +and a mad faith in his stupid idiot 'luck' to pull him through. I +remember how we stood out upon the headland watching the squadron +circling far away, and how I weighed the full meaning of the sight, +seeing clearly the way things must go. And then even it was not too +late. I might have gone back, I think, and saved the world. The people +of the north would follow me, I knew, granted only that in one thing I +respected their moral standards. The east and south would trust me as +they would trust no other northern man. And I knew I had only to put it +to her and she would have let me go.... Not because she did not love me! + +"Only I did not want to go; my will was all the other way about. I had +so newly thrown off the incubus of responsibility: I was still so fresh +a renegade from duty that the daylight clearness of what I OUGHT to do +had no power at all to touch my will. My will was to live, to gather +pleasures and make my dear lady happy. But though this sense of vast +neglected duties had no power to draw me, it could make me silent and +preoccupied, it robbed the days I had spent of half their brightness and +roused me into dark meditations in the silence of the night. And as I +stood and watched Evesham's aeroplanes sweep to and fro--those birds +of infinite ill omen--she stood beside me watching me, perceiving the +trouble indeed, but not perceiving it clearly her eyes questioning my +face, her expression shaded with perplexity. Her face was grey because +the sunset was fading out of the sky. It was no fault of hers that she +held me. She had asked me to go from her, and again in the night time +and with tears she had asked me to go. + +"At last it was the sense of her that roused me from my mood. I turned +upon her suddenly and challenged her to race down the mountain slopes. +'No,' she said, as if I jarred with her gravity, but I was resolved to +end that gravity, and made her run--no one can be very grey and sad who +is out of breath--and when she stumbled I ran with my hand beneath +her arm. We ran down past a couple of men, who turned back staring in +astonishment at my behaviour--they must have recognised my face. +And halfway down the slope came a tumult in the air, clang-clank, +clang-clank, and we stopped, and presently over the hill-crest those war +things came flying one behind the other." + +The man seemed hesitating on the verge of a description. + +"What were they like?" I asked. + +"They had never fought," he said. "They were just like our ironclads are +nowadays; they had never fought. No one knew what they might do, with +excited men inside them; few even cared to speculate. They were great +driving things shaped like spearheads without a shaft, with a propeller +in the place of the shaft." + +"Steel?" + +"Not steel." + +"Aluminium?" + +"No, no, nothing of that sort. An alloy that was very common--as common +as brass, for example. It was called--let me see--." He squeezed his +forehead with the fingers of one hand. "I am forgetting everything," he +said. + +"And they carried guns?" + +"Little guns, firing high explosive shells. They fired the guns +backwards, out of the base of the leaf, so to speak, and rammed with the +beak. That was the theory, you know, but they had never been fought. No +one could tell exactly what was going to happen. And meanwhile I suppose +it was very fine to go whirling through the air like a flight of young +swallows, swift and easy. I guess the captains tried not to think +too clearly what the real thing would be like. And these flying war +machines, you know, were only one sort of the endless war contrivances +that had been invented and had fallen into abeyance during the long +peace. There were all sorts of these things that people were routing out +and furbishing up; infernal things, silly things; things that had never +been tried; big engines, terrible explosives, great guns. You know the +silly way of these ingenious sort of men who make these things; they +turn 'em out as beavers build dams, and with no more sense of the rivers +they're going to divert and the lands they're going to flood! + +"As we went down the winding stepway to our hotel again, in the +twilight, I foresaw it all: I saw how clearly and inevitably things +were driving for war in Evesham's silly, violent hands, and I had some +inkling of what war was bound to be under these new conditions. And even +then, though I knew it was drawing near the limit of my opportunity, I +could find no will to go back." + +He sighed. + +"That was my last chance. + +"We didn't go into the city until the sky was full of stars, so we +walked out upon the high terrace, to and fro, and--she counselled me to +go back. + +"'My dearest,' she said, and her sweet face looked up to me, 'this is +Death. This life you lead is Death. Go back to them, go back to your +duty--.' + +"She began to weep, saying, between her sobs, and clinging to my arm as +she said it, 'Go back--Go back.' + +"Then suddenly she fell mute, and, glancing down at her face, I read in +an instant the thing she had thought to do. It was one of those moments +when one SEES. + +"'No!' I said. + +"'No?' she asked, in surprise, and I think a little fearful at the +answer to her thought. + +"'Nothing,' I said, 'shall send me back. Nothing! I have chosen. Love, +I have chosen, and the world must go. Whatever happens I will live this +life--I will live for YOU! It--nothing shall turn me aside; nothing, my +dear one. Even if you died--even if you died--' + +"'Yes,' she murmured, softly. + +"'Then--I also would die.' + +"And before she could speak again I began to talk, talking +eloquently--as I COULD do in that life--talking to exalt love, to make +the life we were living seem heroic and glorious; and the thing I was +deserting something hard and enormously ignoble that it was a fine thing +to set aside. I bent all my mind to throw that glamour upon it, seeking +not only to convert her but myself to that. We talked, and she clung to +me, torn too between all that she deemed noble and all that she knew +was sweet. And at last I did make it heroic, made all the thickening +disaster of the world only a sort of glorious setting to our +unparalleled love, and we two poor foolish souls strutted there at +last, clad in that splendid delusion, drunken rather with that glorious +delusion, under the still stars. + +"And so my moment passed. + +"It was my last chance. Even as we went to and fro there, the leaders of +the south and east were gathering their resolve, and the hot answer that +shattered Evesham's bluffing for ever, took shape and waited. And all +over Asia, and the ocean, and the south, the air and the wires were +throbbing with their warnings to prepare--prepare. + +"No one living, you know, knew what war was; no one could imagine, with +all these new inventions, what horror war might bring. I believe most +people still believed it would be a matter of bright uniforms and +shouting charges and triumphs and flags and bands--in a time when half +the world drew its food supply from regions ten thousand miles away--." + +The man with the white face paused. I glanced at him, and his face was +intent on the floor of the carriage. A little railway station, a string +of loaded trucks, a signal-box, and the back of a cottage, shot by the +carriage window, and a bridge passed with a clap of noise, echoing the +tumult of the train. + +"After that," he said, "I dreamt often. For three weeks of nights that +dream was my life. And the worst of it was there were nights when I +could not dream, when I lay tossing on a bed in THIS accursed life; and +THERE--somewhere lost to me--things were happening--momentous, terrible +things.... I lived at nights--my days, my waking days, this life I am +living now, became a faded, far-away dream, a drab setting, the cover of +the book." + +He thought. + +"I could tell you all, tell you every little thing in the dream, but as +to what I did in the daytime--no. I could not tell--I do not remember. +My memory--my memory has gone. The business of life slips from me--" + +He leant forward, and pressed his hands upon his eyes. For a long time +he said nothing. + +"And then?" said I. + +"The war burst like a hurricane." + +He stared before him at unspeakable things. + +"And then?" I urged again. + +"One touch of unreality," he said, in the low tone of a man who speaks +to himself, "and they would have been nightmares. But they were not +nightmares--they were not nightmares. NO!" + +He was silent for so long that it dawned upon me that there was a danger +of losing the rest of the story. But he went on talking again in the +same tone of questioning self-communion. + +"What was there to do but flight? I had not thought the war would touch +Capri--I had seemed to see Capri as being out of it all, as the contrast +to it all; but two nights after the whole place was shouting and +bawling, every woman almost and every other man wore a badge--Evesham's +badge--and there was no music but a jangling war-song over and over +again, and everywhere men enlisting, and in the dancing halls they were +drilling. The whole island was awhirl with rumours; it was said, again +and again, that fighting had begun. I had not expected this. I had seen +so little of the life of pleasure that I had failed to reckon with this +violence of the amateurs. And as for me, I was out of it. I was like +a man who might have prevented the firing of a magazine. The time had +gone. I was no one; the vainest stripling with a badge counted for more +than I. The crowd jostled us and bawled in our ears; that accursed song +deafened us; a woman shrieked at my lady because no badge was on her, +and we two went back to our own place again, ruffled and insulted--my +lady white and silent, and I aquiver with rage. So furious was I, +I could have quarrelled with her if I could have found one shade of +accusation in her eyes. + +"All my magnificence had gone from me. I walked up and down our rock +cell, and outside was the darkling sea and a light to the southward that +flared and passed and came again. + +"'We must get out of this place,' I said over and over. 'I have made my +choice, and I will have no hand in these troubles. I will have nothing +of this war. We have taken our lives out of all these things. This is no +refuge for us. Let us go.' + +"And the next day we were already in flight from the war that covered +the world. + +"And all the rest was Flight--all the rest was Flight." + +He mused darkly. + +"How much was there of it?" + +He made no answer. + +"How many days?" + +His face was white and drawn and his hands were clenched. He took no +heed of my curiosity. + +I tried to draw him back to his story with questions. + +"Where did you go?" I said. + +"When?" + +"When you left Capri." + +"Southwest," he said, and glanced at me for a second. "We went in a +boat." + +"But I should have thought an aeroplane?" + +"They had been seized." + +I questioned him no more. Presently I thought he was beginning again. He +broke out in an argumentative monotone: + +"But why should it be? If, indeed, this battle, this slaughter and +stress IS life, why have we this craving for pleasure and beauty? If +there IS no refuge, if there is no place of peace, and if all our dreams +of quiet places are a folly and a snare, why have we such dreams? Surely +it was no ignoble cravings, no base intentions, had brought us to this; +it was Love had isolated us. Love had come to me with her eyes and robed +in her beauty, more glorious than all else in life, in the very shape +and colour of life, and summoned me away. I had silenced all the voices, +I had answered all the questions--I had come to her. And suddenly there +was nothing but War and Death!" + +I had an inspiration. "After all," I said, "it could have been only a +dream." + +"A dream!" he cried, flaming upon me, "a dream--when even now--" + +For the first time he became animated. A faint flush crept into his +cheek. He raised his open hand and clenched it, and dropped it to his +knee. He spoke, looking away from me, and for all the rest of the time +he looked away. "We are but phantoms," he said, "and the phantoms of +phantoms, desires like cloud shadows and wills of straw that eddy in the +wind; the days pass, use and wont carry us through as a train carries +the shadow of its lights, so be it! But one thing is real and certain, +one thing is no dreamstuff, but eternal and enduring. It is the centre +of my life, and all other things about it are subordinate or altogether +vain. I loved her, that woman of a dream. And she and I are dead +together! + +"A dream! How can it be a dream, when it drenched a living life with +unappeasable sorrow, when it makes all that I have lived for and cared +for, worthless and unmeaning? + +"Until that very moment when she was killed I believed we had still a +chance of getting away," he said. "All through the night and morning +that we sailed across the sea from Capri to Salerno, we talked of +escape. We were full of hope, and it clung about us to the end, hope for +the life together we should lead, out of it all, out of the battle and +struggle, the wild and empty passions, the empty arbitrary 'thou shalt' +and 'thou shalt not' of the world. We were uplifted, as though our quest +was a holy thing, as though love for one another was a mission.... + +"Even when from our boat we saw the fair face of that great rock +Capri--already scarred and gashed by the gun emplacements and +hiding-places that were to make it a fastness--we reckoned nothing of +the imminent slaughter, though the fury of preparation hung about in +puffs and clouds of dust at a hundred points amidst the grey; but, +indeed, I made a text of that and talked. There, you know, was the +rock, still beautiful, for all its scars, with its countless windows and +arches and ways, tier upon tier, for a thousand feet, a vast carving +of grey, broken by vine-clad terraces, and lemon and orange groves, and +masses of agave and prickly pear, and puffs of almond blossom. And out +under the archway that is built over the Piccola Marina other boats were +coming; and as we came round the cape and within sight of the mainland, +another little string of boats came into view, driving before the wind +towards the southwest. In a little while a multitude had come out, the +remoter just little specks of ultramarine in the shadow of the eastward +cliff. + +"'It is love and reason,' I said, 'fleeing from all this madness, of +war.' + +"And though we presently saw a squadron of aeroplanes flying across the +southern sky we did not heed it. There it was--a line of little dots in +the sky--and then more, dotting the southeastern horizon, and then still +more, until all that quarter of the sky was stippled with blue specks. +Now they were all thin little strokes of blue, and now one and now +a multitude would heel and catch the sun and become short flashes of +light. They came rising and falling and growing larger, like some huge +flight of gulls or rooks, or such-like birds moving with a marvellous +uniformity, and ever as they drew nearer they spread over a greater +width of sky. The southward wing flung itself in an arrow-headed cloud +athwart the sun. And then suddenly they swept round to the eastward and +streamed eastward, growing smaller and smaller and clearer and clearer +again until they vanished from the sky. And after that we noted to the +northward and very high Evesham's fighting machines hanging high over +Naples like an evening swarm of gnats. + +"It seemed to have no more to do with us than a flight of birds. + +"Even the mutter of guns far away in the southeast seemed to us to +signify nothing.... + +"Each day, each dream after that, we were still exalted, still seeking +that refuge where we might live and love. Fatigue had come upon us, +pain and many distresses. For though we were dusty and stained by our +toilsome tramping, and half starved and with the horror of the dead +men we had seen and the flight of the peasants--for very soon a gust of +fighting swept up the peninsula--with these things haunting our minds it +still resulted only in a deepening resolution to escape. O, but she was +brave and patient! She who had never faced hardship and exposure had +courage for herself--and me. We went to and fro seeking an outlet, over +a country all commandeered and ransacked by the gathering hosts of war. +Always we went on foot. At first there were other fugitives, but we did +not mingle with them. Some escaped northward, some were caught in +the torrent of peasantry that swept along the main roads; many gave +themselves into the hands of the soldiery and were sent northward. Many +of the men were impressed. But we kept away from these things; we had +brought no money to bribe a passage north, and I feared for my lady at +the hands of these conscript crowds. We had landed at Salerno, and +we had been turned back from Cava, and we had tried to cross towards +Taranto by a pass over Mount Alburno, but we had been driven back for +want of food, and so we had come down among the marshes by Paestum, +where those great temples stand alone. I had some vague idea that by +Paestum it might be possible to find a boat or something, and take once +more to sea. And there it was the battle overtook us. + +"A sort of soul-blindness had me. Plainly I could see that we were being +hemmed in; that the great net of that giant Warfare had us in its toils. +Many times we had seen the levies that had come down from the north +going to and fro, and had come upon them in the distance amidst the +mountains making ways for the ammunition and preparing the mounting of +the guns. Once we fancied they had fired at us, taking us for spies--at +any rate a shot had gone shuddering over us. Several times we had hidden +in woods from hovering aeroplanes. + +"But all these things do not matter now, these nights of flight and +pain.... We were in an open place near those great temples at Paestum, +at last, on a blank stony place dotted with spiky bushes, empty and +desolate and so flat that a grove of eucalyptus far away showed to the +feet of its stems. How I can see it! My lady was sitting down under +a bush, resting a little, for she was very weak and weary, and I was +standing up watching to see if I could tell the distance of the firing +that came and went. They were still, you know, fighting far from each +other, with those terrible new weapons that had never before been used: +guns that would carry beyond sight, and aeroplanes that would do--What +THEY would do no man could foretell. + +"I knew that we were between the two armies, and that they drew +together. I knew we were in danger, and that we could not stop there and +rest! + +"Though all these things were in my mind, they were in the background. +They seemed to be affairs beyond our concern. Chiefly, I was thinking of +my lady. An aching distress filled me. For the first time she had owned +herself beaten and had fallen a-weeping. Behind me I could hear her +sobbing, but I would not turn round to her because I knew she had need +of weeping, and had held herself so far and so long for me. It was well, +I thought, that she would weep and rest and then we would toil on again, +for I had no inkling of the thing that hung so near. Even now I can see +her as she sat there, her lovely hair upon her shoulder, can mark again +the deepening hollow of her cheek. + +"'If we had parted,' she said, 'if I had let you go.' + +"'No,' said I. 'Even now, I do not repent. I will not repent; I made my +choice, and I will hold on to the end." + +"And then-- + +"Overhead in the sky something flashed and burst, and all about us I +heard the bullets making a noise like a handful of peas suddenly thrown. +They chipped the stones about us, and whirled fragments from the bricks +and passed...." + +He put his hand to his mouth, and then moistened his lips. + +"At the flash I had turned about.... + +"You know--she stood up-- + +"She stood up; you know, and moved a step towards me-- + +"As though she wanted to reach me-- + +"And she had been shot through the heart." + +He stopped and stared at me. I felt all that foolish incapacity an +Englishman feels on such occasions. I met his eyes for a moment, and +then stared out of the window. For a long space we kept silence. When at +last I looked at him he was sitting back in his corner, his arms folded, +and his teeth gnawing at his knuckles. + +He bit his nail suddenly, and stared at it. + +"I carried her," he said, "towards the temples, in my arms--as though it +mattered. I don't know why. They seemed a sort of sanctuary, you know, +they had lasted so long, I suppose. + +"She must have died almost instantly. Only--I talked to her--all the +way." + +Silence again. + +"I have seen those temples," I said abruptly, and indeed he had brought +those still, sunlit arcades of worn sandstone very vividly before me. + +"It was the brown one, the big brown one. I sat down on a fallen pillar +and held her in my arms.... Silent after the first babble was over. And +after a little while the lizards came out and ran about again, as though +nothing unusual was going on, as though nothing had changed.... It was +tremendously still there, the sun high, and the shadows still; even the +shadows of the weeds upon the entablature were still--in spite of the +thudding and banging that went all about the sky. + +"I seem to remember that the aeroplanes came up out of the south, and +that the battle went away to the west. One aeroplane was struck, and +overset and fell. I remember that--though it didn't interest me in +the least. It didn't seem to signify. It was like a wounded gull, you +know--flapping for a time in the water. I could see it down the aisle of +the temple--a black thing in the bright blue water. + +"Three or four times shells burst about the beach, and then that ceased. +Each time that happened all the lizards scuttled in and hid for a space. +That was all the mischief done, except that once a stray bullet gashed +the stone hard by--made just a fresh bright surface. + +"As the shadows grew longer, the stillness seemed greater. + +"The curious thing," he remarked, with the manner of a man who makes a +trivial conversation, "is that I didn't THINK--I didn't think at all. +I sat with her in my arms amidst the stones--in a sort of +lethargy--stagnant. + +"And I don't remember waking up. I don't remember dressing that day. I +know I found myself in my office, with my letters all slit open in front +of me, and how I was struck by the absurdity of being there, seeing that +in reality I was sitting, stunned, in that Paestum temple with a dead +woman in my arms. I read my letters like a machine. I have forgotten +what they were about." + +He stopped, and there was a long silence. + +Suddenly I perceived that we were running down the incline from Chalk +Farm to Euston. I started at this passing of time. I turned on him with +a brutal question, with the tone of Now or never. + +"And did you dream again?" + +"Yes." + +He seemed to force himself to finish. His voice was very low. + +"Once more, and as it were only for a few instants. I seemed to have +suddenly awakened out of a great apathy, to have risen into a sitting +position, and the body lay there on the stones beside me. A gaunt body. +Not her, you know. So soon--it was not her.... + +"I may have heard voices. I do not know. Only I knew clearly that men +were coming into the solitude and that that was a last outrage. + +"I stood up and walked through the temple, and then there came into +sight--first one man with a yellow face, dressed in a uniform of dirty +white, trimmed with blue, and then several, climbing to the crest of +the old wall of the vanished city, and crouching there. They were little +bright figures in the sunlight, and there they hung, weapon in hand, +peering cautiously before them. + +"And further away I saw others and then more at another point in the +wall. It was a long lax line of men in open order. + +"Presently the man I had first seen stood up and shouted a command, and +his men came tumbling down the wall and into the high weeds towards the +temple. He scrambled down with them and led them. He came facing towards +me, and when he saw me he stopped. + +"At first I had watched these men with a mere curiosity, but when I +had seen they meant to come to the temple I was moved to forbid them. I +shouted to the officer. + +"'You must not come here,' I cried, '_I_ am here. I am here with my +dead.' + +"He stared, and then shouted a question back to me in some unknown +tongue. + +"I repeated what I had said. + +"He shouted again, and I folded my arms and stood still. Presently he +spoke to his men and came forward. He carried a drawn sword. + +"I signed to him to keep away, but he continued to advance. I told him +again very patiently and clearly: 'You must not come here. These are old +temples and I am here with my dead.' + +"Presently he was so close I could see his face clearly. It was a narrow +face, with dull grey eyes, and a black moustache. He had a scar on +his upper lip, and he was dirty and unshaven. He kept shouting +unintelligible things, questions perhaps, at me. + +"I know now that he was afraid of me, but at the time that did not +occur to me. As I tried to explain to him he interrupted me in imperious +tones, bidding me, I suppose, stand aside. + +"He made to go past me, And I caught hold of him. + +"I saw his face change at my grip. + +"'You fool,' I cried. 'Don't you know? She is dead!' + +"He started back. He looked at me with cruel eyes. I saw a sort of +exultant resolve leap into them--delight. Then, suddenly, with a scowl, +he swept his sword back--SO--and thrust." + +He stopped abruptly. I became aware of a change in the rhythm of the +train. The brakes lifted their voices and the carriage jarred and +jerked. This present world insisted upon itself, became clamorous. I saw +through the steamy window huge electric lights glaring down from tall +masts upon a fog, saw rows of stationary empty carriages passing by, and +then a signal-box, hoisting its constellation of green and red into the +murky London twilight marched after them. I looked again at his drawn +features. + +"He ran me through the heart. It was with a sort of astonishment--no +fear, no pain--but just amazement, that I felt it pierce me, felt the +sword drive home into my body. It didn't hurt, you know. It didn't hurt +at all." + +The yellow platform lights came into the field of view, passing first +rapidly, then slowly, and at last stopping with a jerk. Dim shapes of +men passed to and fro without. + +"Euston!" cried a voice. + +"Do you mean--?" + +"There was no pain, no sting or smart. Amazement and then darkness +sweeping over everything. The hot, brutal face before me, the face +of the man who had killed me, seemed to recede. It swept out of +existence--" + +"Euston!" clamoured the voices outside; "Euston!" + +The carriage door opened, admitting a flood of sound, and a porter stood +regarding us. The sounds of doors slamming, and the hoof-clatter of +cab-horses, and behind these things the featureless remote roar of the +London cobble-stones, came to my ears. A truckload of lighted lamps +blazed along the platform. + +"A darkness, a flood of darkness that opened and spread and blotted out +all things." + +"Any luggage, sir?" said the porter. + +"And that was the end?" I asked. + +He seemed to hesitate. Then, almost inaudibly, he answered, "No." + +"You mean?" + +"I couldn't get to her. She was there on the other side of the +Temple--And then--" + +"Yes," I insisted. "Yes?" + +"Nightmares," he cried; "nightmares indeed! My God! Great birds that +fought and tore." + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Twelve Stories and a Dream, by H. G. 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