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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Actions and Reactions, by Rudyard Kipling
+
+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: Actions and Reactions
+
+Author: Rudyard Kipling
+
+Posting Date: March 11, 2009 [EBook #2381]
+Release Date: November, 2000
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ACTIONS AND REACTIONS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by P. Stratton. The Google Print Project is
+gratefully acknowledged for the illustrations added to the
+html file.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ACTIONS AND REACTIONS
+
+By Rudyard Kipling
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+      An Habitation Enforced
+        The Recall
+
+      Garm--a Hostage
+        The Power of the Dog
+
+      The Mother Hive
+        The Bees and the Flies
+
+      With the Night Mail
+        The Four Angels
+
+      A Deal in Cotton
+        The New Knighthood
+
+      The Puzzler
+        The Puzzler Little Foxes
+        Gallio's Song
+
+      The House Surgeon
+        The Rabbi's Song
+
+
+
+
+ACTIONS AND REACTIONS
+
+
+
+
+AN HABITATION ENFORCED
+
+         My friend, if cause doth wrest thee,
+         Ere folly hath much oppressed thee,
+         Far from acquaintance kest thee
+         Where country may digest thee...
+         Thank God that so hath blessed thee,
+         And sit down, Robin, and rest thee.
+         --THOMAS TUSSER.
+
+It came without warning, at the very hour his hand was outstretched to
+crumple the Holz and Gunsberg Combine. The New York doctors called it
+overwork, and he lay in a darkened room, one ankle crossed above
+the other, tongue pressed into palate, wondering whether the next
+brain-surge of prickly fires would drive his soul from all anchorages.
+At last they gave judgment. With care he might in two years return to
+the arena, but for the present he must go across the water and do no
+work whatever. He accepted the terms. It was capitulation; but the
+Combine that had shivered beneath his knife gave him all the honours
+of war: Gunsberg himself, full of condolences, came to the steamer and
+filled the Chapins' suite of cabins with overwhelming flower-works.
+
+"Smilax," said George Chapin when he saw them. "Fitz is right. I'm dead;
+only I don't see why he left out the 'In Memoriam' on the ribbons!"
+
+"Nonsense!" his wife answered, and poured him his tincture. "You'll be
+back before you can think."
+
+He looked at himself in the mirror, surprised that his face had not been
+branded by the hells of the past three months. The noise of the decks
+worried him, and he lay down, his tongue only a little pressed against
+his palate.
+
+An hour later he said: "Sophie, I feel sorry about taking you away from
+everything like this. I--I suppose we're the two loneliest people on
+God's earth to-night."
+
+Said Sophie his wife, and kissed him: "Isn't it something to you that
+we're going together?"
+
+They drifted about Europe for months--sometimes alone, sometimes with
+chance met gipsies of their own land. From the North Cape to the Blue
+Grotto at Capri they wandered, because the next steamer headed that way,
+or because some one had set them on the road. The doctors had warned
+Sophie that Chapin was not to take interest even in other men's
+interests; but a familiar sensation at the back of the neck after one
+hour's keen talk with a Nauheimed railway magnate saved her any trouble.
+He nearly wept.
+
+"And I'm over thirty," he cried. "With all I meant to do!"
+
+"Let's call it a honeymoon," said Sophie. "D' you know, in all the six
+years we've been married, you've never told me what you meant to do with
+your life?"
+
+"With my life? What's the use? It's finished now." Sophie looked up
+quickly from the Bay of Naples. "As far as my business goes, I shall
+have to live on my rents like that architect at San Moritz."
+
+"You'll get better if you don't worry; and even if it rakes time, there
+are worse things than--How much have you?"
+
+"Between four and five million. But it isn't the money. You know it
+isn't. It's the principle. How could you respect me? You never did, the
+first year after we married, till I went to work like the others. Our
+tradition and upbringing are against it. We can't accept those ideals."
+
+"Well, I suppose I married you for some sort of ideal," she answered,
+and they returned to their forty-third hotel.
+
+In England they missed the alien tongues of Continental streets that
+reminded them of their own polyglot cities. In England all men spoke one
+tongue, speciously like American to the ear, but on cross-examination
+unintelligible.
+
+"Ah, but you have not seen England," said a lady with iron-grey hair.
+They had met her in Vienna, Bayreuth, and Florence, and were grateful
+to find her again at Claridge's, for she commanded situations, and knew
+where prescriptions are most carefully made up. "You ought to take an
+interest in the home of our ancestors as I do."
+
+"I've tried for a week, Mrs. Shonts," said Sophie, "but I never get any
+further than tipping German waiters."
+
+"These men are not the true type," Mrs. Shouts went on. "I know where
+you should go."
+
+Chapin pricked up his ears, anxious to run anywhere from the streets
+on which quick men, something of his kidney, did the business denied to
+him.
+
+"We hear and we obey, Mrs. Shonts," said Sophie, feeling his unrest as
+he drank the loathed British tea.
+
+Mrs. Shonts smiled, and took them in hand. She wrote widely and
+telegraphed far on their behalf till, armed with her letter of
+introduction, she drove them into that wilderness which is reached from
+an ash-barrel of a station called Charing Cross. They were to go to
+Rockett's--the farm of one Cloke, in the southern counties--where, she
+assured them, they would meet the genuine England of folklore and song.
+
+Rocketts they found after some hours, four miles from a station, and,
+so far as they could, judge in the bumpy darkness, twice as many from a
+road. Trees, kine, and the outlines of barns showed shadowy about them
+when they alighted, and Mr. and Mrs. Cloke, at the open door of a deep
+stone-floored kitchen, made them slowly welcome. They lay in an attic
+beneath a wavy whitewashed ceiling, and, because it rained, a wood fire
+was made in an iron basket on a brick hearth, and they fell asleep to
+the chirping of mice and the whimper of flames.
+
+When they woke it was a fair day, full of the noises, of birds, the
+smell of box lavender, and fried bacon, mixed with an elemental smell
+they had never met before.
+
+"This," said Sophie, nearly pushing out the thin casement in an attempt
+to see round the corner, "is--what did the hack-cabman say to the
+railway porter about my trunk--'quite on the top?'"
+
+"No; 'a little bit of all right.' I feel farther away from anywhere than
+I've ever felt in my life. We must find out where the telegraph office
+is."
+
+"Who cares?" said Sophie, wandering about, hairbrush in hand, to admire
+the illustrated weekly pictures pasted on door and cupboard.
+
+But there was no rest for the alien soul till he had made sure of the
+telegraph office. He asked the Clokes' daughter, laying breakfast, while
+Sophie plunged her face in the lavender bush outside the low window.
+
+"Go to the stile a-top o' the Barn field," said Mary, "and look across
+Pardons to the next spire. It's directly under. You can't miss it--not
+if you keep to the footpath. My sister's the telegraphist there.
+But you're in the three-mile radius, sir. The boy delivers telegrams
+directly to this door from Pardons village."
+
+"One has to take a good deal on trust in this country," he murmured.
+
+Sophie looked at the close turf, scarred only with last night's wheels,
+at two ruts which wound round a rickyard, and at the circle of still
+orchard about the half-timbered house.
+
+"What's the matter with it?" she said. "Telegrams delivered to the Vale
+of Avalon, of course," and she beckoned in an earnest-eyed hound of
+engaging manners and no engagements, who answered, at times, to the name
+of Rambler. He led them, after breakfast, to the rise behind the house
+where the stile stood against the skyline, and, "I wonder what we shall
+find now," said Sophie, frankly prancing with joy on the grass.
+
+It was a slope of gap-hedged fields possessed to their centres by clumps
+of brambles. Gates were not, and the rabbit-mined, cattle-rubbed posts
+leaned out and in. A narrow path doubled among the bushes, scores of
+white tails twinkled before the racing hound, and a hawk rose, whistling
+shrilly.
+
+"No roads, no nothing!" said Sophie, her short skirt hooked by briers.
+"I thought all England was a garden. There's your spire, George, across
+the valley. How curious!"
+
+They walked toward it through an all abandoned land. Here they found
+the ghost of a patch of lucerne that had refused to die: there a harsh
+fallow surrendered to yard-high thistles; and here a breadth of rampant
+kelk feigning to be lawful crop. In the ungrazed pastures swaths of dead
+stuff caught their feet, and the ground beneath glistened with sweat. At
+the bottom of the valley a little brook had undermined its footbridge,
+and frothed in the wreckage. But there stood great woods on the slopes
+beyond--old, tall, and brilliant, like unfaded tapestries against the
+walls of a ruined house.
+
+"All this within a hundred miles of London," he said. "Looks as if it
+had had nervous prostration, too." The footpath turned the shoulder of
+a slope, through a thicket of rank rhododendrons, and crossed what had
+once been a carriage drive, which ended in the shadow of two gigantic
+holm-oaks.
+
+"A house!" said Sophie, in a whisper. "A Colonial house!"
+
+Behind the blue-green of the twin trees rose a dark-bluish brick
+Georgian pile, with a shell-shaped fan-light over its pillared door. The
+hound had gone off on his own foolish quests. Except for some stir it
+the branches and the flight of four startled magpies; there was neither
+life nor sound about the square house, but it looked out of its long
+windows most friendlily.
+
+"Cha-armed to meet you, I'm sure," said Sophie, and curtsied to the
+ground. "George, this is history I can understand. We began here." She
+curtsied again.
+
+The June sunshine twinkled on all the lights. It was as though an old
+lady, wise in three generations' experience, but for the present sitting
+out, bent to listen to her flushed and eager grandchild.
+
+"I must look!" Sophie tiptoed to a window, and shaded her eyes with her
+hand. "Oh, this room's half-full of cotton-bales--wool, I suppose! But I
+can see a bit of the mantelpiece. George, do come! Isn't that some one?"
+
+She fell back behind her husband. The front door opened slowly, to show
+the hound, his nose white with milk, in charge of an ancient of days
+clad in a blue linen ephod curiously gathered on breast and shoulders.
+
+"Certainly," said George, half aloud. "Father Time himself. This is
+where he lives, Sophie."
+
+"We came," said Sophie weakly. "Can we see the house? I'm afraid that's
+our dog."
+
+"No, 'tis Rambler," said the old man. "He's been, at my swill-pail
+again. Staying at Rocketts, be ye? Come in. Ah! you runagate!"
+
+The hound broke from him, and he tottered after him down the drive. They
+entered the hall--just such a high light hall as such a house
+should own. A slim-balustered staircase, wide and shallow and once
+creamy-white, climbed out of it under a long oval window. On either side
+delicately moulded doors gave on to wool-lumbered rooms, whose sea-green
+mantelpieces were adorned with nymphs, scrolls, and Cupids in low
+relief.
+
+"What's the firm that makes these things?" cried Sophie, enraptured.
+"Oh, I forgot! These must be the originals. Adams, is it? I never
+dreamed of anything like that steel-cut fender. Does he mean us to go
+everywhere?"
+
+"He's catching the dog," said George, looking out. "We don't count."
+
+They explored the first or ground floor, delighted as children playing
+burglars.
+
+"This is like all England," she said at last. "Wonderful, but no
+explanation. You're expected to know it beforehand. Now, let's try
+upstairs."
+
+The stairs never creaked beneath their feet. From the broad landing
+they entered a long, green-panelled room lighted by three full-length
+windows, which overlooked the forlorn wreck of a terraced garden, and
+wooded slopes beyond.
+
+"The drawing-room, of course." Sophie swam up and down it. "That
+mantelpiece--Orpheus and Eurydice--is the best of them all. Isn't it
+marvellous? Why, the room seems furnished with nothing in it! How's
+that, George?"
+
+"It's the proportions. I've noticed it."
+
+"I saw a Heppelwhite couch once"--Sophie laid her finger to her flushed
+cheek and considered. "With, two of them--one on each side--you wouldn't
+need anything else. Except--there must be one perfect mirror over that
+mantelpiece."
+
+"Look at that view. It's a framed Constable," her husband cried.
+
+"No; it's a Morland--a parody of a Morland. But about that couch,
+George. Don't you think Empire might be better than Heppelwhite? Dull
+gold against that pale green? It's a pity they don't make spinets
+nowadays."
+
+"I believe you can get them. Look at that oak wood behind the pines."
+
+"'While you sat and played toccatas stately, at the clavichord,"' Sophie
+hummed, and, head on one; side, nodded to where the perfect mirror
+should hang:
+
+Then they found bedrooms with dressing-rooms and powdering-closets, and
+steps leading up and down--boxes of rooms, round, square, and octagonal,
+with enriched ceilings and chased door-locks.
+
+"Now about servants. Oh!" She had darted up the last stairs to the
+chequered darkness of the top floor, where loose tiles lay among broken
+laths, and the walls were scrawled with names, sentiments, and hop
+records. "They've been keeping pigeons here," she cried.
+
+"And you could drive a buggy through the roof anywhere," said George.
+
+"That's what I say," the old man cried below them on the stairs. "Not a
+dry place for my pigeons at all."
+
+"But why was it allowed to get like this?" said Sophie.
+
+"Tis with housen as teeth," he replied. "Let 'em go too far, and there's
+nothing to be done. Time was they was minded to sell her, but none would
+buy. She was too far away along from any place. Time was they'd ha'
+lived here theyselves, but they took and died."
+
+"Here?" Sophie moved beneath the light of a hole in the roof.
+
+"Nah--none dies here excep' falling off ricks and such. In London they
+died." He plucked a lock of wool from his blue smock. "They was no
+staple--neither the Elphicks nor the Moones. Shart and brittle all
+of 'em. Dead they be seventeen year, for I've been here caretakin'
+twenty-five."
+
+"Who does all the wool belong to downstairs?" George asked.
+
+"To the estate. I'll show you the back parts if ye like. You're from
+America, ain't ye? I've had a son there once myself." They followed him
+down the main stairway. He paused at the turn and swept one hand toward
+the wall. "Plenty room, here for your coffin to come down. Seven foot
+and three men at each end wouldn't brish the paint. If I die in my bed
+they'll 'ave to up-end me like a milk-can. 'Tis all luck, dye see?"
+
+He led them on and on, through a maze of back kitchens, dairies,
+larders, and sculleries, that melted along covered ways into a
+farm-house, visibly older than the main building, which again rambled
+out among barns, byres, pig-pens, stalls and stables to the dead fields
+behind.
+
+"Somehow," said Sophie, sitting exhausted on an ancient
+well-curb--"somehow one wouldn't insult these lovely old things by
+filling them with hay."
+
+George looked at long stone walls upholding reaches of silvery-oak
+weather-boarding; buttresses of mixed flint and bricks; outside stairs,
+stone upon arched stone; curves of thatch where grass sprouted; roundels
+of house-leeked tiles, and a huge paved yard populated by two cows and
+the repentant Rambler. He had not thought of himself or of the telegraph
+office for two and a half hours.
+
+"But why," said Sophie, as they went back through the crater of stricken
+fields,--"why is one expected to know everything in England? Why do
+they never tell?"
+
+"You mean about the Elphicks and the Moones?" he answered.
+
+"Yes--and the lawyers and the estate. Who are they? I wonder whether
+those painted floors in the green room were real oak. Don't you like us
+exploring things together--better than Pompeii?"
+
+George turned once more to look at the view. "Eight hundred acres go
+with the house--the old man told me. Five farms altogether. Rocketts is
+one of 'em."
+
+"I like Mrs. Cloke. But what is the old house called?"
+
+George laughed. "That's one of the things you're expected to know. He
+never told me."
+
+The Clokes were more communicative. That evening and thereafter for
+a week they gave the Chapins the official history, as one gives it to
+lodgers, of Friars Pardon the house and its five farms. But Sophie
+asked so many questions, and George was so humanly interested, that,
+as confidence in the strangers grew, they launched, with observed and
+acquired detail, into the lives and deaths and doings of the Elphicks
+and the Moones and their collaterals, the Haylings and the Torrells. It
+was a tale told serially by Cloke in the barn, or his wife in the dairy,
+the last chapters reserved for the kitchen o' nights by the big fire,
+when the two had been half the day exploring about the house, where
+old Iggulden, of the blue smock, cackled and chuckled to see them. The
+motives that swayed the characters were beyond their comprehension; the
+fates that shifted them were gods they had never met; the sidelights
+Mrs. Cloke threw on act and incident were more amazing than anything in
+the record. Therefore the Chapins listened delightedly, and blessed Mrs.
+Shonts.
+
+"But why--why--why--did So-and-so do so-and-so?" Sophie would demand
+from her seat by the pothook; and Mrs. Cloke would answer, smoothing her
+knees, "For the sake of the place."
+
+"I give it up," said George one night in their own room. "People don't
+seem to matter in this country compared to the places they live in. The
+way she tells it, Friars Pardon was a sort of Moloch."
+
+"Poor old thing!" They had been walking round the farms as usual before
+tea. "No wonder they loved it. Think of the sacrifices they made for it.
+Jane Elphick married the younger Torrell to keep it in the family. The
+octagonal room with the moulded ceiling next to the big bedroom was
+hers. Now what did he tell you while he was feeding the pigs?" said
+Sophie.
+
+"About the Torrell cousins and the uncle who died in Java. They lived at
+Burnt House--behind High Pardons, where that brook is all blocked up."
+
+"No; Burnt House is under High Pardons Wood, before you come to Gale
+Anstey," Sophie corrected.
+
+"Well, old man Cloke said--"
+
+Sophie threw open the door and called down into the kitchen, where the
+Clokes were covering the fire "Mrs. Cloke, isn't Burnt House under High
+Pardons?"
+
+"Yes, my dear, of course," the soft voice answered absently. A cough.
+"I beg your pardon, Madam. What was it you said?"
+
+"Never mind. I prefer it the other way," Sophie laughed, and George
+re-told the missing chapter as she sat on the bed.
+
+"Here to-day an' gone to-morrow," said Cloke warningly. "They've
+paid their first month, but we've only that Mrs. Shonts's letter for
+guarantee."
+
+"None she sent never cheated us yet. It slipped out before I thought.
+She's a most humane young lady. They'll be going away in a little. An'
+you've talked a lot too, Alfred."
+
+"Yes, but the Elphicks are all dead. No one can bring my loose talking
+home to me. But why do they stay on and stay on so?"
+
+In due time George and Sophie asked each other that question, and put it
+aside. They argued that the climate--a pearly blend, unlike the hot
+and cold ferocities of their native land--suited them, as the thick
+stillness of the nights certainly suited George. He was saved even the
+sight of a metalled road, which, as presumably leading to business,
+wakes desire in a man; and the telegraph office at the village of Friars
+Pardon, where they sold picture post-cards and pegtops, was two walking
+miles across the fields and woods.
+
+For all that touched his past among his fellows, or their remembrance
+of him, he might have been in another planet; and Sophie, whose life had
+been very largely spent among husbandless wives of lofty ideals, had
+no wish to leave this present of God. The unhurried meals, the
+foreknowledge of deliciously empty hours to follow, the breadths of soft
+sky under which they walked together and reckoned time only by their
+hunger or thirst; the good grass beneath their feet that cheated the
+miles; their discoveries, always together, amid the farms--Griffons,
+Rocketts, Burnt House, Gale Anstey, and the Home Farm, where Iggulden of
+the blue smock-frock would waylay them, and they would ransack the old
+house once more; the long wet afternoons when, they tucked up their
+feet on the bedroom's deep window-sill over against the apple-trees, and
+talked together as never till then had they found time to talk--these
+things contented her soul, and her body throve.
+
+"Have you realized," she asked one morning, "that we've been here
+absolutely alone for the last thirty-four days?"
+
+"Have you counted them?" he asked.
+
+"Did you like them?" she replied.
+
+"I must have. I didn't think about them. Yes, I have. Six months ago I
+should have fretted myself sick. Remember at Cairo? I've only had two or
+three bad times. Am I getting better, or is it senile decay?"
+
+"Climate, all climate." Sophie swung her new-bought English boots, as
+she sat on the stile overlooking Friars Pardon, behind the Clokes's
+barn.
+
+"One must take hold of things though," he said, "if it's only to keep
+one's hand in." His eyes did not flicker now as they swept the empty
+fields. "Mustn't one?"
+
+"Lay out a Morristown links over Gale Anstey. I dare say you could hire
+it."
+
+"No, I'm not as English as that--nor as Morristown. Cloke says all the
+farms here could be made to pay."
+
+"Well, I'm Anastasia in the 'Treasure of Franchard.' I'm content to be
+alive and purr. There's no hurry."
+
+"No." He smiled. "All the same, I'm going to see after my mail."
+
+"You promised you wouldn't have any."
+
+"There's some business coming through that's amusing me. Honest. It
+doesn't get on my nerves at all."
+
+"Want a secretary?"
+
+"No, thanks, old thing! Isn't that quite English?"
+
+"Too English! Go away." But none the less in broad daylight she returned
+the kiss. "I'm off to Pardons. I haven't been to the house for nearly a
+week."
+
+"How've you decided to furnish Jane Elphick's bedroom?" he laughed, for
+it had come to be a permanent Castle in Spain between them.
+
+"Black Chinese furniture and yellow silk brocade," she answered, and
+ran downhill. She scattered a few cows at a gap with a flourish of a
+ground-ash that Iggulden had cut for her a week ago, and singing as she
+passed under the holmoaks, sought the farm-house at the back of
+Friars Pardon. The old man was not to be found, and she knocked at
+his half-opened door, for she needed him to fill her idle forenoon. A
+blue-eyed sheep-dog, a new friend, and Rambler's old enemy, crawled out
+and besought her to enter.
+
+Iggulden sat in his chair by the fire, a thistle-spud between his knees,
+his head drooped. Though she had never seen death before, her heart,
+that missed a beat, told her that he was dead. She did not speak or cry,
+but stood outside the door, and the dog licked her hand. When he threw
+up his nose, she heard herself saying: "Don't howl! Please don't begin
+to howl, Scottie, or I shall run away!"
+
+She held her ground while the shadows in the rickyard moved toward noon;
+sat after a while on the steps by the door, her arms round the dog's
+neck, waiting till some one should come. She watched the smokeless
+chimneys of Friars Pardon slash its roofs with shadow, and the smoke of
+Iggulden's last lighted fire gradually thin and cease. Against her will
+she fell to wondering how many Moones, Elphicks, and Torrells had been
+swung round the turn of the broad Mall stairs. Then she remembered the
+old man's talk of being "up-ended like a milk-can," and buried her face
+on Scottie's neck. At last a horse's feet clinked upon flags, rustled
+in the old grey straw of the rickyard, and she found herself facing
+the vicar--a figure she had seen at church declaiming impossibilities
+(Sophie was a Unitarian) in an unnatural voice.
+
+"He's dead," she said, without preface.
+
+"Old Iggulden? I was coming for a talk with him." The vicar passed in
+uncovered. "Ah!" she heard him say. "Heart-failure! How long have you
+been here?"
+
+"Since a quarter to eleven." She looked at her watch earnestly and saw
+that her hand did not shake.
+
+"I'll sit with him now till the doctor comes. D'you think you could
+tell him, and--yes, Mrs. Betts in the cottage with the wistaria next the
+blacksmith's? I'm afraid this has been rather a shock to you."
+
+Sophie nodded, and fled toward the village. Her body failed her for a
+moment; she dropped beneath a hedge, and looked back at the great house.
+In some fashion its silence and stolidity steadied her for her errand.
+
+Mrs. Betts, small, black-eyed, and dark, was almost as unconcerned as
+Friars Pardon.
+
+"Yiss, yiss, of course. Dear me! Well, Iggulden he had had his day in my
+father's time. Muriel, get me my little blue bag, please. Yiss, ma'am.
+They come down like ellum-branches in still weather. No warnin' at all.
+Muriel, my bicycle's be'ind the fowlhouse. I'll tell Dr. Dallas, ma'am."
+
+She trundled off on her wheel like a brown bee, while Sophie--heaven
+above and earth beneath changed--walked stiffly home, to fall over
+George at his letters, in a muddle of laughter and tears.
+
+"It's all quite natural for them," she gasped. "They come down like
+ellum-branches in still weather. Yiss, ma'am.' No, there wasn't anything
+in the least horrible, only--only--Oh, George, that poor shiny stick of
+his between his poor, thin knees! I couldn't have borne it if Scottie
+had howled. I didn't know the vicar was so--so sensitive. He said he was
+afraid it was ra--rather a shock. Mrs. Betts told me to go home, and
+I wanted to collapse on her floor. But I didn't disgrace myself. I--I
+couldn't have left him--could I?"
+
+"You're sure you've took no 'arm?" cried Mrs. Cloke, who had heard the
+news by farm-telegraphy, which is older but swifter than Marconi's.
+
+"No. I'm perfectly well," Sophie protested.
+
+"You lay down till tea-time." Mrs. Cloke patted her shoulder. "THEY'll
+be very pleased, though she 'as 'ad no proper understandin' for twenty
+years."
+
+"They" came before twilight--a black-bearded man in moleskins, and a
+little palsied old woman, who chirruped like a wren.
+
+"I'm his son," said the man to Sophie, among the lavender bushes. "We
+'ad a difference--twenty year back, and didn't speak since. But I'm his
+son all the 'same, and we thank you for the watching."
+
+"I'm only glad I happened to be there," she answered, and from the
+bottom of her heart she meant it.
+
+"We heard he spoke a lot o' you--one time an' another since you came. We
+thank you kindly," the man added.
+
+"Are you the son that was in America?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, ma'am. On my uncle's farm, in Connecticut. He was what they call
+rood-master there."
+
+"Whereabouts in Connecticut?" asked George over her shoulder.
+
+"Veering Holler was the name. I was there six year with my uncle."
+
+"How small the world is!" Sophie cried. "Why, all my mother's people
+come from Veering Hollow. There must be some there still--the Lashmars.
+Did you ever hear of them?"
+
+"I remember hearing that name, seems to me," he answered, but his face
+was blank as the back of a spade.
+
+A little before dusk a woman in grey, striding like a foot-soldier, and
+bearing on her arm a long pole, crashed through the orchard calling for
+food. George, upon whom the unannounced English worked mysteriously,
+fled to the parlour; but Mrs. Cloke came forward beaming. Sophie could
+not escape.
+
+"We've only just heard of it;" said the stranger, turning on her. "I've
+been out with the otter-hounds all day. It was a splendidly sportin'
+thing--"
+
+"Did you--er--kill?" said Sophie. She knew from books she could not go
+far wrong here.
+
+"Yes, a dry bitch--seventeen pounds," was the answer. "A splendidly
+sportin' thing of you to do. Poor old Iggulden--"
+
+"Oh--that!" said Sophie, enlightened.
+
+"If there had been any people at Pardons it would never have happened.
+He'd have been looked after. But what can you expect from a parcel of
+London solicitors?"
+
+Mrs. Cloke murmured something.
+
+"No. I'm soaked from the knees down. If I hang about I shall get
+chilled. A cup of tea, Mrs. Cloke, and I can eat one of your sandwiches
+as I go." She wiped her weather-worn face with a green and yellow silk
+handkerchief.
+
+"Yes, my lady!" Mrs. Cloke ran and returned swiftly.
+
+"Our land marches with Pardons for a mile on the south," she explained,
+waving the full cup, "but one has quite enough to do with one's own
+people without poachin'. Still, if I'd known, I'd have sent Dora, of
+course. Have you seen her this afternoon, Mrs. Cloke? No? I wonder
+whether that girl did sprain her ankle. Thank you." It was a formidable
+hunk of bread and bacon that Mrs. Cloke presented. "As I was sayin',
+Pardons is a scandal! Lettin' people die like dogs. There ought to be
+people there who do their duty. You've done yours, though there wasn't
+the faintest call upon you. Good night. Tell Dora, if she comes, I've
+gone on."
+
+She strode away, munching her crust, and Sophie reeled breathless into
+the parlour, to shake the shaking George.
+
+"Why did you keep catching my eye behind the blind? Why didn't you come
+out and do your duty?"
+
+"Because I should have burst. Did you see the mud on its cheek?" he
+said.
+
+"Once. I daren't look again. Who is she?"
+
+"God--a local deity then. Anyway, she's another of the things you're
+expected to know by instinct."
+
+Mrs. Cloke, shocked at their levity, told them that it was Lady
+Conant, wife of Sir Walter Conant, Baronet, a large landholder in the
+neighbourhood; and if not God; at least His visible Providence. George
+made her talk of that family for an hour.
+
+"Laughter," said Sophie afterward in their own room, "is the mark of the
+savage. Why couldn't you control your emotions? It's all real to her."
+
+"It's all real to me. That's my trouble," he answered in an altered
+tone. "Anyway, it's real enough to mark time with. Don't you think so?"
+
+"What d'you mean?" she asked quickly, though she knew his voice.
+
+"That I'm better. I'm well enough to kick."
+
+"What at?"
+
+"This!" He waved his hand round the one room. "I must have something to
+play with till I'm fit for work again."
+
+"Ah!" She sat on the bed and leaned forward, her hands clasped. "I
+wonder if it's good for you."
+
+"We've been better here than anywhere," he went on slowly. "One could
+always sell it again."
+
+She nodded gravely, but her eyes sparkled.
+
+"The only thing that worries me is what happened this morning. I want to
+know how you feel about it. If it's on your nerves in the least we can
+have the old farm at the back of the house pulled down, or perhaps it
+has spoiled the notion for you?"
+
+"Pull it down?" she cried. "You've no business faculty. Why, that's
+where we could live while we're putting the big house in order. It's
+almost under the same roof. No! What happened this morning seemed to be
+more of a--of a leading than anything else. There ought to be people at
+Pardons. Lady Conant's quite right."
+
+"I was thinking more of the woods and the roads. I could double the
+value of the place in six months."
+
+"What do they want for it?" She shook her head, and her loosened hair
+fell glowingly about her cheeks.
+
+"Seventy-five thousand dollars. They'll take sixty-eight."
+
+"Less than half what we paid for our old yacht when we married. And we
+didn't have a good time in her. You were--"
+
+"Well, I discovered I was too much of an American to be content to be a
+rich man's son. You aren't blaming me for that?"
+
+"Oh, no. Only it was a very businesslike honeymoon. How far are you
+along with the deal, George?"
+
+"I can mail the deposit on the purchase money to-morrow morning, and we
+can have the thing completed in a fortnight or three weeks--if you say
+so."
+
+"Friars Pardon--Friars Pardon!" Sophie chanted rapturously, her dark
+gray eyes big with delight. "All the farms? Gale Anstey, Burnt House,
+Rocketts, the Home Farm, and Griffons? Sure you've got 'em all?"
+
+"Sure." He smiled.
+
+"And the woods? High Pardons Wood, Lower Pardons, Suttons, Dutton's
+Shaw, Reuben's Ghyll, Maxey's Ghyll, and both the Oak Hangers? Sure
+you've got 'em all?"
+
+"Every last stick. Why, you know them as well as I do." He laughed.
+"They say there's five thousand--a thousand pounds' worth of
+lumber--timber they call it--in the Hangers alone."
+
+"Mrs. Cloke's oven must be mended first thing, and the kitchen roof. I
+think I'll have all this whitewashed," Sophie broke in, pointing to
+the ceiling. "The whole place is a scandal. Lady Conant is quite right.
+George, when did you begin to fall in love with the house? In the
+greenroom that first day? I did."
+
+"I'm not in love with it. One must do something to mark time till one's
+fit for work."
+
+"Or when we stood under the oaks, and the door opened? Oh! Ought I to go
+to poor Iggulden's funeral?" She sighed with utter happiness.
+
+"Wouldn't they call it a liberty now?" said he.
+
+"But I liked him."
+
+"But you didn't own him at the date of his death."
+
+"That wouldn't keep me away. Only, they made such a fuss about the
+watching"--she caught her breath--"it might be ostentatious from that
+point of view, too. Oh, George"--she reached for his hand--"we're two
+little orphans moving in worlds not realized, and we shall make some bad
+breaks. But we're going to have the time of our lives."
+
+"We'll run up to London to-morrow, and see if we can hurry those English
+law solicitors. I want to get to work."
+
+They went. They suffered many things ere they returned across the fields
+in a fly one Saturday night, nursing a two by two-and-a-half box of
+deeds and maps--lawful owners of Friars Pardon and the five decayed
+farms therewith.
+
+"I do most sincerely 'ope and trust you'll be 'appy, Madam," Mrs. Cloke
+gasped, when she was told the news by the kitchen fire.
+
+"Goodness! It isn't a marriage!" Sophie exclaimed, a little awed; for to
+them the joke, which to an American means work, was only just beginning.
+
+"If it's took in a proper spirit"--Mrs. Cloke's eye turned toward her
+oven.
+
+"Send and have that mended to-morrow," Sophie whispered.
+
+"We couldn't 'elp noticing," said Cloke slowly, "from the times you
+walked there, that you an' your lady was drawn to it, but--but I don't
+know as we ever precisely thought--" His wife's glance checked him.
+
+"That we were that sort of people," said George. "We aren't sure of it
+ourselves yet."
+
+"Perhaps," said Cloke, rubbing his knees, "just for the sake of saying
+something, perhaps you'll park it?"
+
+"What's that?" said George.
+
+"Turn it all into a fine park like Violet Hill"--he jerked a thumb to
+westward--"that Mr. Sangres bought. It was four farms, and Mr. Sangres
+made a fine park of them, with a herd of faller deer."
+
+"Then it wouldn't be Friars Pardon," said Sophie. "Would it?"
+
+"I don't know as I've ever heard Pardons was ever anything but wheat an'
+wool. Only some gentlemen say that parks are less trouble than tenants."
+He laughed nervously. "But the gentry, o' course, they keep on pretty
+much as they was used to."
+
+"I see," said Sophie. "How did Mr. Sangres make his money?"
+
+"I never rightly heard. It was pepper an' spices, or it may ha' been
+gloves. No. Gloves was Sir Reginald Liss at Marley End. Spices was Mr.
+Sangres. He's a Brazilian gentleman--very sunburnt like."
+
+"Be sure o' one thing. You won't 'ave any trouble," said Mrs. Cloke,
+just before they went to bed.
+
+Now the news of the purchase was told to Mr. and Mrs. Cloke alone at 8
+P.M. of a Saturday. None left the farm till they set out for church next
+morning. Yet when they reached the church and were about to slip aside
+into their usual seats, a little beyond the font, where they could see
+the red-furred tails of the bellropes waggle and twist at ringing time,
+they were swept forward irresistibly, a Cloke on either flank (and yet
+they had not walked with the Clokes), upon the ever-retiring bosom of a
+black-gowned verger, who ushered them into a room of a pew at the head
+of the left aisle, under the pulpit.
+
+"This," he sighed reproachfully, "is the Pardons' Pew," and shut them
+in.
+
+They could see little more than the choir boys in the chancel, but to
+the roots of the hair of their necks they felt the congregation behind
+mercilessly devouring them by look.
+
+"When the wicked man turneth away." The strong, alien voice of the
+priest vibrated under the hammer-beam roof, and a loneliness unfelt
+before swamped their hearts, as they searched for places in the
+unfamiliar Church of England service. The Lord's Prayer "Our Father,
+which art"--set the seal on that desolation. Sophie found herself
+thinking how in other lands their purchase would long ere this have been
+discussed from every point of view in a dozen prints, forgetting that
+George for months had not been allowed to glance at those black and
+bellowing head-lines. Here was nothing but silence--not even hostility!
+The game was up to them; the other players hid their cards and waited.
+Suspense, she felt, was in the air, and when her sight cleared, saw,
+indeed, a mural tablet of a footless bird brooding upon the carven
+motto, "Wayte awhyle--wayte awhyle."
+
+At the Litany George had trouble with an unstable hassock, and drew the
+slip of carpet under the pewseat. Sophie pushed her end back also, and
+shut her eyes against a burning that felt like tears. When she opened
+them she was looking at her mother's maiden name, fairly carved on a
+blue flagstone on the pew floor: Ellen Lashmar. ob. 1796. aetat 27.
+
+She nudged George and pointed. Sheltered, as they kneeled, they looked
+for more knowledge, but the rest of the slab was blank.
+
+"Ever hear of her?" he whispered.
+
+"Never knew any of us came from here."
+
+"Coincidence?"
+
+"Perhaps. But it makes me feel better," and she smiled and winked away
+a tear on her lashes, and took his hand while they prayed for "all women
+labouring of child"--not "in the perils of childbirth"; and the sparrows
+who had found their way through the guards behind the glass windows
+chirped above the faded gilt and alabaster family tree of the Conants.
+
+The baronet's pew was on the right of the aisle. After service its
+inhabitants moved forth without haste, but so as to block effectively a
+dusky person with a large family who champed in their rear.
+
+"Spices, I think," said Sophie, deeply delighted as the Sangres closed
+up after the Conants. "Let 'em get away, George."
+
+But when they came out many folk whose eyes were one still lingered by
+the lychgate.
+
+"I want to see if any more Lashmars are buried here," said Sophie.
+
+"Not now. This seems to be show day. Come home quickly," he replied.
+
+A group of families, the Clokes a little apart, opened to let them
+through. The men saluted with jerky nods, the women with remnants of a
+curtsey. Only Iggulden's son, his mother on his arm, lifted his hat as
+Sophie passed.
+
+"Your people," said the clear voice of Lady Conant in her ear.
+
+"I suppose so," said Sophie, blushing, for they were within two yards of
+her; but it was not a question.
+
+"Then that child looks as if it were coming down with mumps. You ought
+to tell the mother she shouldn't have brought it to church."
+
+"I can't leave 'er behind, my lady," the woman said. "She'd set the
+'ouse afire in a minute, she's that forward with the matches. Ain't you,
+Maudie dear?"
+
+"Has Dr. Dallas seen her?"
+
+"Not yet, my lady."
+
+"He must. You can't get away, of course. M-m! My idiotic maid is coming
+in for her teeth to-morrow at twelve. She shall pick her up--at Gale
+Anstey, isn't it?--at eleven."
+
+"Yes. Thank you very much, my lady."
+
+"I oughtn't to have done it," said Lady Conant apologetically, "but
+there has been no one at Pardons for so long that you'll forgive my
+poaching. Now, can't you lunch with us? The vicar usually comes too.
+I don't use the horses on a Sunday"--she glanced at the Brazilian's
+silver-plated chariot. "It's only a mile across the fields."
+
+"You--you're very kind," said Sophie, hating herself because her lip
+trembled.
+
+"My dear," the compelling tone dropped to a soothing gurgle, "d'you
+suppose I don't know how it feels to come to a strange county--country
+I should say--away from one's own people? When I first left the
+Shires--I'm Shropshire, you know--I cried for a day and a night. But
+fretting doesn't make loneliness any better. Oh, here's Dora. She did
+sprain her leg that day."
+
+"I'm as lame as a tree still," said the tall maiden frankly. "You ought
+to go out with the otter-hounds, Mrs. Chapin. I believe they're drawing
+your water next week."
+
+Sir Walter had already led off George, and the vicar came up on the
+other side of Sophie. There was no escaping the swift procession or the
+leisurely lunch, where talk came and went in low-voiced eddies that
+had the village for their centre. Sophie heard the vicar and Sir Walter
+address her husband lightly as Chapin! (She also remembered many women
+known in a previous life who habitually addressed their husbands as
+Mr. Such-an-one.) After lunch Lady Conant talked to her explicitly of
+maternity as that is achieved in cottages and farm-houses remote from
+aid, and of the duty thereto of the mistress of Pardons.
+
+A gate in a beech hedge, reached across triple lawns, let them out
+before tea-time into the unkempt south side of their land.
+
+"I want your hand, please," said Sophie as soon as they were safe among
+the beech boles and the lawless hollies. "D'you remember the old maid in
+'Providence and the Guitar' who heard the Commissary swear, and hardly
+reckoned herself a maiden lady afterward? Because I'm a relative of
+hers. Lady Conant is--"
+
+"Did you find out anything about the Lashmars?" he interrupted.
+
+"I didn't ask. I'm going to write to Aunt Sydney about it first. Oh,
+Lady Conant said something at lunch about their having bought some land
+from some Lashmars a few years ago. I found it was at the beginning of
+last century."
+
+"What did you say?"
+
+"I said, 'Really, how interesting!' Like that. I'm not going to push
+myself forward. I've been hearing about Mr. Sangres's efforts in that
+direction. And you? I couldn't see you behind the flowers. Was it very
+deep water, dear?"
+
+George mopped a brow already browned by outdoor exposures.
+
+"Oh no--dead easy," he answered. "I've bought Friars Pardon to prevent
+Sir Walter's birds straying."
+
+A cock pheasant scuttered through the dry leaves and exploded almost
+under their feet. Sophie jumped.
+
+"That's one of 'em," said George calmly.
+
+"Well, your nerves are better, at any rate," said she. "Did you tell 'em
+you'd bought the thing to play with?"
+
+"No. That was where my nerve broke down. I only made one bad break--I
+think. I said I couldn't see why hiring land to men to farm wasn't as
+much a business proposition as anything else."
+
+"And what did they say?"
+
+"They smiled. I shall know what that smile means some day. They don't
+waste their smiles. D'you see that track by Gale Anstey?"
+
+They looked down from the edge of the hanger over a cup-like hollow.
+People by twos and threes in their Sunday best filed slowly along the
+paths that connected farm to farm.
+
+"I've never seen so many on our land before," said Sophie. "Why is it?"
+
+"To show us we mustn't shut up their rights of way."
+
+"Those cow-tracks we've been using cross lots?" said Sophie forcibly.
+
+"Yes. Any one of 'em would cost us two thousand pounds each in legal
+expenses to close."
+
+"But we don't want to," she said.
+
+"The whole community would fight if we did."
+
+"But it's our land. We can do what we like."
+
+"It's not our land. We've only paid for it. We belong to it, and it
+belongs to the people--our people they call 'em. I've been to lunch with
+the English too."
+
+They passed slowly from one bracken-dotted field to the next--flushed
+with pride of ownership, plotting alterations and restorations at each
+turn; halting in their tracks to argue, spreading apart to embrace two
+views at once, or closing in to consider one. Couples moved out of their
+way, but smiling covertly.
+
+"We shall make some bad breaks," he said at last.
+
+"Together, though. You won't let anyone else in, will you?"
+
+"Except the contractors. This syndicate handles, this proposition by its
+little lone."
+
+"But you might feel the want of some one," she insisted.
+
+"I shall--but it will be you. It's business, Sophie, but it's going to
+be good fun."
+
+"Please God," she answered flushing, and cried to herself as they went
+back to tea. "It's worth it. Oh, it's worth it."
+
+The repairing and moving into Friars Pardon was business of the most
+varied and searching, but all done English fashion, without friction.
+Time and money alone were asked. The rest lay in the hands of beneficent
+advisers from London, or spirits, male and female, called up by Mr. and
+Mrs. Cloke from the wastes of the farms. In the centre stood George and
+Sophie, a little aghast, their interests reaching out on every side.
+
+"I ain't sayin' anything against Londoners," said Cloke, self-appointed
+clerk of the outer works, consulting engineer, head of the immigration
+bureau, and superintendent of woods and forests; "but your own people
+won't go about to make more than a fair profit out of you."
+
+"How is one to know?" said George.
+
+"Five years from now, or so on, maybe, you'll be lookin' over your first
+year's accounts, and, knowin' what you'll know then, you'll say: 'Well,
+Billy Beartup'--or Old Cloke as it might be--'did me proper when I was
+new.' No man likes to have that sort of thing laid up against him."
+
+"I think I see," said George. "But five years is a long time to look
+ahead."
+
+"I doubt if that oak Billy Beartup throwed in Reuben's Ghyll will be fit
+for her drawin-room floor in less than seven," Cloke drawled.
+
+"Yes, that's my work," said Sophie. (Billy Beartup of Griffons,
+a woodman by training and birth, a tenant farmer by misfortune of
+marriage, had laid his broad axe at her feet a month before.) "Sorry if
+I've committed you to another eternity."
+
+"And we shan't even know where we've gone wrong with your new carriage
+drive before that time either," said Cloke, ever anxious to keep the
+balance true with an ounce or two in Sophie's favour. The past four
+months had taught George better than to reply. The carriage road winding
+up the hill was his present keen interest. They set off to look at it,
+and the imported American scraper which had blighted the none too sunny
+soul of "Skim" Winsh, the carter.
+
+But young Iggulden was in charge now, and under his guidance, Buller and
+Roberts, the great horses, moved mountains.
+
+"You lif' her like that, an' you tip her like that," he explained to the
+gang. "My uncle he was roadmaster in Connecticut."
+
+"Are they roads yonder?" said Skim, sitting under the laurels.
+
+"No better than accommodation roads. Dirt, they call 'em. They'd suit
+you, Skim."
+
+"Why?" said the incautious Skim.
+
+"Cause you'd take no hurt when you fall out of your cart drunk on a
+Saturday," was the answer.
+
+"I didn't last time neither," Skim roared.
+
+After the loud laugh, old Whybarne of Gale Anstey piped feebly, "Well,
+dirt or no dirt, there's no denyin' Chapin knows a good job when he
+sees it. 'E don't build one day and dee-stroy the next, like that nigger
+Sangres."
+
+"SHE's the one that knows her own mind," said Pinky, brother to Skim
+Winsh, and a Napoleon among carters who had helped to bring the grand
+piano across the fields in the autumn rains.
+
+"She had ought to," said Iggulden. "Whoa, Buller! She's a Lashmar. They
+never was double-thinking."
+
+"Oh, you found that? Has the answer come from your uncle?" said Skim,
+doubtful whether so remote a land as America had posts.
+
+The others looked at him scornfully. Skim was always a day behind the
+fair. Iggulden rested from his labours. "She's a Lashmar right enough.
+I started up to write to my uncle--at once--the month after she said her
+folks came from Veering Holler."
+
+"Where there ain't any roads?" Skim interrupted, but none laughed.
+
+"My uncle he married an American woman for his second, and she took
+it up like a like the coroner. She's a Lashmar out of the old Lashmar
+place, 'fore they sold to Conants. She ain't no Toot Hill Lashmar, nor
+any o' the Crayford lot. Her folk come out of the ground here, neither
+chalk nor forest, but wildishers. They sailed over to America--I've got
+it all writ down by my uncle's woman--in eighteen hundred an' nothing.
+My uncle says they're all slow begetters like."
+
+"Would they be gentry yonder now?" Skim asked.
+
+"Nah--there's no gentry in America, no matter how long you're there.
+It's against their law. There's only rich and poor allowed. They've
+been lawyers and such like over yonder for a hundred years but she's a
+Lashmar for all that."
+
+"Lord! What's a hundred years?" said Whybarne, who had seen
+seventy-eight of them.
+
+"An' they write too, from yonder--my uncle's woman writes--that you can
+still tell 'em by headmark. Their hair's foxy-red still--an' they throw
+out when they walk. He's in-toed-treads like a gipsy; but you watch, an'
+you'll see 'er throw, out--like a colt."
+
+"Your trace wants taking up." Pinky's large ears had caught the sound
+of voices, and as the two broke through the laurels the men were hard at
+work, their eyes on Sophie's feet.
+
+She had been less fortunate in her inquiries than Iggulden, for her Aunt
+Sydney of Meriden (a badged and certificated Daughter of the Revolution
+to boot) answered her inquiries with a two-paged discourse on
+patriotism, the leaflets of a Village Improvement Society, of which she
+was president, and a demand for an overdue subscription to a Factory
+Girls' Reading Circle. Sophie burned it all in the Orpheus and Eurydice
+grate, and kept her own counsel.
+
+"What I want to know," said George, when Spring was coming, and the
+gardens needed thought, "is who will ever pay me for my labour? I've put
+in at least half a million dollars' worth already."
+
+"Sure you're not taking too much out of yourself?" his wife asked.
+
+"Oh, no; I haven't been conscious of myself all winter." He looked at
+his brown English gaiters and smiled. "It's all behind me now. I believe
+I could sit down and think of all that--those months before we sailed."
+
+"Don't--ah, don't!" she cried.
+
+"But I must go back one day. You don't want to keep me out of business
+always--or do you?" He ended with a nervous laugh.
+
+Sophie sighed as she drew her own ground-ash (of old Iggulden's cutting)
+from the hall rack.
+
+"Aren't you overdoing it too? You look a little tired," he said.
+
+"You make me tired. I'm going to Rocketts to see Mrs. Cloke about Mary."
+(This was the sister of the telegraphist, promoted to be sewing-maid at
+Pardons.) "Coming?"
+
+"I'm due at Burnt House to see about the new well. By the way, there's a
+sore throat at Gale Anstey--"
+
+"That's my province. Don't interfere. The Whybarne children always have
+sore throats. They do it for jujubes."
+
+"Keep away from Gale Anstey till I make sure, honey. Cloke ought to have
+told me."
+
+"These people don't tell. Haven't you learnt that yet? But I'll obey, me
+lord. See you later!"
+
+She set off afoot, for within the three main roads that bounded the
+blunt triangle of the estate (even by night one could scarcely hear the
+carts on them), wheels were not used except for farm work. The footpaths
+served all other purposes. And though at first they had planned
+improvements, they had soon fallen in with the customs of their hidden
+kingdom, and moved about the soft-footed ways by woodland, hedgerow, and
+shaw as freely as the rabbits. Indeed, for the most part Sophie walked
+bareheaded beneath her helmet of chestnut hair; but she had been plagued
+of late by vague toothaches, which she explained to Mrs. Cloke, who
+asked some questions. How it came about Sophie never knew, but after a
+while behold Mrs. Cloke's arm was about her waist, and her head was on
+that deep bosom behind the shut kitchen door.
+
+"My dear! My dear!" the elder woman almost sobbed. "An' d'you mean
+to tell me you never suspicioned? Why--why--where was you ever taught
+anything at all? Of course it is. It's what we've been only waitin' for,
+all of us. Time and again I've said to Lady--" she checked herself. "An'
+now we shall be as we should be."
+
+"But--but--but--" Sophie whimpered.
+
+"An' to see you buildin' your nest so busy--pianos and books--an' never
+thinkin' of a nursery!"
+
+"No more I did." Sophie sat bolt upright, and began to laugh.
+
+"Time enough yet." The fingers tapped thoughtfully on the broad knee.
+"But--they must be strange-minded folk over yonder with you! Have you
+thought to send for your mother? She dead? My dear, my dear! Never
+mind! She'll be happy where she knows. 'Tis God's work. An' we was only
+waitin' for it, for you've never failed in your duty yet. It ain't
+your way. What did you say about my Mary's doings?" Mrs. Cloke's face
+hardened as she pressed her chin on Sophie's forehead. "If any of your
+girls thinks to be'ave arbitrary now, I'll--But they won't, my dear.
+I'll see they do their duty too. Be sure you'll 'ave no trouble."
+
+When Sophie walked back across the fields heaven and earth changed about
+her as on the day of old Iggulden's death. For an instant she thought
+of the wide turn of the staircase, and the new ivory-white paint that
+no coffin corner could scar, but presently, the shadow passed in a pure
+wonder and bewilderment that made her reel. She leaned against one of
+their new gates and looked over their lands for some other stay.
+
+"Well," she said resignedly, half aloud, "we must try to make him feel
+that he isn't a third in our party," and turned the corner that looked
+over Friars Pardon, giddy, sick, and faint.
+
+Of a sudden the house they had bought for a whim stood up as she had
+never seen it before, low-fronted, broad-winged, ample, prepared by
+course of generations for all such things. As it had steadied her when
+it lay desolate, so now that it had meaning from their few months of
+life within, it soothed and promised good. She went alone and quickly
+into the hall, and kissed either door-post, whispering: "Be good to me.
+You know! You've never failed in your duty yet."
+
+When the matter was explained to George, he would have sailed at once to
+their own land, but this Sophie forbade.
+
+"I don't want science," she said. "I just want to be loved, and there
+isn't time for that at home. Besides," she added, looking out of the
+window, "it would be desertion."
+
+George was forced to soothe himself with linking Friars Pardon to the
+telegraph system of Great Britain by telephone--three-quarters of a
+mile of poles, put in by Whybarne and a few friends. One of these was
+a foreigner from the next parish. Said he when the line was being run:
+"There's an old ellum right in our road. Shall us throw her?"
+
+"Toot Hill parish folk, neither grace nor good luck, God help 'em." Old
+Whybarne shouted the local proverb from three poles down the line. "We
+ain't goin' to lay any axe-iron to coffin-wood here not till we know
+where we are yet awhile. Swing round 'er, swing round!"
+
+To this day, then, that sudden kink in the straight line across the
+upper pasture remains a mystery to Sophie and George. Nor can they tell
+why Skim Winsh, who came to his cottage under Dutton Shaw most musically
+drunk at 10.45 P.M of every Saturday night, as his father had done
+before him, sang no more at the bottom of the garden steps, where Sophie
+always feared he would break his neck. The path was undoubtedly an
+ancient right of way, and at 10.45 P.M. on Saturdays Skim remembered it
+was his duty to posterity to keep it open--till Mrs. Cloke spoke to him
+once. She spoke likewise to her daughter Mary, sewing maid at Pardons,
+and to Mary's best new friend, the five-foot-seven imported London
+house-maid, who taught Mary to trim hats, and found the country dullish.
+
+But there was no noise--at no time was there any noise--and when Sophie
+walked abroad she met no one in her path unless she had signified a wish
+that way. Then they appeared to protest that all was well with them and
+their children, their chickens, their roofs, their water-supply, and
+their sons in the police or the railway service.
+
+"But don't you find it dull, dear?" said George, loyally doing his best
+not to worry as the months went by.
+
+"I've been so busy putting my house in order I haven't had time to
+think," said she. "Do you?"
+
+"No--no. If I could only be sure of you."
+
+She turned on the green drawing-room's couch (it was Empire, not
+Heppelwhite after all), and laid aside a list of linen and blankets.
+
+"It has changed everything, hasn't it?" she whispered.
+
+"Oh, Lord, yes. But I still think if we went back to Baltimore--"
+
+"And missed our first real summer together. No thank you, me lord."
+
+"But we're absolutely alone."
+
+"Isn't that what I'm doing my best to remedy? Don't you worry. I like
+it--like it to the marrow of my little bones. You don't realize what her
+house means to a woman. We thought we were living in it last year, but
+we hadn't begun to. Don't you rejoice in your study, George?"
+
+"I prefer being here with you." He sat down on the floor by the couch
+and took her hand.
+
+"Seven," she said, as the French clock struck. "Year before last you'd
+just be coming back from business."
+
+He winced at the recollection, then laughed. "Business! I've been at
+work ten solid hours to-day."
+
+"Where did you lunch? With the Conants?"
+
+"No; at Dutton Shaw, sitting on a log, with my feet in a swamp. But
+we've found out where the old spring is, and we're going to pipe it down
+to Gale Anstey next year."
+
+"I'll come and see to-morrow. Oh, please open the door, dear. I want to
+look down the passage. Isn't that corner by the stair-head lovely where
+the sun strikes in?" She looked through half-closed eyes at the vista of
+ivory-white and pale green all steeped in liquid gold.
+
+"There's a step out of Jane Elphick's bedroom," she went on--"and his
+first step in the world ought to be up. I shouldn't wonder if those
+people hadn't put it there on purpose. George, will it make any odds to
+you if he's a girl?"
+
+He answered, as he had many times before, that his interest was his
+wife, not the child.
+
+"Then you're the only person who thinks so." She laughed. "Don't be
+silly, dear. It's expected. I know. It's my duty. I shan't be able to
+look our people in the face if I fail."
+
+"What concern is it of theirs, confound 'em!"
+
+"You'll see. Luckily the tradition of the house is boys, Mrs. Cloke
+says, so I'm provided for. Shall you ever begin to understand these
+people? I shan't."
+
+"And we bought it for fun--for fun!" he groaned. "And here we are held
+up for goodness knows how long!"
+
+"Why? Were you thinking of selling it?" He did not answer. "Do you
+remember the second Mrs. Chapin?" she demanded.
+
+This was a bold, brazen little black-browed woman--a widow for
+choice--who on Sophie's death was guilefully to marry George for his
+wealth and ruin him in a year. George being busy, Sophie had invented
+her some two years after her marriage, and conceived she was alone among
+wives in so doing.
+
+"You aren't going to bring her up again?" he asked anxiously.
+
+"I only want to say that I should hate any one who bought Pardons ten
+times worse than I used to hate the second Mrs. Chapin. Think what we've
+put into it of our two selves."
+
+"At least a couple of million dollars. I know I could have made--" He
+broke off.
+
+"The beasts!" she went on. "They'd be sure to build a red-brick lodge
+at the gates, and cut the lawn up for bedding out. You must leave
+instructions in your will that he's never to do that, George, won't
+you?"
+
+He laughed and took her hand again but said nothing till it was time to
+dress. Then he muttered "What the devil use is a man's country to him
+when he can't do business in it?"
+
+Friars Pardon stood faithful to its tradition. At the appointed time was
+born, not that third in their party to whom Sophie meant to be so kind,
+but a godling; in beauty, it was manifest, excelling Eros, as in wisdom
+Confucius; an enhancer of delights, a renewer of companionships and an
+interpreter of Destiny. This last George did not realise till he met
+Lady Conant striding through Dutton Shaw a few days after the event.
+
+"My dear fellow," she cried, and slapped him heartily on the back, "I
+can't tell you how glad we all are. Oh, she'll be all right. (There's
+never been any trouble over the birth of an heir at Pardons.) Now where
+the dooce is it?" She felt largely in her leather-boundskirt and drew
+out a small silver mug. "I sent a note to your wife about it, but my
+silly ass of a groom forgot to take this. You can save me a tramp. Give
+her my love." She marched off amid her guard of grave Airedales.
+
+The mug was worn and dented: above the twined initials, G.L., was the
+crest of a footless bird and the motto: "Wayte awhyle--wayte awhyle."
+
+"That's the other end of the riddle," Sophie whispered, when he saw her
+that evening. "Read her note. The English write beautiful notes."
+
+The warmest of welcomes to your little man. I hope he will appreciate
+his native land now he has come to it. Though you have said nothing we
+cannot, of course, look on him as a little stranger, and so I am sending
+him the old Lashmar christening mug. It has been with us since Gregory
+Lashmar, your great-grandmother's brother--
+
+
+George stared at his wife.
+
+"Go on," she twinkled, from the pillows.
+
+--mother's brother, sold his place to Walter's family. We seem to have
+acquired some of your household gods at that time, but nothing survives
+except the mug and the old cradle, which I found in the potting-shed and
+am having put in order for you. I hope little George--Lashmar, he will
+be too, won't he?--will live to see his grandchildren cut their teeth on
+his mug.
+
+    Affectionately yours,
+             ALICE CONANT.
+
+P.S.--How quiet you've kept about it all!
+
+"Well, I'm--"
+
+"Don't swear," said Sophie. "Bad for the infant mind."
+
+"But how in the world did she get at it? Have you ever said a word about
+the Lashmars?"
+
+"You know the only time--to young Iggulden at Rocketts--when Iggulden
+died."
+
+"Your great-grandmother's brother! She's traced the whole
+connection--more than your Aunt Sydney could do. What does she mean
+about our keeping quiet?"
+
+Sophie's eyes sparkled. "I've thought that out too. We've got back at
+the English at last. Can't you see that she thought that we thought my
+mother's being a Lashmar was one of those things we'd expect the English
+to find out for themselves, and that's impressed her?" She turned
+the mug in her white hands, and sighed happily. "'Wayte awhyle--wayte
+awhyle.' That's not a bad motto, George. It's been worth it."
+
+"But still I don't quite see--"
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if they don't think our coming here was part of a
+deep-laid scheme to be near our ancestors. They'd understand that. And
+look how they've accepted us, all of them."
+
+"Are we so undesirable in ourselves?" George grunted.
+
+"Be just, me lord. That wretched Sangres man has twice our money. Can
+you see Marm Conant slapping him between the shoulders? Not by a jugful!
+The poor beast doesn't exist!"
+
+"Do you think it's that then?" He looked toward the cot by the fire
+where the godling snorted.
+
+"The minute I get well I shall find out from Mrs. Cloke what every
+Lashmar gives in doles (that's nicer than tips) every time a Lashmite is
+born. I've done my duty thus far, but there's much expected of me."
+
+Entered here Mrs. Cloke, and hung worshipping over the cot. They showed
+her the mug and her face shone. "Oh, now Lady Conant's sent it, it'll
+be all proper, ma'am, won't it? 'George' of course he'd have to be, but
+seein' what he is we was hopin'--all your people was hopin'--it 'ud be
+'Lashmar' too, and that'ud just round it out. A very 'andsome mug quite
+unique, I should imagine. 'Wayte awhyle--wayte awhyle.' That's true with
+the Lashmars, I've heard. Very slow to fill their houses, they are. Most
+like Master George won't open 'is nursery till he's thirty."
+
+"Poor lamb!" cried Sophie. "But how did you know my folk were Lashmars?"
+
+Mrs. Cloke thought deeply. "I'm sure I can't quite say, ma'am, but I've
+a belief likely that it was something you may have let drop to young
+Iggulden when you was at Rocketts. That may have been what give us an
+inkling. An' so it came out, one thing in the way o' talk leading to
+another, and those American people at Veering Holler was very obligin'
+with news, I'm told, ma'am."
+
+"Great Scott!" said George, under his breath. "And this is the simple
+peasant!"
+
+"Yiss," Mrs. Cloke went on. "An' Cloke was only wonderin' this
+afternoon--your pillow's slipped my dear, you mustn't lie that
+a-way--just for the sake o' sayin' something, whether you wouldn't think
+well now of getting the Lashmar farms back, sir. They don't rightly
+round off Sir Walter's estate. They come caterin' across us more. Cloke,
+'e 'ud be glad to show you over any day."
+
+"But Sir Walter doesn't want to sell, does he?"
+
+"We can find out from his bailiff, sir, but"--with cold contempt--"I
+think that trained nurse is just comin' up from her dinner, so 'm afraid
+we'll 'ave to ask you, sir... Now, Master George--Ai-ie! Wake a litty
+minute, lammie!"
+
+A few months later the three of them were down at the brook in the Gale
+Anstey woods to consider the rebuilding of a footbridge carried away by
+spring floods. George Lashmar Chapin wanted all the bluebells on God's
+earth that day to eat, and--Sophie adored him in a voice like to the
+cooing of a dove; so business was delayed.
+
+"Here's the place," said his father at last among the water
+forget-me-nots. "But where the deuce are the larch-poles, Cloke? I told
+you to have them down here ready."
+
+"We'll get 'em down if f you say so," Cloke answered, with a thrust of
+the underlip they both knew.
+
+"But I did say so. What on earth have you brought that timber-tug here
+for? We aren't building a railway bridge. Why, in America, half-a-dozen
+two-by-four bits would be ample."
+
+"I don't know nothin' about that," said Cloke.
+
+"An' I've nothin' to say against larch--IF you want to make a temp'ry
+job of it. I ain't 'ere to tell you what isn't so, sir; an' you can't
+say I ever come creepin' up on you, or tryin' to lead you further in
+than you set out--"
+
+A year ago George would have danced with impatience. Now he scraped a
+little mud off his old gaiters with his spud, and waited.
+
+"All I say is that you can put up larch and make a temp'ry job of it;
+and by the time the young master's married it'll have to be done again.
+Now, I've brought down a couple of as sweet six-by-eight oak timbers
+as we've ever drawed. You put 'em in an' it's off your mind or good an'
+all. T'other way--I don't say it ain't right, I'm only just sayin' what
+I think--but t'other way, he'll no sooner be married than we'll lave it
+all to do again. You've no call to regard my words, but you can't get
+out of that."
+
+"No," said George after a pause; "I've been realising that for some
+time. Make it oak then; we can't get out of it."
+
+
+
+
+THE RECALL
+
+            I am the land of their fathers,
+               In me the virtue stays;
+            I will bring back my children,
+               After certain days.
+            Under their feet in the grasses
+               My clinging magic runs.
+            They shall return as strangers,
+               They shall remain as sons.
+            Over their heads in the branches
+               Of their new-bought, ancient trees,
+            I weave an incantation,
+               And draw them to my knees.
+            Scent of smoke in the evening,
+               Smell of rain in the night,
+            The hours, the days and the seasons
+               Order their souls aright;
+            Till I make plain the meaning
+               Of all my thousand years
+            Till I fill their hearts with knowledge,
+               While I fill their eyes with tears.
+
+
+
+
+GARM--A HOSTAGE
+
+One night, a very long time ago, I drove to an Indian military
+cantonment called Mian Mir to see amateur theatricals. At the back of
+the Infantry barracks a soldier, his cap over one eye, rushed in front
+of the horses and shouted that he was a dangerous highway robber. As a
+matter of fact, he was a friend of mine, so I told him to go home before
+any one caught him; but he fell under the pole, and I heard voices of a
+military guard in search of some one.
+
+The driver and I coaxed him into the carriage, drove home swiftly,
+undressed him and put him to bed, where he waked next morning with
+a sore headache, very much ashamed. When his uniform was cleaned and
+dried, and he had been shaved and washed and made neat, I drove him back
+to barracks with his arm in a fine white sling, and reported that I
+had accidentally run over him. I did not tell this story to my
+friend's sergeant, who was a hostile and unbelieving person, but to his
+lieutenant, who did not know us quite so well.
+
+Three days later my friend came to call, and at his heels slobbered and
+fawned one of the finest bull-terriers--of the old-fashioned breed, two
+parts bull and one terrier--that I had ever set eyes on. He was pure
+white, with a fawn-coloured saddle just behind his neck, and a fawn
+diamond at the root of his thin whippy tail. I had admired him distantly
+for more than a year; and Vixen, my own fox-terrier, knew him too, but
+did not approve.
+
+"'E's for you," said my friend; but he did not look as though he liked
+parting with him.
+
+"Nonsense! That dog's worth more than most men, Stanley," I said.
+
+"'E's that and more. 'Tention!"
+
+The dog rose on his hind legs, and stood upright for a full minute.
+
+"Eyes right!"
+
+He sat on his haunches and turned his head sharp to the right. At a sign
+he rose and barked thrice. Then he shook hands with his right paw and
+bounded lightly to my shoulder. Here he made himself into a necktie,
+limp and lifeless, hanging down on either side of my neck. I was told to
+pick him up and throw him in the air. He fell with a howl, and held up
+one leg.
+
+"Part o' the trick," said his owner. "You're going to die now. Dig
+yourself your little grave an' shut your little eye."
+
+Still limping, the dog hobbled to the garden-edge, dug a hole and lay
+down in it. When told that he was cured, he jumped out, wagging his
+tail, and whining for applause. He was put through half-a-dozen other
+tricks, such as showing how he would hold a man safe (I was that man,
+and he sat down before me, his teeth bared, ready to spring), and how
+he would stop eating at the word of command. I had no more than finished
+praising him when my friend made a gesture that stopped the dog as
+though he had been shot, took a piece of blue-ruled canteen-paper from
+his helmet, handed it to me and ran away, while the dog looked after him
+and howled. I read:
+
+SIR--I give you the dog because of what you got me out of. He is the
+best I know, for I made him myself, and he is as good as a man. Please
+do not give him too much to eat, and please do not give him back to me,
+for I'm not going to take him, if you will keep him. So please do not
+try to give him back any more. I have kept his name back, so you can
+call him anything and he will answer, but please do not give him back.
+He can kill a man as easy as anything, but please do not give him too
+much meat. He knows more than a man.
+
+Vixen sympathetically joined her shrill little yap to the bull-terrier's
+despairing cry, and I was annoyed, for I knew that a man who cares for
+dogs is one thing, but a man who loves one dog is quite another. Dogs
+are at the best no more than verminous vagrants, self-scratchers, foul
+feeders, and unclean by the law of Moses and Mohammed; but a dog with
+whom one lives alone for at least six months in the year; a free thing,
+tied to you so strictly by love that without you he will not stir or
+exercise; a patient, temperate, humorous, wise soul, who knows your
+moods before you know them yourself, is not a dog under any ruling.
+
+I had Vixen, who was all my dog to me; and I felt what my friend must
+have felt, at tearing out his heart in this style and leaving it in
+my garden. However, the dog understood clearly enough that I was his
+master, and did not follow the soldier. As soon as he drew breath I made
+much of him, and Vixen, yelling with jealousy, flew at him. Had she been
+of his own sex, he might have cheered himself with a fight, but he only
+looked worriedly when she nipped his deep iron sides, laid his heavy
+head on my knee, and howled anew. I meant to dine at the Club that
+night; but as darkness drew in, and the dog snuffed through the empty
+house like a child trying to recover from a fit of sobbing, I felt that
+I could not leave him to suffer his first evening alone. So we fed at
+home, Vixen on one side, and the stranger-dog on the other; she watching
+his every mouthful, and saying explicitly what she thought of his table
+manners, which were much better than hers.
+
+It was Vixen's custom, till the weather grew hot, to sleep in my bed,
+her head on the pillow like a Christian; and when morning came I would
+always find that the little thing had braced her feet against the wall
+and pushed me to the very edge of the cot. This night she hurried to bed
+purposefully, every hair up, one eye on the stranger, who had dropped
+on a mat in a helpless, hopeless sort of way, all four feet spread out,
+sighing heavily. She settled her head on the pillow several times,
+to show her little airs and graces, and struck up her usual whiney
+sing-song before slumber. The stranger-dog softly edged toward me. I
+put out my hand and he licked it. Instantly my wrist was between Vixen's
+teeth, and her warning aaarh! said as plainly as speech, that if I took
+any further notice of the stranger she would bite.
+
+I caught her behind her fat neck with my left hand, shook her severely,
+and said:
+
+"Vixen, if you do that again you'll be put into the verandah. Now,
+remember!"
+
+She understood perfectly, but the minute I released her she mouthed my
+right wrist once more, and waited with her ears back and all her body
+flattened, ready to bite. The big dog's tail thumped the floor in a
+humble and peace-making way.
+
+I grabbed Vixen a second time, lifted her out of bed like a rabbit
+(she hated that and yelled), and, as I had promised, set her out in the
+verandah with the bats and the moonlight. At this she howled. Then
+she used coarse language--not to me, but to the bullterrier--till she
+coughed with exhaustion. Then she ran round the house trying every door.
+Then she went off to the stables and barked as though some one were
+stealing the horses, which was an old trick of hers. Last she returned,
+and her snuffing yelp said, "I'll be good! Let me in and I'll' be good!"
+
+She was admitted and flew to her pillow. When she was quieted I
+whispered to the other dog, "You can lie on the foot of the bed." The
+bull jumped up at once, and though I felt Vixen quiver with rage, she
+knew better than to protest. So we slept till the morning, and they had
+early breakfast with me, bite for bite, till the horse came round and
+we went for a ride. I don't think the bull had ever followed a horse
+before. He was wild with excitement, and Vixen, as usual, squealed and
+scuttered and scooted, and took charge of the procession.
+
+There was one corner of a village near by, which we generally passed
+with caution, because all the yellow pariah-dogs of the place gathered
+about it.
+
+They were half-wild, starving beasts, and though utter cowards, yet
+where nine or ten of them get together they will mob and kill and eat an
+English dog. I kept a whip with a long lash for them.
+
+That morning they attacked Vixen, who, perhaps of design, had moved from
+beyond my horse's shadow.
+
+The bull was ploughing along in the dust, fifty yards behind, rolling in
+his run, and smiling as bull-terriers will. I heard Vixen squeal; half a
+dozen of the curs closed in on her; a white streak came up behind me;
+a cloud of dust rose near Vixen, and, when it cleared, I saw one tall
+pariah with his back broken, and the bull wrenching another to earth.
+Vixen retreated to the protection of my whip, and the bull paddled back
+smiling more than ever, covered with the blood of his enemies. That
+decided me to call him "Garm of the Bloody Breast," who was a great
+person in his time, or "Garm" for short; so, leaning forward, I told him
+what his temporary name would be. He looked up while I repeated it, and
+then raced away. I shouted "Garm!" He stopped, raced back, and came up
+to ask my will.
+
+Then I saw that my soldier friend was right, and that that dog knew and
+was worth more than a man. At the end of the ride I gave an order which
+Vixen knew and hated: "Go away and get washed!" I said. Garm understood
+some part of it, and Vixen interpreted the rest, and the two trotted off
+together soberly. When I went to the back verandah Vixen had been washed
+snowy-white, and was very proud of herself, but the dog-boy would not
+touch Garm on any account unless I stood by. So I waited while he was
+being scrubbed, and Garm, with the soap creaming on the top of his broad
+head, looked at me to make sure that this was what I expected him to
+endure. He knew perfectly that the dog-boy was only obeying orders.
+
+"Another time," I said to the dog-boy, "you will wash the great dog with
+Vixen when I send them home."
+
+"Does he know?" said the dog-boy, who understood the ways of dogs.
+
+"Garm," I said, "another time you will be washed with Vixen."
+
+I knew that Garm understood. Indeed, next washing-day, when Vixen as
+usual fled under my bed, Garm stared at the doubtful dog-boy in the
+verandah, stalked to the place where he had been washed last time, and
+stood rigid in the tub.
+
+But the long days in my office tried him sorely. We three would drive
+off in the morning at half-past eight and come home at six or later.
+Vixen knowing the routine of it, went to sleep under my table; but
+the confinement ate into Garm's soul. He generally sat on the verandah
+looking out on the Mall; and well I knew what he expected.
+
+Sometimes a company of soldiers would move along on their way to the
+Fort, and Garm rolled forth to inspect them; or an officer in uniform
+entered into the office, and it was pitiful to see poor Garm's welcome
+to the cloth--not the man. He would leap at him, and sniff and bark
+joyously, then run to the door and back again. One afternoon I heard
+him bay with a full throat--a thing I had never heard before--and he
+disappeared. When I drove into my garden at the end of the day a soldier
+in white uniform scrambled over the wall at the far end, and the Garm
+that met me was a joyous dog. This happened twice or thrice a week for a
+month.
+
+I pretended not to notice, but Garm knew and Vixen knew. He would glide
+homewards from the office about four o'clock, as though he were only
+going to look at the scenery, and this he did so quietly that but for
+Vixen I should not have noticed him. The jealous little dog under
+the table would give a sniff and a snort, just loud enough to call my
+attention to the flight. Garm might go out forty times in the day and
+Vixen would never stir, but when he slunk off to see his true master in
+my garden she told me in her own tongue. That was the one sign she made
+to prove that Garm did not altogether belong to the family. They were
+the best of friends at all times, but, Vixen explained that I was never
+to forget Garm did not love me as she loved me.
+
+I never expected it. The dog was not my dog could never be my dog--and I
+knew he was as miserable as his master who tramped eight miles a day to
+see him. So it seemed to me that the sooner the two were reunited the
+better for all. One afternoon I sent Vixen home alone in the dog-cart
+(Garm had gone before), and rode over to cantonments to find another
+friend of mine, who was an Irish soldier and a great friend of the dog's
+master.
+
+I explained the whole case, and wound up with:
+
+"And now Stanley's in my garden crying over his dog. Why doesn't he take
+him back? They're both unhappy."
+
+"Unhappy! There's no sense in the little man any more. But 'tis his
+fit."
+
+"What is his fit? He travels fifty miles a week to see the brute, and
+he pretends not to notice me when he sees me on the road; and I'm as
+unhappy as he is. Make him take the dog back."
+
+"It's his penance he's set himself. I told him by way of a joke, afther
+you'd run over him so convenient that night, whin he was drunk--I said
+if he was a Catholic he'd do penance. Off he went wid that fit in his
+little head an' a dose of fever, an nothin' would suit but givin' you
+the dog as a hostage."
+
+"Hostage for what? I don't want hostages from Stanley."
+
+"For his good behaviour. He's keepin' straight now, the way it's no
+pleasure to associate wid him."
+
+"Has he taken the pledge?"
+
+"If 'twas only that I need not care. Ye can take the pledge for three
+months on an' off. He sez he'll never see the dog again, an' so mark
+you, he'll keep straight for evermore. Ye know his fits? Well, this is
+wan of them. How's the dog takin' it?"
+
+"Like a man. He's the best dog in India. Can't you make Stanley take him
+back?"
+
+"I can do no more than I have done. But ye know his fits. He's just
+doin' his penance. What will he do when he goes to the Hills? The
+doctor's put him on the list."
+
+It is the custom in India to send a certain number of invalids from each
+regiment up to stations in the Himalayas for the hot weather; and though
+the men ought to enjoy the cool and the comfort, they miss the society
+of the barracks down below, and do their best to come back or to avoid
+going. I felt that this move would bring matters to a head, so I left
+Terrence hopefully, though he called after me "He won't take the dog,
+sorr. You can lay your month's pay on that. Ye know his fits."
+
+I never pretended to understand Private Ortheris; and so I did the next
+best thing I left him alone.
+
+That summer the invalids of the regiment to which my friend belonged
+were ordered off to the Hills early, because the doctors thought
+marching in the cool of the day would do them good. Their route lay
+south to a place called Umballa, a hundred and twenty miles or more.
+Then they would turn east and march up into the hills to Kasauli or
+Dugshai or Subathoo. I dined with the officers the night before they
+left--they were marching at five in the morning. It was midnight when I
+drove into my garden, and surprised a white figure flying over the wall.
+
+"That man," said my butler, "has been here since nine, making talk to
+that dog. He is quite mad."
+
+"I did not tell him to go away because he has been here many times
+before, and because the dog-boy told me that if I told him to go away,
+that great dog would immediately slay me. He did not wish to speak to
+the Protector of the Poor, and he did not ask for anything to eat or
+drink."
+
+"Kadir Buksh," said I, "that was well done, for the dog would surely
+have killed thee. But I do not think the white soldier will come any
+more."
+
+Garm slept ill that night and whimpered in his dreams. Once he sprang up
+with a clear, ringing bark, and I heard him wag his tail till it waked
+him and the bark died out in a howl. He had dreamed he was with his
+master again, and I nearly cried. It was all Stanley's silly fault.
+
+The first halt which the detachment of invalids made was some miles
+from their barracks, on the Amritsar road, and ten miles distant from my
+house. By a mere chance one of the officers drove back for another good
+dinner at the Club (cooking on the line of march is always bad), and
+there I met him. He was a particular friend of mine, and I knew that he
+knew how to love a dog properly. His pet was a big fat retriever who was
+going up to the Hills for his health, and, though it was still April,
+the round, brown brute puffed and panted in the Club verandah as though
+he would burst.
+
+"It's amazing," said the officer, "what excuses these invalids of mine
+make to get back to barracks. There's a man in my company now asked me
+for leave to go back to cantonments to pay a debt he'd forgotten. I
+was so taken by the idea I let him go, and he jingled off in an ekka as
+pleased as Punch. Ten miles to pay a debt! Wonder what it was really?"
+
+"If you'll drive me home I think I can show you," I said.
+
+So he went over to my house in his dog-cart with the retriever; and on
+the way I told him the story of Garm.
+
+"I was wondering where that brute had gone to. He's the best dog in the
+regiment," said my friend. "I offered the little fellow twenty rupees
+for him a month ago. But he's a hostage, you say, for Stanley's good
+conduct. Stanley's one of the best men I have when he chooses."
+
+"That's the reason why," I said. "A second-rate man wouldn't have taken
+things to heart as he has done."
+
+We drove in quietly at the far end of the garden, and crept round the
+house. There was a place close to the wall all grown about with tamarisk
+trees, where I knew Garm kept his bones. Even Vixen was not allowed to
+sit near it. In the full Indian moonlight I could see a white uniform
+bending over the dog.
+
+"Good-bye, old man," we could not help hearing Stanley's voice. "For
+'Eving's sake don't get bit and go mad by any measly pi-dog. But you can
+look after yourself, old man. You don't get drunk an' run about 'ittin'
+your friends. You takes your bones an' you eats your biscuit, an' you
+kills your enemy like a gentleman. I'm goin' away--don't 'owl--I'm goin'
+off to Kasauli, where I won't see you no more."
+
+I could hear him holding Garm's nose as the dog threw it up to the
+stars.
+
+"You'll stay here an' be'ave, an'--an' I'll go away an' try to be'ave,
+an' I don't know 'ow to leave you. I don't know--"
+
+"I think this is damn silly," said the officer, patting his foolish
+fubsy old retriever. He called to the private, who leaped to his feet,
+marched forward, and saluted.
+
+"You here?" said the officer, turning away his head.
+
+"Yes, sir, but I'm just goin' back."
+
+"I shall be leaving here at eleven in my cart. You come with me. I can't
+have sick men running about fall over the place. Report yourself at
+eleven, here."
+
+We did not say much when we went indoors, but the officer muttered and
+pulled his retriever's ears.
+
+He was a disgraceful, overfed doormat of a dog; and when he waddled off
+to my cookhouse to be fed, I had a brilliant idea.
+
+At eleven o'clock that officer's dog was nowhere to be found, and you
+never heard such a fuss as his owner made. He called and shouted and
+grew angry, and hunted through my garden for half an hour.
+
+Then I said:
+
+"He's sure to turn up in the morning. Send a man in by rail, and I'll
+find the beast and return him."
+
+"Beast?" said the officer. "I value that dog considerably more than I
+value any man I know. It's all very fine for you to talk--your dog's
+here."
+
+So she was--under my feet--and, had she been missing, food and wages
+would have stopped in my house till her return. But some people grow
+fond of dogs not worth a cut of the whip. My friend had to drive away at
+last with Stanley in the back seat; and then the dog-boy said to me:
+
+"What kind of animal is Bullen Sahib's dog? Look at him!"
+
+I went to the boy's hut, and the fat old reprobate was lying on a mat
+carefully chained up. He must have heard his master calling for twenty
+minutes, but had not even attempted to join him.
+
+"He has no face," said the dog-boy scornfully. "He is a punniar-kooter
+(a spaniel). He never tried to get that cloth off his jaws when his
+master called. Now Vixen-baba would have jumped through the window, and
+that Great Dog would have slain me with his muzzled mouth. It is true
+that there are many kinds of dogs."
+
+Next evening who should turn up but Stanley. The officer had sent
+him back fourteen miles by rail with a note begging me to return the
+retriever if I had found him, and, if I had not, to offer huge rewards.
+The last train to camp left at half-past ten, and Stanley, stayed till
+ten talking to Garm. I argued and entreated, and even threatened to
+shoot the bull-terrier, but the little man was as firm as a rock, though
+I gave him a good dinner and talked to him most severely. Garm knew as
+well as I that this was the last time he could hope to see his man, and
+followed Stanley like a shadow. The retriever said nothing, but licked
+his lips after his meal and waddled off without so much as saying "Thank
+you" to the disgusted dog-boy.
+
+So that last meeting was over, and I felt as wretched as Garm, who
+moaned in his sleep all night. When we went to the office he found a
+place under the table close to Vixen, and dropped flat till it was
+time to go home. There was no more running out into the verandahs, no
+slinking away for stolen talks with Stanley. As the weather grew warmer
+the dogs were forbidden to run beside the cart, but sat at my side on
+the seat, Vixen with her head under the crook of my left elbow, and Garm
+hugging the left handrail.
+
+Here Vixen was ever in great form. She had to attend to all the moving
+traffic, such as bullock-carts that blocked the way, and camels, and led
+ponies; as well as to keep up her dignity when she passed low friends
+running in the dust. She never yapped for yapping's sake, but her
+shrill, high bark was known all along the Mall, and other men's terriers
+ki-yied in reply, and bullock-drivers looked over their shoulders and
+gave us the road with a grin.
+
+But Garm cared for none of these things. His big eyes were on the
+horizon and his terrible mouth was shut. There was another dog in the
+office who belonged to my chief. We called him "Bob the Librarian,"
+because he always imagined vain rats behind the bookshelves, and in
+hunting for them would drag out half the old newspaper-files. Bob was a
+well-meaning idiot, but Garm did not encourage him. He would slide his
+head round the door panting, "Rats! Come along Garm!" and Garm would
+shift one forepaw over the other, and curl himself round, leaving Bob to
+whine at a most uninterested back. The office was nearly as cheerful as
+a tomb in those days.
+
+Once, and only once, did I see Garm at all contented with his
+surroundings. He had gone for an unauthorised walk with Vixen early one
+Sunday morning, and a very young and foolish artilleryman (his battery
+had just moved to that part of the world) tried to steal them both.
+Vixen, of course, knew better than to take food from soldiers, and,
+besides, she had just finished her breakfast. So she trotted back with a
+large piece of the mutton that they issue to our troops, laid it down
+on my verandah, and looked up to see what I thought. I asked her where
+Garm was, and she ran in front of the horse to show me the way.
+
+About a mile up the road we came across our artilleryman sitting very
+stiffly on the edge of a culvert with a greasy handkerchief on his
+knees. Garm was in front of him, looking rather pleased. When the man
+moved leg or hand, Garm bared his teeth in silence. A broken string
+hung from his collar, and the other half of, it lay, all warm, in the
+artilleryman's still hand. He explained to me, keeping his eyes straight
+in front of him, that he had met this dog (he called him awful names)
+walking alone, and was going to take him to the Fort to be killed for a
+masterless pariah.
+
+I said that Garm did not seem to me much of a pariah, but that he had
+better take him to the Fort if he thought best. He said he did not care
+to do so. I told him to go to the Fort alone. He said he did not want to
+go at that hour, but would follow my advice as soon as I had called off
+the dog. I instructed Garm to take him to the Fort, and Garm marched
+him solemnly up to the gate, one mile and a half under a hot sun, and I
+told the quarter-guard what had happened; but the young artilleryman was
+more angry than was at all necessary when they began to laugh. Several
+regiments, he was told, had tried to steal Garm in their time.
+
+That month the hot weather shut down in earnest, and the dogs slept
+in the bathroom on the cool wet bricks where the bath is placed. Every
+morning, as soon as the man filled my bath the two jumped in, and every
+morning the man filled the bath a second time. I said to him that he
+might as well fill a small tub specially for the dogs. "Nay," said he
+smiling, "it is not their custom. They would not understand. Besides,
+the big bath gives them more space."
+
+The punkah-coolies who pull the punkahs day and night came to know Garm
+intimately. He noticed that when the swaying fan stopped I would call
+out to the coolie and bid him pull with a long stroke. If the man still
+slept I would wake him up. He discovered, too, that it was a good thing
+to lie in the wave of air under the punkah. Maybe Stanley had taught him
+all about this in barracks. At any rate, when the punkah stopped, Garm
+would first growl and cock his eye at the rope, and if that did not
+wake the man it nearly always did--he would tiptoe forth and talk in
+the sleeper's ear. Vixen was a clever little dog, but she could never
+connect the punkah and the coolie; so Garm gave me grateful hours of
+cool sleep. But--he was utterly wretched--as miserable as a human being;
+and in his misery he clung so closely to me that other men noticed it,
+and were envious. If I moved from one room to another Garm followed;
+if my pen stopped scratching, Garm's head was thrust into my hand; if
+I turned, half awake, on the pillow, Garm was up and at my side, for he
+knew that I was his only link with his master, and day and night, and
+night and day, his eyes asked one question--"When is this going to end?"
+
+Living with the dog as I did, I never noticed that he was more than
+ordinarily upset by the hot weather, till one day at the Club a man
+said: "That dog of yours will die in a week or two. He's a shadow." Then
+I dosed Garm with iron and quinine, which he hated; and I felt very
+anxious. He lost his appetite, and Vixen was allowed to eat his dinner
+under his eyes. Even that did not make him swallow, and we held a
+consultation on him, of the best man-doctor in the place; a lady-doctor,
+who cured the sick wives of kings; and the Deputy Inspector-General of
+the veterinary service of all India. They pronounced upon his symptoms,
+and I told them his story, and Garm lay on a sofa licking my hand.
+
+"He's dying of a broken heart," said the lady-doctor suddenly.
+
+"'Pon my word," said the Deputy Inspector General, "I believe Mrs.
+Macrae is perfectly right as usual."
+
+The best man-doctor in the place wrote a prescription, and the
+veterinary Deputy Inspector-General went over it afterwards to be sure
+that the drugs were in the proper dog-proportions; and that was the
+first time in his life that our doctor ever allowed his prescriptions
+to be edited. It was a strong tonic, and it put the dear boy on his feet
+for a week or two; then he lost flesh again. I asked a man I knew to
+take him up to the Hills with him when he went, and the man came to the
+door with his kit packed on the top of the carriage. Garm took in the
+situation at one red glance. The hair rose along his back; he sat down
+in front of me and delivered the most awful growl I have ever heard in
+the jaws of a dog. I shouted to my friend to get away at once, and as
+soon as the carriage was out of the garden Garm laid his head on my
+knee and whined. So I knew his answer, and devoted myself to getting
+Stanley's address in the Hills.
+
+My turn to go to the cool came late in August. We were allowed thirty
+days' holiday in a year, if no one fell sick, and we took it as we could
+be spared. My chief and Bob the Librarian had their holiday first, and
+when they were gone I made a calendar, as I always did, and hung it up
+at the head of my cot, tearing off one day at a time till they returned.
+Vixen had gone up to the Hills with me five times before; and she
+appreciated the cold and the damp and the beautiful wood fires there as
+much as I did.
+
+"Garm," I said, "we are going back to Stanley at Kasauli.
+Kasauli--Stanley; Stanley Kasauli." And I repeated it twenty times.
+It was not Kasauli really, but another place. Still I remembered what
+Stanley had said in my garden on the last night, and I dared not change
+the name. Then Garm began to tremble; then he barked; and then he leaped
+up at me, frisking and wagging his tail.
+
+"Not now," I said, holding up my hand. "When I say 'Go,' we'll go,
+Garm." I pulled out the little blanket coat and spiked collar that Vixen
+always wore up in the Hills to protect her against sudden chills and
+thieving leopards, and I let the two smell them and talk it over. What
+they said of course I do not know; but it made a new dog of Garm. His
+eyes were bright; and he barked joyfully when I spoke to him. He ate his
+food, and he killed his rats for the next three weeks, and when he began
+to whine I had only to say "Stanley--Kasauli; Kasauli--Stanley," to wake
+him up. I wish I had thought of it before.
+
+My chief came back, all brown with living in the open air, and very
+angry at finding it so hot in the plains. That same afternoon we three
+and Kadir Buksh began to pack for our month's holiday, Vixen rolling in
+and out of the bullock-trunk twenty times a minute, and Garm grinning
+all over and thumping on the floor with his tail. Vixen knew the routine
+of travelling as well as she knew my office-work. She went to the
+station, singing songs, on the front seat of the carriage, while Garm
+sat with me. She hurried into the railway carriage, saw Kadir Buksh make
+up my bed for the night, got her drink of water, and curled up with her
+black-patch eye on the tumult of the platform. Garm followed her (the
+crowd gave him a lane all to himself) and sat down on the pillows with
+his eyes blazing, and his tail a haze behind him.
+
+We came to Umballa in the hot misty dawn, four or five men, who had been
+working hard fox eleven months, shouting for our dales--the two-horse
+travelling carriages that were to take us up to Kalka at the foot of the
+Hills. It was all new to Garm. He did not understand carriages where you
+lay at full length on your bedding, but Vixen knew and hopped into her
+place at once; Garm following. The Kalka Road, before the railway was
+built, was about forty-seven miles long, and the horses were changed
+every eight miles. Most of them jibbed, and kicked, and plunged, but
+they had to go, and they went rather better than usual for Garm's deep
+bay in their rear.
+
+There was a river to be forded, and four bullocks pulled the carriage,
+and Vixen stuck her head out of the sliding-door and nearly fell into
+the water while she gave directions. Garm was silent and curious,
+and rather needed reassuring about Stanley and Kasauli. So we rolled,
+barking and yelping, into Kalka for lunch, and Garm ate enough for two.
+
+After Kalka the road wound among the hills, and we took a curricle with
+half-broken ponies, which were changed every six miles. No one dreamed
+of a railroad to Simla in those days, for it was seven thousand feet up
+in the air. The road was more than fifty miles long, and the regulation
+pace was just as fast as the ponies could go. Here, again, Vixen led
+Garm from one carriage to the other; jumped into the back seat, and
+shouted. A cool breath from the snows met us about five miles out of
+Kalka, and she whined for her coat, wisely fearing a chill on the
+liver. I had had one made for Garm too, and, as we climbed to the fresh
+breezes, I put it on, and arm chewed it uncomprehendingly, but I think
+he was grateful.
+
+"Hi-yi-yi-yi!" sang Vixen as we shot round the curves; "Toot-toot-toot!"
+went the driver's bugle at the dangerous places, and "yow! yow!" bayed
+Garm. Kadir Buksh sat on the front seat and smiled. Even he was glad to
+get away from the heat of the Plains that stewed in the haze behind us.
+Now and then we would meet a man we knew going down to his work again,
+and he would say: "What's it like below?" and I would shout: "Hotter
+than cinders. What's it like up above?" and he would shout back: "Just
+perfect!" and away we would go.
+
+Suddenly Kadir Buksh said, over his shoulder: "Here is Solon"; and Garm
+snored where he lay with his head on my knee. Solon is an unpleasant
+little cantonment, but it has the advantage of being cool and healthy.
+It is all bare and windy, and one generally stops at a rest-house nearby
+for something to eat. I got out and took both dogs with me, while Kadir
+Buksh made tea. A soldier told, us we should find Stanley "out there,"
+nodding his head towards a bare, bleak hill.
+
+When we climbed to the top we spied that very Stanley, who had given me
+all this trouble, sitting on a rock with his face in his hands, and his
+overcoat hanging loose about him. I never saw anything so lonely and
+dejected in my life as this one little man, crumpled up and thinking, on
+the great gray hillside.
+
+Here Garm left me.
+
+He departed without a word, and, so far as I could see, without moving
+his legs. He flew through the air bodily, and I heard the whack of him
+as he flung himself at Stanley, knocking the little man clean over. They
+rolled on the ground together, shouting, and yelping, and hugging. I
+could not see which was dog and which was man, till Stanley got up and
+whimpered.
+
+He told me that he had been suffering from fever at intervals, and was
+very weak. He looked all he said, but even while I watched, both man and
+dog plumped out to their natural sizes, precisely as dried apples swell
+in water. Garm was on his shoulder, and his breast and feet all at the
+same time, so that Stanley spoke all through a cloud of Garm--gulping,
+sobbing, slavering Garm. He did not say anything that I could
+understand, except that he had fancied he was going to die, but that now
+he was quite well, and that he was not going to give up Garm any more
+to anybody under the rank of Beelzebub.
+
+Then he said he felt hungry, and thirsty, and happy.
+
+We went down to tea at the rest-house, where Stanley stuffed himself
+with sardines and raspberry jam, and beer, and cold mutton and pickles,
+when Garm wasn't climbing over him; and then Vixen and I went on.
+
+Garm saw how it was at once. He said good-bye to me three times, giving
+me both paws one after another, and leaping on to my shoulder. He
+further escorted us, singing Hosannas at the top of his voice, a mile
+down the road. Then he raced back to his own master.
+
+Vixen never opened her mouth, but when the cold twilight came, and we
+could see the lights of Simla across the hills, she snuffled with her
+nose at the breast of my ulster. I unbuttoned it, and tucked her inside.
+Then she gave a contented little sniff, and fell fast asleep, her head
+on my breast, till we bundled out at Simla, two of the four happiest
+people in all the world that night.
+
+
+
+
+THE POWER OF THE DOG
+
+       There is sorrow enough in the natural way
+       From men and women to fill our day;
+       But when we are certain of sorrow in store,
+       Why do we always arrange for more?
+       Brothers and sisters, I bid you beware
+       Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.
+
+       Buy a pup and your money will buy
+       Love unflinching that cannot lie--
+       Perfect passion and worship fed
+       By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.
+       Nevertheless it is hardly fair
+       To risk your heart for a dog to tear.
+
+       When the fourteen years which Nature permits
+       Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits,
+       And the vet's unspoken prescription runs
+       To lethal chambers or loaded guns,
+       Then you will find--it's your own affair
+       But... you've given your heart to a dog to tear.
+
+       When the body that lived at your single will
+       When the whimper of welcome is stilled (how still!)
+       When the spirit that answered your every mood
+       Is gone wherever it goes--for good,
+       You will discover how much you care,
+       And will give your heart to a dog to tear!
+
+       We've sorrow enough in the natural way,
+       When it comes to burying Christian clay.
+       Our loves are not given, but only lent,
+       At compound interest of cent per cent.
+       Though it is not always the case, I believe,
+       That the longer we've kept 'em, the more do we grieve:
+       For, when debts are payable, right or wrong,
+       A short-time loan is as bad as a long
+       So why in Heaven (before we are there!)
+       Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?
+
+
+
+
+THE MOTHER HIVE
+
+If the stock had not been old and overcrowded, the Wax-moth would never
+have entered; but where bees are too thick on the comb there must be
+sickness or parasites. The heat of the hive had risen with the June
+honey-flow, and though the farmers worked, until their wings ached, to
+keep people cool, everybody suffered.
+
+A young bee crawled up the greasy trampled alighting-board. "Excuse me,"
+she began, "but it's my first honey-flight. Could you kindly tell me if
+this is my--"
+
+"--own hive?" the Guard snapped. "Yes! Buzz in, and be foul-brooded to
+you! Next!"
+
+"Shame!" cried half a dozen old workers with worn wings and nerves, and
+there was a scuffle and a hum.
+
+The little grey Wax-moth, pressed close in a crack in the
+alighting-board, had waited this chance all day. She scuttled in like a
+ghost, and, knowing the senior bees would turn her out at once, dodged
+into a brood-frame, where youngsters who had not yet seen the winds blow
+or the flowers nod discussed life. Here she was safe, for young bees
+will tolerate any sort of stranger. Behind her came the bee who had been
+slanged by the Guard.
+
+"What is the world like, Melissa?" said a companion. "Cruel! I brought
+in a full load of first-class stuff, and the Guard told me to go and be
+foul-brooded!" She sat down in the cool draught across the combs.
+
+"If you'd only heard," said the Wax-moth silkily, "the insolence of
+the Guard's tone when she cursed our sister. It aroused the Entire
+Community." She laid an egg. She had stolen in for that purpose.
+
+"There was a bit of a fuss on the Gate," Melissa chuckled. "You were
+there, Miss?" She did not know how to address the slim stranger.
+
+"Don't call me 'Miss.' I'm a sister to all in affliction--just a
+working-sister. My heart bled for you beneath your burden." The Wax-moth
+caressed Melissa with her soft feelers and laid another egg.
+
+"You mustn't lay here," cried Melissa. "You aren't a Queen."
+
+"My dear child, I give you my most solemn word of honour those aren't
+eggs. Those are my principles, and I am ready to die for them." She
+raised her voice a little above the rustle and tramp round her. "If
+you'd like to kill me, pray do."
+
+"Don't be unkind, Melissa," said a young bee, impressed by the chaste
+folds of the Wax-moth's wing, which hid her ceaseless egg-dropping.
+
+"I haven't done anything," Melissa answered. "She's doing it all."
+
+"Ah, don't let your conscience reproach you later, but when you've
+killed me, write me, at least, as one that loved her fellow-worker."
+
+Laying at every sob, the Wax-moth backed into a crowd of young bees, and
+left Melissa bewildered and annoyed. So she lifted up her little voice
+in the darkness and cried, "Stores!" till a gang of cell-fillers hailed
+her, and she left her load with them.
+
+"I'm afraid I foul-brooded you just now," said a voice over her
+shoulder. "I'd been on the Gate for three hours, and one would
+foul-brood the Queen herself after that. No offence meant."
+
+"None taken," Melissa answered cheerily. "I shall be on Guard myself,
+some day. What's next to do?"
+
+"There's a rumour of Death's Head Moths about. Send a gang of youngsters
+to the Gate, and tell them to narrow it in with a couple of stout
+scrap-wax pillars. It'll make the Hive hot, but we can't have Death's
+Headers in the middle of our honey-flow."
+
+"My Only Wings! I should think not!" Melissa had all a sound bee's
+hereditary hatred against the big, squeaking, feathery Thief of the
+Hives. "Tumble out!" she called across the youngsters' quarters. "All
+you who aren't feeding babies, show a leg. Scrap-wax pillars for the
+Ga-ate!" She chanted the order at length.
+
+"That's nonsense," a downy, day-old bee answered. "In the first place, I
+never heard of a Death's Header coming into a hive. People don't do
+such things. In the second, building pillars to keep 'em out is purely
+a Cypriote trick, unworthy of British bees. In the third, if you trust
+a Death's Head, he will trust you. Pillar-building shows lack of
+confidence. Our dear sister in grey says so."
+
+"Yes. Pillars are un-English and provocative, and a waste of wax that
+is needed for higher and more practical ends," said the Wax-moth from an
+empty store-cell.
+
+"The safety of the Hive is the highest thing I've ever heard of. You
+mustn't teach us to refuse work," Melissa began.
+
+"You misunderstand me, as usual, love. Work's the essence of life;
+but to expend precious unreturning vitality and real labour against
+imaginary danger, that is heartbreakingly absurd! If I can only teach
+a--a little toleration--a little ordinary kindness here toward that
+absurd old bogey you call the Death's Header, I shan't have lived in
+vain."
+
+"She hasn't lived in vain, the darling!" cried twenty bees together.
+"You should see her saintly life, Melissa! She just devotes herself to
+spreading her principles, and--and--she looks lovely!"
+
+An old, baldish bee came up the comb.
+
+"Pillar-workers for the Gate! Get out and chew scraps. Buzz off!" she
+said. The Wax-moth slipped aside.
+
+The young bees trooped down the frame, whispering. "What's the matter
+with 'em?" said the oldster. "Why do they call each other 'ducky' and
+'darling'? Must be the weather." She sniffed suspiciously. "Horrid
+stuffy smell here. Like stale quilts. Not Wax-moth, I hope, Melissa?"
+
+"Not to my knowledge," said Melissa, who, of course, only knew the
+Wax-moth as a lady with principles, and had never thought to report
+her presence. She had always imagined Wax-moths to be like blood-red
+dragon-flies.
+
+"You had better fan out this corner for a little," said the old bee and
+passed on. Melissa dropped her head at once, took firm hold with her
+fore-feet, and fanned obediently at the regulation stroke three hundred
+beats to the second. Fanning tries a bee's temper, because she must
+always keep in the same place where she never seems to be doing any
+good, and, all the while, she is wearing out her only wings. When a bee
+cannot fly, a bee must not live; and a bee knows it. The Wax-moth crept
+forth, and caressed Melissa again.
+
+"I see," she murmured, "that at heart you are one of Us."
+
+"I work with the Hive," Melissa answered briefly.
+
+"It's the same thing. We and the Hive are one."
+
+"Then why are your feelers different from ours? Don't cuddle so."
+
+"Don't be provincial, Carissima. You can't have all the world
+alike--yet."
+
+"But why do you lay eggs?" Melissa insisted. "You lay 'em like a
+Queen--only you drop them in patches all over the place. I've watched
+you."
+
+"Ah, Brighteyes, so you've pierced my little subterfuge? Yes, they are
+eggs. By and by they'll spread our principles. Aren't you glad?"
+
+"You gave me your most solemn word of honour that they were not eggs."
+
+"That was my little subterfuge, dearest--for the sake of the Cause.
+Now I must reach the young." The Wax-moth tripped towards the fourth
+brood-frame where the young bees were busy feeding the babies.
+
+It takes some time for a sound bee to realize a malignant and continuous
+lie. "She's very sweet and feathery," was all that Melissa thought, "but
+her talk sounds like ivy honey tastes. I'd better get to my field-work
+again."
+
+She found the Gate in a sulky uproar. The youngsters told off to the
+pillars had refused to chew scrap-wax because it made their jaws ache,
+and were clamouring for virgin stuff.
+
+"Anything to finish the job!" said the badgered Guards. "Hang up, some
+of you, and make wax for these slack-jawed sisters."
+
+Before a bee can make wax she must fill herself with honey. Then she
+climbs to safe foothold and hangs, while other gorged bees hang on to
+her in a cluster. There they wait in silence till the wax comes. The
+scales are either taken out of the maker's pockets by the workers, or
+tinkle down on the workers while they wait. The workers chew them (they
+are useless unchewed) into the all-supporting, all-embracing Wax of the
+Hive.
+
+But now, no sooner was the wax-cluster in position than the workers
+below broke out again.
+
+"Come down!" they cried. "Come down and work! Come on, you Levantine
+parasites! Don't think to enjoy yourselves up there while we're sweating
+down here!"
+
+The cluster shivered, as from hooked fore-foot to hooked hind-foot it
+telegraphed uneasiness. At last a worker sprang up, grabbed the lowest
+waxmaker, and swung, kicking above her companions.
+
+"I can make wax too!" she bawled. "Give me a full gorge and I'll make
+tons of it."
+
+"Make it, then," said the bee she had grappled. The spoken word snapped
+the current through the cluster. It shook and glistened like a cat's fur
+in the dark. "Unhook!" it murmured. "No wax for any one to-day."
+
+"You lazy thieves! Hang up at once and produce our wax," said the bees
+below.
+
+"Impossible! The sweat's gone. To make your wax we must have stillness,
+warmth, and food. Unhook! Unhook!"
+
+They broke up as they murmured, and disappeared among the other bees,
+from whom, of course, they were undistinguishable.
+
+"Seems as if we'd have to chew scrap-wax for these pillars, after all,"
+said a worker.
+
+"Not by a whole comb," cried the young bee who had broken the cluster.
+"Listen here! I've studied the question more than twenty minutes. It's
+as simple as falling off a daisy. You've heard of Cheshire, Root and
+Langstroth?"
+
+They had not, but they shouted "Good old Langstroth!" just the same.
+
+"Those three know all that there is to be known about making hives. One
+or t'other of 'em must have made ours, and if they've made it, they're
+bound to look after it. Ours is a 'Guaranteed Patent Hive.' You can see
+it on the label behind."
+
+"Good old guarantee! Hurrah for the label behind!" roared the bees.
+
+"Well, such being the case, I say that when we find they've betrayed us,
+we can exact from them a terrible vengeance."
+
+"Good old vengeance! Good old Root! 'Nuff said! Chuck it!" The crowd
+cheered and broke away as Melissa dived through.
+
+"D'you know where Langstroth, Root and Cheshire, live if you happen to
+want em? she asked of the proud panting orator.
+
+"Gum me if I know they ever lived at all! But aren't they beautiful
+names to buzz about? Did you see how it worked up the sisterhood?"
+
+"Yes; but it didn't defend the Gate," she replied.
+
+"Ah, perhaps that's true, but think how delicate my position is, sister.
+I've a magnificent appetite, and I don't like working. It's bad for the
+mind. My instinct tells me that I can act as a restraining influence on
+others. They would have been worse, but for me."
+
+But Melissa had already risen clear, and was heading for a breadth of
+virgin white clover, which to an overtired bee is as soothing as plain
+knitting to a woman.
+
+"I think I'll take this load to the nurseries," she said, when she had
+finished. "It was always quiet there in my day," and she topped off with
+two little pats of pollen for the babies.
+
+She was met on the fourth brood-comb by a rush of excited sisters all
+buzzing together.
+
+"One at a time! Let me put down my load. Now, what is it Sacharissa?"
+she said.
+
+"Grey Sister--that fluffy one, I mean--she came and said we ought to be
+out in the sunshine gathering honey, because life was short. She said
+any old bee could attend to our babies, and some day old bees would.
+That isn't true, Melissa, is it? No old bees can take us away from our
+babies, can they?"
+
+"Of course not. You feed the babies while your heads are soft. When your
+heads harden, you go on to field-work. Any one knows that."
+
+"We told her so! We told her so; but she only waved her feelers, and
+said we could all lay eggs like Queens if we chose. And I'm afraid
+lots of the weaker sisters believe her, and are trying to do it. So
+unsettling!"
+
+Sacharissa sped to a sealed worker-cell whose lid pulsated, as the bee
+within began to cut its way out.
+
+"Come along, precious!" she murmured, and thinned the frail top from the
+other side. A pale, damp, creased thing hoisted itself feebly on to the
+comb. Sacharissa's note changed at once. "No time to waste! Go up the
+frame and preen yourself!" she said. "Report for nursing-duty in my ward
+to-morrow evening at six. Stop a minute. What's the matter with your
+third right leg?"
+
+The young bee held it out in silence--unmistakably a drone leg incapable
+of packing pollen.
+
+"Thank you. You needn't report till the day after to-morrow." Sacharissa
+turned to her companion. "That's the fifth oddity hatched in my ward
+since noon. I don't like it."
+
+"There's always a certain number of 'em," said Melissa. "You can't stop
+a few working sisters from laying, now and then, when they overfeed
+themselves. They only raise dwarf drones."
+
+"But we're hatching out drones with workers' stomachs; workers with
+drones' stomachs; and albinoes and mixed-leggers who can't pack
+pollen--like that poor little beast yonder. I don't mind dwarf drones
+any more than you do (they all die in July), but this steady hatch of
+oddities frightens me, Melissa!"
+
+"How narrow of you! They are all so delightfully clever and unusual and
+interesting," piped the Wax-moth from a crack above them. "Come here,
+you dear, downy duck, and tell us all about your feelings."
+
+"I wish she'd go!" Sacharissa lowered her voice. "She meets
+these--er--oddities as they dry out, and cuddles 'em in corners."
+
+"I suppose the truth is that we're over-stocked and too well fed to
+swarm," said Melissa.
+
+"That is the truth," said the Queen's voice behind them. They had
+not heard the heavy royal footfall which sets empty cells vibrating.
+Sacharissa offered her food at once. She ate and dragged her weary body
+forward. "Can you suggest a remedy?" she said.
+
+"New principles!" cried the Wax-moth from her crevice. "We'll apply them
+quietly later."
+
+"Suppose we sent out a swarm?" Melissa suggested. "It's a little late,
+but it might ease us off."
+
+"It would save us, but--I know the Hive! You shall see for yourself."
+The old Queen cried the Swarming Cry, which to a bee of good blood
+should be what the trumpet was to Job's war-horse. In spite of her
+immense age (three, years), it rang between the canon-like frames as a
+pibroch rings in a mountain pass; the fanners changed their note, and
+repeated it up in every gallery; and the broad-winged drones, burly and
+eager, ended it on one nerve-thrilling outbreak of bugles: "La Reine le
+veult! Swarm! Swar-rm! Swar-r-rm!"
+
+But the roar which should follow the Call was wanting. They heard a
+broken grumble like the murmur of a falling tide.
+
+"Swarm? What for? Catch me leaving a good bar-frame Hive, with fixed
+foundations, for a rotten, old oak out in the open where it may rain any
+minute! We're all right! It's a 'Patent Guaranteed Hive.' Why do they
+want to turn us out? Swarming be gummed! Swarming was invented to cheat
+a worker out of her proper comforts. Come on off to bed!"
+
+The noise died out as the bees settled in empty cells for the night.
+
+"You hear?" said the Queen. "I know the Hive!"
+
+"Quite between ourselves, I taught them that," cried the Wax-moth.
+"Wait till my principles develop, and you'll see the light from a new
+quarter."
+
+"You speak truth for once," the Queen said suddenly, for she recognized
+the Wax-moth. "That Light will break into the top of the Hive. A Hot
+Smoke will follow it, and your children will not be able to hide in any
+crevice."
+
+"Is it possible?" Melissa whispered. "I-we have sometimes heard a legend
+like it."
+
+"It is no legend," the old Queen answered. "I had it from my mother, and
+she had it from hers. After the Wax-moth has grown strong, a Shadow will
+fall across the gate; a Voice will speak from behind a Veil; there will
+be Light, and Hot Smoke, and earthquakes, and those who live will see
+everything that they have done, all together in one place, burned up in
+one great fire." The old Queen was trying to tell what she had been told
+of the Bee Master's dealings with an infected hive in the apiary, two or
+three seasons ago; and, of course, from her point of view the affair was
+as important as the Day of Judgment.
+
+"And then?" asked horrified Sacharissa.
+
+"Then, I have heard that a little light will burn in a great darkness,
+and perhaps the world will begin again. Myself, I think not."
+
+"Tut! Tut!" the Wax-moth cried. "You good, fat people always prophesy
+ruin if things don't go exactly your way. But I grant you there will be
+changes."
+
+There were. When her eggs hatched, the wax was riddled with little
+tunnels, coated with the dirty clothes of the caterpillars. Flannelly
+lines ran through the honey-stores, the pollen-larders, the foundations,
+and, worst of all, through the babies in their cradles, till the Sweeper
+Guards spent half their time tossing out useless little corpses. The
+lines ended in a maze of sticky webbing on the face of the comb. The
+caterpillars could not stop spinning as they walked, and as they walked
+everywhere, they smarmed and garmed everything. Even where it did not
+hamper the bees' feet, the stale, sour smell of the stuff put them off
+their work; though some of the bees who had taken to egg laying said it
+encouraged them to be mothers and maintain a vital interest in life.
+
+When the caterpillars became moths, they made friends with the
+ever-increasing Oddities--albinoes, mixed-leggers, single-eyed
+composites, faceless drones, halfqueens and laying sisters; and
+the ever-dwindling band of the old stock worked themselves bald and
+fray-winged to feed their queer charges. Most of the Oddities would not,
+and many, on account of their malformations, could not, go through
+a day's field-work; but the Wax-moths, who were always busy on the
+brood-comb, found pleasant home occupations for them. One albino, for
+instance, divided the number of pounds of honey in stock by the number
+of bees in the Hive, and proved that if every bee only gathered honey
+for seven and three quarter minutes a day, she would have the rest of
+the time to herself, and could accompany the drones on their mating
+flights. The drones were not at all pleased.
+
+Another, an eyeless drone with no feelers, said that all brood-cells
+should be perfect circles, so as not to interfere with the grub or the
+workers. He proved that the old six-sided cell was solely due to the
+workers building against each other on opposite sides of the wall, and
+that if there were no interference, there would be no angles. Some bees
+tried the new plan for a while, and found it cost eight times more
+wax than the old six sided specification; and, as they never allowed a
+cluster to hang up and make wax in peace, real wax was scarce. However,
+they eked out their task with varnish stolen from new coffins at
+funerals, and it made them rather sick. Then they took to cadging round
+sugar-factories and breweries, because it was easiest to get their
+material from those places, and the mixture of glucose and beer
+naturally fermented in store and blew the store-cells out of shape,
+besides smelling abominably. Some of the sound bees warned them that
+ill-gotten gains never prosper, but the Oddities at once surrounded them
+and balled them to death. That was a punishment they were almost as
+fond of as they were of eating, and they expected the sound bees to
+feed them. Curiously enough the age-old instinct of loyalty and devotion
+towards the Hive made the sound bees do this, though their reason told
+them they ought to slip away and unite with some other healthy stock in
+the apiary.
+
+"What, about seven and three-quarter minutes' work now?" said Melissa
+one day as she came in. "I've been at it for five hours, and I've only
+half a load."
+
+"Oh, the Hive subsists on the Hival Honey which the Hive produces," said
+a blind Oddity squatting in a store-cell.
+
+"But honey is gathered from flowers outside two miles away sometimes,"
+cried Melissa.
+
+"Pardon me," said the blind thing, sucking hard. "But this is the Hive,
+is it not?"
+
+"It was. Worse luck, it is."
+
+"And the Hival Honey is here, is it not?" It opened a fresh store-cell
+to prove it.
+
+"Ye-es, but it won't be long at this rate," said Melissa.
+
+"The rates have nothing to do with it. This Hive produces the Hival
+Honey. You people never seem to grasp the economic simplicity that
+underlies all life."
+
+"Oh, me!" said poor Melissa, "haven't you ever been beyond the Gate?"
+
+"Certainly not. A fool's eyes are in the ends of the earth. Mine are in
+my head." It gorged till it bloated.
+
+Melissa took refuge in her poorly paid field-work and told Sacharissa
+the story.
+
+"Hut!" said that wise bee, fretting with an old maid of a thistle. "Tell
+us something new. The Hive's full of such as him--it, I mean."
+
+"What's the end to be? All the honey going out and none coming in.
+Things can't last this way!" said Melissa.
+
+"Who cares?" said Sacharissa. "I know now how drones feel the day before
+they're killed. A short life and a merry one for me."
+
+"If it only were merry! But think of those awful, solemn, lop-sided
+Oddities waiting for us at home crawling and clambering and
+preaching--and dirtying things in the dark."
+
+"I don't mind that so much as their silly songs, after we've fed 'em,
+all about 'work among the merry, merry blossoms," said Sacharissa from
+the deeps of a stale Canterbury bell.
+
+"I do. How's our Queen?" said Melissa.
+
+"Cheerfully hopeless, as usual. But she lays an egg now and then."
+
+"Does she so?" Melissa backed out of the next bell with a jerk. "Suppose
+now, we sound workers tried to raise a Princess in some clean corner?"
+
+"You'd be put to it to find one. The Hive's all Wax-moth and muckings.
+But--well?"
+
+"A Princess might help us in the time of the Voice behind the Veil that
+the Queen talks of. And anything is better than working for Oddities
+that chirrup about work that they can't do, and waste what we bring
+home."
+
+"Who cares?" said Sacharissa. "I'm with you, for the fun of it. The
+Oddities would ball us to death, if they knew. Come home, and we'll
+begin."
+
+There is no room to tell how the experienced Melissa found a far-off
+frame so messed and mishandled by abandoned cell-building experiments
+that, for very shame, the bees never went there. How in that ruin she
+blocked out a Royal Cell of sound wax, but disguised by rubbish till it
+looked like a kopje among deserted kopjes. How she prevailed upon the
+hopeless Queen to make one last effort and lay a worthy egg. How the
+Queen obeyed and died. How her spent carcass was flung out on the
+rubbish heap, and how a multitude of laying sisters went about dropping
+drone-eggs where they listed, and said there was no more need of Queens.
+How, covered by this confusion, Sacharissa educated certain young bees
+to educate certain new-born bees in the almost lost art of making Royal
+Jelly. How the nectar for it was won out of hours in the teeth of chill
+winds. How the hidden egg hatched true--no drone, but Blood Royal. How
+it was capped, and how desperately they worked to feed and double-feed
+the now swarming Oddities, lest any break in the food-supplies should
+set them to instituting inquiries, which, with songs about work, was
+their favourite amusement. How in an auspicious hour, on a moonless
+night, the Princess came forth a Princess indeed, and how Melissa
+smuggled her into a dark empty honey-magazine, to bide her time; and
+how the drones, knowing she was there, went about singing the deep
+disreputable love-songs of the old days--to the scandal of the laying
+sisters, who do not think well of drones. These things are, written
+in the Book of Queens, which is laid up in the hollow of the Great Ash
+Ygdrasil.
+
+After a few days the weather changed again and became glorious. Even the
+Oddities would now join the crowd that hung out on the alighting-board,
+and would sing of work among the merry, merry blossoms till an untrained
+ear might have received it for the hum of a working hive. Yet, in truth,
+their store-honey had been eaten long ago. They lived from day to day
+on the efforts of the few sound bees, while the Wax-moth fretted and
+consumed again their already ruined wax. But the sound bees never
+mentioned these matters. They knew, if they did, the Oddities would hold
+a meeting and ball them to death.
+
+"Now you see what we have done," said the Wax-moths. "We have created
+New Material, a New Convention, a New Type, as we said we would."
+
+"And new possibilities for us," said the laying sisters gratefully. "You
+have given us a new life's work, vital and paramount."
+
+"More than that," chanted the Oddities in the sunshine; "you have
+created a new heaven and a new earth. Heaven, cloudless and accessible"
+(it was a perfect August evening) "and Earth teeming with the merry,
+merry blossoms, waiting only our honest toil to turn them all to good.
+The--er--Aster, and the Crocus, and the--er--Ladies' Smock in her
+season, the Chrysanthemum after her kind, and the Guelder Rose bringing
+forth abundantly withal."
+
+"Oh, Holy Hymettus!" said Melissa, awestruck. "I knew they didn't know
+how honey was made, but they've forgotten the Order of the Flowers! What
+will become of them?"
+
+A Shadow fell across the alighting-board as the Bee Master and his son
+came by. The Oddities crawled in and a Voice behind a Veil said: "I've
+neglected the old Hive too long. Give me the smoker."
+
+Melissa heard and darted through the gate. "Come, oh come!" she cried.
+"It is the destruction the Old Queen foretold. Princess, come!"
+
+"Really, you are too archaic for words," said an Oddity in an alley-way.
+"A cloud, I admit, may have crossed the sun; but why hysterics? Above
+all, why Princesses so late in the day? Are you aware it's the Hival
+Tea-time? Let's sing grace."
+
+Melissa clawed past him with all six legs. Sacharissa had run to what
+was left of the fertile brood-comb. "Down and out!" she called across
+the brown breadth of it. "Nurses, guards, fanners, sweepers--out!"
+
+"Never mind the babies. They're better dead.--Out, before the Light and
+the Hot Smoke!"
+
+The Princess's first clear fearless call (Melissa had found her) rose
+and drummed through all the frames. "La Reine le veult! Swarm! Swar-rm!
+Swar-r-rm!"
+
+The Hive shook beneath the shattering thunder of a stuck-down quilt
+being torn back.
+
+"Don't be alarmed, dears," said the Wax-moths. "That's our work. Look
+up, and you'll see the dawn of the New Day."
+
+Light broke in the top of the hive as the Queen had, prophesied--naked
+light on the boiling, bewildered bees.
+
+Sacharissa rounded up her rearguard, which dropped headlong off the
+frame, and joined the Princess's detachment thrusting toward the Gate.
+Now panic was in full blast, and each sound bee found herself embraced
+by at least three Oddities. The first instinct of a frightened bee is
+to break into the stores and gorge herself with honey; but there were no
+stores left, so the Oddities fought the sound bees.
+
+"You must feed us, or we shall die!" they cried, holding and clutching
+and slipping, while the silent scared earwigs and little spiders twisted
+between their legs. "Think of the Hive, traitors! The Holy Hive!"
+
+"You should have thought before!" cried the sound bees., "Stay and see
+the dawn of your New Day."
+
+They reached the Gate at last over the soft bodies of many to whom they
+had ministered.
+
+"On! Out! Up!" roared Melissa in the Princess's ear. "For the Hive's
+sake! To the Old Oak!"
+
+The Princess left the alighting-board, circled once, flung herself at
+the lowest branch of the Old Oak, and her little loyal swarm--you could
+have covered it with a pint mug--followed, hooked, and hung.
+
+"Hold close!" Melissa gasped. "The old legends have come true! Look!"
+
+The Hive was half hidden by smoke, and Figures moved through the smoke.
+They heard a frame crack stickily, saw it heaved high and twirled round
+between enormous hands--a blotched, bulged, and perished horror of grey
+wax, corrupt brood, and small drone-cells, all covered with crawling
+Oddities, strange to the sun.
+
+"Why, this isn't a hive! This is a museum of curiosities," said the
+Voice behind the Veil. It was only the Bee Master talking to his son.
+
+"Can you blame 'em, father?" said a second voice. "It's rotten with
+Wax-moth. See here!"
+
+Another frame came up. A finger poked through it, and it broke away in
+rustling flakes of ashy rottenness.
+
+"Number Four Frame! That was your mother's pet comb once," whispered
+Melissa to the Princess. "Many's the good egg I've watched her lay
+there."
+
+"Aren't you confusing pod hoc with propter hoc?" said the Bee Master.
+"Wax-moth only succeed when weak bees let them in." A third frame
+crackled and rose into the light. "All this is full of laying workers'
+brood. That never happens till the stock's weakened. Phew!"
+
+He beat it on his knee like a tambourine, and it also crumbled to
+pieces.
+
+The little swarm shivered as they watched the dwarf drone-grubs squirm
+feebly on the grass. Many sound bees had nursed on that frame, well
+knowing their work was useless; but the actual sight of even useless
+work destroyed disheartens a good worker.
+
+"No, they have some recuperative power left," said the second voice.
+"Here's a Queen cell!"
+
+"But it's tucked away among--What on earth has come to the little
+wretches? They seem to have lost the instinct of cell-building." The
+father held up the frame where the bees had experimented in circular
+cell-work. It looked like the pitted head, of a decaying toadstool.
+
+"Not altogether," the son corrected. "There's one line, at least, of
+perfectly good cells."
+
+"My work," said Sacharissa to herself. "I'm glad Man does me justice
+before--"
+
+That frame, too, was smashed out and thrown atop of the others and the
+foul earwiggy quilts.
+
+As frame after frame followed it, the swarm beheld the upheaval,
+exposure, and destruction of all that had been well or ill done in every
+cranny of their Hive for generations past. There was black comb so old
+that they had forgotten where it hung; orange, buff, and ochre-varnished
+store-comb, built as bees were used to build before the days of
+artificial foundations; and there was a little, white, frail new work.
+There were sheets on sheets of level, even brood-comb that had held in
+its time unnumbered thousands of unnamed workers; patches of obsolete
+drone-comb, broad and high-shouldered, showing to what marks the male
+grub was expected to grow; and two-inch deep honey-magazines, empty, but
+still magnificent, the whole gummed and glued into twisted scrap-work,
+awry on the wires; half-cells, beginnings abandoned, or grandiose,
+weak-walled, composite cells pieced out with rubbish and capped with
+dirt.
+
+Good or bad, every inch of it was so riddled by the tunnels of the
+Wax-moth that it broke in clouds of dust as it was flung on the heap.
+
+"Oh, see!" cried Sacharissa. "The Great Burning that Our Queen foretold.
+Who can bear to look?"
+
+A flame crawled up the pile of rubbish, and they smelt singeing wax.
+
+The Figures stooped, lifted the Hive and shook it upside down over the
+pyre. A cascade of Oddities, chips of broken comb, scale, fluff, and
+grubs slid out, crackled, sizzled, popped a little, and then the flames
+roared up and consumed all that fuel.
+
+"We must disinfect," said a Voice. "Get me a sulphur-candle, please."
+
+The shell of the Hive was returned to its place, a light was set in
+its sticky emptiness, tier by tier the Figures built it up, closed the
+entrance, and went away. The swarm watched the light leaking through
+the cracks all the long night. At dawn one Wax-moth came by, fluttering
+impudently.
+
+"There has been a miscalculation about the New Day, my dears," she
+began; "one can't expect people to be perfect all at once. That was our
+mistake."
+
+"No, the mistake was entirely ours," said the Princess.
+
+"Pardon me," said the Wax-moth. "When you think of the enormous
+upheaval--call it good or bad--which our influence brought about, you
+will admit that we, and we alone--"
+
+"You?" said the Princess. "Our stock was not strong. So you came--as any
+other disease might have come. Hang close, all my people."
+
+When the sun rose, Veiled Figures came down, and saw their swarm at the
+bough's end waiting patiently within sight of the old Hive--a handful,
+but prepared to go on.
+
+
+
+
+THE BEES AND THE FLIES
+
+             A FARMER of the Augustan age
+             Perused in Virgil's golden page,
+             The story of the secret won
+             From Proteus by Cyrene's son
+             How the dank sea-god sowed the swain
+             Means to restore his hives again
+             More briefly, how a slaughtered bull
+             Breeds honey by the bellyful.
+
+             The egregious rustic put to death
+             A bull by stopping of its breath:
+             Disposed the carcass in a shed
+             With fragrant herbs and branches spread.
+             And, having thus performed the charm,
+             Sat down to wait the promised swarm.
+
+             Nor waited long... The God of Day
+             Impartial, quickening with his ray
+             Evil and good alike, beheld
+             The carcass--and the carcass swelled!
+             Big with new birth the belly heaves
+             Beneath its screen of scented leaves;
+             Past any doubt, the bull conceives!
+
+             The farmer bids men bring more hives
+             To house the profit that arrives;
+             Prepares on pan, and key and kettle,
+             Sweet music that shall make 'em settle;
+             But when to crown the work he goes,
+             Gods! What a stink salutes his nose!
+             Where are the honest toilers?
+             Where The gravid mistress of their care?
+             A busy scene, indeed, he sees,
+             But not a sign or sound of bees.
+             Worms of the riper grave unhid
+             By any kindly coffin lid,
+             Obscene and shameless to the light,
+             Seethe in insatiate appetite,
+             Through putrid offal; while above
+             The hissing blow-fly seeks his love,
+             Whose offspring, supping where they supt,
+             Consume corruption twice corrupt.
+
+
+
+
+WITH THE NIGHT MAIL
+
+A STORY OF 2000 A. D.
+
+(Together with extracts from the magazine in which it appeared)
+
+A nine o'clock of a gusty winter night I stood on the lower stages of
+one of the G.P.O. outward mail towers. My purpose was a run to Quebec
+in "Postal Packet 162 or such other as may be appointed"; and the
+Postmaster-General himself countersigned the order. This talisman opened
+all doors, even those in the despatching-caisson at the foot of the
+tower, where they were delivering the sorted Continental mail. The bags
+lay packed close as herrings in the long grey underbodies which our
+G.P.O. still calls "coaches." Five such coaches were filled as I
+watched, and were shot up the guides to be locked on to their waiting
+packets three hundred feet nearer the stars.
+
+From the despatching-caisson I was conducted by a courteous and
+wonderfully learned official Mr. L.L. Geary, Second Despatcher of
+the Western Route--to the Captains' Room (this wakes an echo of old
+romance), where the mail captains come on for their turn of duty. He
+introduces me to the captain of "162"--Captain Purnall, and his relief,
+Captain Hodgson. The one is small and dark; the other large and red;
+but each has the brooding sheathed glance characteristic of eagles and
+aeronauts. You can see it in the pictures of our racing professionals,
+from L.V. Rautsch to little Ada Warrleigh--that fathomless abstraction
+of eyes habitually turned through naked space.
+
+On the notice-board in the Captains' Room, the pulsing arrows of some
+twenty indicators register, degree by geographical degree, the progress
+of as many homeward-bound packets. The word "Cape" rises across the face
+of a dial; a gong strikes: the South African mid-weekly mail is in at
+the Highgate Receiving Towers. That is all. It reminds one comically of
+the traitorous little bell which in pigeon-fanciers', lofts notifies the
+return of a homer.
+
+"Time for us to be on the move," says Captain Purnall, and we are shot
+up by the passenger-lift to the top of the despatch-towers. "Our coach
+will lock on when it is filled and the clerks are aboard."
+
+"No. 162" waits for us in Slip E of the topmost stage. The great curve
+of her back shines frostily under the lights, and some minute alteration
+of trim makes her rock a little in her holding-down slips.
+
+Captain Purnall frowns and dives inside. Hissing softly, "162" comes to
+rest as level as a rule. From her North Atlantic Winter nose-cap (worn
+bright as diamond with boring through uncounted leagues of hail, snow,
+and ice) to the inset of her three built out propeller-shafts is some
+two hundred and forty feet. Her extreme diameter, carried well forward,
+is thirty-seven. Contrast this with the nine hundred by ninety-five of
+any crack liner, and you will realize the power that must drive a hull
+through all weathers at more than the emergency speed of the Cyclonic!
+
+The eye detects no joint in her skin plating save the sweeping
+hair-crack of the bow-rudder--Magniac's rudder that assured us the
+dominion of the unstable air and left its inventor penniless and
+half-blind. It is calculated to Castelli's "gullwing" curve. Raise a few
+feet of that all but invisible plate three-eighths of an inch and she
+will yaw five miles to port or starboard ere she is under control again.
+Give her full helm and she returns on her track like a whip-lash. Cant
+the whole forward--a touch on the wheel will suffice--and she sweeps
+at your good direction up or down. Open the complete circle and she
+presents to the air a mushroom-head that will bring her up all standing
+within a half mile.
+
+"Yes," says Captain Hodgson, answering my thought, "Castelli thought
+he'd discovered the secret of controlling aeroplanes when he'd only
+found out how to steer dirigible balloons. Magniac invented his rudder
+to help war-boats ram each other; and war went out of fashion and
+Magniac he went out of his mind because he said he couldn't serve his
+country any more. I wonder if any of us ever know what we're really
+doing."
+
+"If you want to see the coach locked you'd better go aboard. It's due
+now," says Mr. Geary. I enter through the door amidships. There is
+nothing here for display. The inner skin of the gas-tanks comes down to
+within a foot or two of my head and turns over just short of the turn of
+the bilges. Liners and yachts disguise their tanks with decoration,
+but the G.P.O. serves them raw under a lick of grey official paint. The
+inner skin shuts off fifty feet of the bow and as much of the stern,
+but the bow-bulkhead is recessed for the lift-shunting apparatus as
+the stern is pierced for the shaft-tunnels. The engine-room lies almost
+amidships. Forward of it, extending to the turn of the bow tanks, is an
+aperture--a bottomless hatch at present--into which our coach will
+be locked. One looks down over the coamings three hundred feet to
+the despatching-caisson whence voices boom upward. The light below is
+obscured to a sound of thunder, as our coach rises on its guides. It
+enlarges rapidly from a postage-stamp to a playing-card; to a punt and
+last a pontoon. The two clerks, its crew, do not even look up as it
+comes into place. The Quebec letters fly under their fingers and leap
+into the docketed racks, while both captains and Mr. Geary satisfy them
+selves that the coach is locked home. A clerk passes the way-bill over
+the hatch coaming. Captain Purnall thumb-marks and passes it to Mr.
+Geary. Receipt has been given and taken. "Pleasant run," says Mr. Geary,
+and disappears through the door which a foot high pneumatic compressor
+locks after him.
+
+"A-ah!" sighs the compressor released. Our holding-down clips part with
+a tang. We are clear.
+
+Captain Hodgson opens the great colloid underbody porthole through which
+I watch over-lighted London slide eastward as the gale gets hold of
+us. The first of the low winter clouds cuts off the well-known view and
+darkens Middlesex. On the south edge of it I can see a postal packet's
+light ploughing through the white fleece. For an instant she gleams like
+a star ere she drops toward the Highgate Receiving Towers. "The Bombay
+Mail," says Captain Hodgson, and looks at his watch. "She's forty
+minutes late."
+
+"What's our level?" I ask.
+
+"Four thousand. Aren't you coming up on the bridge?"
+
+The bridge (let us ever praise the G.P.O. as a repository of ancientest
+tradition!) is represented by a view of Captain Hodgson's legs where he
+stands on the Control Platform that runs thwart-ships overhead. The bow
+colloid is unshuttered and Captain Purnall, one hand on the wheel,
+is feeling for a fair slant. The dial shows 4300 feet. "It's steep
+to-night," he mutters, as tier on tier of cloud drops under. "We
+generally pick up an easterly draught below three thousand at this time
+o' the year. I hate slathering through fluff."
+
+"So does Van Cutsem. Look at him huntin' for a slant!" says Captain
+Hodgson. A foglight breaks cloud a hundred fathoms below. The Antwerp
+Night Mail makes her signal and rises between two racing clouds far to
+port, her flanks blood-red in the glare of Sheerness Double Light.
+The gale will have us over the North Sea in half-an-hour, but Captain
+Purnall lets her go composedly--nosing to every point of the compass as
+she rises.
+
+"Five thousand-six, six thousand eight hundred"--the dip-dial reads ere
+we find the easterly drift, heralded by a flurry of snow at the thousand
+fathom level. Captain Purnall rings up the engines and keys down the
+governor on the switch before him. There is no sense in urging machinery
+when Eolus himself gives you good knots for nothing. We are away in
+earnest now--our nose notched home on our chosen star. At this level the
+lower clouds are laid out, all neatly combed by the dry fingers of the
+East. Below that again is the strong westerly blow through which we
+rose. Overhead, a film of southerly drifting mist draws a theatrical
+gauze across the firmament. The moonlight turns the lower strata to
+silver without a stain except where our shadow underruns us. Bristol and
+Cardiff Double Lights (those statelily inclined beams over Severnmouth)
+are dead ahead of us; for we keep the Southern Winter Route. Coventry
+Central, the pivot of the English system, stabs upward once in ten
+seconds its spear of diamond light to the north; and a point or two off
+our starboard bow The Leek, the great cloud-breaker of Saint David's
+Head, swings its unmistakable green beam twenty-five degrees each way.
+There must be half a mile of fluff over it in this weather, but it does
+not affect The Leek.
+
+"Our planet's over-lighted if anything," says Captain Purnall at the
+wheel, as Cardiff-Bristol slides under. "I remember the old days of
+common white verticals that 'ud show two or three hundred feet up in a
+mist, if you knew where to look for 'em. In really fluffy weather they
+might as well have been under your hat. One could get lost coming home
+then, an' have some fun. Now, it's like driving down Piccadilly."
+
+He points to the pillars of light where the cloud-breakers bore through
+the cloud-floor. We see nothing of England's outlines: only a white
+pavement pierced in all directions by these manholes of variously
+coloured fire--Holy Island's white and red--St. Bee's interrupted white,
+and so on as far as the eye can reach. Blessed be Sargent, Ahrens,
+and the Dubois brothers, who invented the cloud-breakers of the world
+whereby we travel in security!
+
+"Are you going to lift for The Shamrock?" asks Captain Hodgson. Cork
+Light (green, fixed) enlarges as we rush to it. Captain Purnall
+nods. There is heavy traffic hereabouts--the cloud-bank beneath us is
+streaked with running fissures of flame where the Atlantic boats are
+hurrying Londonward just clear of the fluff. Mail-packets are supposed,
+under the Conference rules, to have the five-thousand-foot lanes to
+themselves, but the foreigner in a hurry is apt to take liberties with
+English air. "No. 162" lifts to a long-drawn wail of the breeze in the
+fore-flange of the rudder and we make Valencia (white, green, white) at
+a safe 7000 feet, dipping our beam to an incoming Washington packet.
+
+There is no cloud on the Atlantic, and faint streaks of cream round
+Dingle Bay show where the driven seas hammer the coast. A big S.A.T.A.
+liner (Societe Anonyme des Transports Aeriens) is diving and lifting
+half a mile below us in search of some break in the solid west wind.
+Lower still lies a disabled Dane she is telling the liner all about it
+in International. Our General Communication dial has caught her talk and
+begins to eavesdrop. Captain Hodgson makes a motion to shut it off but
+checks himself. "Perhaps you'd like to listen," he says.
+
+"Argol of St. Thomas," the Dane whimpers. "Report owners three starboard
+shaft collar-bearings fused. Can make Flores as we are, but impossible
+further. Shall we buy spares at Fayal?"
+
+The liner acknowledges and recommends inverting the bearings. The Argol
+answers that she has already done so without effect, and begins to
+relieve her mind about cheap German enamels for collar-bearings. The
+Frenchman assents cordially, cries "Courage, mon ami," and switches off.
+
+Then lights sink under the curve of the ocean.
+
+"That's one of Lundt & Bleamers' boats," says Captain Hodgson. "Serves
+'em right for putting German compos in their thrust-blocks. She won't
+be in Fayal to-night! By the way, wouldn't you like to look round the
+engine-room?"
+
+I have been waiting eagerly for this invitation and I follow Captain
+Hodgson from the control-platform, stooping low to avoid the bulge
+of the tanks. We know that Fleury's gas can lift anything, as the
+world-famous trials of '89 showed, but its almost indefinite powers
+of expansion necessitate vast tank room. Even in this thin air the
+lift-shunts are busy taking out one-third of its normal lift, and still
+"162" must be checked by an occasional downdraw of the rudder or our
+flight would become a climb to the stars. Captain Purnall prefers an
+overlifted to an underlifted ship; but no two captains trim ship alike.
+"When I take the bridge," says Captain Hodgson, "you'll see me shunt
+forty per cent of the lift out of the gas and run her on the upper
+rudder. With a swoop upward instead of a swoop downward, as you say.
+Either way will do. It's only habit. Watch our dip-dial! Tim fetches her
+down once every thirty knots as regularly as breathing."
+
+So is it shown on the dip-dial. For five or six minutes the arrow creeps
+from 6700 to 7300. There is the faint "szgee" of the rudder, and back
+slides the arrow to 6000 on a falling slant of ten or fifteen knots.
+
+"In heavy weather you jockey her with the screws as well," says Captain
+Hodgson, and, unclipping the jointed bar which divides the engine-room
+from the bare deck, he leads me on to the floor. Here we find Fleury's
+Paradox of the Bulk-headed Vacuum--which we accept now without
+thought--literally in full blast. The three engines are H.T.&T.
+assisted-vacuo Fleury turbines running from 3000 to the Limit--that is
+to say, up to the point when the blades make the air "bell"--cut out a
+vacuum for themselves precisely as over-driven marine propellers used
+to do. "162's" Limit is low on account of the small size of her nine
+screws, which, though handier than the old colloid Thelussons, "bell"
+sooner. The midships engine, generally used as a reinforce, is not
+running; so the port and starboard turbine vacuum-chambers draw direct
+into the return-mains.
+
+The turbines whistle reflectively. From the low-arched expansion-tanks
+on either side the valves descend pillarwise to the turbine-chests,
+and thence the obedient gas whirls through the spirals of blades with a
+force that would whip the teeth out of a power saw. Behind, is its own
+pressure held in leash of spurred on by the lift-shunts; before it,
+the vacuum where Fleury's Ray dances in violet-green bands and whirled
+turbillons of flame. The jointed U-tubes of the vacuum-chamber are
+pressure-tempered colloid (no glass would endure the strain for an
+instant) and a junior engineer with tinted spectacles watches the Ray
+intently. It is the very heart of the machine--a mystery to this day.
+Even Fleury who begat it and, unlike Magniac, died a multi-millionaire,
+could not explain how the restless little imp shuddering in the U-tube
+can, in the fractional fraction of a second, strike the furious blast
+of gas into a chill greyish-green liquid that drains (you can hear it
+trickle) from the far end of the vacuum through the eduction-pipes and
+the mains back to the bilges. Here it returns to its gaseous, one had
+almost written sagacious, state and climbs to work afresh. Bilge-tank,
+upper tank, dorsal-tank, expansion-chamber, vacuum, main-return (as a
+liquid), and bilge-tank once more is the ordained cycle. Fleury's
+Ray sees to that; and the engineer with the tinted spectacles sees to
+Fleury's Ray. If a speck of oil, if even the natural grease of the human
+finger touch the hooded terminals, Fleury's Ray will wink and disappear
+and must be laboriously built up again. This means half a day's work for
+all hands and an expense of, one hundred and seventy-odd pounds to the
+G.P.O. for radium-salts and such trifles.
+
+"Now look at our thrust-collars. You won't find much German compo there.
+Full-jewelled, you see," says Captain Hodgson as the engineer shunts
+open the top of a cap. Our shaft-bearings are C.M.C. (Commercial
+Minerals Company) stones, ground with as much care as the lens of a
+telescope. They cost L837 apiece. So far we have not arrived at their
+term of life. These bearings came from "No. 97," which took them over
+from the old Dominion of Light which had them out of the wreck of the
+Persew aeroplane in the years when men still flew wooden kites over oil
+engines!
+
+They are a shining reproof to all low-grade German "ruby" enamels,
+so-called "boort" facings, and the dangerous and unsatisfactory alumina
+compounds which please dividend-hunting owners and turn skippers crazy.
+The rudder-gear and the gas lift-shunt, seated side by side under the
+engine-room dials, are the only machines in visible motion. The former
+sighs from time to time as the oil plunger rises and falls half an inch.
+The latter, cased and guarded like the U-tube aft, exhibits another
+Fleury Ray, but inverted and more green than violet. Its function is
+to shunt the lift out of the gas, and this it will do without watching.
+That is all! A tiny pump-rod wheezing and whining to itself beside a
+sputtering green lamp. A hundred and fifty feet aft down the flat-topped
+tunnel of the tanks a violet light, restless and irresolute. Between the
+two, three white-painted turbine-trunks, like eel-baskets laid on their
+side, accentuate the empty perspectives. You can hear the trickle of the
+liquefied gas flowing from the vacuum into the bilge-tanks and the soft
+gluck-glock of gaslocks closing as Captain Purnall brings "162" down by
+the head. The hum of the turbines and the boom of the air on our skin is
+no more than a cotton-wool wrapping to the universal stillness. And we
+are running an eighteen-second mile.
+
+I peer from the fore end of the engine-room over the hatch-coamings
+into the coach. The mail-clerks are sorting the Winnipeg, Calgary, and
+Medicine Hat bags; but there is a pack of cards ready on the table.
+
+Suddenly a bell thrills; the engineers run to the turbine-valves and
+stand by; but the spectacled slave of the Ray in the U-tube never
+lifts his head. He must watch where he is. We are hard-braked and going
+astern; there is language from the Control Platform.
+
+"Tim's sparking badly about something," says the unruffled Captain
+Hodgson. "Let's look."
+
+Captain Purnall is not the suave man we left half an hour since, but
+the embodied authority of the G.P.O. Ahead of us floats an ancient,
+aluminum-patched, twin-screw tramp of the dingiest, with no more right
+to the 5000-foot lane than has a horse-cart to a modern road. She
+carries an obsolete "barbette" conning tower--a six-foot affair with
+railed platform forward--and our warning beam plays on the top of it
+as a policeman's lantern flashes on the area sneak. Like a sneak-thief,
+too, emerges a shock-headed navigator in his shirt-sleeves. Captain
+Purnall wrenches open the colloid to talk with him man to man. There are
+times when Science does not satisfy.
+
+"What under the stars are you doing here, you sky-scraping
+chimney-sweep?" he shouts as we two drift side by side. "Do you know
+this is a Mail-lane? You call yourself a sailor, sir? You ain't fit to
+peddle toy balloons to an Esquimaux. Your name and number! Report and
+get down, and be--!"
+
+"I've been blown up once," the shock-headed man cries, hoarsely, as a
+dog barking. "I don't care two flips of a contact for anything you can
+do, Postey."
+
+"Don't you, sir? But I'll make you care. I'll have you towed stern first
+to Disko and broke up. You can't recover insurance if you're broke for
+obstruction. Do you understand that?"
+
+Then the stranger bellows: "Look at my propellers! There's been a
+wulli-wa down below that has knocked us into umbrella-frames! We've
+been blown up about forty thousand feet! We're all one conjuror's watch
+inside! My mate's arm's broke; my engineer's head's cut open; my Ray
+went out when the engines smashed; and... and... for pity's sake give
+me my height, Captain! We doubt we're dropping."
+
+"Six thousand eight hundred. Can you hold it?" Captain Purnall overlooks
+all insults, and leans half out of the colloid, staring and snuffing.
+The stranger leaks pungently.
+
+"We ought to blow into St. John's with luck. We're trying to plug the
+fore-tank now, but she's simply whistling it away," her captain wails.
+
+"She's sinking like a log," says Captain Purnall in an undertone. "Call
+up the Banks Mark Boat, George." Our dip-dial shows that we, keeping
+abreast the tramp, have dropped five hundred feet the last few minutes.
+
+Captain Purnall presses a switch and our signal beam begins to swing
+through the night, twizzling spokes of light across infinity.
+
+"That'll fetch something," he says, while Captain Hodgson watches the
+General Communicator. He has called up the North Banks Mark Boat, a few
+hundred miles west, and is reporting the case.
+
+"I'll stand by you," Captain Purnall roars to the lone figure on the
+conning-tower.
+
+"Is it as bad as that?" comes the answer. "She isn't insured. She's
+mine."
+
+"Might have guessed as much," mutters Hodgson. "Owner's risk is the
+worst risk of all!"
+
+"Can't I fetch St. John's--not even with this breeze?" the voice
+quavers.
+
+"Stand by to abandon ship. Haven't you any lift in you, fore or aft?"
+
+"Nothing but the midship tanks, and they're none too tight. You see, my
+Ray gave out and--" he coughs in the reek of the escaping gas.
+
+"You poor devil!" This does not reach our friend. "What does the Mark
+Boat say, George?"
+
+"Wants to know if there's any danger to traffic. Says she's in a bit of
+weather herself, and can't quit station. I've turned in a General Call,
+so even if they don't see our beam some one's bound to help--or else we
+must. Shall I clear our slings? Hold on! Here we are! A Planet liner,
+too! She'll be up in a tick!"
+
+"Tell her to have her slings ready," cries his brother captain. "There
+won't be much time to spare... Tie up your mate," he roars to the
+tramp.
+
+"My mate's all right. It's my engineer. He's gone crazy."
+
+"Shunt the lift out of him with a spanner. Hurry!"
+
+"But I can make St. John's if you'll stand by."
+
+"You'll make the deep, wet Atlantic in twenty minutes. You're less than
+fifty-eight hundred now. Get your papers."
+
+A Planet liner, east bound, heaves up in a superb spiral and takes
+the air of us humming. Her underbody colloid is open land her
+transporter-slings hang down like tentacles. We shut off our beam as she
+adjusts herself--steering to a hair--over the tramp's conning-tower.
+The mate comes up, his arm strapped to his side, and stumbles into the
+cradle. A man with a ghastly scarlet head follows, shouting that he must
+go back and build up his Ray. The mate assures him that he will find
+a nice new Ray all ready in the liner's engine-room. The bandaged head
+goes up wagging excitedly. A youth and a woman follow. The liner cheers
+hollowly above us, and we see the passengers' faces at the saloon
+colloid.
+
+"That's a pretty girl. What's the fool waiting for now?" says Captain
+Purnall.
+
+The skipper comes up, still appealing to us to stand by and see him
+fetch St. John's. He dives below and returns--at which we little human
+beings in the void cheer louder than ever--with the ship's kitten.
+Up fly the liner's hissing slings; her underbody crashes home and she
+hurtles away again. The dial shows less than 3000 feet. The Mark Boat
+signals we must attend to the derelict, now whistling her death-song, as
+she falls beneath us in long sick zigzags.
+
+"Keep our beam on her and send out a General Warning," says Captain
+Purnall, following her down. There is no need. Not a liner in air but
+knows the meaning of that vertical beam and gives us and our quarry a
+wide berth.
+
+"But she'll drown in the water, won't she?" I ask. "Not always," is
+his answer. "I've known a derelict up-end and sift her engines out of
+herself and flicker round the Lower Lanes for three weeks on her forward
+tanks only. We'll run no risks. Pith her, George, and look sharp.
+There's weather ahead."
+
+Captain Hodgson opens the underbody colloid, swings the heavy
+pithing-iron out of its rack which in liners is generally cased as a
+smoking-room settee, and at two hundred feet releases the catch. We
+hear the whir of the crescent-shaped arms opening as they descend. The
+derelict's forehead is punched in, starred across, and rent diagonally.
+She falls stern first, our beam upon her; slides like a lost soul down
+that pitiless ladder of light, and the Atlantic takes her.
+
+"A filthy business," says Hodgson. "I wonder what it must have been like
+in the old days?"
+
+The thought had crossed my mind, too. What if that wavering carcass had
+been filled with the men of the old days, each one of them taught (that
+is the horror of it!) that, after death he would very possibly go for
+ever to unspeakable torment?
+
+And scarcely a generation ago, we (one knows now that we are only our
+fathers re-enlarged upon the earth), we, I say, ripped and rammed and
+pithed to admiration.
+
+Here Tim, from the Control Platform, shouts that we are to get into our
+inflators and to bring him his at once.
+
+We hurry into the heavy rubber suits--the engineers are already
+dressed--and inflate at the air-pump taps. G.P.O. inflators are thrice
+as thick as a racing man's "flickers," and chafe abominably under the
+armpits. George takes the wheel until Tim has blown himself up to the
+extreme of rotundity. If you kicked him off the c. p. to the deck he
+would bounce back. But it is "162" that will do the kicking.
+
+"The Mark Boat's mad--stark ravin' crazy," he snorts, returning to
+command. "She says there's a bad blow-out ahead and wants me to pull
+over to Greenland. I'll see her pithed first! We wasted half an hour
+fussing over that dead duck down under, and now I'm expected to go
+rubbin' my back all round the Pole. What does she think a Postal
+packet's made of? Gummed silk? Tell her we're coming on straight,
+George."
+
+George buckles him into the Frame and switches on the Direct Control.
+Now under Tim's left toe lies the port-engine Accelerator; under his
+left heel the Reverse, and so with the other foot. The lift-shunt stops
+stand out on the rim of the steering-wheel where the fingers of his left
+hand can play on them. At his right hand is the midships engine lever
+ready to be thrown into gear at a moment's notice. He leans forward
+in his belt, eyes glued to the colloid, and one ear cocked toward the
+General Communicator. Henceforth he is the strength and direction of
+"162," through whatever may befall.
+
+The Banks Mark Boat is reeling out pages of A. B..C. Directions to
+the traffic at large. We are to secure all "loose objects"; hood up
+our Fleury Rays; and "on no account to attempt to clear snow from our
+conning-towers till the weather abates." Under-powered craft, we are
+told, can ascend to the limit of their lift, mail-packets to look out
+for them accordingly; the lower lanes westward are pitting very badly,
+"with frequent blow-outs, vortices, laterals, etc."
+
+Still the clear dark holds up unblemished. The only warning is the
+electric skin-tension (I feel as though I were a lace-maker's pillow)
+and an irritability which the gibbering of the General Communicator
+increases almost to hysteria.
+
+We have made eight thousand feet since we pithed the tramp and our
+turbines are giving us an honest two hundred and ten knots.
+
+Very far to the west an elongated blur of red, low down, shows us the
+North Banks Mark Boat. There are specks of fire round her rising and
+falling--bewildered planets about an unstable sun--helpless shipping
+hanging on to her light for company's sake. No wonder she could not quit
+station.
+
+She warns us to look out for the back-wash of the bad vortex in which
+(her beam shows it) she is even now reeling.
+
+The pits of gloom about us begin to fill with very faintly luminous
+films--wreathing and uneasy shapes. One forms itself into a globe of
+pale flame that waits shivering with eagerness till we sweep by. It
+leaps monstrously across the blackness, alights on the precise tip of
+our nose, pirouettes there an instant, and swings off. Our roaring bow
+sinks as though that light were lead--sinks and recovers to lurch and
+stumble again beneath the next blow-out. Tim's fingers on the lift-shunt
+strike chords of numbers--1:4:7:--2:4:6:--7:5:3, and so on; for he is
+running by his tanks only, lifting or lowering her against the uneasy
+air. All three engines are at work, for the sooner we have skated over
+this thin ice the better. Higher we dare not go. The whole upper vault
+is charged with pale krypton vapours, which our skin friction may excite
+to unholy manifestations. Between the upper and lower levels--5000 and
+7000, hints the Mark Boat--we may perhaps bolt through if... Our bow
+clothes itself in blue flame and falls like a sword. No human skill can
+keep pace with the changing tensions. A vortex has us by the beak and
+we dive down a two-thousand foot slant at an angle (the dip-dial and my
+bouncing body record it) of thirty-five. Our turbines scream shrilly;
+the propellers cannot bite on the thin air; Tim shunts the lift out of
+five tanks at once and by sheer weight drives her bullet wise through
+the maelstrom till she cushions with jar on an up-gust, three thousand
+feet below.
+
+"Now we've done it," says George in my ear: "Our skin-friction, that
+last slide, has played Old Harry with the tensions! Look out for
+laterals, Tim; she'll want some holding."
+
+"I've got her," is the answer. "Come up, old woman."
+
+She comes up nobly, but the laterals buffet her left and right like the
+pinions of angry angels. She is jolted off her course four ways at once,
+and cuffed into place again, only to be swung aside and dropped into
+a new chaos. We are never without a corposant grinning on our bows or
+rolling head over heels from nose to midships, and to the crackle of
+electricity around and within us is added once or twice the rattle of
+hail--hail that will never fall on any sea. Slow we must or we may break
+our back, pitch-poling.
+
+"Air's a perfectly elastic fluid," roars George above the tumult. "About
+as elastic as a head sea off the Fastnet, ain't it?"
+
+He is less than just to the good element. If one intrudes on the Heavens
+when they are balancing their volt-accounts; if one disturbs the
+High Gods' market-rates by hurling steel hulls at ninety knots across
+tremblingly adjusted electric tensions, one must not complain of any
+rudeness in the reception. Tim met it with an unmoved countenance, one
+corner of his under lip caught up on a tooth, his eyes fleeting into
+the blackness twenty miles ahead, and the fierce sparks flying from his
+knuckles at every turn of the hand. Now and again he shook his head
+to clear the sweat trickling from his eyebrows, and it was then that
+George, watching his chance, would slide down the life-rail and swab his
+face quickly with a big red handkerchief. I never imagined that a human
+being could so continuously labour and so collectedly think as did Tim
+through that Hell's half-hour when the flurry was at its worst. We were
+dragged hither and yon by warm or frozen suctions, belched up on the
+tops of wulii-was, spun down by vortices and clubbed aside by laterals
+under a dizzying rush of stars in the company of a drunken moon.
+
+I heard the rushing click of the midship-engine-lever sliding in and
+out, the low growl of the lift-shunts, and, louder than the yelling
+winds without, the scream of the bow-rudder gouging into any lull that
+promised hold for an instant. At last we began to claw up on a cant,
+bow-rudder and port-propeller together; only the nicest balancing of
+tanks saved us from spinning like the rifle-bullet of the old days.
+
+"We've got to hitch to windward of that Mark Boat somehow," George
+cried.
+
+"There's no windward," I protested feebly, where I swung shackled to a
+stanchion. "How can there be?"
+
+He laughed--as we pitched into a thousand foot blow-out--that red man
+laughed beneath his inflated hood!
+
+"Look!" he said. "We must clear those refugees with a high lift."
+
+The Mark Boat was below and a little to the sou'west of us, fluctuating
+in the centre of her distraught galaxy. The air was thick with moving
+lights at every level. I take it most of them were trying to lie head to
+wind, but, not being hydras, they failed. An under-tanked Moghrabi boat
+had risen to the limit of her lift, and, finding no improvement, had
+dropped a couple of thousand. There she met a superb wulli-wa, and was
+blown up spinning like a dead leaf. Instead of shutting off she went
+astern and, naturally, rebounded as from a wall almost into the Mark
+Boat, whose language (our G. C. took it in) was humanly simple.
+
+"If they'd only ride it out quietly it 'ud be better," said George in
+a calm, while we climbed like a bat above them all. "But some
+skippers--will navigate without enough lift. What does that Tad-boat
+think she is doing, Tim?"
+
+"Playin' kiss in the ring," was Tim's unmoved reply. A Trans-Asiatic
+Direct liner had found a smooth and butted into it full power. But there
+was a vortex at the tail of that smooth, so the T. A. D. was flipped out
+like a pea from off a finger-nail, braking madly as she fled down and
+all but over-ending.
+
+"Now I hope she's satisfied," said Tim. "I'm glad I'm not a
+Mark Boat... Do I want help?" The General Communicator dial had caught
+his ear. "George, you may tell that gentleman with my love--love,
+remember, George--that I do not want help. Who is the officious
+sardine-tin?"
+
+"A Rimouski drogher on the look-out for a tow."
+
+"Very kind of the Rimouski drogher. This postal packet isn't being towed
+at present."
+
+"Those droghers will go anywhere on a chance of salvage," George
+explained. "We call' em kittiwakes."
+
+A long-beaked, bright steel ninety-footer floated at ease for one
+instant within hail of us, her slings coiled ready for rescues, and
+a single hand in her open tower. He was smoking. Surrendered to the
+insurrection of the airs through which we tore our way, he lay in
+absolute peace. I saw the smoke of his pipe ascend untroubled ere his
+boat dropped, it seemed, like a stone in a well.
+
+We had just cleared the Mark Boat and her disorderly neighbours when the
+storm ended as suddenly as it had begun. A shooting-star to northward
+filled the sky with the green blink of a meteorite dissipating itself in
+our atmosphere.
+
+Said George: "That may iron out all the tensions." Even as he spoke, the
+conflicting winds came to rest; the levels filled; the laterals died out
+in long, easy swells; the air-ways were smoothed before us. In less
+than three minutes the covey round the Mark Boat had shipped their
+power-lights and whirred away upon their businesses.
+
+"What's happened?" I gasped. The nerve-store within and the volt-tingle
+without had passed: my inflators weighed like lead.
+
+"God, He knows!" said Captain George soberly "That old shooting-star's
+skin-friction has discharged the different levels. I've seen it happen
+before. Phew: What a relief!"
+
+We dropped from ten to six thousand and got rid of our clammy suits.
+Tim shut off and stepped out of the Frame. The Mark Boat was coming up
+behind us. He opened the colloid in that heavenly stillness and mopped
+his face.
+
+"Hello, Williams!" he cried. "A degree or two out o' station, ain't
+you?"
+
+"May be," was the answer from the Mark Boat. "I've had some company this
+evening."
+
+"So I noticed. Wasn't that quite a little draught?"
+
+"I warned you. Why didn't you pull out north? The east-bound packets
+have."
+
+"Me? Not till I'm running a Polar consumptives' sanatorium boat. I was
+squinting through a colloid before you were out of your cradle, my son."
+
+"I'd be the last man to deny it," the captain of the Mark Boat replies
+softly. "The way you handled her just now--I'm a pretty fair judge of
+traffic in a volt-hurry--it was a thousand revolutions beyond anything
+even I've ever seen."
+
+Tim's back supples visibly to this oiling. Captain George on the c.
+p. winks and points to the portrait of a singularly attractive maiden
+pinned up on Tim's telescope bracket above the steering-wheel.
+
+I see. Wholly and entirely do I see!
+
+There is some talk overhead of "coming round to tea on Friday," a brief
+report of the derelict's fate, and Tim volunteers as he descends: "For
+an A. B. C. man young Williams is less of a high-tension fool than some.
+Were you thinking of taking her on, George? Then I'll just have a look
+round that port-thrust seems to me it's a trifle warm--and we'll jog
+along."
+
+The Mark Boat hums off joyously and hangs herself up in her appointed
+eyrie. Here she will stay a shutterless observatory; a life-boat
+station; a salvage tug; a court of ultimate appeal-cum-meteorological
+bureau for three hundred miles in all directions, till Wednesday next
+when her relief slides across the stars to take her buffeted place. Her
+black hull, double conning-tower, and ever-ready slings represent
+all that remains to the planet of that odd old word authority. She is
+responsible only to the Aerial Board of Control the A. B. C. of which
+Tim speaks so flippantly. But that semi-elected, semi-nominated body
+of a few score of persons of both sexes, controls this planet.
+"Transportation is Civilisation," our motto runs. Theoretically, we do
+what we please so long as we do not interfere with the traffic AND
+ALL IT IMPLIES. Practically, the A. B. C. confirms or annuls all
+international arrangements and, to judge from its last report, finds our
+tolerant, humorous, lazy little planet only too ready to shift the whole
+burden of public administration on its shoulders.
+
+I discuss this with Tim, sipping mate on the c. p. while George fans
+her along over the white blur of the Banks in beautiful upward curves
+of fifty miles each. The dip-dial translates them on the tape in flowing
+freehand.
+
+Tim gathers up a skein of it and surveys the last few feet, which record
+"162's" path through the volt-flurry.
+
+"I haven't had a fever-chart like this to show up in five years," he
+says ruefully.
+
+A postal packet's dip-dial records every yard of every run. The tapes
+then go to the A. B. C., which collates and makes composite photographs
+of them for the instruction of captains. Tim studies his irrevocable
+past, shaking his head.
+
+"Hello! Here's a fifteen-hundred-foot drop at fifty-five degrees! We
+must have been standing on our heads then, George."
+
+"You don't say so," George answers. "I fancied I noticed it at the
+time."
+
+George may not have Captain Purnall's catlike swiftness, but he is all
+an artist to the tips of the broad fingers that play on the shunt-stops.
+The delicious flight-curves come away on the tape with never a waver.
+The Mark Boat's vertical spindle of light lies down to eastward, setting
+in the face of the following stars. Westward, where no planet should
+rise, the triple verticals of Trinity Bay (we keep still to the Southern
+route) make a low-lifting haze. We seem the only thing at rest under all
+the heavens; floating at ease till the earth's revolution shall turn up
+our landing-towers.
+
+And minute by minute our silent clock gives us a sixteen-second mile.
+
+"Some fine night," says Tim, "we'll be even with that clock's Master."
+
+"He's coming now," says George, over his shoulder. "I'm chasing the
+night west."
+
+The stars ahead dim no more than if a film of mist had been drawn under
+unobserved, but the deep airboom on our skin changes to a joyful shout.
+
+"The dawn-gust," says Tim. "It'll go on to meet the Sun. Look!
+Look! There's the dark being crammed back over our bows! Come to the
+after-colloid. I'll show you something."
+
+The engine-room is hot and stuffy; the clerks in the coach are asleep,
+and the Slave of the Ray is ready to follow them. Tim slides open the
+aft colloid and reveals the curve of the world--the ocean's deepest
+purple--edged with fuming and intolerable gold.
+
+Then the Sun rises and through the colloid strikes out our lamps. Tim
+scowls in his face.
+
+"Squirrels in a cage," he mutters. "That's all we are. Squirrels in
+a cage! He's going twice as fast as us. Just you wait a few years, my
+shining friend, and we'll take steps that will amaze you. We'll Joshua
+you!"
+
+Yes, that is our dream: to turn all earth into the Yale of Ajalon at our
+pleasure. So far, we can drag out the dawn to twice its normal length
+in these latitudes. But some day--even on the Equator--we shall hold the
+Sun level in his full stride.
+
+Now we look down on a sea thronged with heavy traffic. A big submersible
+breaks water suddenly. Another and another follows with a swash and
+a suck and a savage bubbling of relieved pressures. The deep-sea
+freighters are rising to lung up after the long night, and the leisurely
+ocean is all patterned with peacock's eyes of foam.
+
+"We'll lung up, too," says Tim, and when we return to the c. p. George
+shuts off, the colloids are opened, and the fresh air sweeps her out.
+There is no hurry. The old contracts (they will be revised at the end of
+the year) allow twelve hours for a run which any packet can put behind
+her in ten. So we breakfast in the arms of an easterly slant which
+pushes us along at a languid twenty.
+
+To enjoy life, and tobacco, begin both on a sunny morning half a mile or
+so above the dappled Atlantic cloud-belts and after a volt-flurry which
+has cleared and tempered your nerves. While we discussed the thickening
+traffic with the superiority that comes of having a high level reserved
+to ourselves, we heard (and I for the first time) the morning hymn on a
+Hospital boat.
+
+She was cloaked by a skein of ravelled fluff beneath us and we caught
+the chant before she rose into the sunlight. "Oh, ye Winds of God," sang
+the unseen voices: "bless ye the Lord! Praise Him and magnify Him for
+ever!"
+
+We slid off our caps and joined in. When our shadow fell across her
+great open platforms they looked up and stretched out their hands
+neighbourly while they sang. We could see the doctors and the nurses
+and the white-button-like faces of the cot-patients. She passed slowly
+beneath us, heading northward, her hull, wet with the dews of the
+night, all ablaze in the sunshine. So took she the shadow of a cloud
+and vanished, her song continuing. "Oh, ye holy and humble men of heart,
+bless ye the Lord! Praise Him and magnify Him for ever."
+
+"She's a public lunger or she wouldn't have been singing the Benedicite;
+and she's a Greenlander or she wouldn't have snow-blinds over her
+colloids," said George at last. "She'll be bound for Frederikshavn or
+one of the Glacier sanatoriums for a month. If she was an accident ward
+she'd be hung up at the eight-thousand-foot level. Yes--consumptives."
+
+"Funny how the new things are the old thing I've read in books," Tim
+answered, "that savages used to haul their sick and wounded up to
+the tops of hills because microbes were fewer there. We hoist 'em in
+sterilized air for a while. Same idea. How much do the doctors say we've
+added to the average life of man?"
+
+"Thirty years," says George with a twinkle in his eye. "Are we going to
+spend 'em all up here, Tim?"
+
+"Flap ahead, then. Flap ahead. Who's hindering?" the senior captain
+laughed, as we went in.
+
+We held a good lift to clear the coastwise and Continental shipping;
+and we had need of it. Though our route is in no sense a populated one,
+there is a steady trickle of traffic this way along. We met Hudson Bay
+furriers out of the Great Preserve, hurrying to make their departure
+from Bonavista with sable and black fox for the insatiable markets. We
+overcossed Keewatin liners, small and cramped; but their captains, who
+see no land between Trepassy and Lanco, know what gold they bring back
+from West Erica. Trans-Asiatic Directs we met, soberly ringing the
+world round the Fiftieth Meridian at an honest seventy knots; and
+white-painted Ackroyd & Hunt fruiters out of the south fled beneath us,
+their ventilated hulls whistling like Chinese kites. Their market is
+in the North among the northern sanatoria where you can smell their
+grape-fruit and bananas across the cold snows. Argentine beef boats we
+sighted too, of enormous capacity and unlovely outline. They, too, feed
+the northern health stations in icebound ports where submersibles dare
+not rise.
+
+Yellow-bellied ore-flats and Ungava petrol-tanks punted down leisurely
+out of the north, like strings of unfrightened wild duck. It does not
+pay to "fly" minerals and oil a mile farther than is necessary; but the
+risks of transhipping to submersibles in the ice pack off Nain or Hebron
+are so great that these heavy freighters fly down to Halifax direct, and
+scent the air as they go. They are the biggest tramps aloft except the
+Athabasca grain-tubs. But these last, now that the wheat is moved, are
+busy, over the world's shoulder, timber-lifting in Siberia.
+
+We held to the St. Lawrence (it is astonishing how the old water-ways
+still pull us children of the air), and followed his broad line of black
+between its drifting iceblocks, all down the Park that the wisdom of our
+fathers--but every one knows the Quebec run.
+
+We dropped to the Heights Receiving Towers twenty minutes ahead of time,
+and there hung at ease till the Yokohama Intermediate Packet could pull
+out and give us our proper slip. It was curious to watch the action of
+the holding-down clips all along the frosty river front as the boats
+cleared or came to rest. A big Hamburger was leaving Pont Levis and her
+crew, unshipping the platform railings, began to sing "Elsinore"--the
+oldest of our chanteys. You know it of course:
+
+     Mother Rugen's tea-house on the Baltic
+      Forty couple waltzing on the floor!
+     And you can watch my Ray,
+     For I must go away
+      And dance with Ella Sweyn at Elsinore!
+
+Then, while they sweated home the covering-plates:
+
+     Nor-Nor-Nor-Nor
+     West from Sourabaya to the Baltic--
+      Ninety knot an hour to the Skaw!
+     Mother Rugen's tea-house on the Baltic
+      And a dance with Ella Sweyn at Elsinore!
+
+The clips parted with a gesture of indignant dismissal, as though
+Quebec, glittering under her snows, were casting out these light and
+unworthy lovers. Our signal came from the Heights. Tim turned and
+floated up, but surely then it was with passionate appeal that the great
+tower arms flung open--or did I think so because on the upper staging a
+little hooded figure also opened her arms wide toward her father?
+
+   *     *    *     *    *     *    *     *
+
+In ten seconds the coach with its clerks clashed down to the
+receiving-caisson; the hostlers displaced the engineers at the idle
+turbines, and Tim, prouder of this than all, introduced me to the
+maiden of the photograph on the shelf. "And by the way," said he to her,
+stepping forth in sunshine under the hat of civil life, "I saw young
+Williams in the Mark Boat. I've asked him to tea on Friday."
+
+
+
+          AERIAL BOARD OF CONTROL
+
+                Lights
+
+No changes in English Inland lights for week ending Dec. 18th.
+
+CAPE VERDE--Week ending Dec. 18. Verde inclined guide-light changes from
+1st proximo to triple flash--green white green--in place of occulting
+red as heretofore. The warning light for Harmattan winds will be
+continuous vertical glare (white) on all oases of trans-Saharan N. E. by
+E. Main Routes.
+
+INVERCARGIL (N. Z.)--From 1st prox.: extreme southerly light (double
+red) will exhibit white beam inclined 45 degrees on approach of
+Southerly Buster. Traffic flies high off this coast between April and
+October.
+
+TABLE BAY--Devil's Peak Glare removed to Simonsberg. Traffic making
+Table Mountain coastwise keep all lights from Three Anchor Bay at least
+two thousand feet under, and do not round to till East of E. shoulder
+Devil's Peak.
+
+SANDHEADS LIGHT--Green triple vertical marks new private landing-stage
+for Bay and Burma traffic only.
+
+SNAEFELL JOKUL--White occulting light withdrawn for winter.
+
+PATAGONIA--No summer light south Cape Pilar. This includes Staten Island
+and Port Stanley.
+
+C. NAVARIN--Quadruple fog flash (white), one minute intervals (new).
+
+EAST CAPE--Fog--flash--single white with single bomb, 30 sec. intervals
+(new).
+
+MALAYAN ARCHIPELAGO--Lights unreliable owing eruptions. Lay from Cape
+Somerset to Singapore direct, keeping highest levels.
+
+
+For the Board:
+
+ CATTERTHUN }
+ ST. JUST   }    Lights.
+ VAN HEDDER }
+
+
+
+Casualties
+
+Week ending Dec. 18th.
+
+SABLE ISLAND--Green single barbette-tower freighter, number
+indistinguishable, up-ended, and fore-tank pierced after collision,
+passed 300-ft. level Q P. as Dec. 15th. Watched to water and pithed by
+Mark Boat.
+
+N. F. BANKS--Postal Packet 162 reports Halma freighter (Fowey--St.
+John's) abandoned, leaking after weather, 46 151 N. 50 15' W. Crew
+rescued by Planet liner Asteroid. Watched to water and pithed by Postal
+Packet, Dec. 14th.
+
+KERGUELEN, MARK BOAT reports last call from Cymena freighter (Gayer
+Tong Huk & Co.) taking water and sinking in snow-storm South McDonald
+Islands. No wreckage recovered. Messages and wills of crew at all A. B.
+C. offices.
+
+FEZZAN--T. A. D. freighter Ulema taken ground during Harmattan on Akakus
+Range. Under plates strained. Crew at Ghat where repairing Dec. 13th.
+
+BISCAY, MARK BOAT reports Caducci (Valandingham Line) slightly spiked in
+western gorge Point de Benasdue. Passengers transferred Andorra (Fulton
+Line). Barcelona Mark Boat salving cargo Dec. 12th.
+
+ASCENSION, MARE BOAT--Wreck of unknown racing-plane, Parden rudder,
+wire-stiffened xylonite vans, and Harliss engine-seating, sighted and
+salved 7 20' S. 18 41' W. Dec. 15th. Photos at all A. B. C. offices.
+
+
+Missing
+
+No answer to General Call having been received during the last week from
+following overdues, they are posted as missing:
+
+ Atlantis, W.17630. Canton--Valparaiso
+ Audhumla W. 889. Stockholm--Odessa
+ Berenice, W. 2206... Riga--Vladivostock
+ Draw, E. 446.. Coventry--Pontes
+ Arenas Tontine, E. 5068. C. Wrath--Ungava
+ Wu-Sung, E. 41776.. Hankow--Lobito Bay
+
+General Call (all Mark Boats) out for:
+
+Jane Eyre, W. 6990. Port Rupert--City of Mexico Santander, W. 6514..
+Gobi Desert--Manila Y. Edmundsun, E. 9690.. Kandahar--Fiume
+
+         Broke for Obstruction, and Quitting Levels
+
+VALKYRIE (racing plane), A. J. Hartley owner, New York     (twice warned).
+ GEISHA (racing plane), S. van Cott owner, Philadelphia
+     (twice warned).
+ MARVEL of PERU (racing plane), J. X. Peixoto owner, Rio de
+Janeiro (twice warned). For the Board:
+
+ LAZAREFF }
+ McKEOUGH }  Traffic
+ GOLDBRATT }
+
+
+
+                NOTES
+
+               High-Level Sleet
+
+The Northern weather so far shows no sign of improvement. From all
+quarters come complaints of the unusual prevalence of sleet at the
+higher levels. Racing planes and digs alike have suffered severely--the
+former from 'unequal deposits of half-frozen slush on their vans (and
+only those who have "held up" a badly balanced plane in a cross-wind
+know what that means), and the latter from loaded bows and snow-cased
+bodies. As a consequence, the Northern and North-western upper levels
+have been practically abandoned, and the high fliers have returned to
+the ignoble security of the Three, Five, and Six hundred foot levels.
+But there remain a few undaunted sun-hunters who, in spite of frozen
+stays and ice-jammed connecting-rods, still haunt the blue empyrean.
+
+
+                Bat-Boat Racing
+
+The scandals of the past few years have at last moved the yachting world
+to concerted action in regard to "bat" boat racing. We have been treated
+to the spectacle of what are practically keeled racing-planes driven a
+clear five foot or more above the water, and only eased down to touch
+their so-called "native element" as they near the line. Judges and
+starters have been conveniently blind to this absurdity, but the public
+demonstration off St. Catherine's Light at the Autumn Regattas has borne
+ample, if tardy, fruit. In the future the "bat" is to be a boat, and
+the long-unheeded demand of the true sportsman for "no daylight under
+mid-keel in smooth water" is in a fair way to be conceded. The new rule
+severely restricts plane area and lift alike. The gas compartments are
+permitted both fore and aft, as in the old type, but the water-ballast
+central tank is rendered obligatory. These things work, if not
+for perfection, at least for the evolution of a sane and wholesome
+waterborne cruiser. The type of rudder is unaffected by the new rules,
+so we may expect to see the Long-Davidson make (the patent on which has
+just expired) come largely into use henceforward, though the strain
+on the sternpost in turning at speeds over forty miles an hour is
+admittedly very severe. But bat-boat racing has a great future before
+it.
+
+
+                Crete and the A. B. C.
+
+The story of the recent Cretan crisis, as told in the A. B. C. Monthly
+Report, is not without humour. Till the 25th October Crete, as all our
+planet knows, was the sole surviving European repository of "autonomous
+institutions," "local self-government," and the rest of the archaic
+lumber devised in the past for the confusion of human affairs. She
+has lived practically on the tourist traffic attracted by her annual
+pageants of Parliaments, Boards, Municipal Councils, etc., etc. Last
+summer the islanders grew wearied, as their premier explained, of
+"playing at being savages for pennies," and proceeded to pull down all
+the landing-towers on the island and shut off general communication till
+such time as the A. B. C. should annex them. For side-splitting comedy
+we would refer our readers to the correspondence between the Board of
+Control and the Cretan premier during the "war." However, all's well
+that ends well. The A. B. C. have taken over the administration of Crete
+on normal lines; and tourists must go elsewhere to witness the "debates,"
+"resolutions," and "popular movements" of the old days. The only people
+to suffer will be the Board of Control, which is grievously overworked
+already. It is easy enough to condemn the Cretans for their
+laziness; but when one recalls the large, prosperous, and presumably
+public-spirited communities which during the last few years have
+deliberately thrown themselves into the hands of the A. B. C., one,
+cannot be too hard upon St. Paul's old friends.
+
+
+
+                CORRESPONDENCE
+
+                Skylarking on the Equator
+
+To THE EDITOR: Only last week, while crossing the Equator (W. 26-15),
+I became aware of a furious and irregular cannonading some fifteen or
+twenty knots S. 4 E. Descending to the 500 ft. level, I found a party
+of Transylvanian tourists engaged in exploding scores of the largest
+pattern atmospheric bombs (A. B. C. standard) and, in the intervals of
+their pleasing labours, firing bow and stern smoke-ring swivels. This
+orgie--I can give it no other name--went on for at least two hours,
+and naturally produced violent electric derangements. My compasses, of
+course, were thrown out, my bow was struck twice, and I received two
+brisk shocks from the lower platform-rail. On remonstrating, I was told
+that these "professors" were engaged in scientific experiments. The
+extent of their "scientific" knowledge, may be judged by the fact that
+they expected to produce (I give their own words) "a little blue sky"
+if "they went on long enough." This in the heart of the Doldrums at 450
+feet! I have no objection to any amount of blue sky in its proper place
+(it can be found at the 4000 level for practically twelve months out of
+the year), but I submit, with all deference to the educational needs of
+Transylvania, that "skylarking" in the centre of a main-travelled road
+where, at the best of times, electricity literally drips off one's
+stanchions and screw blades, is unnecessary. When my friends had
+finished, the road was seared, and blown, and pitted with unequal
+pressure layers, spirals, vortices, and readjustments for at least
+an hour. I pitched badly twice in an upward rush--solely due to these
+diabolical throw-downs--that came near to wrecking my propeller.
+Equatorial work at low levels is trying enough in all conscience without
+the added terrors of scientific hooliganism in the Doldrums.
+
+     Rhyl. J. VINCENT MATHEN.
+
+[We entirely sympathize with Professor Mathen's views, but till
+the Board sees fit to further regulate the Southern areas in which
+scientific experiments may be conducted, we shall always be exposed to
+the risk which our correspondent describes. Unfortunately, a chimera
+bombinating in a vacuum is, nowadays, only too capable of producing
+secondary causes.--Editor.]
+
+
+                Answers to Correspondents
+
+VIGILANS--The Laws of Auroral Derangements are still imperfectly
+understood. Any overheated motor may of course "seize" without warning;
+but so many complaints have reached us of accidents similar to yours
+while shooting the Aurora that we are inclined to believe with Lavalle
+that the upper strata of the Aurora Borealis are practically one big
+electric "leak," and that the paralysis of your engines was due to
+complete magnetization of all metallic parts. Low-flying planes often
+"glue up" when near the Magnetic Pole, and there is no reason in science
+why the same disability should not be experienced at higher levels when
+the Auroras are "delivering" strongly.
+
+INDIGNANT--On your own showing, you were not under control. That
+you could not hoist the necessary N. U. C. lights on approaching a
+traffic-lane because your electrics had short-circuited is a misfortune
+which might befall any one. The A. B. C., being responsible for the
+planet's traffic, cannot, however, make allowance for this kind of
+misfortune. A reference to the Code will show that you were fined on the
+lower scale.
+
+PLANISTON--(1) The Five Thousand Kilometre (overland) was won last year
+by L. V. Rautsch; R. M. Rautsch, his brother, in the same week pulling
+off the Ten Thousand (oversee). R. M.'s average worked out at a
+fraction over 500 kilometres per hour, thus constituting a record.
+(2) Theoretically, there is no limit to the lift of a dirigible. For
+commercial and practical purposes 15,000 tons is accepted as the most
+manageable.
+
+PATERFAMILIAS--None whatever. He is liable for direct damage both to
+your chimneys and any collateral damage caused by fall of bricks into
+garden, etc., etc. Bodily inconvenience and mental anguish may
+be included, but the average courts are not, as a rule, swayed by
+sentiment. If you can prove that his grapnel removed any portion of
+your roof, you had better rest your case on decoverture of domicile (see
+Parkins v. Duboulay). We sympathize with your position, but the night
+of the 14th was stormy and confused, and--you may have to anchor on a
+stranger's chimney yourself some night. Verbum sap!
+
+ALDEBARAN--(1) war, as a paying concern, ceased in 1987. (2) The
+Convention of London expressly reserves to every nation the right of
+waging war so long as it does not interfere with the traffic and all
+that implies. (3) The A. B. C. was constituted in 1949.
+
+L. M. P.--(1) Keep her full head-on at half power, taking advantage of
+the lulls to speed up and creep into it. She will strain much less this
+way than in quartering across a gale. (2) Nothing is to be gained by
+reversing into a following gale, and there is always risk of a turnover.
+(3) The formulae for stun'sle brakes are uniformly unreliable, and will
+continue to be so as long as air is compressible.
+
+PEGAMOID--(1) Personally we prefer glass or flux compounds to any other
+material for winter work nose-caps as being absolutely non-hygroscopic.
+(2) We cannot recommend any particular make.
+
+PULMONAR--(1) For the symptoms you describe, try the Gobi Desert
+Sanatoria. The low levels of most of the Saharan Sanatoria are against
+them except at the outset of the disease. (2) We do not recommend
+boarding-houses or hotels in this column.
+
+BEGINNER--On still days the air above a large inhabited city being
+slightly warmer--i.e., thinner--than the atmosphere of the surrounding
+country, a plane drops a little on entering the rarefied area, precisely
+as a ship sinks a little in fresh water. Hence the phenomena of "jolt"
+and your "inexplicable collisions" with factory chimneys. In air, as on
+earth, it is safest to fly high.
+
+EMERGENCY--There is only one rule of the road in air, earth, and water.
+Do you want the firmament to yourself?
+
+PICCIOLA--Both Poles have been overdone in Art and Literature. Leave
+them to Science for the next twenty years. You did not send a stamp with
+your verses.
+
+NORTH NIGERIA--The Mark Boat was within her right in warning you off the
+Reserve. The shadow of a low-flying dirigible scares the game. You can
+buy all the photos you need at Sokoto.
+
+NEW ERA--It is not etiquette to overcross an A. B. C. official's boat
+without asking permission. He is one of the body responsible for the
+planet's traffic, and for that reason must not be interfered with. You,
+presumably, are out on your own business or pleasure, and must leave him
+alone. For humanity's sake don't try to be "democratic."
+
+EXCORIATED--All inflators chafe sooner or later. You must go on till
+your skin hardens by practice. Meantime vaseline.
+
+
+
+                REVIEW
+
+           The Life of Xavier Lavalle
+     (Reviewed by Rene Talland. Ecole Aeronautique, Paris)
+
+Ten years ago Lavalle, "that imperturbable dreamer of the heavens,"
+as Lazareff hailed him, gathered together the fruits of a lifetime's
+labour, and gave it, with well-justified contempt, to a world bound
+hand and foot to Barald's Theory of Vertices and "compensating electric
+nodes." "They shall see," he wrote--in that immortal postscript to The
+Heart of the Cyclone--"the Laws whose existence they derided written in
+fire beneath them."
+
+"But even here," he continues, "there is no finality. Better a thousand
+times my conclusions should be discredited than that my dead name should
+lie across the threshold of the temple of Science--a bar to further
+inquiry."
+
+So died Lavalle--a prince of the Powers of the Air, and even at his
+funeral Cellier jested at "him who had gone to discover the secrets of
+the Aurora Borealis."
+
+If I choose thus to be banal, it is only to remind you that Collier's
+theories are today as exploded as the ludicrous deductions of the
+Spanish school. In the place of their fugitive and warring dreams we
+have, definitely, Lavalle's Law of the Cyclone which he surprised in
+darkness and cold at the foot of the overarching throne of the Aurora
+Borealis. It is there that I, intent on my own investigations, have
+passed and re-passed a hundred times the worn leonine face, white as the
+snow beneath him, furrowed with wrinkles like the seams and gashes upon
+the North Cape; the nervous hand, integrally a part of the mechanism of
+his flighter; and above all, the wonderful lambent eyes turned to the
+zenith.
+
+"Master," I would cry as I moved respectfully beneath him, "what is it
+you seek today?" and always the answer, clear and without doubt, from
+above: "The old secret, my son!"
+
+The immense egotism of youth forced me on my own path, but (cry of the
+human always!) had I known--if I had known--I would many times have
+bartered my poor laurels for the privilege, such as Tinsley and Herrera
+possess, of having aided him in his monumental researches.
+
+It is to the filial piety of Victor Lavalle that we owe the two volumes
+consecrated to the ground-life of his father, so full of the holy
+intimacies of the domestic hearth. Once returned from the abysms of the
+utter North to that little house upon the outskirts of Meudon, it was
+not the philosopher, the daring observer, the man of iron energy that
+imposed himself on his family, but a fat and even plaintive jester, a
+farceur incarnate and kindly, the co-equal of his children, and, it must
+be written, not seldom the comic despair of Madame Lavalle, who, as she
+writes five years after the marriage, to her venerable mother, found "in
+this unequalled intellect whose name I bear the abandon of a large and
+very untidy boy." Here is her letter:
+
+"Xavier returned from I do not know where at midnight, absorbed in
+calculations on the eternal question of his Aurora--la belle Aurore,
+whom I begin to hate. Instead of anchoring,--I had set out the
+guide-light above our roof, so he had but to descend and fasten the
+plane--he wandered, profoundly distracted, above the town with his
+anchor down! Figure to yourself, dear mother, it is the roof of the
+mayor's house that the grapnel first engages! That I do not regret, for
+the mayor's wife and I are not sympathetic; but when Xavier uproots my
+pet araucaria and bears it across the garden into the conservatory I
+protest at the top of my voice. Little Victor in his night-clothes runs
+to the window, enormously amused at the parabolic flight without reason,
+for it is too dark to see the grapnel, of my prized tree. The Mayor
+of Meudon, thunders at our door in the name of the Law, demanding,
+I suppose, my husband's head. Here is the conversation through the
+megaphone--Xavier is two hundred feet above us:
+
+"'Mons. Lavalle, descend and make reparation for outrage of domicile.
+Descend, Mons. Lavalle!'
+
+"No one answers.
+
+"'Xavier Lavalle, in the name of the Law, descend and submit to process
+for outrage of domicile.'
+
+"Xavier, roused from his calculations, comprehending only the last
+words: 'Outrage of domicile? My dear mayor, who is the man that has
+corrupted thy Julie?'
+
+"The mayor, furious, 'Xavier Lavalle--'
+
+"Xavier, interrupting: 'I have not that felicity. I am only a dealer in
+cyclones!'
+
+"My faith, he raised one then! All Meudon attended in the streets, and
+my Xavier, after a long time comprehending what he had done, excused
+himself in a thousand apologies. At last the reconciliation was effected
+in our house over a supper at two in the morning--Julie in a wonderful
+costume of compromises, and I have her and the mayor pacified in bed in
+the blue room."
+
+And on the next day, while the mayor rebuilds his roof, her Xavier
+departs anew for the Aurora Borealis, there to commence his life's work.
+M. Victor Lavalle tells us of that historic collision (en plane) on the
+flank of Hecla between Herrera, then a pillar of the Spanish school,
+and the man destined to confute his theories and lead him intellectually
+captive. Even through the years, the immense laugh of Lavalle as he
+sustains the Spaniard's wrecked plane, and cries: "Courage! I shall not
+fall till I have found Truth, and I hold you fast!" rings like the
+call of trumpets. This is that Lavalle whom the world, immersed in
+speculations of immediate gain, did not know nor suspect--the Lavalle
+whom they adjudged to the last a pedant and a theorist.
+
+The human, as apart from the scientific, side (developed in his own
+volumes) of his epoch-making discoveries is marked with a simplicity,
+clarity, and good sense beyond praise. I would specially refer such as
+doubt the sustaining influence of ancestral faith upon character and
+will to the eleventh and nineteenth chapters, in which are contained
+the opening and consummation of the Tellurionical Records extending over
+nine years. Of their tremendous significance be sure that the modest
+house at Meudon knew as little as that the Records would one day be the
+planet's standard in all official meteorology. It was enough for
+them that their Xavier--this son, this father, this husband--ascended
+periodically to commune with powers, it might be angelic, beyond their
+comprehension, and that they united daily in prayers for his safety.
+
+"Pray for me," he says upon the eve of each of his excursions, and
+returning, with an equal simplicity, he renders thanks "after supper in
+the little room where he kept his barometers."
+
+To the last Lavalle was a Catholic of the old school, accepting--he who
+had looked into the very heart of the lightnings--the dogmas of papal
+infallibility, of absolution, of confession--of relics great and small.
+Marvellous--enviable contradiction!
+
+The completion of the Tellurionical Records closed what Lavalle himself
+was pleased to call the theoretical side of his labours--labours from
+which the youngest and least impressionable planeur might well have
+shrunk. He had traced through cold and heat, across the deeps of the
+oceans, with instruments of his own invention, over the inhospitable
+heart of the polar ice and the sterile visage of the deserts, league by
+league, patiently, unweariedly, remorselessly, from their ever-shifting
+cradle under the magnetic pole to their exalted death-bed in the utmost
+ether of the upper atmosphere each one of the Isoconical Tellurions
+Lavalle's Curves, as we call them today. He had disentangled the nodes
+of their intersections, assigning to each its regulated period of flux
+and reflux. Thus equipped, he summons Herrera and Tinsley, his pupils,
+to the final demonstration as calmly as though he were ordering his
+flighter for some mid-day journey to Marseilles.
+
+"I have proved my thesis," he writes. "It remains now only that you
+should witness the proof. We go to Manila to-morrow. A cyclone will form
+off the Pescadores S. 17 E. in four days, and will reach its maximum
+intensity twenty-seven hours after inception. It is there I will show
+you the Truth."
+
+A letter heretofore unpublished from Herrera to Madame Lavalle tells us
+how the Master's prophecy was verified.
+
+I will not destroy its simplicity or its significance by any attempt to
+quote. Note well, though, that Herrera's preoccupation throughout that
+day and night of superhuman strain is always for the Master's bodily
+health and comfort.
+
+"At such a time," he writes, "I forced the Master to take the broth"; or
+"I made him put on the fur coat as you told me." Nor is Tinsley (see
+pp. 184, 85) less concerned. He prepares the nourishment. He cooks
+eternally, imperturbably, suspended in the chaos of which the Master
+interprets the meaning. Tinsley, bowed down with the laurels of both
+hemispheres, raises himself to yet nobler heights in his capacity of a
+devoted chef. It is almost unbelievable! And yet men write of the Master
+as cold, aloof, self-contained. Such characters do not elicit the joyous
+and unswerving devotion which Lavalle commanded throughout life. Truly,
+we have changed very little in the course of the ages! The secrets of
+earth and sky and the links that bind them, we felicitate ourselves
+we are on the road to discover; but our neighbours' heart and mind we
+misread, we misjudge, we condemn now as ever. Let all, then, who love a
+man read these most human, tender, and wise volumes.
+
+
+                 *************
+
+  Transcriber's note: These "advertisements" appeared in the format
+  that would have been used in a newspaper or magazine ad
+  section--that is in two columns for the smaller ads, and in
+  quarter, half, full and double page layouts for the others. Also
+  L is used as the symbol for pounds.
+
+                 *************
+
+
+  ------------------------------------------------
+
+                  MISCELLANEOUS
+                   [ WANTS ]
+
+  REQUIRED IMMEDIATELY, FOR East Africa, a thoroughly competent
+  Plane and Dirigible Driver, acquainted with Petrol Radium and
+  Helium motors and generators. Low-level work only, but must
+  understand heavy-weight digs.
+        MOSSAMEDES TRANSPORT ASSOC.
+               84 Palestine Buildings, E. C.
+
+  ------------------------------------------------
+
+  MAN WANTED-DIG DRIVER for Southern Alps with Saharan summer
+  trips. High levels, high speed, high wages:
+                 Apply M. SIDNEY
+           Hotel San Stefano. Monte Carlo.
+
+  ------------------------------------------------
+
+  FAMILY DIRIGIBLE. A COMPETENT, steady man wanted for slow speed,
+  low level Tangye dirigible. No night work, no sea trips. Must be
+  member of the Church of England, and make himself useful in the
+  garden.
+                  M. R.
+           The Rectory, Gray's Barton, Wilts.
+
+  ------------------------------------------------
+
+  COMMERCIAL DIG, CENTRAL and Southern Europe. A smart, active man
+  for a L. M. T. Dig. Night work only. Headquarters London and
+  Cairo. A linguist preferred.
+                  BAGMAN
+      Charing Cross Hotel, W. C. (urgent.)
+
+  ------------------------------------------------
+
+  FOR SALE--A BARGAIN--Single Plane, narrow-gauge vans, Pinke
+  motor. Restayed this autumn. Hansen air-kit, 58 in. chest, 153
+  collar. Can be seen by appointment.
+               N. 2650 This office.
+
+  ------------------------------------------------
+
+               The BEE-LINE BOOKSHOP
+
+  BELT'S WAY-BOOKS, giving town lights for all towns over 4,000
+  pop. as laid down by A. B. O.
+  THE WORLD. Complete 2 vols. Thin Oxford, limp back. 12L 6d.
+  BELT'S COASTAL ITINERARY. Short Lights of the World. 7s. 6d.
+  THE TRANSATLANTIC AND MEDITERRANEAN TRAFFIC LINES.
+          (By authority of the A.B.C.) Paper,
+         1s. 6d.; cloth. 2s. 6d. Ready, Jan. 16.
+  ARCTIC AEROPLANING. Siemens and Gait. Cloth, bds. Ss. 6d.
+  LAVALLE'S HEART OF THE CYCLONE, with supplementary charts. 4s.
+  6d.
+  RIMINGTON'S PITFALLS IN THE AIR, and Table of Comparative
+  Densities  3s. 6d.
+  ANGELO'S DESERT IN A DIRIGIBLE. New edition, revised. 5s. 9d.
+  VAUGHAN'S PLANE RACING IN CALM AND STORM. 2s. 6d.
+  VAUGHAN'S HINTS TO THE AIRMATEUR 1s.
+  HOFMAN'S LAWS OF LIFT AND VELOCITY. With diagrams, 3s. 6d.
+  DE VITRE'S THEORY OF SHIFTING BALLAST IN DIRIGIBLES. 2s. 6d.
+  SANGERS WEATHERS OF THE WORLD. 4s.
+  SANGER'S TEMPERATURES AT HIGH ALTITUDES. 4s.
+  HAWKIN'S FOG AND HOW To AVOID IT. 3s.
+  VAN ZUYLAN'S SECONDARY EFFECTS OF THUNDERSTORMS. 4s. 6d.
+  DAHLGREN'S AIR CURRENTS AND EPIDEMIC DISEASES. 5s. 6d.
+  REDMAYNE'S DISEASE AND THE BAROMETER. 7s. 6d.
+  WALTON'S HEALTH RESORTS OF THE GOBI AND SHAMO. 3s. 6d.
+  WALTON'S THE POLE AND PULMONARY COMPLAINTS. 7s. ad.
+  MUTLOWS HIGH LEVEL BACTERIOLOGY. 7s. 6d.
+  HALLIWELL'S ILLUMINATED STAR MAP, with clockwork attachment,
+   giving apparent motion of heavens, boxed, complete with
+   clamps for binnacle, 36 inch size, only L2. 2. 0.
+   Invaluable for night work.) With A.B.C. certificate. L3. 10s.
+  0d. Zalinski's Standard Works:
+   PASSES OF THE HIMALAYAS, 5s.
+   PASSES OF THE SIERRAS, 5s.
+   PASSES OF THE ROOKIES. 5s.
+   PASSES OF THE URALS, 5s.
+    The four boxed, limp cloth, with charts, 15s.
+  GRAY'S AIR CURRENTS at MOUNTAIN GORGES, 7s. 6d.
+
+          A. C. BELT & SON, READING
+  ------------------------------------------------
+              SAFETY WEAR FOR AERONAUTS
+  ------------------------------------------------
+  Fickers!             Flickers!            Flickers!
+
+               HIGH LEVEL FLICKERS
+
+           "He that is down need fear no fall,"
+          Fear not! You will fall lightly as down!
+
+  Hansen's air-kits are down in all respects. Tremendous reductions
+  in prices previous to winter stocking. Pure para kit with
+  cellulose seat and shoulder-pads, weighted to balance. Unequalled
+  for all drop-work.
+
+       Our trebly resilient heavy kit is the ne plus ultra of
+                comfort and safety.
+
+  Gas-buoyed, waterproof, hail-proof, nonconducting Flickers with
+  pipe and nozzle fitting all types of generator. Graduated tap on
+  left hip.
+
+           Hansen's Flickers Lead the Aerial Flight
+                 197 Oxford Street
+
+     The new weighted Flicker with tweed or cheviot surface
+   cannot be distinguished from the ordinary suit till inflated.
+
+  Fickers!             Flickers!            Flickers!
+  ------------------------------------------------
+
+               APPLIANCES FOR AIR PLANES
+
+  ------------------------------------------------
+          What
+                   "SKID"
+           was to our forefathers on the ground,
+                   "PITCH"
+               is to their sons in the air.
+
+  The popularity of the large, unwieldy, slow, expensive Dirigible
+  over the light swift, Plane is mainly due to the former's
+  immunity from pitch.
+
+  Collison's forward-socketed Air Van renders it impossible for any
+  plane to pitch. The C.F.S. is automatic, simple as a shutter,
+  certain\ as a power hammer, safe as oxygen. Fitted to any make of
+  plane.
+
+                   COLLISON
+                  186 Brompton Road
+                 Workshops, Chiswick
+
+                  LUNDIE do MATTERS
+             Sole Agts for East'n Hemisphere
+
+  ------------------------------------------------
+
+                STARTERS AND GUIDES
+
+  Hotel, club, and private house plane-starters, slips and guides
+  affixed by skilled workmen in accordance with local building
+  laws.
+
+  Rackstraww's forty-foot collapsible steel starters with automatic
+  release at end of travel--prices per foot run, clamps and
+  crampons included. The safest on the market.
+
+
+                Weaver & Denison
+                  Middleboro
+
+  ------------------------------------------------
+
+              AIR PLANES AND DIRIGIBLE GOODS
+
+  ------------------------------------------------
+
+                   REMEMBER
+
+                Planes are swift--so is Death
+                Planes are cheap--so is Life
+
+  Why does the plane builder insist on the safety of his machines?
+        Methinks the gentleman protests too much.
+
+  The Standard Dig Construction Company do not build kites.
+
+        They build, equip and guarantee dirigibles.
+
+
+               Standard Dig construction Co.
+               Millwall and Buenos Ayres
+
+  ------------------------------------------------
+  HOVERS
+
+                   POWELL'S
+                  Wind Hovers
+
+  for 'planes lying-to in heavy weather, save the motor and strain
+  on the forebody. Will not send to leeward. "Albatross"
+  wind-hovers, rigid-ribbed; according to h.p. and weight.
+
+               We fit and test free to
+             40 east of Greenwich Village
+
+                  L. & W. POWELL
+               196 Victoria Street, W.
+
+  ------------------------------------------------
+
+                   REMEMBER
+
+          We shall always be pleased to see you.
+
+  We build and test and guarantee our dirigibles or all purposes.
+  They go up when you please and they do not come down till you
+  please.
+
+  You can please yourself, but--you might as well choose a
+  dirigible.
+
+           STANDARD DIRIGIBLE CONSTRUCTION CO.
+              Millwall and Buenos Ayres
+
+  ------------------------------------------------
+
+                 GAYER AND HUNT
+               Birmingham   and   Birmingham
+                   Eng.          Ala.
+
+                 Towers. Landing Stages,
+                   Slips and Lifts
+                   public and private
+
+     Contractors to the A. B. C., South-Western European Postal
+               Construction Dept. Sole patentees and owners of the
+  Collison anti-quake diagonal tower-tie. Only gold medal Kyoto
+  Exhibition of Aerial Appliances, 1997.
+
+  ------------------------------------------------
+
+                 AIR PLANES AND DIRIGIBLES
+
+  ------------------------------------------------
+
+                   C. M. C.
+               Our Synthetical Mineral
+                 BEARINGS
+
+  are chemically and crystal logically identical with the minerals
+  whose names they bear. Any size, any surface. Diamond,
+  Rock-Crystal, Agate and Ruby Bearings-cups, caps and collars for
+  the higher speeds. For tractor bearings and spindles-Imperative.
+  For rear propellers-Indispensable. For all working
+  parts-Advisable.
+
+                Commercial Minerals Co.
+                   107 Minories
+
+  ------------------------------------------------
+
+                   RESURGAM!
+
+       If you have not Clothed YOURSELF in a
+
+                NORMANDIE RESURGAM
+
+  YOU WILL PROBABLY NOT BE INTERESTED IN OUR NEXT WEEK'S LIST OF
+  AIR-KIT.
+
+                 RESURGAM AIR-KIT EMPORIUM
+
+                  HYMANS & GRAHAM
+               1198 Lower Broadway, New York
+
+  ------------------------------------------------
+
+                     REMEMBER!
+
+  ------------------------------------------------
+
+  * It is now nearly, a generation since the Plane was to
+  supersede the Dirigible for all purposes. * TO-DAY none of the
+  Planet's freight is carried en plane. * Less than two per rent of
+  the Planet's passengers are carried en plane.
+
+  We design, equip guarantee Dirigibles for all purposes.
+
+  Standard Dig Construction Company MILLWALL and BUENOS AYRES
+  ------------------------------------------------
+
+                   BAT-BOATS
+  ------------------------------------------------
+
+
+       FLINT & MANTEL
+            SOUTHAMPTON
+                FOR SALE
+
+  at the end of Season the following Bat-Boats:
+
+  GRISELDA, 65 knt., 42 ft., 430(nom.) Maginnis Motor,
+    under-rake rudder.
+  MABELLE, 50 knt., 40 ft., 310 Hargreaves Motor,
+    Douglas' lock-steering gear.
+  IVEMONA, 50 knt., 35 ft., 300 Hargreaves (Radium accelerator),
+    Miller keel and rudder.
+
+  The above are well known on the South Coast as sound, wholesome
+  knockabout boats, with ample cruising accommodation. Griselda
+  carries spare set of Hofman racing vans and can be lied three
+  foot clear in smooth water with ballast-tank swung aft. The
+  others do not lift, clear of water, and are recommended for
+  beginners.
+
+  Also, by private treaty, racing B.B. Tarpon (76 winning flags)
+  120 knt., 60 ft.; Long-Davidson double under-rake rudder, new
+  this season and unstrained. 850 nom. Maginnis motor, Radium
+  relays and Pond generator. Bronze breakwater forward, and treble
+  reinforced forefoot and entry. Talfourd rockered keel: Triple set
+  of Hofman vans, giving maximum lifting surface of 5327 sq. ft.
+
+  Tarpon-has been lifted and held seven feet for two miles between
+  touch and touch.
+
+  Our Autumn List of racing and family Bats ready on the 9th
+  January.
+
+  ------------------------------------------------
+
+               AIR PLANES AND STARTERS
+
+  ------------------------------------------------
+
+                  HINKS MODERATOR
+
+              Monorail overhead starter
+             for family and private planes
+            up to twenty-five foot over all
+
+  Absolutely Safe
+
+      Hinks & Co.. Birmingham
+  ------------------------------------------------
+                 J. D. ARDAGH
+
+  I AM NOT CONCERNED WITH YOUR PLANE I AFTER IT LEAVES MY GUIDES,
+  BUT TILL THEN I HOLD MYSELF PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR LIFE,
+  SAFETY, AND COMFORT. MY HYDRAULIC BUFFER-STOP CANNOT RELEASE
+  TILL THE MOTORS ARE WORKING UP TO BEARING SPEED, THUS SECURING
+  A SAFE AND GRACEFUL FLIGHT WITHOUT PITCHING.
+
+         Remember our motto, "Upward and Outward,"
+    and do not trust yourself to so-called "rigid" guide-bars
+
+             J. D. ARDAGH, BELFAST AND TURIN
+
+  ------------------------------------------------
+
+                 ACCESSORIES AND SPARES
+
+  ------------------------------------------------
+
+                 CHRISTIAN WRIGHT & OLDIS
+                    ESTABLISHED 1924
+
+                 ACCESSORIES and SPARES
+
+       Hooded Binnacles with dip-dials automatically recording
+             change of level (illuminated face).
+
+  All heights from 50 to 15,000 feet            L2 10 0
+  With Aerial Board of Control certificate      L3 11 0
+  Foot and Hand Foghoms; Sirens toned to any club note; with
+  air-chest belt-driven horn motor              L6 8 0
+  Wireless installations syntonised to A.B.C. requirements, in neat
+  mahogany case, hundred mile range             L3 3 0
+
+  Grapnels, mushroom--anchors, pithing-irons, winches, hawsers,
+  snaps, shackles and mooring ropes, for lawn, city, and public
+  installations.
+
+  Detachable under-cars, aluminum or stamped steel.
+
+  Keeled under-cars for planes: single-action detaching-gear,
+  turning car into boat with one motion of the wrist. Invaluable
+  for sea trips.
+
+  Head, side, and riding lights (by size) Nos.00 to 20 A.B.C.
+  Standard. Rockets and fog-bombs in colours and tones of the
+  principal clubs (boxed).
+      A selection of twenty                   L2 17 6
+      International night-signals (boxed)     L1 11 6
+
+  Spare generators guaranteed to lifting power marked on cover
+  (prices according to power).
+
+  Wind-noses for dirigibles--Pegamoid, cane-stiffened, lacquered
+  cane or aluminum and flux for winter work.
+
+  Smoke-ring cannon for hail storms, swivel mounted, bow or stern.
+
+  Propeller blades: metal, tungsten backed; paper-mache wire
+  stiffened; ribbed Xylonite (Nickson's patent); all razor-edged
+  (price by pitch and diameter).
+
+  Compressed steel bow-screws for winter work.
+
+  Fused Ruby or Commercial Mineral Co. bearings and collars.
+  Agate-mounted thrust-blocks up to 4 inch.
+
+  Magniac's bow-rudders--(Lavales patent grooving).
+
+  Wove steel beltings for outboard motors (nonmagnetic).
+
+  Radium batteries, all powers to 150 h.p. (in pairs).
+
+  Helium batteries, all powers to 300 h.p. (tandem).
+
+  Stun'sle brakes worked from upper or lower platform.
+
+  Direct plunge-brakes worked from lower platform only, loaded silk
+  or fibre, wind-tight.
+
+  CATALOGUES FREE THROUGHOUT THE PLANET
+
+  ------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+THE FOUR ANGELS
+
+    As ADAM lay a-dreaming beneath the Apple Tree,
+    The Angel of the Earth came down, and offered Earth in fee.
+          But Adam did not need it,
+          Nor the plough he would not speed it,
+    Singing:--"Earth and Water, Air and Fire,
+           What more can mortal man desire?"
+             (The Apple Tree's in bud.)
+
+    As Adam lay a-dreaming beneath the Apple Tree,
+    The Angel of the Waters offered all the Seas in fee.
+         But Adam would not take 'em,
+         Nor the ships he wouldn't make 'em,
+    Singing:--"Water, Earth and Air and Fire,
+           What more can mortal man desire?"
+             (The Apple Tree's in leaf.)
+
+    As Adam lay a-dreaming beneath the Apple Tree,
+    The Angel of the Air he offered all the Air in fee.
+          But Adam did not crave it,
+          Nor the flight he wouldn't brave it,
+    Singing:--"Air and Water, Earth and Fire,
+           What more can mortal man desire?"
+             (The Apple Tree's in bloom.)
+
+    As Adam lay a-dreaming beneath the Apple Tree,
+    The Angel of the Fire rose up and not a word said he.
+          But he wished a fire and made it,
+          And in Adam's heart he laid it,
+    Singing.--"Fire, fire, burning Fire,
+           Stand up and reach your heart's desire!"
+             (The Apple Blossom's set.)
+
+    As Adam was a-working outside of Eden-Wall,
+    He used the Earth, he used the Seas, he used the Air and all;
+           And out of black disaster
+           He arose to be the master
+    Of Earth and Water, Air and Fire,
+           But never reached his heart's desire!
+             (The Apple Tree's cut down!)
+
+
+
+
+A DEAL IN COTTON
+
+Long and long ago, when Devadatta was King of Benares, I wrote some
+tales concerning Strickland of the Punjab Police (who married Miss
+Youghal), and Adam, his son. Strickland has finished his Indian Service,
+and lives now at a place in England called Weston-super-Mare, where his
+wife plays the organ in one of the churches. Semi-occasionally he comes
+up to London, and occasionally his wife makes him visit his friends.
+Otherwise he plays golf and follows the harriers for his figure's sake.
+
+If you remember that Infant who told a tale to Eustace Cleever the
+novelist, you will remember that he became a baronet with a vast estate.
+He has, owing to cookery, a little lost his figure, but he never loses
+his friends. I have found a wing of his house turned into a hospital
+for sick men, and there I once spent a week in the company of two dismal
+nurses and a specialist in "Sprue." Another time the place was full of
+schoolboys--sons of Anglo-Indians whom the Infant had collected for the
+holidays, and they nearly broke his keeper's heart.
+
+But my last visit was better. The Infant called me up by wire, and I
+fell into the arms of a friend of mine, Colonel A.L. Corkran, so that
+the years departed from us, and we praised Allah, who had not yet
+terminated the Delights, nor separated the Companions.
+
+Said Corkran, when he had explained how it felt to command a
+native Infantry regiment on the border: "The Stricks are coming for
+to-night-with their boy."
+
+"I remember him. The little fellow I wrote a story about," I said. "Is
+he in the Service?"
+
+"No. Strick got him into the Centro-Euro-Africa Protectorate. He's
+Assistant-Commissioner at Dupe--wherever that is. Somaliland, ain't it,
+Stalky?" asked the Infant.
+
+Stalky puffed out his nostrils scornfully. "You're only three thousand
+miles out. Look at the atlas."
+
+"Anyhow, he's as rotten full of fever as the rest of you," said the
+Infant, at length on the big divan. "And he's bringing a native servant
+with him. Stalky be an athlete, and tell Ipps to put him in the stable
+room."
+
+"Why? Is he a Yao--like the fellow Wade brought here--when your
+housekeeper had fits?" Stalky often visits the Infant, and has seen some
+odd things.
+
+"No. He's one of old Strickland's Punjabi policemen--and quite
+European--I believe."
+
+"Hooray! Haven't talked Punjabi for three months--and a Punjabi from
+Central Africa ought to be amusin'."
+
+We heard the chuff of the motor in the porch, and the first to enter was
+Agnes Strickland, whom the Infant makes no secret of adoring.
+
+He is devoted, in a fat man's placid way, to at least eight designing
+women; but she nursed him once through a bad bout of Peshawur fever, and
+when she is in the house, it is more than all hers.
+
+"You didn't send rugs enough," she began. "Adam might have taken a
+chill."
+
+"It's quite warm in the tonneau. Why did you let him ride in front?"
+
+"Because he wanted to," she replied, with the mother's smile, and we
+were introduced to the shadow of a young man leaning heavily on the
+shoulder of a bearded Punjabi Mohammedan.
+
+"That is all that came home of him," said his father to me. "There
+was nothing in it of the child with whom I had journeyed to Dalhousie
+centuries since."
+
+"And what is this uniform?" Stalky asked of Imam Din, the servant, who
+came to attention on the marble floor.
+
+"The uniform of the Protectorate troops, Sahib. Though I am the Little
+Sahib's body-servant, it is not seemly for us white men to be attended
+by folk dressed altogether as servants."
+
+"And--and you white men wait at table on horseback?" Stalky pointed to
+the man's spurs.
+
+"These I added for the sake of honour when I came to England," said Imam
+Din Adam smiled the ghost of a little smile that I began to remember,
+and we put him on the big couch for refreshments. Stalky asked him how
+much leave he had, and he said "Six months."
+
+"But he'll take another six on medical certificate," said Agnes
+anxiously. Adam knit his brows.
+
+"You don't want to--eh? I know. Wonder what my second in command is
+doing." Stalky tugged his moustache, and fell to thinking of his Sikhs.
+
+"Ah!" said the Infant. "I've only a few thousand pheasants to look
+after. Come along and dress for dinner. We're just ourselves. What
+flower is your honour's ladyship commanding for the table?"
+
+"Just ourselves?" she said, looking at the crotons in the great hall.
+"Then let's have marigolds the little cemetery ones."
+
+So it was ordered.
+
+Now, marigolds to us mean hot weather, discomfort, parting, and death.
+That smell in our nostrils, and Adam's servant in waiting, we naturally
+fell back more and more on the old slang, recalling at each glass those
+who had gone before. We did not sit at the big table, but in the bay
+window overlooking the park, where they were carting the last of the
+hay. When twilight fell we would not have candles, but waited for the
+moon, and continued our talk in the dusk that makes one remember.
+
+Young Adam was not interested in our past except where it had touched
+his future. I think his mother held his hand beneath the table. Imam
+Din--shoeless, out of respect to the floors--brought him his medicine,
+poured it drop by drop, and asked for orders.
+
+"Wait to take him to his cot when he grows weary," said his mother, and
+Imam Din retired into the shadow by the ancestral portraits.
+
+"Now what d'you expect to get out of your country?" the Infant asked,
+when--our India laid aside we talked Adam's Africa. It roused him at
+once.
+
+"Rubber--nuts--gums--and so on," he said. "But our real future is
+cotton. I grew fifty acres of it last year in my District."
+
+"My District!" said his father. "Hear him, Mummy!"
+
+"I did though! I wish I could show you the sample. Some Manchester chaps
+said it was as good as any Sea Island cotton on the market."
+
+"But what made you a cotton-planter, my son?" she asked.
+
+"My Chief said every man ought to have a shouk (a hobby) of sorts, and
+he took the trouble to ride a day out of his way to show me a belt of
+black soil that was just the thing for cotton."
+
+"Ah! What was your Chief like?" Stalky asked, in his silkiest tones.
+
+"The best man alive--absolutely. He lets you blow your own nose
+yourself. The people call him"--Adam jerked out some heathen
+phrase--"that means the Man with the Stone Eyes, you know."
+
+"I'm glad of that. Because I've heard from other quarters" Stalky's
+sentence burned like a slow match, but the explosion was not long
+delayed. "Other quarters!" Adam threw out a thin hand. "Every dog has
+his fleas. If you listen to them, of course!" The shake of his head was
+as I remembered it among his father's policemen twenty years before, and
+his mother's eyes shining through the dusk called on me to adore it. I
+kicked Stalky on the shin. One must not mock a young man's first love or
+loyalty.
+
+A lump of raw cotton appeared on the table.
+
+"I thought there might be a need. Therefore I packed it between our
+shirts," said the voice of Imam Din.
+
+"Does he know as much English as that?" cried the Infant, who had
+forgotten his East.
+
+We all admired the cotton for Adam's sake, and, indeed, it was very long
+and glossy.
+
+"It's--it's only an experiment," he said. "We're such awful paupers we
+can't even pay for a mailcart in my District. We use a biscuit-box
+on two bicycle wheels. I only got the money for that"--he patted the
+stuff--"by a pure fluke."
+
+"How much did it cost?" asked Strickland.
+
+"With seed and machinery--about two hundred pounds. I had the labour
+done by cannibals."
+
+"That sounds promising." Stalky reached for a fresh cigarette.
+
+"No, thank you," said Agnes. "I've been at Weston-super-Mare a little
+too long for cannibals. I'll go to the music-room and try over next
+Sunday's hymns."
+
+She lifted the boy's hand lightly to her lips, and tripped across the
+acres of glimmering floor to the music-room that had been the Infant's
+ancestors' banqueting hall. Her grey and silver dress disappeared under
+the musicians' gallery; two electrics broke out, and she stood backed
+against the lines of gilded pipes.
+
+"There's an abominable self-playing attachment here!" she called.
+
+"Me!" the Infant answered, his napkin on his shoulder. "That's how I
+play Parsifal."
+
+"I prefer the direct expression. Take it away, Ipps."
+
+We heard old Ipps skating obediently all over the floor.
+
+"Now for the direct expression," said Stalky, and moved on the Burgundy
+recommended by the faculty to enrich fever-thinned blood.
+
+"It's nothing much. Only the belt of cotton-soil my chief showed me
+ran right into the Sheshaheli country. We haven't been able to prove
+cannibalism against that tribe in the courts; but when a Sheshaheli
+offers you four pounds of woman's breast, tattoo marks and all, skewered
+up in a plantain leaf before breakfast, you--"
+
+"Naturally burn the villages before lunch," said Stalky.
+
+Adam shook his head. "No troops," he sighed. "I told my Chief about it,
+and he said we must wait till they chopped a white man. He advised me if
+ever I felt like it not to commit a--a barren felo de se, but to let the
+Sheshaheli do it. Then he could report, and then we could mop 'em up!"
+
+"Most immoral! That's how we got--" Stalky quoted the name of a province
+won by just such a sacrifice.
+
+"Yes, but the beasts dominated one end of my cotton-belt like anything.
+They chivied me out of it when I went to take soil for analysis--me and
+Imam Din."
+
+"Sahib! Is there a need?" The voice came out of the darkness, and the
+eyes shone over Adam's shoulder ere it ceased.
+
+"None. The name was taken in talk." Adam abolished him with a turn of
+the finger. "I couldn't make a casus belli of it just then, because my
+Chief had taken all the troops to hammer a gang of slave kings up north.
+Did you ever hear of our war against Ibn Makarrah? He precious nearly
+lost us the Protectorate at one time, though he's an ally of ours now."
+
+"Wasn't he rather a pernicious brute, even as they go?" said Stalky.
+"Wade told me about him last year."
+
+"Well, his nickname all through the country was 'The Merciful,' and he
+didn't get that for nothing. None of our people ever breathed his
+proper name. They said 'He' or 'That One,' and they didn't say it aloud,
+either. He fought us for eight months."
+
+"I remember. There was a paragraph about it in one of the papers," I
+said.
+
+"We broke him, though. No--the slavers don't come our way, because our
+men have the reputation of dying too much, the first month after they're
+captured. That knocks down profits, you see."
+
+"What about your charming friends, the Sheshahelis?" said the Infant.
+
+"There's no market for Sheshaheli. People would as soon buy crocodiles.
+I believe, before we annexed the country, Ibn Makarrah dropped down on
+'em once--to train his young men--and simply hewed 'em in pieces.
+The bulk of my people are agriculturists just the right stamp for
+cotton-growers. What's Mother playing?--'Once in royal'?"
+
+The organ that had been crooning as happily as a woman over her babe
+restored, steadied to a tune.
+
+"Magnificent! Oh, magnificent!" said the Infant loyally. I had never
+heard him sing but once, and then, though it was early in the tolerant
+morning, his mess had rolled him into a lotus pond.
+
+"How did you get your cannibals to work for you?" asked Strickland.
+
+"They got converted to civilization after my Chief smashed Ibn
+Makarrah--just at the time I wanted 'em. You see my Chief had promised
+me in writing that if I could scrape up a surplus he would not bag it
+for his roads this time, but I might have it for my cotton game. I only
+needed two hundred pounds. Our revenues didn't run to it."
+
+"What is your revenue?" Stalky asked in the vernacular.
+
+"With hut-tax, traders' game and mining licenses, not more than fourteen
+thousand rupees; every penny of it ear-marked months ahead." Adam
+sighed.
+
+"Also there is a fine for dogs straying in the Sahib's camp. Last year
+it exceeded three rupees," Imam Din said quietly.
+
+"Well, I thought that was fair. They howled so. We were rather strict on
+fines. I worked up my native clerk--Bulaki Ram--to a ferocious pitch
+of enthusiasm. He used to calculate the profits of our cotton-scheme
+to three points of decimals, after office. I tell you I envied your
+magistrates here hauling money out of motorists every week I had managed
+to make our ordinary revenue and expenditure just about meet, and I
+was crazy to get the odd two hundred pounds for my cotton. That sort of
+thing grows on a chap when he's alone--and talks aloud!"
+
+"Hul-lo! Have you been there already?" the father said, and Adam nodded.
+
+"Yes. Used to spout what I could remember of 'Marmion' to a tree, sir.
+Well then my luck turned. One evening an English-speaking nigger came in
+towing a corpse by the feet. (You get used to little things like that.)
+He said he'd found it, and please would I identify, because if it
+was one of Ibn Makarrah's men there might be a reward. It was an old
+Mohammedan, with a strong dash of Arab--a smallboned, bald-headed chap,
+and I was just wondering how it had kept so well in our climate when it
+sneezed. You ought to have seen the nigger! He fetched a howl and bolted
+like--like the dog in 'Tom Sawyer,' when he sat on the what's-its-name
+beetle. He yelped as he ran, and the corpse went on sneezing. I could
+see it had been sarkied. (That's a sort of gum-poison, pater, which
+attacks the nerve centres. Our chief medical officer is writing a
+monograph about it.) So Imam Din and I emptied out the corpse one time,
+with my shaving soap and trade gunpowder, and hot water.
+
+"I'd seen a case of sarkie before; so when the skin peeled off his feet,
+and he stopped sneezing, I knew he'd live. He was bad, though; lay like
+a log for a week while Imam Din and I massaged the paralysis out of him.
+Then he told us he was a Hajji--had been three times to Mecca--come in
+from French Africa, and that he'd met the nigger by the wayside--just
+like a case of thuggee, in India--and the nigger had poisoned him. That
+seemed reasonable enough by what I knew of Coast niggers."
+
+"You believed him?" said his father keenly.
+
+"There was no reason I shouldn't. The nigger never came back, and the
+old man stayed with me for two months," Adam returned. "You know what
+the best type of a Mohammedan gentleman can be, pater? He was that."
+
+"None finer, none finer," was the answer.
+
+"Except a Sikh," Stalky grunted.
+
+"He'd been to Bombay; he knew French Africa inside out; he could quote
+poetry and the Koran all day long. He played chess--you don't know what
+that meant to me--like a master. We used to talk about the regeneration
+of Turkey and the Sheik-ul-Islam between moves. Oh, everything under the
+sun we talked about! He was awfully open-minded. He believed in slavery,
+of course, but he quite saw that it would have to die out. That's why
+he agreed with me about developing the resources of the district by
+cotton-growing, you know."
+
+"You talked of that too?" said Strickland.
+
+"Rather. We discussed it for hours. You don't know what it meant to me.
+A wonderful man. Imam Din, was not our Hajji marvellous?"
+
+"Most marvellous! It was all through the Hajji that we found the money
+for our cotton-play." Imam Din had moved, I fancy, behind Strickland's
+chair.
+
+"Yes. It must have been dead against his convictions too. He brought me
+news when I was down with fever at Dupe that one of Ibn Makarrah's men
+was parading through my District with a bunch of slaves--in the Fork!"
+
+"What's the matter with the Fork, that you can't abide it?" said Stalky.
+Adam's voice had risen at the last word.
+
+"Local etiquette, sir," he replied, too earnest to notice Stalky's
+atrocious pun. "If a slaver runs slaves through British territory he
+ought to pretend that they're his servants. Hawkin' 'em about in the
+Fork--the forked stick that you put round their necks, you know--is
+insolence--same as not backing your topsails in the old days. Besides,
+it unsettles the District."
+
+"I thought you said slavers didn't come your way," I put in.
+
+"They don't. But my Chief was smoking 'em out of the North all that
+season, and they were bolting into French territory any road they could
+find. My orders were to take no notice so long as they circulated, but
+open slave-dealing in the Fork, was too much. I couldn't go myself, so I
+told a couple of our Makalali police and Imam Din to make talk with
+the gentleman one time. It was rather risky, and it might have been
+expensive, but it turned up trumps. They were back in a few days with
+the slaver (he didn't show fight) and a whole crowd of witnesses, and
+we tried him in my bedroom, and fined him properly. Just to show you
+how demoralized the brute must have been (Arabs often go dotty after a
+defeat), he'd snapped up four or five utterly useless Sheshaheli, and
+was offering 'em to all and sundry along the road. Why, he offered 'em
+to you, didn't he, Imam Din?"
+
+"I was witness that he offered man-eaters' for sale," said Imam Din.
+
+"Luckily for my cotton-scheme, that landed, him both ways. You see, he
+had slaved and exposed slaves for sale in British territory. That meant
+the double fine if I could get it out of him."
+
+"What was his defence?" said Strickland, late of the Punjab Police.
+
+"As far as I remember--but I had a temperature of 104 degrees at the
+time--he'd mistaken the meridians of longitude. Thought he was in French
+territory. Said he'd never do it again, if we'd let him off with a fine.
+I could have shaken hands with the brute for that. He paid up cash like
+a motorist and went off one time."
+
+"Did you see him?"
+
+"Ye-es. Didn't I, Imam Din?"
+
+"Assuredly the Sahib both saw and spoke to the slaver. And the Sahib
+also made a speech to the man-eaters when he freed them, and they swore
+to supply him with labour for all his cotton-play. The Sahib leaned on
+his own servant's shoulder the while."
+
+"I remember something of that. I remember Bulaki Ram giving me the
+papers to sign, and I distinctly remember him locking up the money in
+the safe--two hundred and ten beautiful English sovereigns. You don't
+know what that meant to me! I believe it cured my fever; and as soon
+as I could, I staggered off with the Hajji to interview the Sheshaheli
+about labour. Then I found out why they had been so keen to work! It
+wasn't gratitude. Their big village had been hit by lightning and burned
+out a week or two before, and they lay flat in rows around me asking me
+for a job. I gave it 'em."
+
+"And so you were very happy?" His mother had stolen up behind us. "You
+liked your cotton, dear?" She tidied the lump away.
+
+"By Jove, I was happy!" Adam yawned. "Now if any one," he looked at
+the Infant, "cares to put a little money into the scheme, it'll be the
+making of my District. I can't give you figures, sir, but I assure--"
+
+"You'll take your arsenic, and Imam Din'll take you up to bed, and I'll
+come and tuck you in."
+
+Agnes leaned forward, her rounded elbows on his shoulders, hands joined
+across his dark hair, and "Isn't he a darling?" she said to us, with
+just the same heart-rending lift to the left eyebrow and the same break
+of her voice as sent Strickland mad among the horses in the year '84. We
+were quiet when they were gone. We waited till Imam Din returned to us
+from above and coughed at the door, as only dark-hearted Asia can.
+
+"Now," said Strickland, "tell us what truly befell, son of my servant."
+
+"All befell as our Sahib has said. Only--only there was an
+arrangement--a little arrangement on account of his cotton-play."
+
+"Tell! Sit! I beg your pardon, Infant," said Strickland.
+
+But the Infant had already made the sign, and we heard Imam Din hunker
+down on the floor: One gets little out of the East at attention.
+
+"When the fever came on our Sahib in our roofed house at Dupe," he
+began, "the Hajji listened intently to his talk. He expected the names
+of women; though I had already told him that Our virtue was beyond
+belief or compare, and that Our sole desire was this cotton-play. Being
+at last convinced, the Hajji breathed on our Sahib's forehead, to sink
+into his brain news concerning a slave-dealer in his district who had
+made a mock of the law. Sahib," Imam Din turned to Strickland, "our
+Sahib answered to those false words as a horse of blood answers to
+the spur. He sat up. He issued orders for the apprehension of the
+slavedealer. Then he fell back. Then we left him."
+
+"Alone--servant of my son, and son of my servant?" said his father.
+
+"There was an old woman which belonged to the Hajji. She had come in
+with the Hajji's money-belt. The Hajji told her that if our Sahib died,
+she would die with him. And truly our Sahib had given me orders to
+depart."
+
+"Being mad with fever--eh?"
+
+"What could we do, Sahib? This cotton-play was his heart's desire. He
+talked of it in his fever. Therefore it was his heart's desire that
+the Hajji went to fetch. Doubtless the Hajji could have given him money
+enough out of hand for ten cottonplays; but in this respect also our
+Sahib's virtue was beyond belief or compare. Great Ones do not exchange
+moneys. Therefore the Hajji said--and I helped with my counsel--that we
+must make arrangements to get the money in all respects conformable with
+the English Law. It was great trouble to us, but--the Law is the Law.
+And the Hajji showed the old woman the knife by which she would die if
+our Sahib died. So I accompanied the Hajji."
+
+"Knowing who he was?" said Strickland.
+
+"No! Fearing the man. A virtue went out from him overbearing the virtue
+of lesser persons. The Hajji told Bulaki Ram the clerk to occupy the
+seat of government at Dupe till our return. Bulaki Ram feared the Hajji,
+because the Hajji had often gloatingly appraised his skill in figures
+at five thousand rupees upon any slave-block. The Hajji then said to
+me: 'Come, and we will make the man-eaters play the cotton-game for my
+delight's delight' The Hajji loved our Sahib with the love of a father
+for his son, of a saved for his saviour, of a Great One for a Great One.
+But I said: 'We cannot go to that Sheshaheli place without a hundred
+rifles. We have here five.' The Hajji said: 'I have untied as knot in my
+head-handkerchief which will be more to us than a thousand.' I saw that
+he had so loosed it that it lay flagwise on his shoulder. Then I knew
+that he was a Great One with virtue in him.
+
+"We came to the highlands of the Sheshaheli on the dawn of the second
+day--about the time of the stirring of the cold wind. The Hajji walked
+delicately across the open place where their filth is, and scratched
+upon the gate which was shut. When it opened I saw the man-eaters lying
+on their cots under the eaves of the huts. They rolled off: they rose
+up, one behind the other the length of the street, and the fear on their
+faces was as leaves whitening to a breeze. The Hajji stood in the gate
+guarding his skirts from defilement. The Hajji said: 'I am here once
+again. Give me six and yoke up.' They zealously then pushed to us with
+poles six, and yoked them with a heavy tree. The Hajji then said: 'Fetch
+fire from the morning hearth, and come to windward.' The wind is strong
+on those headlands at sunrise, so when each had emptied his crock of
+fire in front of that which was before him, the broadside of the town
+roared into flame, and all went. The Hajji then said: 'At the end of
+a time there will come here the white man ye once chased for sport. He
+will demand labour to plant such and such stuff. Ye are that labour, and
+your spawn after you.' They said, lifting their heads a very little from
+the edge of the ashes: 'We are that labour, and our spawn after us.'
+The Hajji said: 'What is also my name?' They said: 'Thy name is also
+The Merciful' The Hajji said: 'Praise then my mercy'; and while they did
+this, the Hajji walked away, I following."
+
+The Infant made some noise in his throat, and reached for more Burgundy.
+
+"About noon one of our six fell dead. Fright only frights Sahib! None
+had--none could--touch him. Since they were in pairs, and the other of
+the Fork was mad and sang foolishly, we waited for some heathen to do
+what was needful. There came at last Angari men with goats. The Hajji
+said: 'What do ye see? They said: 'Oh, our Lord, we neither see nor
+hear.' The Hajji said: 'But I command ye to see and to hear and to say.'
+They said: 'Oh, our Lord, it is to our commanded eyes as though slaves
+stood in a Fork.' The Hajji said: 'So testify before the officer who
+waits you in the town of Dupe.' They said: 'What shall come to us
+after?' The Hajji said: 'The just reward for the informer. But if ye do
+not testify, then a punishment which shall cause birds, to fall from
+the trees in terror and monkeys to scream for pity.' Hearing this,
+the Angari men hastened to Dupe. The Hajji then said to me: 'Are those
+things sufficient to establish our case, or must I drive in a village
+full?' I said that three witnesses amply established any case, but as
+yet, I said, the Hajji had not offered his slaves for sale. It is true,
+as our Sahib said just now, there is one fine for catching slaves, and
+yet another for making to sell them. And it was the double fine that
+we needed, Sahib, for our Sahib's cotton-play. We had fore-arranged
+all this with Bulaki Ram, who knows the English Law, and, I thought the
+Hajji remembered, but he grew angry, and cried out: 'O God, Refuge of
+the Afflicted, must I, who am what I am, peddle this dog's meat by the
+roadside to gain his delight for my heart's delight?' None the less, he
+admitted it was the English Law, and so he offered me the six--five--in
+a small voice, with an averted head. The Sheshaheli do not smell of sour
+milk as heathen should. They smell like leopards, Sahib. This is because
+they eat men."
+
+"Maybe," said Strickland. "But where were thy wits? One witness is not
+sufficient to establish the fact of a sale."
+
+"What could we do, Sahib? There was the Hajji's reputation to consider.
+We could not have called in a heathen witness for such a thing. And,
+moreover, the Sahib forgets that the defendant himself was making this
+case. He would not contest his own evidence. Otherwise, I know the law
+of evidence well enough.
+
+"So then we went to Dupe, and while Bulaki Ram waited among the Angari
+men, 'I ran to see our Sahib in bed. His eyes were very bright, and his
+mouth was full of upside-down orders, but the old woman had not loosened
+her hair for death. The Hajji said: 'Be quick with my trial. I am not
+Job!' The Hajji was a learned man. We made the trial swiftly to a sound
+of soothing voices round the bed. Yet--yet, because no man can be sure
+whether a Sahib of that blood sees, or does not see, we made it strictly
+in the manner of the forms of the English Law. Only the witnesses and
+the slaves and the prisoner we kept without for his nose's sake."
+
+"Then he did not see the prisoner?" said Strickland.
+
+"I stood by to shackle up an Angari in case he should demand it, but by
+God's favour he was too far fevered to ask for one. It is quite true
+he signed the papers. It is quite true he saw the money put away in the
+safe--two hundred and ten English pounds and it is quite true that the
+gold wrought on him as a strong cure. But as to his seeing the prisoner,
+and having speech with the man-eaters--the Hajji breathed all that on
+his forehead to sink into his sick brain. A little, as ye have heard,
+has remained.... Ah, but when the fever broke, and our Sahib called
+for the fine-book, and the thin little picture-books from Europe with
+the pictures of ploughs and hoes, and cotton=3Dmills--ah, then he
+laughed as he used to laugh, Sahib. It was his heart's desire, this
+cotton-play. The Hajji loved him, as who does not? It was a little,
+little arrangement, Sahib, of which--is it necessary to tell all the
+world?"
+
+"And when didst thou know who the Hajji was?" said Strickland.
+
+"Not for a certainty till he and our Sahib had returned from their
+visit to the Sheshaheli country. It is quite true as our Sahib says, the
+man-eaters lay, flat around his feet, and asked for spades to cultivate
+cotton. That very night, when I was cooking the dinner, the Hajji said
+to me: 'I go to my own place, though God knows whether the Man with the
+Stone Eyes have left me an ox, a slave, or a woman.' I said: 'Thou art
+then That One?' The Hajji said: 'I am ten thousand rupees reward into
+thy hand. Shall we make another law-case and get more cotton machines
+for the boy?' I said: 'What dog am I to do this? May God prolong thy
+life a thousand years!' The Hajji said: 'Who has seen to-morrow? God has
+given me as it were a son in my old age, and I praise Him. See that the
+breed is not lost!'
+
+"He walked then from the cooking-place to our Sahib's office-table under
+the tree, where our Sahib held in his hand a blue envelope of Service
+newly come in by runner from the North. At this, fearing evil news for
+the Hajji, I would have restrained him, but he said: 'We be both Great
+Ones. Neither of us will fail.' Our Sahib looked up to invite the Hajji
+to approach before he opened the letter, but the Hajji stood off till
+our Sahib had well opened and well read the letter. Then the Hajji said:
+'Is it permitted to say farewell?' Our Sahib stabbed the letter on the
+file with a deep and joyful breath and cried a welcome. The Hajji said:
+'I go to my own place,' and he loosed from his neck a chained heart
+of ambergris set in soft gold and held it forth. Our Sahib snatched
+it swiftly in the closed fist, down turned, and said 'If thy name be
+written hereon, it is needless, for a name is already engraved on my
+heart.' The Hajji said: 'And on mine also is a name engraved; but there
+is no name on the amulet.' The Hajji stooped to our Sahib's feet, but
+our Sahib raised and embraced him, and the Hajji covered his mouth with
+his shoulder-cloth, because it worked, and so he went away."
+
+"And what order was in the Service letter?" Stalky murmured.
+
+"Only an order for our Sahib to write a report on some new cattle
+sickness. But all orders come in the same make of envelope. We could not
+tell what order it might have been."
+
+"When he opened the letter--my son--made he no sign? A cough? An oath?"
+Strickland asked.
+
+"None, Sahib. I watched his hands. They did not shake. Afterward he
+wiped his face, but he was sweating before from the heat."
+
+"Did he know? Did he know who the Hajji was?" said the Infant in
+English.
+
+"I am a poor man. Who can say what a Sahib of that get knows or does not
+know? But the Hajji is right. The breed should not be lost. It is not
+very hot for little children in Dupe, and as regards nurses, my sister's
+cousin at Jull--"
+
+"H'm! That is the boy's own concern. I wonder if his Chief ever knew?"
+said Strickland.
+
+"Assuredly," said Imam Din. "On the night before our Sahib went down to
+the sea, the Great Sahib--the Man with the Stone Eyes--dined with him in
+his camp, I being in charge of the table. They talked a long while and
+the Great Sahib said: 'What didst thou think of That One?' (We do not
+say Ibn Makarrah yonder.) Our Sahib said: 'Which one?' The Great Sahib
+said: 'That One which taught thy man-eaters to grow cotton for thee. He
+was in thy District three months to my certain knowledge, and I looked
+by every runner that thou wouldst send me in his head.' Our Sahib said:
+'If his head had been needed, another man should have been appointed to
+govern my District, for he was my friend.' The Great Sahib laughed and
+said: 'If I had needed a lesser man in thy place be sure I would have
+sent him, as, if I had needed the head of That One, be sure I would have
+sent men to bring it to me. But tell me now, by what means didst thou
+twist him to thy use and our profit in this cotton-play?' Our Sahib
+said: 'By God, I did not use that man in any fashion whatever. He was
+my friend.' The Great Sahib said: 'Toh Vac! (Bosh!) Tell!' Our Sahib
+shook his head as he does--as he did when a child--and they looked at
+each other like sword-play men in the ring at a fair. The Great Sahib
+dropped his eyes first and he said: 'So be it. I should perhaps have
+answered thus in my youth. No matter. I have made treaty with That One
+as an ally of the State. Some day he shall tell me the tale.' Then I
+brought in fresh coffee, and they ceased. But I do not think That One
+will tell the Great Sahib more than our Sahib told him."
+
+"Wherefore?" I asked.
+
+"Because they are both Great Ones, and I have observed in my life
+that Great Ones employ words very little between each other in their
+dealings; still less when they speak to a third concerning those
+dealings. Also they profit by silence.... Now I think that the
+mother has come down from the room, and I will go rub his feet till he
+sleeps."
+
+His ears had caught Agnes's step at the stair-head and presently she
+passed us on her way to the music room humming the Magnificat.
+
+
+
+
+THE NEW KNIGHTHOOD
+
+            Who gives him the Bath?
+              "I," said the wet,
+            Rank Jungle-sweat,
+              "I'll give him the Bath!"
+
+            Who'll sing the psalms?
+              "We," said the Palms.
+            "Ere the hot wind becalms,
+              We'll sing the psalms."
+
+            Who lays on the sword?
+              "I," said the Sun,
+            "Before he has done,
+              I'll lay on the sword."
+
+            Who fastens his belt?
+              "I," said Short-Rations,
+            "I know all the fashions
+              Of tightening a belt!"
+
+            Who buckles his spur?
+              "I," said his Chief,
+            Exacting and brief,
+              "I'll give him the spur."
+
+            Who'll shake his hand?
+              "I," said the Fever,
+            "And I'm no deceiver,
+              I'll shake his hand."
+
+            Who brings him the wine?
+              "I," said Quinine,
+            "It's a habit of mine,
+              I'll come with his wine."
+
+            Who'll put him to proof?
+              "I," said All Earth,
+            "Whatever he's worth,
+              I'll put to the proof."
+
+            Who'll choose him for Knight?
+              "I," said his Mother,
+            "Before any other,
+              My very own knight!"
+
+         And after this fashion, adventure to seek,
+         Was Sir Galahad made--as it might be last week!
+
+
+
+
+THE PUZZLER
+
+I had not seen Penfentenyou since the Middle Nineties, when he was
+Minister of Ways and Woodsides in De Thouar's first Administration. Last
+summer, though he nominally held the same portfolio, he was his Colony's
+Premier in all but name, and the idol of his own province, which is two
+and a half times the size of England. Politically, his creed was his
+growing country; and he came over to England to develop a Great Idea in
+her behalf.
+
+Believing that he had put it in train, I made haste to welcome him to my
+house for a week.
+
+That he was chased to my door by his own Agent-General in a motor; that
+they turned my study into a Cabinet Meeting which I was not invited to
+attend; that the local telegraph all but broke down beneath the strain
+of hundred word coded cables; and that I practically broke into the
+house of a stranger to get him telephonic facilities on a Sunday, are
+things I overlook. What I objected to was his ingratitude, while I thus
+tore up England to help him. So I said: "Why on earth didn't you see
+your Opposite Number in Town instead of bringing your office work here?"
+
+"Eh? Who?" said he, looking up from his fourth cable since lunch.
+
+"See the English Minister for Ways and Woodsides."
+
+"I saw him," said Penfentenyou, without enthusiasm.
+
+It seemed that he had called twice on the gentleman, but without an
+appointment--("I thought if I wasn't big enough, my business was")--and
+each time had found him engaged. A third party intervening, suggested
+that a meeting might be arranged if due notice were given.
+
+"Then," said Penfentenyou, "I called at the office at ten o'clock."
+
+"But they'd be in bed," I cried.
+
+"One of the babies was awake. He told me that--that 'my sort of
+questions "'--he slapped the pile of cables--"were only taken between 11
+and 2 P.M. So I waited."
+
+"And when you got to business?" I asked.
+
+He made a gesture of despair. "It was like talking to children. They'd
+never heard of it."
+
+"And your Opposite Number?"
+
+Penfentenyou described him.
+
+"Hush! You mustn't talk like that!" I shuddered. "He's one of the best
+of good fellows. You should meet him socially."
+
+"I've done that too," he said. "Have you?"
+
+"Heaven forbid!" I cried; "but that's the proper thing to say."
+
+"Oh, he said all the proper things. Only I thought as this was England
+that they'd more or less have the hang of all the--general hang-together
+of my Idea. But I had to explain it from the beginning."
+
+"Ah! They'd probably mislaid the papers," I said, and I told him
+the story of a three-million pound insurrection caused by a deputy
+Under-Secretary sitting upon a mass of green-labelled correspondence
+instead of reading it.
+
+"I wonder it doesn't happen every week," the answered. "D'you mind my
+having the Agent-General to dinner again tonight? I'll wire, and he can
+motor down."
+
+The Agent-General arrived two hours later, a patient and expostulating
+person, visibly torn between the pulling Devil of a rampant Colony,
+and the placid Baker of a largely uninterested England. But with
+Penfentenyou behind him he had worked; for he told us that Lord
+Lundie--the Law Lord was the final authority on the legal and
+constitutional aspects of the Great Idea, and to him it must be
+referred.
+
+"Good Heavens alive!" thundered Penfentenyou. "I told you to get that
+settled last Christmas."
+
+"It was the middle of the house-party season," said the Agent-General
+mildly. "Lord Lundie's at Credence Green now--he spends his holidays
+there. It's only forty miles off."
+
+"Shan't I disturb his Holiness?" said Penfentenyou heavily. "Perhaps
+'my sort of questions,"' he snorted, "mayn't be discussed except at
+midnight."
+
+"Oh, don't be a child," I said.
+
+"What this country needs," said Penfentenyou, "is--" and for ten minutes
+he trumpeted rebellion.
+
+"What you need is to pay for your own protection," I cut in when he
+drew breath, and I showed him a yellowish paper, supplied gratis by
+Government, which is called Schedule D. To my merciless delight he had
+never seen the thing before, and I completed my victory over him and
+all the Colonies with a Brassey's "Naval Annual" and a "Statesman's Year
+Book."
+
+The Agent-General interposed with agent-generalities (but they were
+merely provocateurs) about Ties of Sentiment.
+
+"They be blowed!" said Penfentenyou. "What's the good of sentiment
+towards a Kindergarten?"
+
+"Quite so. Ties of common funk are the things that bind us together; and
+the sooner you new nations realize it the better. What you need is an
+annual invasion. Then you'd grow up."
+
+"Thank you! Thank you!" said the Agent-General. "That's what I am always
+trying to tell my people."
+
+"But, my dear fool," Penfentenyou almost wept, "do you pretend that
+these banana-fingered amateurs at home are grown up?"
+
+"You poor, serious, pagan man," I retorted, "if you take 'em that way,
+you'll wreck your Great Idea."
+
+"Will you take him to Lord Lundie's to-morrow?" said the Agent-General
+promptly.
+
+"I suppose I must," I said, "if you won't."
+
+"Not me! I'm going home," said the Agent-General, and departed. I am
+glad that I am no colony's Agent-General.
+
+Penfentenyou continued to argue about naval contributions till 1.15
+A.M., though I was victor from the first.
+
+At ten o'clock I got him and his correspondence into the motor, and
+he had the decency to ask whether he had been unpolished over-night.
+I replied that I waited an apology. This he made excuse for renewed
+arguments, and used wayside shows as illustrations of the decadence of
+England.
+
+For example we burst a tyre within a mile of Credence Green, and, to
+save time, walked into the beautifully kept little village. His eye was
+caught by a building of pale-blue tin, stencilled "Calvinist Chapel,"
+before whose shuttered windows an Italian organ-grinder with a
+petticoated monkey was playing "Dolly Grey-"
+
+"Yes. That's it!" snapped the egoist. "That's a parable of the general
+situation in England. And look at those brutes!" A huge household
+removals van was halted at a public-house. The men in charge were
+drinking beer from blue and white mugs. It seemed to me a pretty sight,
+but Penfentenyou said it represented Our National Attitude.
+
+Lord Lundie's summer resting-place we learned was a farm, a little out
+of the village, up a hill round which curled a high hedged road. Only
+an initiated few spend their holidays at Credence Green, and they have
+trained the householders to keep the place select. Penfentenyou made a
+grievance of this as we walked up the lane, followed at a distance by
+the organ-grinder.
+
+"Suppose he is having a house-party," he said: "Anything's possible in
+this insane land."
+
+Just at that minute we found ourselves opposite an empty villa. Its roof
+was of black slate, with bright unweathered ridge-tiling; its walls were
+of blood-coloured brick, cornered and banded with vermiculated stucco
+work, and there was cobalt, magenta, and purest apple-green window-glass
+on either side of the front door. The whole was fenced from the road by
+a low, brick-pillared, flint wall, topped with a cast-iron Gothic rail,
+picked out in blue and gold.
+
+Tight beds of geranium, calceolaria, and lobelia speckled the
+glass-plat, from whose centre rose one of the finest araucarias (its
+other name by the way is "monkey-puzzler"), that it has ever been my
+lot to see. It must have been full thirty feet high, and its foliage
+exquisitely answered the iron railings. Such bijou ne plus ultras,
+replete with all the amenities, do not, as I pointed out to
+Penfentenyou, transpire outside of England.
+
+A hedge, swinging sharp right, flanked the garden, and above it on
+a slope of daisy-dotted meadows we could see Lord Lundie's tiled and
+half-timbered summer farmhouse. Of a sudden we heard voices behind the
+tree--the fine full tones of the unembarrassed English, speaking to
+their equals--that tore through the hedge like sleet through rafters.
+
+"That it is not called 'monkey-puzzler' for nothing, I willingly
+concede"--this was a rich and rolling note--"but on the other hand--"
+
+"I submit, me lud, that the name implies that it might, could, would,
+or should be ascended by a monkey, and not that the ascent is a physical
+impossibility. I believe one of our South American spider monkeys
+wouldn't hesitate... By Jove, it might be worth trying, if--"
+
+This was a crisper voice than the first. A third, higher-pitched, and
+full of pleasant affectations, broke in.
+
+"Oh, practical men, there is no ape here. Why do you waste one of God's
+own days on unprofitable discussion? Give me a match!"
+
+"I've a good mind to make you demonstrate in your own person. Come on,
+Bubbles! We'll make Jimmy climb!"
+
+There was a sound of scuffling, broken by squeaks from Jimmy of the high
+voice. I turned back and drew Penfentenyou into the side of the flanking
+hedge. I remembered to have read in a society paper that Lord Lundie's
+lesser name was "Bubbles."
+
+"What are they doing?" Penfentenyou said sharply. "Drunk?"
+
+"Just playing! Superabundant vitality of the Race, you know. We'll watch
+'em," I answered. The noise ceased.
+
+"My deliver," Jimmy gasped. "The ram caught in the thicket, and--I'm the
+only one who can talk Neapolitan! Leggo my collar!" He cried aloud in a
+foreign tongue, and was answered from the gate.
+
+"It's the Calvinistic organ-grinder," I whispered. I had already found
+a practicable break at the bottom of the hedge. "They're going to try to
+make the monkey climb, I believe."
+
+"Here--let me look!" Penfentenyou flung himself down, and rooted till he
+too broke a peep-hole. We lay side by side commanding the entire garden
+at ten yards' range.
+
+"You know 'em?" said Penfentenyou, as I made some noise or other.
+
+"By sight only. The big fellow in flannels is Lord Lundie; the
+light-built one with the yellow beard painted his picture at the last
+Academy: He's a swell R.A., James Loman."
+
+"And the brown chap with the hands?"
+
+"Tomling, Sir Christopher Tomling, the South American engineer who built
+the--"
+
+"San Juan Viaduct. I know," said Penfentenyou. "We ought to have had him
+with us.... Do you think a monkey would climb the tree?"
+
+The organ-grinder at the gate fenced his beast with one arm as
+Jimmy-talked.
+
+"Don't show off your futile accomplishments," said Lord Lundie. "Tell
+him it's an experiment. Interest him!"
+
+"Shut up, Bubbles. You aren't in court," Jimmy replied. "This needs
+delicacy. Giuseppe says--"
+
+"Interest the monkey," the brown engineer interrupted. "He won't climb
+for love. Cut up to the house and get some biscuits, Bubbles--sugar ones
+and an orange or two. No need to tell our womenfolk."
+
+The huge white figure lobbed off at a trot which would not have
+disgraced a boy of seventeen. I gathered from something Jimmy let fall
+that the three had been at Harrow together.
+
+"That Tomling has a head on his Shoulders," muttered Penfentenyou. "Pity
+we didn't get him for the Colony. But the question is, will the monkey
+climb?"
+
+"Be quick, Jimmy. Tell the man we'll give him five bob for the loan of
+the beast. Now run the organ under the tree, and we'll dress it when
+Bubbles comes back," Sir Christopher cried.
+
+"I've often wondered," said Penfentenyou, "whether it would puzzle
+a monkey?" He had forgotten the needs of his Growing Nation, and was
+earnestly parting the white-thorn stems with his fingers.
+
+   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
+
+Giuseppe and Jimmy did as they were told, the monkey following them with
+a wary and malignant eye.
+
+"Here's a discovery," said Jimmy. "The singing part of this organ comes
+off the wheels." He spoke volubly to the proprietor. "Oh, it's so as
+Giuseppe can take it to his room o' nights. And play it. D'you hear
+that? The organ-grinder, after his day's crime, plays his accursed
+machine for love. For love, Chris! And Michael Angelo was one of 'em!"
+
+"Don't jaw! Tell him to take the beast's petticoat off," said Sir
+Christopher Tomling.
+
+Lord Lundie returned, very little winded, through a gap higher up the
+hedge.
+
+"They're all out, thank goodness!" he cried, "but I've raided what I
+could. Marrons glaces, candied fruit, and a bag of oranges."
+
+"Excellent!" said the world-renowned contractor.
+
+"Jimmy, you're the light-weight; jump up on the organ and impale these
+things on the leaves as I hand 'em!"
+
+"I see," said Jimmy, capering like a springbuck. "Upward and onward, eh?
+First, he'll reach out for--how infernal prickly these leaves are!--this
+biscuit. Next we'll lure him on--(that's about the reach of his
+arm)--with the marron glace, and then he'll open out this orange. How
+human! How like your ignoble career, Bubbles!"
+
+With care and elaboration they ornamented that tree's lower branches
+with sugar-topped biscuits, oranges, bits of banana, and marrons glaces
+till it looked very ape's path to Paradise.
+
+"Unchain the Gyascutis!" said Sir Christopher commandingly. Giuseppe
+placed the monkey atop of the organ, where the beast, misunderstanding,
+stood on his head.
+
+"He's throwing himself on the mercy of the Court, me lud," said Jimmy.
+"No--now he's interested. Now he's reaching after higher things. What
+wouldn't I give to have here" (he mentioned a name not unhonoured in
+British Art). "Ambition plucking apples of Sodom!" (the monkey had
+pricked himself and was swearing). "Genius hampered by Convention? Oh,
+there's a whole bushelful of allegories in it!"
+
+"Give him time. He's balancing the probabilities," said Lord Lundie.
+
+The three closed round the monkey,--hanging on his every motion with
+an earnestness almost equal to ours. The great judge's head--seamed and
+vertical forehead, iron mouth, and pike-like under-jaw, all set on that
+thick neck rising out of the white flannelled collar--was thrown against
+the puckered green silk of the organ-front as it might have been a cameo
+of Titus. Jimmy, with raised eyes and parted lips, fingered his grizzled
+chestnut beard, and I was near enough to-note, the capable beauty of his
+hands. Sir Christopher stood a little apart, his arms folded behind his
+back, one heavy brown boot thrust forward, chin in as curbed, and black
+eyebrows lowered to shade the keen eyes.
+
+Giuseppe's dark face between flashing earrings, a twisted rag of red and
+yellow silk round his throat, turned from the reaching yearning monkey
+to the pink and white biscuits spiked on the bronzed leafage. And upon
+them all fell the serious and workmanlike sun of an English summer
+forenoon.
+
+"Fils de Saint Louis, montez au ciel!" said Lord Lundie suddenly in a
+voice that made me think of Black Caps. I do not know what the
+monkey thought, because at that instant he leaped off the organ and
+disappeared.
+
+There was a clash of broken glass behind the tree.
+
+The monkey's face, distorted with passion, appeared at an upper window
+of the house, and a starred hole in the stained-glass window to the left
+of 'the front door showed the first steps of his upward path.
+
+"We've got to catch him," cried Sir Christopher. "Come along!"
+
+They pushed at the door, which was unlocked.
+
+"Yes. But consider the ethics of the case," said Jimmy. "Isn't this
+burglary or something, Bubbles?"
+
+"Settle that when he's caught," said Sir Christopher. "We're responsible
+for the beast."
+
+A furious clanging of bells broke out of the empty house, followed by
+muffed gurglings and trumpetings.
+
+"What the deuce is that?" I asked, half aloud.
+
+"The plumbing, of course," said Penfentenyou. "What a pity! I believe
+he'd have climbed if Lord Lundie hadn't put him off!"
+
+"Wait a moment, Chris," said Jimmy the interpreter; "Guiseppe says he
+may answer to the music of his infancy. Giuseppe, therefore, will go
+in with the organ. Orpheus with his lute, you know. Avante, Orpheus!
+There's no Neapolitan for bathroom, but I fancy your friend is there."
+
+"I'm not going into another man's house with a hurdy-gurdy," said Lord
+Lundie, recoiling, as Giuseppe unshipped the working mechanism of the
+organ (it developed a hang-down leg) from its wheels, slipped a strap
+round his shoulders, and gave the handle a twist.
+
+"Don't be a cad, Bubbles," was Jimmy's answer. "You couldn't leave us
+now if you were on the Woolsack. Play, Orpheus! The Cadi accompanies."
+
+   *    *    *     *   *    *    *    *    *
+
+
+With a whoop, a buzz, and a crash, the organ sprang to life under
+the hand of Giuseppe, and the procession passed through the
+grained-to-imitate-walnut front door. A moment later we saw the monkey
+ramping on the roof.
+
+"He'll be all over the township in a minute if we don't head him," said
+Penfentenyou, leaping to his feet, and crashing into the garden. We
+headed him with pebbles till he retired through a window to the tuneful
+reminder that he had left a lot of little things behind him. As we
+passed the front door it swung open, and showed Jimmy the artist sitting
+at the bottom of a newly-cleaned staircase. He waggled his hands at us,
+and when we entered we saw that the man was stricken speechless. His
+eyes grew red--red like a ferret's--and what little breath he had
+whistled shrilly. At first we thought it was a fit, and then we saw that
+it was mirth--the inopportune mirth of the Artistic Temperament.
+
+The house palpitated to an infamous melody punctuated by the stump of
+the barrel-organ's one leg, as Giuseppe, above, moved from room to room
+after his rebel slave. Now and again a floor shook a little under the
+combined rushes of Lord Lundie and Sir Christopher Tomling, who gave
+many and contradictory orders. But when they could they cursed Jimmy
+with splendid thoroughness.
+
+"Have you anything to do with the house?" panted Jimmy at last. "Because
+we're using it just now." He gulped. "And I'm ah--keeping cave."
+
+"All right," said Penfentenyou, and shut the hall door.
+
+"Jimmy, you unspeakable blackguard, Jimmy, you cur! You coward!"
+(Lord Lundie's voice overbore the flood of melody.) "Come up here!
+Giussieppe's saying something we don't understand."
+
+Jimmy listened and interpreted between hiccups.
+
+"He says you'd better play the organ, Bubbles, and let him do the
+stalking. The monkey knows him."
+
+"By Jove, he's quite right," said Sir Christopher from the landing.
+"Take it, Bubbles, at once."
+
+"My God!" said Lord Lundie in horror.
+
+The chase reverberated over our heads, from the attics to the first
+floor and back again. Bodies and Voices met in collision and argument,
+and once or twice the organ hit walls and doors. Then it broke forth in
+a new manner.
+
+"He's playing it," said Jimmy. "I know his acute Justinian ear. Are you
+fond of music?"
+
+"I think Lord Lundie plays very well for a beginner," I ventured.
+
+"Ah! That's the trained legal intellect. Like mastering a brief. I
+haven't got it." He wiped his eyes and shook.
+
+"Hi!" said Penfentenyou, looking through the stained glass window down
+the garden. "What's that!"
+
+   *    *    *     *   *    *    *    *    *
+
+
+A household removals van, in charge of four men, had halted at the
+gate. A husband and his wife householders beyond question--quavered
+irresolutely up the path. He looked tired. She was certainly cross.
+In all this haphazard world the last couple to understand a scientific
+experiment.
+
+I laid hands on Jimmy--the clamour above drowning speech and with
+Penfentenyou's aid, propped him against the window, that he should see.
+
+He saw, nodded, fell as an umbrella can fall, and kneeling, beat his
+forehead on the shut door. Penfentenyou slid the bolt.
+
+The furniture men reinforced the two figures on the path, and advanced,
+spreading generously.
+
+"Hadn't we better warn them up-stairs?" I suggested:
+
+"No. I'll die first!" said Jimmy. "I'm pretty near it now. Besides, they
+called me names."
+
+I turned from the Artist to the Administrator.
+
+"Ceteris paribus, I think we'd better be going," said Penfentenyou,
+dealer in crises.
+
+"Ta--take me with you," said Jimmy. "I've no reputation to lose, but I'd
+like to watch 'em from--er--outside the picture."
+
+"There's always a modus vivendi," Penfentenyou murmured, and tiptoed
+along the hall to a back door, which he opened quite silently. We passed
+into a tangle of gooseberry bushes where, at his statesmanlike example,
+we crawled on all fours, and regained the hedge.
+
+Here we lay up, secure in our alibi.
+
+"But your firm,"--the woman was wailing to the furniture removals
+men--"your firm promised me everything should be in yesterday. And it's
+to-day! You should have been here yesterday!"
+
+"The last tenants ain't out yet, lydy," said one of them.
+
+Lord Lundie was rapidly improving in technique, though organ-grinding,
+unlike the Law, is more of a calling than a trade, and he hung
+occasionally on a dead centre. Giuseppe, I think, was singing, but I
+could not understand the drift of Sir Christopher's remarks. They were
+Spanish.
+
+The woman said something we did not catch.
+
+"You might 'ave sub-let it," the man insisted. "Or your gentleman 'ere
+might."
+
+"But I didn't. Send for the Police at once."
+
+"I wouldn't do that, lydy. They're only fruit pickers on a beano. They
+aren't particular where they sleep."
+
+"D'you mean they've been sleeping there? I only had it cleaned last
+week. Get them out."
+
+"Oh, if you say so, we'll 'ave 'em out of it in two twos. Alf, fetch me
+the spare swingle-bar."
+
+"Don't! You'll knock the paint off the door. Get them out!"
+
+"What the 'ell else am I trying to do for you, lydy?" the man answered
+with pathos; but the woman wheeled on her mate.
+
+"Edward! They're all drunk here, and they're all mad there. Do
+something!" she said.
+
+Edward took one short step forward, and sighed "Hullo!" in the direction
+of the turbulent house. The woman walked up and down, the very figure
+of Domestic Tragedy. The furniture men swayed a little on their heels,
+and--
+
+"Got him!" The shout rang through all the windows at once. It was
+followed by a blood-hound-like bay from Sir Christopher, a maniacal
+prestissimo on the organ, and loud cries, for Jimmy. But Jimmy, at my
+side, rolled his congested eyeballs, owl-wise.
+
+"I never knew them," he said. "I'm an orphan."
+
+   *    *    *     *   *    *    *    *    *
+
+
+The front, door opened, and the three came forth to short-lived triumph.
+I had never before seen a Law Lord dressed as for tennis, with a
+stump-leg barrel-organ strapped to his shoulder. But it is a shy bird
+in this plumage. Lord Lundie strove to disembarrass himself of his
+accoutrements much as an ill-trained Punch and Judy dog tries to escape
+backwards through his frilled collar. Sir Christopher, covered with
+limewash, cherished a bleeding thumb, and the almost crazy monkey tore
+at Giuseppe's hair.
+
+The men on both sides reeled, but the woman stood her ground. "Idiots!"
+she said, and once more, "Idiots!"
+
+I could have gladdened a few convicts of my acquaintance with a
+photograph of Lord Lundie at that instant.
+
+"Madam," he began, wonderfully preserving the roll in his voice, "it was
+a monkey."
+
+Sir Christopher sucked his thumb and nodded.
+
+"Take it away and go," she replied. "Go away!"
+
+I would have gone, and gladly, on this permission, but these still
+strong men must ever be justifying themselves. Lord Lundie turned to the
+husband, who for the first time spoke.
+
+"I have rented this house. I am moving in," he said.
+
+"We ought to have been in yesterday," the woman interrupted.
+
+"Yes. We ought to have been in yesterday. Have you slept there
+overnight?" said the man peevishly.
+
+"No; I assure you we haven't," said Lord Lundie.
+
+"Then go away. Go quite away," cried the woman.
+
+They went--in single file down the path. They went silently, restrapping
+the organ on its wheels, and rechaining the monkey to the organ.
+
+"Damn it all!" said Penfentenyou. "They do face the music, and they do
+stick by each other in private life!"
+
+"Ties of Common Funk," I answered. Giuseppe ran to the gate and fled
+back to the possible world. Lord Lundie and Sir Christopher, constrained
+by tradition, paced slowly.
+
+Then it came to pass that the woman, who walked behind them, lifted up
+her eyes, and beheld the tree which they had dressed.
+
+"Stop!" she called; and they stopped. "Who did that?"
+
+There was no answer. The Eternal Bad Boy in every man hung its head
+before the Eternal Mother in every woman.
+
+"Who put these disgusting things there?" she repeated.
+
+Suddenly Penfentenyou, Premier of his Colony in all but name, left Jimmy
+and me, and appeared at the gate. (If he is not turned out of office,
+that is how he will appear on the Day of Armageddon.)
+
+"Well done you!" he cried zealously, and doffed his hat to the woman.
+"Have you any children, madam?" he demanded.
+
+"Yes, two. They should have been here to-day. The firm promised--"
+
+"Then we're not a minute too soon. That monkey escaped. It was a very
+dangerous beast. 'Might have frightened your children into fits. All the
+organ-grinder's fault! A most lucky thing these gentlemen caught it when
+they did. I hope you aren't badly mauled, Sir Christopher?" Shaken as
+I was (I wanted to get away and laugh) I could not but admire the
+scoundrel's consummate tact in leading his second highest trump. An ass
+would have introduced Lord Lundie and they would not have believed him.
+
+It took the trick. The couple smiled, and gave respectful thanks for
+their deliverance by such hands from such perils.
+
+"Not in the least," said Lord Lundie. "Anybody--any father would have
+done as much, and pray don't apologize your mistake was quite natural."
+A furniture man sniggered here, and Lord Lundie rolled an Eye of Doom on
+their ranks. "By the way, if you have trouble with these persons--they
+seem to have taken as much as is good for them--please let me know.
+Er--Good morning!"
+
+They turned into the lane.
+
+"Heavens!" said Jimmy, brushing himself down. "Who's that real man
+with the real head?" and we hurried after them, for they were running
+unsteadily, squeaking like rabbits as they ran. We overtook them in a
+little nut wood half a mile up the road, where they had turned aside,
+and were rolling. So we rolled with them, and ceased not till we had
+arrived at the extremity of exhaustion.
+
+"You--you saw it all, then?" said Lord Lundie, rebuttoning his
+nineteen-inch collar.
+
+"I saw it was a vital question from the first," responded Penfentenyou,
+and blew his nose.
+
+"It was. By the way, d'you mind telling me your name?"
+
+
+Summa. Penfentenyou's Great Idea has gone through, a little chipped
+at the edges, but in fine and far-reaching shape. His Opposite Number
+worked at it like a mule--a bewildered mule, beaten from behind, coaxed
+from in front, and propped on either soft side by Lord Lundie of the
+compressed mouth and the searing tongue.
+
+Sir Christopher Tomling has been ravished from the Argentine, where,
+after all, he was but preparing trade-routes for hostile peoples, and
+now adorns the forefront of Penfentenyou's Advisory Board. This was an
+unforeseen extra, as was Jimmy's gratis full-length--(it will be in this
+year's Academy) of Penfentenyou, who has returned to his own place.
+
+Now and again, from afar off, between the slam and bump of his shifting
+scenery, the glare of his manipulated limelight, and the controlled
+rolling of his thunder-drums, I catch his voice, lifted in encouragement
+and advice to his fellow-countrymen. He is quite sound on Ties of
+Sentiment, and--alone of Colonial Statesmen ventures to talk of the Ties
+of Common Funk.
+
+Herein I have my reward.
+
+
+
+
+THE PUZZLER
+
+ The Celt in all his variants from Builth to Ballyhoo,
+ His mental processes are plain--one knows what he will do,
+ And can logically predicate his finish by his start:
+ But the English--ah, the English!--they are quite a race apart.
+
+ Their psychology is bovine, their outlook crude and rare;
+ They abandon vital matters to be tickled with a straw;
+ But the straw that they were tickled with--the chaff that
+       they were fed with--
+ They convert into a weaver's beam to break their foeman's head
+     with.
+
+  For undemocratic reasons and for motives not of State,
+  They arrive at their conclusions--largely inarticulate.
+  Being void of self-expression they confide their views to none;
+  But sometimes, in a smoking-room, one learns why things were
+      done.
+
+  In telegraphic sentences, half swallowed at the ends,
+  They hint a matter's inwardness--and there the matter ends.
+  And while the Celt is talking from Valencia to Kirkwall,
+  The English--ah, the English!--don't say anything at all!
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE FOXES
+
+A TALE OF THE GIHON HUNT
+
+A fox came out of his earth on the banks of the Great River Gihon,
+which waters Ethiopia. He saw a white man riding through the dry
+dhurra-stalks, and, that his destiny might be fulfilled, barked at him.
+
+The rider drew rein among the villagers round his stirrup.
+
+"What," said he, "is that?"
+
+"That," said the Sheikh of the village, "is a fox, O Excellency Our
+Governor."
+
+"It is not, then, a jackal?"
+
+"No jackal, but Abu Hussein the father of cunning."
+
+"Also," the white man spoke half aloud, "I am Mudir of this Province."
+
+"It is true," they cried. "Ya, Saart el Mudir" (O Excellency Our
+Governor).
+
+The Great River Gihon, well used to the moods of kings, slid between his
+mile-wide banks toward the sea, while the Governor praised God in a loud
+and searching cry never before heard by the river.
+
+When he had lowered his right forefinger from behind his right ear, the
+villagers talked to him of their crops--barley, dhurrah, millet, onions,
+and the like. The Governor stood in his stirrups. North he looked up
+a strip of green cultivation a few hundred yards wide that lay like a
+carpet between the river and the tawny line of the desert. Sixty miles
+that strip stretched before him, and as many behind. At every half-mile
+a groaning water-wheel lifted the soft water from the river to the crops
+by way of a mud-built aqueduct. A foot or so wide was the water-channel;
+five foot or more high was the bank on which it ran, and its base was
+broad in proportion. Abu Hussein, misnamed the Father of Cunning, drank
+from the river below his earth, and his shadow was long in the low sun.
+He could not understand the loud cry which the Governor had cried.
+
+The Sheikh of the village spoke of the crops from which the rulers of
+all lands draw revenue; but the Governor's eyes were fixed, between his
+horse's ears, on the nearest water-channel.
+
+"Very like a ditch in Ireland," he murmured, and smiled, dreaming of a
+razor-topped bank in distant Kildare.
+
+Encouraged by that smile, the Sheikh continued. "When crops fail it is
+necessary to remit taxation. Then it is a good thing, O Excellency
+Our Governor, that you come and see the crops which have failed, and
+discover that we have not lied."
+
+"Assuredly." The Governor shortened his reins. The horse cantered on,
+rose at the embankment of the water-channel, changed leg cleverly on
+top, and hopped down in a cloud of golden dust.
+
+Abu Hussein from his earth watched with interest. He had never before
+seen such things.
+
+"Assuredly," the Governor repeated, and came back by the way he had
+gone. "It is always best to see for one's self."
+
+An ancient and still bullet-speckled stern-wheel steamer, with a barge
+lashed to her side, came round the river bend. She whistled to tell the
+Governor his dinner was ready, and the horse, seeing his fodder piled on
+the barge, whinnied back.
+
+"Moreover," the Sheikh added, "in the days of the Oppression the Emirs
+and their creatures dispossessed many people of their lands. All up and
+down the river our people are waiting to return to their lawful fields."
+
+"Judges have been appointed to settle that matter," said the Governor.
+"They will presently come in steamers and hear the witnesses."
+
+"Wherefore? Did the Judges kill the Emirs? We would rather be judged by
+the men who executed God's judgment on the Emirs. We would rather abide
+by your decision, O Excellency Our Governor."
+
+The Governor nodded. It was a year since he had seen the Emirs stretched
+close and still round the reddened sheepskin where lay El Mahdi, the
+Prophet of God. Now there remained no trace of their dominion except the
+old steamer, once part of a Dervish flotilla, which was his house and
+office. She sidled into the shore, lowered a plank, and the Governor
+followed his horse aboard.
+
+Lights burned on her till late, dully reflected in the river that tugged
+at her mooring-ropes. The Governor read, not for the first time, the
+administration reports of one John Jorrocks, M.F.H.
+
+"We shall need," he said suddenly to his Inspector, "about ten couple.
+I'll get 'em when I go home. You'll be Whip, Baker?"
+
+The Inspector, who was not yet twenty-five, signified his assent in the
+usual manner, while Abu Hussein barked at the vast desert moon.
+
+"Ha!" said the Governor, coming out in his pyjamas, "we'll be giving you
+capivi in another three months, my friend."
+
+     *      *      *      *      *
+
+It was four, as a matter of fact, ere a steamer with a melodious
+bargeful of hounds anchored at that landing. The Inspector leaped down
+among them, and the homesick wanderers received him as a brother.
+
+"Everybody fed 'em everything on board ship, but they're real dainty
+hounds at bottom," the Governor explained. "That's Royal you've got hold
+of--the pick of the bunch--and the bitch that's got, hold of you--she's
+a little excited--is May Queen. Merriman, out of Cottesmore Maudlin, you
+know."
+
+"I know. 'Grand old betch with the tan eyebrows,"' the Inspector cooed.
+"Oh, Ben! I shall take an interest in life now. Hark to 'em! O hark!"
+
+Abu Hussein, under the high bank, went about his night's work. An eddy
+carried his scent to the barge, and three villages heard the crash of
+music that followed. Even then Abu Hussein did not know better than to
+bark in reply.
+
+"Well, what about my Province?" the Governor asked.
+
+"Not so bad," the Inspector answered, with Royal's head between his
+knees. "Of course, all the villages want remission of taxes, but, as far
+as I can see, the whole country's stinkin' with foxes. Our trouble will
+be choppin' 'em in cover. I've got a list of the only villages entitled
+to any remission. What d'you call this flat-sided, blue-mottled beast
+with the jowl?"
+
+"Beagle-boy. I have my doubts about him. Do you think we can get two
+days a week?"
+
+"Easy; and as many byes as you please. The Sheikh of this village here
+tells me that his barley has failed, and he wants a fifty per cent
+remission."
+
+"We'll begin with him to-morrow, and look at his crops as we go. Nothing
+like personal supervision," said the Governor.
+
+They began at sunrise. The pack flew off the barge in every direction,
+and, after gambols, dug like terriers at Abu Hussein's many earths. Then
+they drank themselves pot-bellied on Gihon water while the Governor and
+the Inspector chastised them with whips. Scorpions were added; for May
+Queen nosed one, and was removed to the barge lamenting. Mystery (a
+puppy, alas!) met a snake, and the blue-mottled Beagle-boy (never a
+dainty hound) ate that which he should have passed by. Only Royal, of
+the Belvoir tan head and the sad, discerning eyes, made any attempt to
+uphold the honour of England before the watching village.
+
+"You can't expect everything," said the Governor after breakfast.
+
+"We got it, though--everything except foxes. Have you seen May Queen's
+nose?" said the Inspector.
+
+"And Mystery's dead. We'll keep 'em coupled next time till we get well
+in among the crops. I say, what a babbling body-snatcher that Beagle-boy
+is! Ought to be drowned!"
+
+"They bury people so damn casual hereabouts. Give him another chance,"
+the Inspector pleaded, not knowing that he should live to repent most
+bitterly.
+
+"Talkin' of chances," said the Governor, "this Sheikh lies about his
+barley bein' a failure. If it's high enough to hide a hound at this time
+of year, it's all right. And he wants a fifty per cent remission, you
+said?"
+
+"You didn't go on past the melon patch where I tried to turn Wanderer.
+It's all burned up from there on to the desert. His other water-wheel
+has broken down, too," the Inspector replied.
+
+"Very good. We'll split the difference and allow him twenty-five per
+cent off. Where'll we meet to-morrow?"
+
+"There's some trouble among the villages down the river about their
+land-titles. It's good goin' ground there, too," the Inspector said.
+
+The next meet, then, was some twenty miles down the river, and the pack
+were not enlarged till they were fairly among the fields. Abu Hussein
+was there in force--four of him. Four delirious hunts of four minutes
+each--four hounds per fox--ended in four earths just above the river.
+All the village looked on.
+
+"We forgot about the earths. The banks are riddled with 'em. This'll
+defeat us," said the Inspector.
+
+"Wait a moment!" The Governor drew forth a sneezing hound. "I've just
+remembered I'm Governor of these parts."
+
+"Then turn out a black battalion to stop for us. We'll need 'em, old
+man."
+
+The Governor straightened his back. "Give ear, O people!" he cried. "I
+make a new Law!"
+
+The villagers closed in. He called:--
+
+"Henceforward I will give one dollar to the man on whose land Abu
+Hussein is found. And another dollar"--he held up the coin--"to the man
+on whose land these dogs shall kill him. But to the man on whose land
+Abu Hussein shall run into a hole such as is this hole, I will give not
+dollars, but a most unmeasurable beating. Is it understood?"
+
+"Our Excellency," a man stepped forth, "on my land Abu Hussein was found
+this morning. Is it not so, brothers?"
+
+None denied. The Governor tossed him over four dollars without a word.
+
+"On my land they all went into their holes," cried another. "Therefore I
+must be beaten."
+
+"Not so. The land is mine, and mine are the beatings."
+
+This second speaker thrust forward his shoulders already bared, and the
+villagers shouted.
+
+"Hullo! Two men anxious to be licked? There must be some swindle about
+the land," said the Governor. Then in the local vernacular: "What are
+your rights to the beating?"
+
+As a river-reach changes beneath a slant of the sun, that which had been
+a scattered mob changed to a court of most ancient justice. The hounds
+tore and sobbed at Abu Hussein's hearthstone, all unnoticed among
+the legs of the witnesses, and Gihon, also accustomed to laws, purred
+approval.
+
+"You will not wait till the Judges come up the river to settle the
+dispute?" said the Governor at last.
+
+"No!" shouted all the village save the man who had first asked to be
+beaten. "We will abide by Our Excellency's decision. Let Our Excellency
+turn out the creatures of the Emirs who stole our land in the days of
+the Oppression."
+
+"And thou sayest?" the Governor turned to the man who had first asked to
+be beaten.
+
+"I say 1 will wait till the wise Judges come down in the steamer. Then I
+will bring my many witnesses," he replied.
+
+"He is rich. He will bring many witnesses," the village Sheikh muttered.
+
+"No need. Thy own mouth condemns thee!" the Governor cried. "No man
+lawfully entitled to his land would wait one hour before entering upon
+it. Stand aside!" The man, fell back, and the village jeered him.
+
+The second claimant stooped quickly beneath the lifted hunting-crop. The
+village rejoiced.
+
+"Oh, Such an one; Son of such an one," said the Governor, prompted by
+the Sheikh, "learn, from the day when I send the order, to block up all
+the holes where Abu Hussein may hide on--thy--land!"
+
+The light flicks ended. The man stood up triumphant. By that accolade
+had the Supreme Government acknowledged his title before all men.
+
+While the village praised the perspicacity of the Governor, a naked,
+pock-marked child strode forward to the earth, and stood on one leg,
+unconcerned as a young stork.
+
+"Hal" he said, hands behind his back. "This should be blocked up with
+bundles of dhurra stalks--or, better, bundles of thorns."
+
+"Better thorns," said the Governor. "Thick ends innermost."
+
+The child nodded gravely and squatted on the sand.
+
+"An evil day for thee, Abu Hussein," he shrilled into the mouth of the
+earth. "A day of obstacles to thy flagitious returns in the morning."
+
+"Who is it?" the Governor asked the Sheikh. "It thinks."
+
+"Farag the Fatherless. His people were slain in the days of the
+Oppression. The man to whom Our Excellency has awarded the land is, as
+it were, his maternal uncle."
+
+"Will it come with me and feed the big dogs?" said the Governor.
+
+The other peering children drew back. "Run!" they cried. "Our Excellency
+will feed Farag to the big dogs."
+
+"I will come," said Farag. "And I will never go." He threw his arm round
+Royal's neck, and the wise beast licked his face.
+
+"Binjamin, by Jove!" the Inspector cried.
+
+"No!" said the Governor. "I believe he has the makings of a James Pigg!"
+
+Farag waved his hand to his uncle, and led Royal on to the barge. The
+rest of the pack followed.
+
+     *      *      *      *      *
+
+Gihon, that had seen many sports, learned to know the Hunt barge well.
+He met her rounding his bends on grey December dawns to music wild and
+lamentable as the almost forgotten throb of Dervish drums, when, high
+above Royal's tenor bell, sharper even than lying Beagle-boy's falsetto
+break, Farag chanted deathless war against Abu Hussein and all his seed.
+At sunrise the river would shoulder her carefully into her place, and
+listen to the rush and scutter of the pack fleeing up the gang-plank,
+and the tramp of the Governor's Arab behind them. They would pass over
+the brow into the dewless crops where Gihon, low and shrunken, could
+only guess what they were about when Abu Hussein flew down the bank
+to scratch at a stopped earth, and flew back into the barley again. As
+Farag had foretold, it was evil days for Abu Hussein ere he learned to
+take the necessary steps and to get away crisply. Sometimes Gihon saw
+the whole procession of the Hunt silhouetted against the morning-blue,
+bearing him company for many merry miles. At every half mile the horses
+and the donkeys jumped the water-channels--up, on, change your leg, and
+off again like figures in a zoetrope, till they grew small along the
+line of waterwheels. Then Gibon waited their rustling return through
+the crops, and took them to rest on his bosom at ten o'clock. While the
+horses ate, and Farag slept with his head on Royal's flank, the Governor
+and his Inspector worked for the good of the Hunt and his Province.
+
+After a little time there was no need to beat any man for neglecting
+his earths. The steamer's destination was telegraphed from waterwheel
+to waterwheel, and the villagers stopped out and put to according. If an
+earth were overlooked, it meant some dispute as to the ownership of the
+land, and then and there the Hunt checked and settled it in this wise:
+The Governor and the Inspector side by side, but the latter half a
+horse's length to the rear; both bare-shouldered claimants well in
+front; the villagers half-mooned behind them, and Farag with the pack,
+who quite understood the performance, sitting down on the left. Twenty
+minutes were enough to settle the most complicated case, for, as the
+Governor said to a judge on the steamer, "One gets at the truth in a
+hunting-field a heap quicker than in your lawcourts."
+
+"But when the evidence is conflicting?" the Judge suggested.
+
+"Watch the field. They'll throw tongue fast enough if you're running a
+wrong scent. You've never had an appeal from one of my decisions yet."
+
+The Sheikhs on horseback--the lesser folk on clever donkeys--the
+children so despised by Farag soon understood that villages which
+repaired their waterwheels and channels stood highest in the Governor's
+favour. He bought their barley, for his horses.
+
+"Channels," he said, "are necessary that we may all jump them. They are
+necessary, moreover, for the crops. Let there be many wheels and sound
+channels--and much good barley."
+
+"Without money," replied an aged Sheikh, "there are no waterwheels."
+
+"I will lend the money," said the Governor.
+
+"At what interest, O Our Excellency?"
+
+"Take you two of May Queen's puppies to bring up in your village in
+such a manner that they do not eat filth, nor lose their hair, nor catch
+fever from lying in the sun, but become wise hounds."
+
+"Like Ray-yal--not like Bigglebai?" (Already it was an insult along
+the River to compare a man to the shifty anthropophagous blue-mottled
+harrier.)
+
+"Certainly, like Ray-yal--not in the least like Bigglebai. That shall be
+the interest on the loan. Let the puppies thrive and the waterwheel be
+built, and I shall be content," said the Governor.
+
+"The wheel shall be built, but, O Our Excellency, if by God's favour
+the pups grow to be well-smelters, not filth-eaters, not unaccustomed to
+their names, not lawless, who will do them and me justice at the time of
+judging the young dogs?"
+
+"Hounds, man, hounds! Ha-wands, O Sheikh, we call them in their
+manhood."
+
+"The ha-wands when they are judged at the Sha-ho. I have unfriends down
+the river to whom Our Excellency has also entrusted ha-wands to bring
+up."
+
+"Puppies, man! Pah-peaz we call them, O Sheikh, in their childhood."
+
+"Pah-peat. My enemies may judge my pah-peaz unjustly at the Sha-ho. This
+must be thought of."
+
+"I see the obstacle. Hear now! If the new waterwheel is built in a month
+without oppression, thou, O Sheikh, shalt be named one of the judges to
+judge the pah-peaz at the Sha-ho. Is it understood?"
+
+"Understood. We will build the wheel. I and my seed are responsible for
+the repayment of the loan. Where are my pah-peaz? If they eat fowls,
+must they on any account eat the feathers?"
+
+"On no account must they eat the feathers. Farag in the barge will tell
+thee how they are to live."
+
+There is no instance of any default on the Governor's personal and
+unauthorized loans, for which they called him the Father of Waterwheels.
+But the first puppyshow at the capital needed enormous tact and the
+presence of a black battalion ostentatiously drilling in the barrack
+square to prevent trouble after the prize-giving.
+
+But who can chronicle the glories of the Gihon Hunt--or their shames?
+Who remembers the kill in the market-place, when the Governor bade the
+assembled sheikhs and warriors observe how the hounds would instantly
+devour the body of Abu Hussein; but how, when he had scientifically
+broken it up, the weary pack turned from it in loathing, and Farag wept
+because he said the world's face had been blackened? What men who have
+not yet ridden beyond the sound of any horn recall the midnight run
+which ended--Beagleboy leading--among tombs; the hasty whip-off, and the
+oath, taken Abo e bones, to forget the worry? The desert run, when Abu
+Hussein forsook the cultivation, and made a six-mile point to earth in
+a desolate khor--when strange armed riders on camels swooped out of a
+ravine, and instead of giving battle, offered to take the tired hounds
+home on their beasts. Which they did, and vanished.
+
+Above all, who remembers the death of Royal, when a certain Sheikh
+wept above the body of the stainless hound as it might have been his
+son's--and that day the Hunt rode no more? The badly-kept log-book says
+little of this, but at the end of their second season (forty-nine brace)
+appears the dark entry: "New blood badly wanted. They are beginning to
+listen to beagle-boy."
+
+     *      *      *      *      *
+
+The Inspector attended to the matter when his leave fell due.
+
+"Remember," said the Governor, "you must get us the best blood in
+England--real, dainty hounds--expense no object, but don't trust your
+own judgment. Present my letters of introduction, and take what they
+give you."
+
+The Inspector presented his letters in a society where they make much
+of horses, more of hounds, and are tolerably civil to men who can
+ride. They passed him from house to house, mounted him according to his
+merits, and fed him, after five years of goat chop and Worcester sauce,
+perhaps a thought too richly.
+
+The seat or castle where he made his great coup does not much matter.
+Four Masters of Foxhounds were at table, and in a mellow hour the
+Inspector told them stories of the Gihon Hunt. He ended: "Ben said I
+wasn't to trust my own judgment about hounds, but I think there ought to
+be a special tariff for Empire-makers."
+
+As soon as his hosts could speak, they reassured him on this point.
+
+"And now tell us about your first puppy-show all over again," said one.
+
+"And about the earth-stoppin'. Was that all Ben's own invention?" said
+another.
+
+"Wait a moment," said a large, clean-shaven man--not an M.F.H.--at the
+end of the table. "Are your villagers habitually beaten by your Governor
+when they fail to stop foxes' holes?"
+
+The tone and the phrase were enough even if, as the Inspector confessed
+afterwards, the big, blue double-chinned man had not looked so like
+Beagle-boy. He took him on for the honour of Ethiopia.
+
+"We only hunt twice a week--sometimes three times. I've never known a
+man chastised more than four times a week unless there's a bye."
+
+The large loose-lipped man flung his napkin down, came round the table,
+cast himself into the chair next the Inspector, and leaned forward
+earnestly, so that he breathed in the Inspector's face.
+
+"Chastised with what?" he said.
+
+"With the kourbash--on the feet. A kourbash is a strip of old hippo-hide
+with a sort of keel on it, like the cutting edge of a boar's tusk. But
+we use the rounded side for a first offender."
+
+"And do any consequences follow this sort of thing? For the victim, I
+mean--not for you?"
+
+"Ve-ry rarely. Let me be fair. I've never seen a man die under the lash,
+but gangrene may set up if the kourbash has been pickled."
+
+"Pickled in what?" All the table was still and interested.
+
+"In copperas, of course. Didn't you know that" said the Inspector.
+
+"Thank God I didn't." The large man sputtered visibly.
+
+The Inspector wiped his face and grew bolder.
+
+"You mustn't think we're careless about our earthstoppers. We've a Hunt
+fund for hot tar. Tar's a splendid dressing if the toe-nails aren't
+beaten off. But huntin' as large a country as we do, we mayn't be back
+at that village for a month, and if the dressings ain't renewed, and
+gangrene sets in, often as not you find your man pegging about on his
+stumps. We've a well-known local name for 'em down the river. We call
+'em the Mudir's Cranes. You see, I persuaded the Governor only to
+bastinado on one foot."
+
+"On one foot? The Mudir's Cranes!" The large man turned purple to the
+top of his bald head. "Would you mind giving me the local word for
+Mudir's Cranes?"
+
+From a too well-stocked memory the Inspector drew one short adhesive
+word which surprises by itself even unblushing Ethiopia. He spelt it
+out, saw the large man write it down on his cuff and withdraw. Then the
+Inspector translated a few of its significations and implications to the
+four Masters of Foxhounds. He left three days later with eight couple of
+the best hounds in England--a free and a friendly and an ample gift from
+four packs to the Gihon Hunt. He had honestly meant to undeceive the
+large blue mottled man, but somehow forgot about it.
+
+The new draft marks a new chapter in the Hunt's history. From an
+isolated phenomenon in a barge it became a permanent institution with
+brick-built kennels ashore, and an influence social, political, and
+administrative, co-terminous with the boundaries of the province. Ben,
+the Governor, departed to England, where he kept a pack of real dainty
+hounds, but never ceased to long for the old lawless lot. His successors
+were ex-officio Masters of the Gihon Hunt, as all Inspectors were Whips.
+For one reason; Farag, the kennel huntsman, in khaki and puttees, would
+obey nothing under the rank of an Excellency, and the hounds would obey
+no one but Farag; for another, the best way of estimating crop returns
+and revenue was by riding straight to hounds; for a third, though
+Judges down the river issued signed and sealed land-titles to all lawful
+owners, yet public opinion along the river never held any such title
+valid till it had been confirmed, according to precedent, by the
+Governor's hunting crop in the hunting field, above the wilfully
+neglected earth. True, the ceremony had been cut down to three mere
+taps on the shoulder, but Governors who tried to evade that much found
+themselves and their office compassed about with a great cloud of
+witnesses who took up their time with lawsuits and, worse still,
+neglected the puppies. The older sheikhs, indeed, stood out for the
+unmeasurable beatings of the old days--the sharper the punishment, they
+argued, the surer the title; but here the hand of modern progress was
+against them, and they contented themselves with telling tales of Ben
+the first Governor, whom they called the Father of Waterwheels, and of
+that heroic age when men, horses, and hounds were worth following.
+
+This same Modern Progress which brought dog biscuit and brass water-taps
+to the kennels was at work all over the world. Forces, Activities, and
+Movements sprang into being, agitated themselves, coalesced, and, in
+one political avalanche, overwhelmed a bewildered, and not in the least
+intending it, England. The echoes of the New Era were borne into the
+Province on the wings of inexplicable cables. The Gihon Hunt read
+speeches and sentiments, and policies which amazed them, and they
+thanked God, prematurely, that their Province was too far off, too hot,
+and too hard worked to be reached by those speakers or their policies.
+But they, with others, under-estimated the scope and purpose of the New
+Era.
+
+One by one, the Provinces of the Empire were hauled up and baited, hit
+and held, lashed under the belly, and forced back on their haunches for
+the amusement of their new masters in the parish of Westminster. One by
+one they fell away, sore and angry, to compare stripes with each other
+at the ends of the uneasy earth. Even so the Gihon Hunt, like Abu
+Hussein in the old days, did not understand. Then it reached
+them through the Press that they habitually flogged to death good
+revenue-paying cultivators who neglected to stop earths; but that
+the few, the very few who did not die under hippohide whips soaked in
+copperas, walked about on their gangrenous ankle-bones, and were known
+in derision as the Mudir's Cranes. The charges were vouched for in
+the House of Commons by a Mr. Lethabie Groombride, who had formed a
+Committee, and was disseminating literature: The Province groaned; the
+Inspector--now an Inspector of Inspectors--whistled. He had forgotten
+the gentleman who sputtered in people's faces.
+
+"He shouldn't have looked so like Beagle-boy!" was his sole defence when
+he met the Governor at breakfast on the steamer after a meet.
+
+"You shouldn't have joked with an animal of that class," said Peter the
+Governor. "Look what Farag has brought me!"
+
+It was a pamphlet, signed on behalf of a Committee by a lady secretary,
+but composed by some person who thoroughly understood the language of
+the Province. After telling the tale of the beatings, it recommended
+all the beaten to institute criminal proceedings against their Governor,
+and, as soon as might be, to rise against English oppression and
+tyranny. Such documents were new in Ethiopia in those days.
+
+The Inspector read the last half page. "But--but," he stammered, "this
+is impossible. White men don't write this sort of stuff."
+
+"Don't they, just?" said the Governor. "They get made Cabinet Ministers
+for doing it too. I went home last year. I know."
+
+"It'll blow over," said the Inspector weakly.
+
+"Not it. Groombride is coming down here to investigate the matter in a
+few days."
+
+"For himself?"
+
+"The Imperial Government's behind him. Perhaps you'd like to look t my
+orders." The Governor laid down an uncoded cable. The whiplash to it
+ran: "You will afford Mr. Groombride every facility for his inquiry,
+and will be held responsible that no obstacles are put in his way to
+the fullest possible examination of any witnesses which he may consider
+necessary. He will be accompanied by his own interpreter, who must not
+be tampered with."
+
+"That's to me--Governor of the Province!" said Peter the Governor.
+
+"It seems about enough," the Inspector answered.
+
+Farag, kennel-huntsman, entered the saloon, as was his privilege.
+
+"My uncle, who was beaten by the Father of Waterwheels, would approach,
+O Excellency," he said, "and there are others on the bank."
+
+"Admit," said the Governor.
+
+There tramped aboard sheikhs and villagers to the number of seventeen.
+In each man's hand was a copy of the pamphlet; in each man's eye terror
+and uneasiness of the sort that Governors spend and are spent to clear
+away. Farag's uncle, now Sheikh of the village, spoke: "It is written in
+this book, Excellency, that the beatings whereby we hold our lands are
+all valueless. It is written that every man who received such a beating
+from the Father of Waterwheels who slow the Emirs, should instantly
+begin a lawsuit, because the title to his land is not valid."
+
+"It is so written. We do not wish lawsuits. We wish to hold the land as
+it was given to us after the days of the Oppression," they cried.
+
+The Governor glanced at the Inspector. This was serious. To cast doubt
+on the ownership of land means, in Ethiopia, the letting in of waters,
+and the getting out of troops.
+
+"Your titles are good," said the Governor. The Inspector confirmed with
+a nod.
+
+"Then what is the meaning of these writings which came from down the
+river where the Judges are?" Farag's uncle waved his copy. "By whose
+order are we ordered to slay you, O Excellency Our Governor?"
+
+"It is not written that you are to slay me."
+
+"Not in those very words, but if we leave an earth unstopped, it is
+the same as though we wished to save Abu Hussein from the hounds. These
+writings say: 'Abolish your rulers.' How can we abolish except we kill?
+We hear rumours of one who comes from down the river soon to lead us to
+kill."
+
+"Fools!" said the Governor. "Your titles are good. This is madness!"
+
+"It is so written," they answered like a pack.
+
+"Listen," said the Inspector smoothly. "I know who caused the writings
+to be written and sent. He is a man of a blue-mottled jowl, in aspect
+like Bigglebai who ate unclean matters. He will come up the river and
+will give tongue about the beatings."
+
+"Will he impeach our land-titles? An evil day for him!"
+
+"Go slow, Baker," the Governor whispered. "They'll kill him if they get
+scared about their land."
+
+"I tell a parable." The Inspector lit a cigarette. "Declare which of you
+took to walk the children of Milkmaid?"
+
+"Melik-meid First or Second?" said Farag quickly.
+
+"The second--the one which was lamed by the thorn."
+
+"No--no. Melik-meid the Second strained her shoulder leaping my
+water-channel," a sheikh cried. "Melik-meid the First was lamed by the
+thorns on the day when Our Excellency fell thrice."
+
+"True--true. The second Melik-meid's mate was Malvolio, the pied hound,"
+said the Inspector.
+
+"I had two of the second Melik-meid's pups," said Farag's uncle. "They
+died of the madness in their ninth month."
+
+"And how did they do before they died?" said the Inspector.
+
+"They ran about in the sun, and slavered at the mouth till they died."
+
+"Wherefore?"
+
+"God knows. He sent the madness. It was no fault of mine."
+
+"Thy own mouth hath answered thee." The Inspector laughed. "It is with
+men as it is with dogs. God afflicts some with a madness. It is no fault
+of ours if such men run about in the sun and froth at the mouth. The
+man who is coming will emit spray from his mouth in speaking, and will
+always edge and push in towards his hearers. When ye see and hear him ye
+will understand that he is afflicted of God: being mad. He is in God's
+hands."
+
+"But our titles--are our titles to our lands good?" the crowd repeated.
+
+"Your titles are in my hands--they are good," said the Governor.
+
+"And he who wrote the writings is an afflicted of God?" said Farag's
+uncle.
+
+"The Inspector hath said it," cried the Governor. "Ye will see when the
+man comes. O sheikhs and men, have we ridden together and walked puppies
+together, and bought and sold barley for the horses that after these
+years we should run riot on the scent of a madman--an afflicted of God?"
+
+"But the Hunt pays us to kill mad jackals," said Farag's uncle. "And he
+who questions my titles to my land--"
+
+"Aahh! 'Ware riot!" The Governor's hunting-crop cracked like a
+three-pounder. "By Allah," he thundered, "if the afflicted of God come
+to any harm at your hands, I myself will shoot every hound and every
+puppy, and the Hunt shall ride no more. On your heads be it. Go in
+peace, and tell the others."
+
+"The Hunt shall ride no more," said Farag's uncle. "Then how can the
+land be governed? No--no, O Excellency Our Governor, we will not harm
+a hair on the head of the afflicted of God. He shall be to us as is Abu
+Hussein's wife in the breeding season."
+
+When they were gone the Governor mopped his forehead.
+
+"We must put a few soldiers in every village this Groombride visits,
+Baker. Tell 'em to keep out of sight, and have an eye on the villagers.
+He's trying 'em rather high."
+
+"O Excellency," said the smooth voice of Farag, laying the Field and
+Country Life square on the table, "is the afflicted of God who resembles
+Bigglebai one with the man whom the Inspector met in the great house in
+England, and to whom he told the tale of the Mudir's Cranes?"
+
+"The same man, Farag," said the Inspector.
+
+"I have often heard the Inspector tell the tale to Our Excellency at
+feeding-time in the kennels; but since I am in the Government service
+I have never told it to my people. May I loose that tale among the
+villages?"
+
+     *      *      *      *      *
+
+The Governor nodded. "No harm," said he.
+
+The details of Mr. Groombride's arrival, with his interpreter, whom he
+proposed should eat with him at the Governor's table, his allocution
+to the Governor on the New Movement, and the sins of Imperialism, I
+purposely omit. At three in the afternoon Mr. Groombride said: "I will
+go out now and address your victims in this village."
+
+"Won't you find it rather hot?" said the Governor. "They generally take
+'a nap till sunset at this time of year."
+
+Mr. Groombride's large, loose lips set. "That," he replied pointedly,
+"would be enough to decide me. I fear you have not quite mastered your
+instructions. May I ask you to send for my interpreter? I hope he has
+not been tampered with by your subordinates."
+
+He was a yellowish boy called Abdul, who had well eaten and drunk with
+Farag. The Inspector, by the way, was not present at the meal.
+
+"At whatever risk, I shall go unattended," said Mr. Groombride. "Your
+presence would cow them--from giving evidence. Abdul, my good friend,
+would you very kindly open the umbrella?"
+
+He passed up the gang-plank to the village, and with no more prelude
+than a Salvation Army picket in a Portsmouth slum, cried: "Oh, my
+brothers!"
+
+He did not guess how his path had been prepared. The village was
+widely awake. Farag, in loose, flowing garments, quite unlike a kennel
+huntsman's khaki and puttees, leaned against the wall of his uncle's
+house. "Come and see the afflicted of God," he cried musically, "whose
+face, indeed, resembles that of Bigglebai."
+
+The village came, and decided that on the whole Farag was right.
+
+"I can't quite catch what they are saying," said Mr. Groombride.
+
+"They saying they very much pleased to see you, Sar," Adbul interpreted.
+
+"Then I do think they might have sent a deputation to the steamer; but
+I suppose they were frightened of the officials. Tell them not to be
+frightened, Abdul."
+
+"He says you are not to be frightened," Abdul explained. A child
+here sputtered with laughter. "Refrain from mirth," Farag cried. "The
+afflicted of God is the guest of The Excellency Our Governor. We are
+responsible for every hair of his head."
+
+"He has none," a voice spoke. "He has the white and the shining mange."
+
+"Now tell them what I have come for, Abdul, and please keep the umbrella
+well up. I think I shall reserve myself for my little vernacular speech
+at the end."
+
+"Approach! Look! Listen!" Abdul chanted. "The afflicted of God will now
+make sport. Presently he will speak in your tongue, and will consume
+you with mirth. I have been his servant for three weeks. I will tell you
+about his undergarments and his perfumes for his head."
+
+He told them at length.
+
+"And didst thou take any of his perfume bottles?" said Farag at the end.
+
+"I am his servant. I took two," Abdul replied.
+
+"Ask him," said Farag's uncle, "what he knows about our land-titles. Ye
+young men are all alike." He waved a pamphlet. Mr. Groombride smiled to
+see how the seed sown in London had borne fruit by Gihon. Lo! All the
+seniors held copies of the pamphlet.
+
+"He knows less than a buffalo. He told me on the steamer that he was
+driven out of his own land by Demah-Kerazi which is a devil inhabiting
+crowds and assemblies," said Abdul.
+
+"Allah between us and evil!" a woman cackled from the darkness of a hut.
+"Come in, children, he may have the Evil Eye."
+
+"No, my aunt," said Farag. "No afflicted of God has an evil eye. Wait
+till ye hear his mirth-provoking speech which he will deliver. I have
+heard it twice from Abdul."
+
+"They seem very quick to grasp the point. How far have you got, Abdul?"
+
+"All about the beatings, sar. They are highly interested."
+
+"Don't forget about the local self-government, and please hold the
+umbrella over me. It is hopeless to destroy unless one first builds up."
+
+"He may not have the Evil Eye," Farag's uncle grunted, "but his devil
+led him too certainly to question my land-title. Ask him whether he
+still doubts my land-title?"
+
+"Or mine, or mine?" cried the elders.
+
+"What odds? He is an afflicted of God," Farag called. "Remember the tale
+I told you."
+
+"Yes, but he is an Englishman, and doubtless of influence, or Our
+Excellency would not entertain him. Bid the down-country jackass ask
+him."
+
+"Sar," said Abdul, "these people, much fearing they may be turned out
+of their land in consequence of your remarks. Therefore they ask you to
+make promise no bad consequences following your visit."
+
+Mr. Groombride held his breath and turned purple. Then he stamped his
+foot.
+
+"Tell them," he cried, "that if a hair of any one of their heads is
+touched by any official on any account whatever, all England shall ring
+with it. Good God! What callous oppression! The dark places of the
+earth are full of cruelty." He wiped his face, and throwing out his arms
+cried: "Tell them, oh! tell the poor, serfs not to be afraid of me. Tell
+them I come to redress their wrongs--not, heaven knows, to add to their
+burden."
+
+The long-drawn gurgle of the practised public speaker pleased them much.
+
+"That is how the new water-tap runs out in the kennel," said Farag. "The
+Excellency Our Governor entertains him that he may make sport. Make him
+say the mirth-moving speech."
+
+"What did he say about my land-titles?" Farag's uncle was not to be
+turned.
+
+"He says," Farag interpreted, "that he desires, nothing better than that
+you should live on your lands in peace. He talks as though he believed
+himself to be Governor."
+
+"Well. We here are all witnesses to what he has said. Now go forward
+with the sport." Farag's uncle smoothed his garments. "How diversely
+hath Allah made His creatures! On one He bestows strength to slay Emirs;
+another He causes to go mad and wander in the sun, like the afflicted
+sons of Melik-meid."
+
+"Yes, and to emit spray from the mouth, as the Inspector told us. All
+will happen as the Inspector foretold," said Farag. "I have never yet
+seen the Inspector thrown out during any run."
+
+"I think," Abdul plucked at Mr. Groombride's sleeves, "I think perhaps
+it is better now, Sar, if you give your fine little native speech. They
+not understanding English, but much pleased at your condescensions."
+
+"Condescensions?" Mr. Groombride spun round. "If they only knew how
+I felt towards them in my heart! If I could express a tithe of my
+feelings! I must stay here and learn the language. Hold up the umbrella,
+Abdull I think my little speech will show them I know something of their
+vie intime."
+
+It was a short, simple; carefully learned address, and the accent,
+supervised by Abdul on the steamer, allowed the hearers to guess its
+meaning, which was a request to see one of the Mudir's Cranes; since the
+desire of the speaker's life, the object to which he would consecrate
+his days, was to improve the condition of the Mudir's Cranes. But first
+he must behold them with his own eyes. Would, then, his brethren, whom
+he loved, show him a Mudir's Crane whom he desired to love?
+
+Once, twice, and again in his peroration he repeated his demand,
+using always--that they might see he was acquainted with their local
+argot--using always, I say, the word which the Inspector had given
+him in England long ago--the short, adhesive word which, by itself,
+surprises even unblushing Ethiopia.
+
+There are limits to the sublime politeness of an ancient people. A
+bulky, blue-chinned man in white clothes, his name red-lettered across
+his lower shirtfront, spluttering from under a green-lined umbrella
+almost tearful appeals to be introduced to the Unintroducible; naming
+loudly the Unnameable; dancing, as it seemed, in perverse joy at mere
+mention of the Unmentionable--found those limits. There was a moment's
+hush, and then such mirth as Gihon through his centuries had never
+heard--a roar like to the roar of his own cataracts in flood. Children
+cast themselves on the ground, and rolled back and forth cheering and
+whooping; strong men, their faces hidden in their clothes, swayed in
+silence, till the agony became insupportable, and they threw up their
+heads and bayed at the sun; women, mothers and virgins, shrilled shriek
+upon mounting shriek, and slapped their thighs as it might have been the
+roll of musketry. When they tried to draw breath, some half-strangled
+voice would quack out the word, and the riot began afresh. Last to fall
+was the city-trained Abdul. He held on to the edge of apoplexy, then
+collapsed, throwing the umbrella from him.
+
+Mr. Groombride should not be judged too harshly. Exercise and strong
+emotion under a hot sun, the shock of public ingratitude, for the moment
+rued his spirit. He furled the umbrella, and with t beat the prostrate
+Abdul, crying that he had been betrayed. In which posture the Inspector,
+on horseback, followed by the Governor, suddenly found him.
+
+     *      *      *      *      *
+
+"That's all very well," said the Inspector, when he had taken Abdul's
+dramatically dying depositions on the steamer, "but you can't hammer a
+native merely because he laughs at you. I see nothing for it but the law
+to take its course."
+
+"You might reduce the charge to--er--tampering with an interpreter,"
+said the Governor. Mr. Groombride was too far gone to be comforted.
+
+"It's the publicity that I fear," he wailed. "Is there no possible
+means of hushing up the affair? You don't know what a question--a single
+question in the House means to a man of my position--the ruin of my
+political career, I assure you."
+
+"I shouldn't have imagined it," said the Governor thoughtfully.
+
+"And, though perhaps I ought not to say it, I am not without honour
+in my own country--or influence. A word in season, as you know, Your
+Excellency. It might carry an official far."
+
+The Governor shuddered.
+
+"Yes, that had to come too," he said to himself. "Well, look here. If I
+tell this man of yours to withdraw the charge against you, you can go
+to Gehenna for aught I care. The only condition I make is that if you
+write--I suppose that's part of your business about your travels, you
+don't praise me!"
+
+So far Mr. Groombride has loyally adhered to this understanding.
+
+
+
+
+GALLIO'S SONG
+
+          All day long to the judgment-seat
+           The crazed Provincials drew--
+          All day long at their ruler's feet
+           Howled for the blood of the Jew.
+          Insurrection with one accord
+           Banded itself and woke:
+          And Paul was about to open his mouth
+           When Achaia's Deputy spoke
+
+          "Whether the God descend from above
+           Or the man ascend upon high,
+          Whether this maker of tents be Jove
+           Or a younger deity--
+          I will be no judge between your gods
+           And your godless bickerings,
+          Lictor, drive them hence with rods--
+           I care for none of these things!
+
+          "Were it a question of lawful due
+           Or a labourer's hire denied,
+          Reason would I should bear with you
+           And order it well to be tried
+          But this is a question of words and names
+           And I know the strife it brings,
+          I will not pass upon any your claims.
+           I care for none of these things.
+
+          "One thing only I see most clear,
+           As I pray you also see.
+          Claudius Caesar hath set me here
+           Rome's Deputy to be.
+          It is Her peace that ye go to break
+           Not mine, nor any king's,
+          But, touching your clamour of 'conscience sake,'
+           I care for none of these things!"
+
+
+
+
+THE HOUSE SURGEON
+
+On an evening after Easter Day, I sat at a table in a homeward bound
+steamer's smoking-room, where half a dozen of us told ghost stories. As
+our party broke up a man, playing Patience in the next alcove, said to
+me: "I didn't quite catch the end of that last story about the Curse on
+the family's first-born."
+
+"It turned out to be drains," I explained. "As soon as new ones were put
+into the house the Curse was lifted, I believe. I never knew the people
+myself."
+
+"Ah! I've had my drains up twice; I'm on gravel too."
+
+"You don't mean to say you've a ghost in your house? Why didn't you join
+our party?"
+
+"Any more orders, gentlemen, before the bar closes?" the steward
+interrupted.
+
+"Sit down again, and have one with me," said the Patience player. "No,
+it isn't a ghost. Our trouble is more depression than anything else."
+
+"How interesting? Then it's nothing any one can see?"
+
+"It's--it's nothing worse than a little depression. And the odd part is
+that there hasn't been a death in the house since it was built--in 1863.
+The lawyer said so. That decided me--my good lady, rather and he made me
+pay an extra thousand for it."
+
+"How curious. Unusual, too!" I said.
+
+"Yes; ain't it? It was built for three sisters--Moultrie was the
+name--three old maids. They all lived together; the eldest owned it. I
+bought it from her lawyer a few years ago, and if I've spent a pound
+on the place first and last, I must have spent five thousand. Electric
+light, new servants' wing, garden--all that sort of thing. A man and his
+family ought to be happy after so much expense, ain't it?" He looked at
+me through the bottom of his glass.
+
+"Does it affect your family much?"
+
+"My good lady--she's a Greek, by the way--and myself are middle-aged. We
+can bear up against depression; but it's hard on my little girl. I say
+little; but she's twenty. We send her visiting to escape it. She almost
+lived at hotels and hydros, last year, but that isn't pleasant for her.
+She used to be a canary--a perfect canary--always singing. You ought to
+hear her. She doesn't sing now. That sort of thing's unwholesome for the
+young, ain't it?"
+
+"Can't you get rid of the place?" I suggested.
+
+"Not except at a sacrifice, and we are fond of it. Just suits us three.
+We'd love it if we were allowed."
+
+"What do you mean by not being allowed?"
+
+"I mean because of the depression. It spoils everything."
+
+"What's it like exactly?"
+
+"I couldn't very well explain. It must be seen to be appreciated, as the
+auctioneers say. Now, I was much impressed by the story you were telling
+just now."
+
+"It wasn't true," I said.
+
+"My tale is true. If you would do me the pleasure to come down and spend
+a night at my little place, you'd learn more than you would if I talked
+till morning. Very likely 'twouldn't touch your good self at all.
+You might be--immune, ain't it? On the other hand, if this
+influenza,--influence does happen to affect you, why, I think it will be
+an experience."
+
+While he talked he gave me his card, and I read his name was L. Maxwell
+M'Leod, Esq., of Holmescroft. A City address was tucked away in a
+corner.
+
+"My business," he added, "used to be furs. If you are interested in
+furs--I've given thirty years of my life to 'em."
+
+"You're very kind," I murmured.
+
+"Far from it, I assure you. I can meet you next Saturday afternoon
+anywhere in London you choose to name, and I'll be only too happy to
+motor you down. It ought to be a delightful run at this time of year the
+rhododendrons will be out. I mean it. You don't know how truly I mean
+it. Very probably--it won't affect you at all. And--I think I may say I
+have the finest collection of narwhal tusks in the world. All the best
+skins and horns have to go through London, and L. Maxwell M'Leod, he
+knows where they come from, and where they go to. That's his business."
+
+For the rest of the voyage up-channel Mr. M'Leod talked to me of the
+assembling, preparation, and sale of the rarer furs; and told me things
+about the manufacture of fur-lined coats which quite shocked me. Somehow
+or other, when we landed on Wednesday, I found myself pledged to spend
+that week-end with him at Holmescroft.
+
+On Saturday he met me with a well-groomed motor, and ran me out, in an
+hour and a half, to an exclusive residential district of dustless roads
+and elegantly designed country villas, each standing in from three to
+five acres of perfectly appointed land. He told me land was selling at
+eight hundred pounds the acre, and the new golf links, whose Queen
+Anne pavilion we passed, had cost nearly twenty-four thousand pounds to
+create.
+
+Holmescroft was a large, two-storied, low, creeper-covered residence.
+A verandah at the south side gave on to a garden and two tennis courts,
+separated by a tasteful iron fence from a most park-like meadow of five
+or six acres, where two Jersey cows grazed. Tea was ready in the shade
+of a promising copper beech, and I could see groups on the lawn of
+young men and maidens appropriately clothed, playing lawn tennis in the
+sunshine.
+
+"A pretty scene, ain't it?" said Mr. M'Leod. "My good lady's sitting
+under the tree, and that's my little girl in pink on the far court. But
+I'll take you to your room, and you can see 'em all later."
+
+He led me through a wide parquet-floored hall furnished in pale lemon,
+with huge Cloisonnee vases, an ebonized and gold grand piano, and banks
+of pot flowers in Benares brass bowls, up a pale oak staircase to a
+spacious landing, where there was a green velvet settee trimmed with
+silver. The blinds were down, and the light lay in parallel lines on the
+floors.
+
+He showed me my room, saying cheerfully: "You may be a little tired. One
+often is without knowing it after a run through traffic. Don't come down
+till you feel quite restored. We shall all be in the garden."
+
+My room was rather warm, and smelt of perfumed soap. I threw up the
+window at once, but it opened so close to the floor and worked so
+clumsily that I came within an ace of pitching out, where I should
+certainly have ruined a rather lop-sided laburnum below. As I set about
+washing off the journey's dust, I began to feel a little tired. But, I
+reflected, I had not come down here in this weather and among these new
+surroundings to be depressed; so I began to whistle.
+
+And it was just then that I was aware of a little grey shadow, as it
+might have been a snowflake seen against the light, floating at an
+immense distance in the background of my brain. It annoyed me, and I
+shook my head to get rid of it. Then my brain telegraphed that it was
+the forerunner of a swift-striding gloom which there was yet time to
+escape if I would force my thoughts away from it, as a man leaping for
+life forces his body forward and away from the fall of a wall. But the
+gloom overtook me before I could take in the meaning of the message. I
+moved toward the bed, every nerve already aching with the foreknowledge
+of the pain that was to be dealt it, and sat down, while my amazed and
+angry soul dropped, gulf by gulf, into that horror of great darkness
+which is spoken of in the Bible, and which, as auctioneers say, must be
+experienced to be appreciated.
+
+Despair upon despair, misery upon misery, fear after fear, each causing
+their distinct and separate woe, packed in upon me for an unrecorded
+length of time, until at last they blurred together, and I heard a click
+in my brain like the click in the ear when one descends in a diving
+bell, and I knew that the pressures were equalised within and without,
+and that, for the moment, the worst was at an end. But I knew also that
+at any moment the darkness might come down anew; and while, I dwelt on
+this speculation precisely as a man torments a raging tooth with his
+tongue, it ebbed away into the little grey shadow on the brain of its
+first coming, and once more I heard my brain, which knew what would
+recur, telegraph to every quarter fox help, release or diversion.
+
+The door opened, and M'Leod reappeared. I thanked him politely, saying
+I was charmed with my room, anxious to meet Mrs. M'Leod, much refreshed
+with my wash, and so on and so forth. Beyond a little stickiness at
+the corners of my mouth, it seemed to me that I was managing my words
+admirably; the while that I myself cowered at the bottom of unclimbable
+pits. M'Leod laid his hand on my shoulder, and said "You've got it now
+already, ain't it?"
+
+"Yes," I answered. "It's making me sick!"
+
+"It will pass off when you come outside. I give you my word it will then
+pass off. Come!"
+
+I shambled out behind him, and wiped my forehead in the hall.
+
+"You musn't mind," he said. "I expect the run tired you. My good lady is
+sitting there under the copper beech."
+
+She was a fat woman in an apricot-coloured gown, with a heavily powdered
+face, against which her black long-lashed eyes showed like currants
+in dough. I was introduced to many fine ladies and gentlemen of those
+parts. Magnificently appointed landaus and covered motors swept in and
+out of the drive, and the air was gay with the merry outcries of the
+tennis players.
+
+As twilight drew on they all went away, and I was left alone with Mr.
+and Mrs. M'Leod, while tall menservants and maidservants took away the
+tennis and tea things. Miss M'Leod had walked a little down the drive
+with a light-haired young man, who apparently knew everything about
+every South American railway stock. He had told me at tea that these
+were the days of financial specialisation.
+
+"I think it went off beautifully, my dear," said Mr. M'Leod to his wife;
+and to me: "You feel all right now, ain't it? Of course you do."
+
+Mrs. M'Leod surged across the gravel. Her husband skipped nimbly before
+her into the south verandah, turned a switch, and all Holmescroft was
+flooded with light.
+
+"You can do that from your room also," he said as they went in. "There
+is something in money, ain't it?"
+
+Miss M'Leod came up behind me in the dusk. "We have not yet been
+introduced," she said, "but I suppose you are staying the night?"
+
+"Your father was kind enough to ask me," I replied.
+
+She nodded. "Yes, I know; and you know too, don't you? I saw your face
+when you came to shake hands with mamma. You felt the depression very
+soon. It is simply frightful in that bedroom sometimes. What do you
+think it is--bewitchment? In Greece, where I was a little girl, it might
+have been; but not in England, do you think? Or do you?"
+
+"Cheer up, Thea. It will all come right," he insisted.
+
+"No, papa." She shook her dark head. "Nothing is right while it comes."
+
+"It is nothing that we ourselves have ever done in our lives that I
+will swear to you," said Mrs. M'Leod suddenly. "And we have changed our
+servants several times. So we know it is not them."
+
+"Never mind. Let us enjoy ourselves while we can," said Mr. M'Leod,
+opening the champagne.
+
+But we did not enjoy ourselves. The talk failed. There were long
+silences.
+
+"I beg your pardon," I said, for I thought some one at my elbow was
+about to speak.
+
+"Ah! That is the other thing!" said Miss M'Leod. Her mother groaned.
+
+We were silent again, and, in a few seconds it must have been, a live
+grief beyond words--not ghostly dread or horror, but aching, helpless
+grief--overwhelmed us, each, I felt, according to his or her nature,
+and held steady like the beam of a burning glass. Behind that pain I was
+conscious there was a desire on somebody's part to explain something on
+which some tremendously important issue hung.
+
+Meantime I rolled bread pills and remembered my sins; M'Leod considered
+his own reflection in a spoon; his wife seemed to be praying, and the
+girl fidgetted desperately with hands and feet, till the darkness passed
+on--as though the malignant rays of a burning-glass had been shifted
+from us.
+
+"There," said Miss M'Leod, half rising. "Now you see what makes a happy
+home. Oh, sell it--sell it, father mine, and let us go away!"
+
+"But I've spent thousands on it. You shall go to Harrogate next week,
+Thea dear."
+
+"I'm only just back from hotels. I am so tired of packing."
+
+"Cheer up, Thea. It is over. You know it does not often come here twice
+in the same night. I think we shall dare now to be comfortable."
+
+He lifted a dish-cover, and helped his wife and daughter. His face was
+lined and fallen like an old man's after debauch, but his hand did not
+shake, and his voice was clear. As he worked to restore us by speech
+and action, he reminded me of a grey-muzzled collie herding demoralised
+sheep.
+
+After dinner we sat round the dining-room fire the drawing-room might
+have been under the Shadow for aught we knew talking with the intimacy
+of gipsies by the wayside, or of wounded comparing notes after a
+skirmish. By eleven o'clock the three between them had given me every
+name and detail they could recall that in any way bore on the house, and
+what they knew of its history.
+
+We went to bed in a fortifying blaze of electric light. My one fear was
+that the blasting gust of depression would return--the surest way,
+of course, to bring it. I lay awake till dawn, breathing quickly and
+sweating lightly, beneath what De Quincey inadequately describes as
+"the oppression of inexpiable guilt." Now as soon as the lovely day was
+broken, I fell into the most terrible of all dreams--that joyous one in
+which all past evil has not only been wiped out of our lives, but has
+never been committed; and in the very bliss of our assured innocence,
+before our loves shriek and change countenance, we wake to the day we
+have earned.
+
+It was a coolish morning, but we preferred to breakfast in the south
+verandah. The forenoon we spent in the garden, pretending to play games
+that come out of boxes, such as croquet and clock golf. But most of the
+time we drew together and talked. The young man who knew all about South
+American railways took Miss M'Leod for a walk in the afternoon, and at
+five M'Leod thoughtfully whirled us all up to dine in town.
+
+"Now, don't say you will tell the Psychological Society, and that you
+will come again," said Miss M'Leod, as we parted. "Because I know you
+will not."
+
+"You should not say that," said her mother. "You should say, 'Goodbye,
+Mr. Perseus. Come again.'"
+
+"Not him!" the girl cried. "He has seen the Medusa's head!"
+
+Looking at myself in the restaurant's mirrors, it seemed to me that I
+had not much benefited by my week-end. Next morning I wrote out all
+my Holmescroft notes at fullest length, in the hope that by so doing
+I could put it all behind me. But the experience worked on my mind, as
+they say certain imperfectly understood rays work on the body.
+
+I am less calculated to make a Sherlock Holmes than any man I know,
+for I lack both method and patience, yet the idea of following up the
+trouble to its source fascinated me. I had no theory to go on, except
+a vague idea that I had come between two poles of a discharge, and had
+taken a shock meant for some one else. This was followed by a feeling
+of intense irritation. I waited cautiously on myself, expecting to be
+overtaken by horror of the supernatural, but my self persisted in
+being humanly indignant, exactly as though it had been the victim of
+a practical joke. It was in great pains and upheavals--that I felt in
+every fibre but its dominant idea, to put it coarsely, was to get back
+a bit of its own. By this I knew that I might go forward if I could find
+the way.
+
+After a few days it occurred to me to go to the office of Mr. J.M.M.
+Baxter--the solicitor who had sold Holmescroft to M'Leod. I explained I
+had some notion of buying the place. Would he act for me in the matter?
+
+Mr. Baxter, a large, greyish, throaty-voiced man, showed no enthusiasm.
+"I sold it to Mr. M'Leod," he said. "It 'ud scarcely do for me to start
+on the running-down tack now. But I can recommend--"
+
+"I know he's asking an awful price," I interrupted, "and atop of it he
+wants an extra thousand for what he calls your clean bill of health."
+
+Mr. Baxter sat up in his chair. I had all his attention.
+
+"Your guarantee with the house. Don't you remember it?"
+
+"Yes, yes. That no death had taken place in the house since it was
+built: I remember perfectly."
+
+He did not gulp as untrained men do when they lie, but his jaws moved
+stickily, and his eyes, turning towards the deed boxes on the wall,
+dulled. I counted seconds, one, two, three--one, two, three up to ten. A
+man, I knew, can live through ages of mental depression in that time.
+
+"I remember perfectly." His mouth opened a little as though it had
+tasted old bitterness.
+
+"Of course that sort of thing doesn't appeal to me." I went on. "I don't
+expect to buy a house free from death."
+
+"Certainly not. No one does. But it was Mr. M'Leod's fancy--his wife's
+rather, I believe; and since we could meet it--it was my duty to my
+clients at whatever cost to my own feelings--to make him pay."
+
+"That's really why I came to you. I understood from him you knew the
+place well."
+
+"Oh, yes. Always did. It originally belonged to some connections of
+mine."
+
+"The Misses Moultrie, I suppose. How interesting! They must have loved
+the place before the country round about was built up."
+
+"They were very fond of it indeed."
+
+"I don't wonder. So restful and sunny. I don't see how they could have
+brought themselves to part with it."
+
+Now it is one of the most constant peculiarities of the English that in
+polite conversation--and I had striven to be polite--no one ever does or
+sells anything for mere money's sake.
+
+"Miss Agnes--the youngest--fell ill" (he spaced his words a little),
+"and, as they were very much attached to each other, that broke up the
+home."
+
+"Naturally. I fancied it must have been something of that kind.
+One doesn't associate the Staffordshire Moultries" (my Demon of
+Irresponsibility at that instant created 'em), "with--with being hard
+up."
+
+"I don't know whether we're related to them," he answered importantly.
+"We may be, for our branch of the family comes from the Midlands."
+
+I give this talk at length, because I am so proud of my first attempt at
+detective work. When I left him, twenty minutes later, with instructions
+to move against the owner of Holmescroft, with a view to purchase, I was
+more bewildered than any Doctor Watson at the opening of a story.
+
+Why should a middle-aged solicitor turn plovers' egg colour and drop his
+jaw when reminded of so innocent and festal a matter as that no death
+had ever occurred in a house that he had sold? If I knew my English
+vocabulary at all, the tone in which he said the youngest sister "fell
+ill" meant that she had gone out of her mind. That might explain his
+change of countenance, and it was just possible that her demented
+influence still hung about Holmescroft; but the rest was beyond me.
+
+I was relieved when I reached M'Leod's City office, and could tell him
+what I had done--not what I thought.
+
+M'Leod was quite willing to enter into the game of the pretended
+purchase, but did not see how it would help if I knew Baxter.
+
+"He's the only living soul I can get at who was connected with
+Holmescroft," I said.
+
+"Ah! Living soul is good," said M'Leod. "At any rate our little girl
+will be pleased that you are still interested in us. Won't you come down
+some day this week?"
+
+"How is it there now?" I asked.
+
+He screwed up his face. "Simply frightful!" he said. "Thea is at
+Droitwich."
+
+"I should like it immensely, but I must cultivate Baxter for the
+present. You'll be sure and keep him busy your end, won't you?"
+
+He looked at me with quiet contempt. "Do not be afraid. I shall be a
+good Jew. I shall be my own solicitor."
+
+Before a fortnight was over, Baxter admitted ruefully that M'Leod
+was better than most firms in the business: We buyers were coy,
+argumentative, shocked at the price of Holmescroft, inquisitive, and
+cold by turns, but Mr. M'Leod the seller easily met and surpassed us;
+and Mr. Baxter entered every letter, telegram, and consultation at the
+proper rates in a cinematograph-film of a bill. At the end of a month
+he said it looked as though M'Leod, thanks to him, were really going
+to listen to reason. I was many pounds out of pocket, but I had learned
+something of Mr. Baxter on the human side. I deserved it. Never in my
+life have I worked to conciliate, amuse, and flatter a human being as I
+worked over my solicitor.
+
+It appeared that he golfed. Therefore, I was an enthusiastic beginner,
+anxious to learn. Twice I invaded his office with a bag (M'Leod lent it)
+full of the spelicans needed in this detestable game, and a vocabulary
+to match. The third time the ice broke, and Mr. Baxter took me to his
+links, quite ten miles off, where in a maze of tramway lines, railroads,
+and nursery-maids, we skelped our divotted way round nine holes like
+barges plunging through head seas. He played vilely and had never
+expected to meet any one worse; but as he realised my form, I think
+he began to like me, for he took me in hand by the two hours together.
+After a fortnight he could give me no more than a stroke a hole, and
+when, with this allowance, I once managed to beat him by one, he was
+honestly glad, and assured me that I should be a golfer if I stuck
+to it. I was sticking to it for my own ends, but now and again my
+conscience pricked me; for the man was a nice man. Between games he
+supplied me with odd pieces of evidence, such as that he had known the
+Moultries all his life, being their cousin, and that Miss Mary, the
+eldest, was an unforgiving woman who would never let bygones be.
+I naturally wondered what she might have against him; and somehow
+connected him unfavourably with mad Agnes.
+
+"People ought to forgive and forget," he volunteered one day between
+rounds. "Specially where, in the nature of things, they can't be sure of
+their deductions. Don't you think so?"
+
+"It all depends on the nature of the evidence on which one forms one's
+judgment," I answered.
+
+"Nonsense!" he cried. "I'm lawyer enough to know that there's nothing in
+the world so misleading as circumstantial evidence. Never was."
+
+"Why? Have you ever seen men hanged on it?"
+
+"Hanged? People have been supposed to be eternally lost on it," his face
+turned grey again. "I don't know how it is with you, but my consolation
+is that God must know. He must! Things that seem on the face of 'em like
+murder, or say suicide, may appear different to God. Heh?"
+
+"That's what the murderer and the suicide can always hope--I suppose."
+
+"I have expressed myself clumsily as usual. The facts as God knows
+'em--may be different--even after the most clinching evidence. I've
+always said that--both as a lawyer and a man, but some people won't--I
+don't want to judge 'em--we'll say they can't--believe it; whereas I
+say there's always a working chance--a certainty--that the worst hasn't
+happened." He stopped and cleared his throat. "Now, let's come on! This
+time next week I shall be taking my holiday."
+
+"What links?" I asked carelessly, while twins in a perambulator got out
+of our line of fire.
+
+"A potty little nine-hole affair at a hydro in the Midlands. My cousins
+stay there. Always will. Not but what the fourth and the seventh holes
+take some doing. You could manage it, though," he said encouragingly.
+"You're doing much better. It's only your approach shots that are weak."
+
+"You're right. I can't approach for nuts! I shall go to pieces while
+you're away--with no one to coach me," I said mournfully.
+
+"I haven't taught you anything," he said, delighted with the compliment.
+
+"I owe all I've learned to you, anyhow. When will you come back?"
+
+"Look here," he began. "I don't know, your engagements, but I've no one
+to play with at Burry Mills. Never have. Why couldn't you take a few
+days off and join me there? I warn you it will be rather dull. It's a
+throat and gout place-baths, massage, electricity, and so forth. But the
+fourth and the seventh holes really take some doing."
+
+"I'm for the game," I answered valiantly; Heaven well knowing that I
+hated every stroke and word of it.
+
+"That's the proper spirit. As their lawyer I must ask you not to say
+anything to my cousins about Holmescroft. It upsets 'em. Always did. But
+speaking as man to man, it would be very pleasant for me if you could
+see your way to--"
+
+I saw it as soon as decency permitted, and thanked him sincerely.
+According to my now well-developed theory he had certainly
+misappropriated his aged cousins' monies under power of attorney, and
+had probably driven poor Agnes Moultrie out of her wits, but I wished
+that he was not so gentle, and good-tempered, and innocent eyed.
+
+Before I joined him at Burry Mills Hydro, I spent a night at
+Holmescroft. Miss M'Leod had returned from her Hydro, and first we made
+very merry on the open lawn in the sunshine over the manners and customs
+of the English resorting to such places. She knew dozens of hydros, and
+warned me how to behave in them, while Mr. and Mrs. M'Leod stood aside
+and adored her.
+
+"Ah! That's the way she always comes back to us," he said. "Pity it
+wears off so soon, ain't it? You ought to hear her sing 'With mirth thou
+pretty bird.'"
+
+We had the house to face through the evening, and there we neither
+laughed nor sung. The gloom fell on us as we entered, and did not shift
+till ten o'clock, when we crawled out, as it were, from beneath it.
+
+"It has been bad this summer," said Mrs. M'Leod in a whisper after we
+realised that we were freed. "Sometimes I think the house will get up
+and cry out--it is so bad."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Have you forgotten what comes after the depression?"
+
+So then we waited about the small fire, and the dead air in the room
+presently filled and pressed down upon us with the sensation (but words
+are useless here) as though some dumb and bound power were striving
+against gag and bond to deliver its soul of an articulate word. It
+passed in a few minutes, and I fell to thinking about Mr. Baxter's
+conscience and Agnes Moultrie, gone mad in the well-lit bedroom
+that waited me. These reflections secured me a night during which I
+rediscovered how, from purely mental causes, a man can be physically
+sick; but the sickness was bliss compared to my dreams when the birds
+waked. On my departure, M'Leod gave me a beautiful narwhal's horn, much
+as a nurse gives a child sweets for being brave at a dentist's.
+
+"There's no duplicate of it in the world," he said, "else it would have
+come to old Max M'Leod;" and he tucked it into the motor. Miss M'Leod
+on the far side of the car whispered, "Have you found out anything, Mr.
+Perseus?"
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"Then I shall be chained to my rock all my life," she went on. "Only
+don't tell papa."
+
+I supposed she was thinking of the young gentleman who specialised in
+South American rails, for I noticed a ring on the third finger of her
+left hand.
+
+I went straight from that house to Burry Mills Hydro, keen for the first
+time in my life on playing golf, which is guaranteed to occupy the mind.
+Baxter had taken me a room communicating with his own, and after lunch
+introduced me to a tall, horse-headed elderly lady of decided manners,
+whom a white-haired maid pushed along in a bath-chair through the
+park-like grounds of the Hydro. She was Miss Mary Moultrie, and she
+coughed and cleared her throat just like Baxter. She suffered--she
+told me it was a Moultrie castemark--from some obscure form of chronic
+bronchitis, complicated with spasm of the glottis; and, in a dead, flat
+voice, with a sunken eye that looked and saw not, told me what washes,
+gargles, pastilles, and inhalations she had proved most beneficial. From
+her I was passed on to her younger sister, Miss Elizabeth, a small and
+withered thing with twitching lips, victim, she told me, to very
+much the same sort of throat, but secretly devoted to another set of
+medicines. When she went away with Baxter and the bath-chair, I fell
+across a major of the Indian army with gout in his glassy eyes, and a
+stomach which he had taken all round the Continent. He laid everything
+before me; and him I escaped only to be confided in by a matron with
+a tendency to follicular tonsilitis and eczema. Baxter waited hand and
+foot on his cousins till five o'clock, trying, as I saw, to atone for
+his treatment of the dead sister. Miss Mary ordered him about like a
+dog.
+
+"I warned you it would be dull," he said when we met in the
+smoking-room.
+
+"It's tremendously interesting," I said. "But how about a look round the
+links?"
+
+"Unluckily damp always affects my eldest cousin. I've got to buy her a
+new bronchitis-kettle. Arthurs broke her old one yesterday."
+
+We slipped out to the chemist's shop in the town, and he bought a large
+glittering tin thing whose workings he explained.
+
+"I'm used to this sort of work. I come up here pretty often," he said.
+"I've the family throat too."
+
+"You're a good man," I said. "A very good man."
+
+He turned towards me in the evening light among the beeches, and his
+face was changed to what it might have been a generation before.
+
+"You see," he said huskily, "there was the youngest--Agnes. Before
+she fell ill, you know. But she didn't like leaving her sisters. Never
+would." He hurried on with his odd-shaped load and left me among the
+ruins of my black theories. The man with that face had done Agnes
+Moultrie no wrong.
+
+We never played our game. I was waked between two and three in the
+morning from my hygienic bed by Baxter in an ulster over orange and
+white pyjamas, which I should never have suspected from his character.
+
+"My cousin has had some sort of a seizure," he said. "Will you come? I
+don't want to wake the doctor. Don't want to make a scandal. Quick!"
+
+So I came quickly, and led by the white-haired Arthurs in a jacket and
+petticoat, entered a double-bedded room reeking with steam and Friar's
+Balsam. The electrics were all on. Miss Mary--I knew her by her
+height--was at the open window, wrestling with Miss Elizabeth, who
+gripped her round the knees.
+
+Miss Mary's hand was at her own throat, which was streaked with blood.
+
+"She's done it. She's done it too!" Miss Elizabeth panted. "Hold her!
+Help me!"
+
+"Oh, I say! Women don't cut their throats," Baxter whispered.
+
+"My God! Has she cut her throat?" the maid cried out, and with no
+warning rolled over in a faint. Baxter pushed her under the wash-basins,
+and leaped to hold the gaunt woman who crowed and whistled as she
+struggled toward the window. He took her by the shoulder, and she struck
+out wildly:
+
+"All right! She's only cut her hand," he said. "Wet towel quick!"
+
+While I got that he pushed her backward. Her strength seemed almost as
+great as his. I swabbed at her throat when I could, and found no mark;
+then helped him to control her a little. Miss Elizabeth leaped back to
+bed, wailing like a child.
+
+"Tie up her hand somehow," said Baxter. "Don't let it drip about the
+place. She"--he stepped on broken glass in his slippers, "she must have
+smashed a pane."
+
+Miss Mary lurched towards the open window again, dropped on her knees,
+her head on the sill, and lay quiet, surrendering the cut hand to me.
+
+"What did she do?" Baxter turned towards Miss Elizabeth in the far bed.
+
+"She was going to throw herself out of the window," was the answer.
+"I stopped her, and sent Arthurs for you. Oh, we can never hold up our
+heads again!"
+
+Miss Mary writhed and fought for breath. Baxter found a shawl which he
+threw over her shoulders.
+
+"Nonsense!" said he. "That isn't like Mary;" but his face worked when he
+said it.
+
+"You wouldn't believe about Aggie, John. Perhaps you will now!" said
+Miss Elizabeth. "I saw her do it, and she's cut her throat too!"
+
+"She hasn't," I said. "It's only her hand."
+
+Miss Mary suddenly broke from us with an indescribable grunt, flew,
+rather than ran, to her sister's bed, and there shook her as one furious
+schoolgirl would shake another.
+
+"No such thing," she croaked. "How dare you think so, you wicked little
+fool?"
+
+"Get into bed, Mary," said Baxter. "You'll catch a chill."
+
+She obeyed, but sat up with the grey shawl round her lean shoulders,
+glaring at her sister. "I'm better now," she panted. "Arthurs let me
+sit out too long. Where's Arthurs? The kettle."
+
+"Never mind Arthurs," said Baxter. "You get the kettle." I hastened to
+bring it from the side table. "Now, Mary, as God sees you, tell me what
+you've done."
+
+His lips were dry, and he could not moisten. them with his tongue.
+
+Miss Mary applied herself to the mouth of the kettle, and between
+indraws of steam said: "The spasm came on just now, while I was asleep.
+I was nearly choking to death. So I went to the window I've done it
+often before, without, waking any one. Bessie's such an old maid about
+draughts. I tell you I was choking to death. I couldn't manage the
+catch, and I nearly fell out. That window opens too low. I cut my hand
+trying to save myself. Who has tied it up in this filthy handkerchief?
+I wish you had had my throat, Bessie. I never was nearer dying!" She
+scowled on us all impartially, while her sister sobbed.
+
+From the bottom of the bed we heard a quivering voice: "Is she dead?
+Have they took her away? Oh, I never could bear the sight o' blood!"
+
+"Arthurs," said Miss Mary, "you are an hireling. Go away!"
+
+It is my belief that Arthurs crawled out on all fours, but I was busy
+picking up broken glass from the carpet.
+
+Then Baxter, seated by the side of the bed, began to cross-examine in
+a voice I scarcely recognised. No one could for an instant have doubted
+the genuine rage of Miss Mary against her sister, her cousin, or her
+maid; and that a doctor should have been called in for she did me the
+honour of calling me doctor--was the last drop. She was choking with her
+throat; had rushed to the window for air; had near pitched out, and in
+catching at the window bars had cut her hand. Over and over she made
+this clear to the intent Baxter. Then she turned on her sister and
+tongue-lashed her savagely.
+
+"You mustn't blame me," Miss Bessie faltered at last. "You know what we
+think of night and day.".
+
+"I'm coming to that," said Baxter. "Listen to me. What you did,
+Mary, misled four people into thinking you--you meant to do away with
+yourself."
+
+"Isn't one suicide in the family enough? Oh God, help and pity us! You
+couldn't have believed that!" she cried.
+
+"The evidence was complete. Now, don't you think," Baxter's finger
+wagged under her nose--"can't you think that poor Aggie did the same
+thing at Holmescroft when she fell out of the window?"
+
+"She had the same throat," said Miss Elizabeth. "Exactly the same
+symptoms. Don't you remember, Mary?"
+
+"Which was her bedroom?" I asked of Baxter in an undertone.
+
+"Over the south verandah, looking on to the tennis lawn."
+
+"I nearly fell out of that very window when I was at
+Holmescroft--opening it to get some air. The sill doesn't come much
+above your knees," I said.
+
+"You hear that, Mary? Mary, do you hear What this gentleman says? Won't
+you believe that what nearly happened to you must have happened to
+poor Aggie that night? For God's sake--for her sake--Mary, won't you
+believe?"
+
+There was a long silence while the steam kettle puffed.
+
+"If I could have proof--if I could have proof," said she, and broke into
+most horrible tears.
+
+Baxter motioned to me, and I crept away to my room, and lay awake till
+morning, thinking more specially of the dumb Thing at Holmescroft which
+wished to explain itself. I hated Miss Mary as perfectly as though I had
+known her for twenty years, but I felt that, alive or dead, I should not
+like her to condemn me.
+
+Yet at mid-day, when I saw Miss Mary in her bathchair, Arthurs behind
+and Baxter and Miss Elizabeth on either side, in the park-like grounds
+of the Hydro, I found it difficult to arrange my words.
+
+"Now that you know all about it," said Baxter aside, after the first
+strangeness of our meeting was over, "it's only fair to tell you that
+my poor cousin did not die in Holmescroft at all. She was dead when they
+found her under the window in the morning. Just dead."
+
+"Under that laburnum outside the window?" I asked, for I suddenly
+remembered the crooked evil thing.
+
+"Exactly. She broke the tree in falling. But no death has ever taken
+place in the house, so far as we were concerned. You can make yourself
+quite easy on that point. Mr. M'Leod's extra thousand for what you
+called the 'clean bill of health' was something toward my cousins'
+estate when we sold. It was my duty as their lawyer to get it for
+them--at any cost to my own feelings."
+
+I know better than to argue when the English talk about their duty. So I
+agreed with my solicitor.
+
+"Their sister's death must have been a great blow to your cousins," I
+went on. The bath-chair was behind me.
+
+"Unspeakable," Baxter whispered. "They brooded on it day and night.
+No wonder. If their theory of poor Aggie making away with herself was
+correct, she was eternally lost!"
+
+"Do you believe that she made away with herself?"
+
+"No, thank God! Never have! And after what happened to Mary last night,
+I see perfectly what happened to poor Aggie. She had the family throat
+too. By the way, Mary thinks you are a doctor. Otherwise she wouldn't
+like your having been in her room."
+
+"Very good. Is she convinced now about her sister's death?"
+
+"She'd give anything to be able to believe it, but she's a hard woman,
+and brooding along certain lines makes one groovy. I have sometimes been
+afraid of her reason--on the religious side, don't you know. Elizabeth
+doesn't matter. Brain of a hen. Always had."
+
+Here Arthurs summoned me to the bath-chair, and the ravaged face,
+beneath its knitted Shetland wool hood, of Miss Mary Moultrie.
+
+"I need not remind you, I hope, of the seal of secrecy--absolute
+secrecy--in your profession," she began. "Thanks to my cousin's and my
+sister's stupidity, you have found out," she blew her nose.
+
+"Please don't excite her, sir," said Arthurs at the back.
+
+"But, my dear Miss Moultrie, I only know what I've seen, of course,
+but it seems to me that what you thought was a tragedy in your sister's
+case, turns out, on your own evidence, so to speak, to have been an
+accident--a dreadfully sad one--but absolutely an accident."
+
+"Do you believe that too?" she cried. "Or are you only saying it to
+comfort me?"
+
+"I believe it from the bottom of my heart. Come down to Holmescroft for
+an hour--for half an hour and satisfy yourself."
+
+"Of what? You don't understand. I see the house every day-every night.
+I am always there in spirit--waking or sleeping. I couldn't face it in
+reality."
+
+"But you must," I said. "If you go there in the spirit the greater need
+for you to go there in the flesh. Go to your sister's room once more,
+and see the window--I nearly fell out of it myself. It's--it's awfully
+low and dangerous. That would convince you," I pleaded.
+
+"Yet Aggie had slept in that room for years," she interrupted.
+
+"You've slept in your room here for a long time, haven't you? But you
+nearly fell out of the window when you were choking."
+
+"That is true. That is one thing true," she nodded. "And I might have
+been killed as--perhaps Aggie was killed."
+
+"In that case your own sister and cousin and maid would have said you
+had committed suicide, Miss Moultrie. Come down to Holmescroft, and go
+over the place just once."
+
+"You are lying," she said quite quietly. "You don't want me to come down
+to see a window. It is something else. I warn you we are Evangelicals.
+We don't believe in prayers for the dead. 'As the tree falls--'"
+
+"Yes. I daresay. But you persist in thinking that your sister committed
+suicide--"
+
+"No! No! I have always prayed that I might have misjudged her."
+
+Arthurs at the bath-chair spoke up: "Oh, Miss Mary! you would 'ave it
+from the first that poor Miss Aggie 'ad made away with herself; an', of
+course, Miss Bessie took the notion from you: Only Master--Mister John
+stood out,--and--and I'd 'ave taken my Bible oath you was making away
+with yourself last night."
+
+Miss Mary leaned towards me, one finger on my sleeve.
+
+"If going to Holmescroft kills me," she said, "you will have the murder
+of a fellow-creature on your conscience for all eternity."
+
+"I'll risk it," I answered. Remembering what torment the mere reflection
+of her torments had cast on Holmescroft, and remembering, above all, the
+dumb Thing that filled the house with its desire to speak, I felt that
+there might be worse things.
+
+Baxter was amazed at the proposed visit, but at a nod from that terrible
+woman went off to make arrangements. Then I sent a telegram to M'Leod
+bidding him and his vacate Holmescroft for that afternoon. Miss Mary
+should be alone with her dead, as I had been alone.
+
+I expected untold trouble in transporting her, but to do her justice,
+the promise given for the journey, she underwent it without murmur,
+spasm, or unnecessary word. Miss Bessie, pressed in a corner by the
+window, wept behind her veil, and from time to time tried to take
+hold of her sister's hand. Baxter wrapped himself in his newly found
+happiness as selfishly as a bridegroom, for he sat still and smiled.
+
+"So long as I know that Aggie didn't make away with herself," he
+explained, "I tell you frankly I don't care what happened. She's as hard
+as a rock--Mary. Always was. She won't die."
+
+We led her out on to the platform like a blind woman, and so got her
+into the fly. The half-hour crawl to Holmescroft was the most racking
+experience of the day. M'Leod had obeyed my instructions. There was no
+one visible in the house or the gardens; and the front door stood open.
+
+Miss Mary rose from beside her sister, stepped forth first, and entered
+the hall.
+
+"Come, Bessie," she cried.
+
+"I daren't. Oh, I daren't."
+
+"Come!" Her voice had altered. I felt Baxter start. "There's nothing to
+be afraid of."
+
+"Good heavens!" said Baxter. "She's running up the stairs. We'd better
+follow."
+
+"Let's wait below. She's going to the room."
+
+We heard the door of the bedroom I knew open and shut, and we waited in
+the lemon-coloured hall, heavy with the scent of flowers.
+
+"I've never been into it since it was sold," Baxter sighed. "What a
+lovely, restful plate it is! Poor Aggie used to arrange the flowers."
+
+"Restful?" I began, but stopped of a sudden, for I felt all over my
+bruised soul that Baxter was speaking truth. It was a light, spacious,
+airy house, full of the sense of well-being and peace--above all things,
+of peace. I ventured into the dining-room where the thoughtful M'Leod's
+had left a small fire. There was no terror there, present or lurking;
+and in the drawing-room, which for good reasons we had never cared
+to enter, the sun and the peace and the scent of the flowers worked
+together as is fit in an inhabited house. When I returned to the hall,
+Baxter was sweetly asleep on a couch, looking most unlike a middle-aged
+solicitor who had spent a broken night with an exacting cousin.
+
+There was ample time for me to review it all--to felicitate myself upon
+my magnificent acumen (barring some errors about Baxter as a thief
+and possibly a murderer), before the door above opened, and Baxter,
+evidently a light sleeper, sprang awake.
+
+"I've had a heavenly little nap," he said, rubbing his eyes with the
+backs of his hands like a child. "Good Lord! That's not their step!"
+
+But it was. I had never before been privileged to see the Shadow
+turned backward on the dial--the years ripped bodily off poor human
+shoulders--old sunken eyes filled and alight--harsh lips moistened and
+human.
+
+"John," Miss Mary called, "I know now. Aggie didn't do it!" and "She
+didn't do it!" echoed Miss Mary.
+
+"I did not think it wrong to say a prayer," Miss Mary continued. "Not
+for her soul, but for our peace. Then I was convinced."
+
+"Then we got conviction," the younger sister piped.
+
+"We've misjudged poor Aggie, John. But I feel she knows now. Wherever
+she is, she knows that we know she is guiltless."
+
+"Yes, she knows. I felt it too," said Miss Elizabeth.
+
+"I never doubted," said John' Baxter, whose face was beautiful at that
+hour. "Not from the first. Never have!"
+
+"You never offered me proof, John. Now, thank God, it will not be the
+same any more. I can think henceforward of Aggie without sorrow." She
+tripped, absolutely tripped, across the hall. "What ideas these Jews
+have of arranging furniture!" She spied me behind a big Cloisonnee vase.
+"I've seen the window," she said remotely. "You took a great risk in
+advising me to undertake such a journey. However, as it turns out...
+I forgive you, and I pray you may never know what mental anguish means!
+Bessie! Look at this peculiar piano! Do you suppose, Doctor, these
+people would offer one tea? I miss mine."
+
+"I will go and see," I said, and explored M'Leod's new-built servants'
+wing. It was in the servants' hall that I unearthed the M'Leod family,
+bursting with anxiety.
+
+"Tea for three, quick," I said. "If you ask me any questions now,
+I shall have a fit!" So Mrs. M'Leod got it, and I was butler, amid
+murmured apologies from Baxter, still smiling and self-absorbed, and
+the cold disapproval of Miss Mary, who thought the pattern of the china
+vulgar. However, she ate well, and even asked me whether I would not
+like a cup of tea for myself.
+
+They went away in the twilight--the twilight that I had once feared.
+They were going to an hotel in London to rest after the fatigues of the
+day, and as their fly turned down the drive, I capered on the door step,
+with the all-darkened house behind me.
+
+Then I heard the uncertain feet of the M'Leods and bade them not to turn
+on the lights, but to feel--to feel what I had done; for the Shadow was
+gone, with the dumb desire in the air. They drew short, but afterwards
+deeper, breaths, like bathers entering chill water, separated one from
+the other, moved about the hall, tiptoed upstairs, raced down, and then
+Miss M'Leod, and I believe her mother, though she denies this, embraced
+me. I know M'Leod did.
+
+It was a disgraceful evening. To say we rioted through the house is to
+put it mildly. We played a sort of Blind Man's Buff along the darkest
+passages, in the unlighted drawing-room, and little dining-room, calling
+cheerily to each other after each exploration that here, and here, and
+here, the trouble-had removed itself. We came up to the bedroom--mine
+for the night again--and sat, the women on the bed, and we men
+on chairs, drinking in blessed draughts of peace and comfort and
+cleanliness of soul, while I told them my tale in full, and received
+fresh praise, thanks, and blessings.
+
+When the servants, returned from their day's outing, gave us a supper
+of cold fried fish, M'Leod had sense enough to open no wine. We had
+been practically drunk since nightfall, and grew incoherent on water and
+milk.
+
+"I like that Baxter," said M'Leod. "He's a sharp man. The death wasn't
+in the house, but he ran it pretty close, ain't it?"
+
+"And the joke of it is that he supposes I want to buy the place from
+you," I said. "Are you selling?"
+
+"Not for twice what I paid for it--now," said M'Leod. "I'll keep you in
+furs all your life, but not our Holmescroft."
+
+"No--never our Holmescroft," said Miss M'Leod. "We'll ask him here on
+Tuesday, mamma." They squeezed each other's hands.
+
+"Now tell me," said Mrs. M'Leod--"that tall one, I saw out of the
+scullery window--did she tell you she was always here in the spirit? I
+hate her. She made all this trouble. It was not her house after she had
+sold it. What do you think?"
+
+"I suppose," I answered, "she brooded over what she believed was her
+sister's suicide night and day--she confessed she did--and her thoughts
+being concentrated on this place, they felt like a--like a burning
+glass."
+
+"Burning glass is good," said M'Leod.
+
+"I said it was like a light of blackness turned on us," cried the girl,
+twiddling her ring. "That must have been when the tall one thought worst
+about her sister and the house."
+
+"Ah, the poor Aggie!" said Mrs. M'Leod. "The poor Aggie, trying to
+tell every one it was not so! No wonder we felt Something wished to say
+Something. Thea, Max, do you remember that night?"
+
+"We need not remember any more," M'Leod interrupted. "It is not our
+trouble. They have told each other now."
+
+"Do you think, then," said Miss M'Leod, "that those two, the living
+ones, were actually told something--upstairs--in your in the room?"
+
+"I can't say. At any rate they were made happy, and they ate a big tea
+afterwards. As your father says, it is not our trouble any longer--thank
+God!"
+
+"Amen!" said M'Leod. "Now, Thea, let us have some music after all these
+months. 'With mirth, thou pretty bird,' ain't it? You ought to hear
+that."
+
+And in the half-lighted hall, Thea sang an old English song that I had
+never heard before.
+
+         With mirth, thou pretty bird, rejoice
+         Thy Maker's praise enhanced;
+         Lift up thy shrill and pleasant voice,
+         Thy God is high advanced!
+         Thy food before He did provide,
+         And gives it in a fitting side,
+         Wherewith be thou sufficed!
+         Why shouldst thou now unpleasant be,
+         Thy wrath against God venting,
+         That He a little bird made thee,
+         Thy silly head tormenting,
+         Because He made thee not a man?
+         Oh, Peace! He hath well thought thereon,
+         Therewith be thou sufficed!
+
+
+
+
+THE RABBI'S SONG
+
+         IF THOUGHT can reach to Heaven,
+           On Heaven let it dwell,
+         For fear that Thought be given
+           Like power to reach to Hell.
+         For fear the desolation
+           And darkness of thy mind,
+         Perplex an habitation
+           Which thou hast left behind.
+
+         Let nothing linger after--
+           No whispering ghost remain,
+         In wall, or beam, or rafter,
+           Of any hate or pain:
+         Cleanse and call home thy spirit,
+           Deny her leave to cast,
+         On aught thy heirs inherit,
+           The shadow of her past.
+
+         For think, in all thy sadness,
+           What road our griefs may take;
+         Whose brain reflect our madness,
+           Or whom our terrors shake.
+         For think, lest any languish
+           By cause of thy distress
+         The arrows of our anguish
+           Fly farther than we guess.
+
+          Our lives, our tears, as water,
+           Are spilled upon the ground;
+         God giveth no man quarter,
+           Yet God a means hath found;
+         Though faith and hope have vanished,
+           And even love grows dim;
+         A means whereby His banished
+           Be not expelled from Him!
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Actions and Reactions, by Rudyard Kipling
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+Project Gutenberg's etext, Actions and Reactions by Rudyard Kipling
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+
+
+
+
+ACTIONS  AND REACTIONS BY RUDYARD KIPLING
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+An Habitation Enforced
+   The Recall
+ Garm--a Hostage
+   The Power of the Dog
+ The Mother Hive
+   The Bees and the Flies
+ With the Night Mail
+   The Four Angels
+ A Deal in Cotton
+   The New Knighthood
+ The Puzzler
+   The Puzzler Little Foxes
+   Gallio's Song
+ The House Surgeon
+   The Rabbi's Song
+
+
+ACTIONS AND REACTIONS
+
+
+AN HABITATION ENFORCED
+
+         My friend, if cause doth wrest thee,
+         Ere folly hath much oppressed thee,
+         Far from acquaintance kest thee
+         Where country may digest thee . . . 
+         Thank God that so hath blessed thee,
+         And sit down, Robin, and rest thee.
+     THOMAS TUSSER.
+
+It came without warning, at the very hour his hand was
+outstretched to crumple the Holz and Gunsberg Combine. The New
+York doctors called it overwork, and he lay in a darkened room,
+one ankle crossed above the other, tongue pressed into palate,
+wondering whether the next brain-surge of prickly fires would
+drive his soul from all anchorages. At last they gave judgment.
+With care he might in two years return to the arena, but for the
+present he must go across the water and do no work whatever. He
+accepted the terms. It was capitulation; but the Combine that had
+shivered beneath his knife gave him all the honours of war:
+Gunsberg himself, full of condolences, came to the steamer and
+filled the Chapins' suite of cabins with overwhelming
+flower-works.
+
+"Smilax," said George Chapin when he saw them. "Fitz is right.
+I'm dead; only I don't see why he left out the 'In Memoriam' on
+the ribbons!"
+
+"Nonsense!" his wife answered, and poured him his tincture.
+"You'll be back before you can think."
+
+He looked at himself in the mirror, surprised that his face had
+not been branded by the hells of the past three months. The noise
+of the decks worried him, and he lay down, his tongue only a
+little pressed against his palate.
+
+An hour later he said: "Sophie, I feel sorry about taking you
+away from everything like this. I--I suppose we're the two
+loneliest people on God's earth to-night."
+
+Said Sophie his wife, and kissed him: "Isn't it something to you
+that we're going together?"
+
+They drifted about Europe for months--sometimes alone, sometimes
+with chance met gipsies of their own land. From the North Cape to
+the Blue Grotto at Capri they wandered, because the next steamer
+headed that way, or because some one had set them on the road.
+The doctors had warned Sophie that Chapin was not to take
+interest even in other men's interests; but a familiar sensation
+at the back of the neck after one hour's keen talk with a
+Nauheimed railway magnate saved her any trouble. He nearly wept.
+
+"And I'm over thirty," he cried. "With all I meant to do!"
+
+"Let's call it a honeymoon," said Sophie. "D' you know, in all
+the six years we've been married, you've never told me what you
+meant to do with your life?"
+
+"With my life? What's the use? It's finished now." Sophie looked
+up quickly from the Bay of Naples. "As far as my business goes, I
+shall have to live on my rents like that architect at San
+Moritz."
+
+"You'll get better if you don't worry; and even if it rakes time,
+there are worse things than--How much have you?"
+
+"Between four and five million. But it isn't the money. You know
+it isn't. It's the principle. How could you respect me? You never
+did, the first year after we married, till I went to work like
+the others. Our tradition and upbringing are against it. We can't
+accept those ideals."
+
+"Well, I suppose I married you for some sort of ideal," she
+answered, and they returned to their forty-third hotel.
+
+In England they missed the alien tongues of Continental streets
+that reminded them of their own polyglot cities. In England all
+men spoke one tongue, speciously like American to the ear, but on
+cross-examination unintelligible.,
+
+"Ah, but you have not seen England," said a lady with iron-grey
+hair. They had met her in Vienna, Bayreuth, and Florence, and
+were grateful to find her again at Claridge's, for she commanded
+situations, and knew where prescriptions are most carefully made
+up. "You ought to take an interest in the home of our ancestors
+as I do."
+
+"I've tried for a week, Mrs. Shonts," said Sophie, "but I never
+get any further than tipping German waiters."
+
+"These men are not the true type," Mrs. Shouts went on. "I know
+where you should go."
+
+Chapin pricked up his ears, anxious to run anywhere from the
+streets on which quick men, something of his kidney, did the
+business denied to him.
+
+"We hear and we obey, Mrs. Shonts," said Sophie, feeling his
+unrest as he drank the loathed British tea.
+
+Mrs. Shonts smiled, and took them in hand. She wrote widely and
+telegraphed far on their behalf till, armed with her letter of
+introduction, she drove them into that wilderness which is
+reached from an ash-barrel of a station called Charing Cross.
+They were to go to Rockett's--the farm of one Cloke, in the
+southern counties--where, she assured them, they would meet the
+genuine England of folklore and song.
+
+Rocketts they found after some hours, four miles from a station,
+and, so far as they could, judge in the bumpy darkness, twice as
+many from a road. Trees, kine, and the outlines of barns showed
+shadowy about them when they alighted, and Mr. and Mrs. Cloke, at
+the open door of a deep stone-floored kitchen, made them shyly
+welcome. They lay in an attic beneath a wavy whitewashed ceiling,
+and, because it rained, a wood fire was made in an iron basket on
+a brick hearth, and they fell asleep to the chirping of mice and
+the whimper of flames.
+
+When they woke it was a fair day, full of the noises, of birds,
+the smell of box lavender, and fried bacon, mixed with an
+elemental smell they had never met before.
+
+"This," said Sophie, nearly pushing out the thin casement in an
+attempt to see round the, corner, " is--what did the hack-cabman
+say to the railway porter about my trunk--'quite on the top?'"
+
+"No; 'a little bit of all right.' I feel farther away from
+anywhere than I've ever felt in my life. We must find out where
+the telegraph office is."
+
+"Who cares?" said Sophie, wandering about, hairbrush in hand, to
+admire the illustrated weekly pictures pasted on door and
+cupboard.
+
+But there was no rest for the alien soul till he had made sure of
+the telegraph office. He asked the Clokes' daughter, laying
+breakfast, while Sophie plunged her face in the lavender bush
+outside the low window.
+
+"Go to the stile a-top o' the Barn field," said Mary, "and look
+across Pardons to the next spire. It's directly under. You can't
+miss it--not if you keep to the footpath. My sister's the
+telegraphist there. But you're in the three-mile radius, sir. The
+boy delivers telegrams directly to this door from Pardons
+village."
+
+"One has to take a good deal on trust in this country," he
+murmured.
+
+Sophie looked at the close turf, scarred only with last night's
+wheels, at two ruts which wound round a rickyard, and at the
+circle of still orchard about the half-timbered house.
+
+"What's the matter with it?" she said. "Telegrams delivered to
+the Vale of Avalon, of course," and she beckoned in an
+earnest-eyed hound of engaging manners and no engagements, who
+answered, at times, to the name of Rambler. He led them, after
+breakfast, to the rise behind the house where the stile stood
+against the skyline, and, "I wonder what we shall find now," said
+Sophie, frankly prancing with joy on the grass.
+
+It was a slope of gap-hedged fields possessed to their centres by
+clumps of brambles. Gates were not, and the rabbit-mined,
+cattle-rubbed posts leaned out and in. A narrow path doubled
+among the bushes, scores of white tails twinkled before the
+racing hound, and a hawk rose, whistling shrilly.
+
+"No roads, no nothing!" said Sophie, her short skirt hooked by
+briers. "I thought all England was a garden. There's your spire,
+George, across the valley. How curious!"
+
+They walked toward it through an all abandoned land. Here they
+found the ghost of a patch of lucerne that had refused to die:
+there a harsh fallow surrendered to yard-high thistles; and here
+a breadth of rampant kelk feigning to be lawful crop. In the
+ungrazed pastures swaths of dead stuff caught their feet, and the
+ground beneath glistened with sweat. At the bottom of the valley
+a little brook had undermined its footbridge, and frothed in the
+wreckage. But there stood great woods on the slopes beyond--old,
+tall, and brilliant, like unfaded tapestries against the walls of
+a ruined house.
+
+"All this within a hundred miles of London," he said. "Looks as
+if it had had nervous prostration, too." The, footpath turned the
+shoulder of a slope, through a thicket of rank rhododendrons, and
+crossed what had once been a carriage drive, which ended in the
+shadow of two gigantic holm-oaks.
+
+"A house!" said Sophie, in a whisper. "A Colonial house!"
+
+Behind the blue-green of the twin trees rose a dark-bluish brick
+Georgian pile, with a shell-shaped fan-light over its pillared
+door. The hound had gone off on his own foolish quests. Except
+for some stir it the branches and the flight of four startled
+magpies; there was neither life nor sound about the square house,
+but it looked out of its long windows most friendlily.
+
+"Cha-armed to meet you, I'm sure," said Sophie, and curtsied to
+the ground. "George, this is history I can understand. We began
+here." She curtsied again.
+
+The June sunshine twinkled on all the lights. It was as though an
+old lady, wise in three generations' experience, but for the
+present sitting out, bent to listen to her flushed and eager
+grandchild.
+
+"I must look!" Sophie tiptoed to a window, and shaded her eyes
+with her hand. "Oh, this room's half-full of cotton-bales--wool,
+I suppose! But I can see a bit of the mantelpiece. George, do
+come! Isn't that some one?"
+
+She fell back behind her husband. The front door opened slowly,
+to show the hound, his nose white with milk, in charge of an
+ancient of days clad in a blue linen ephod curiously gathered on
+breast and shoulders.
+
+"Certainly," said George, half aloud. "Father Time himself. This
+is where he lives, Sophie."
+
+"We came," said Sophie weakly. "Can we see the house? I'm afraid
+that's our dog."
+
+"No, 'tis Rambler," said the old man. "He's been, at my
+swill-pail again. Staying at Rocketts, be ye? Come in. Ah! you
+runagate!"
+
+The hound broke from him, and he tottered after him down the
+drive. They entered the hall--just such a high light hall as such
+a house should own. A slim-balustered staircase, wide and shallow
+and once creamy-white, climbed out of it under a long oval
+window. On either side delicately moulded doors gave on to
+wool-lumbered rooms, whose sea-green mantelpieces were adorned
+with nymphs, scrolls, and Cupids in low relief.
+
+"What's the firm that makes these things?" cried Sophie,
+enraptured. "Oh, I forgot! These must be the originals. Adams, is
+it? I never dreamed of anything like that steel-cut fender. Does
+he mean us to go everywhere?"
+
+"He's catching the dog," said George, looking out. "We don't
+count."
+
+They explored the first or ground floor, delighted as children
+playing burglars.
+
+"This is like all England," she said at last. "Wonderful, but no
+explanation. You're expected to know it beforehand. Now, let's
+try upstairs."
+
+The stairs never creaked beneath their feet. From the broad
+landing they entered a long, green-panelled room lighted by three
+full-length windows, which overlooked the forlorn wreck of a
+terraced garden, and wooded slopes beyond.
+
+"The drawing-room, of course." Sophie swam up and down it. "That
+mantelpiece--Orpheus and Eurydice--is the best of them all. Isn't
+it marvellous? Why, the room seems furnished with nothing in it!
+How's that, George?"
+
+"It's the proportions. I've noticed it."
+
+"I saw a Heppelwhite couch once"--Sophie laid her finger to her
+flushed cheek and considered. "With, two of them--one on each
+side--you wouldn't need anything else. Except--there must be one
+perfect mirror over that mantelpiece."
+
+"Look at that view. It's a framed Constable," her husband cried.
+
+"No; it's a Morland--a parody of a Morland. But about that couch,
+George. Don't you think Empire might be better than Heppelwhite?
+Dull gold against that pale green? It's a pity they don't make
+spinets nowadays."
+
+"I believe you can get them. Look at that oak wood behind the
+pines."
+
+"'While you sat and played toccatas stately, at the clavichord,"'
+Sophie hummed, and, head on one; side, nodded to where the
+perfect mirror should hang:
+
+Then they found bedrooms with dressing-rooms and
+powdering-closets, and steps leading up and down--boxes of rooms,
+round, square, and octagonal, with enriched ceilings and chased
+door-locks.
+
+"Now about servants. Oh!" She had darted up the last stairs to
+the chequered darkness of the top floor, where loose tiles lay
+among broken laths, and the walls were scrawled with names,
+sentiments, and hop records. "They've been keeping pigeons here,"
+she cried.
+
+"And you could drive a buggy through the roof anywhere," said
+George.
+
+"That's what I say," the old man cried below them on the stairs.
+"Not a dry place for my pigeons at all."
+
+"But why was it allowed to get like this?" said Sophie.
+
+"Tis with housen as teeth," he replied. "Let 'em go too far, and
+there's nothing to be done. Time was they was minded to sell her,
+but none would buy. She was too far away along from any place.
+Time was they'd ha' lived here theyselves, but they took and
+died."
+
+"Here?" Sophie moved beneath the light of a hole in the roof.
+
+"Nah--none dies here excep' falling off ricks and such. In London
+they died." He plucked a lock of wool from his blue smock. "They
+was no staple--neither the Elphicks nor the Moones. Shart and
+brittle all of 'em. Dead they be seventeen year, for I've been
+here caretakin' twenty-five."
+
+"Who does all the wool belong to downstairs?" George asked.
+
+"To the estate. I'll show you the back parts if ye like. You're
+from America, ain't ye? I've had a son there once myself." They
+followed him down the main stairway. He paused at the turn and
+swept one hand toward the wall. "Plenty room, here for your
+coffin to come down. Seven foot and three men at each end
+wouldn't brish the paint. If I die in my bed they'll 'ave to
+up-end me like a milk-can. 'Tis all luck, dye see?"
+
+He led them on and on, through a maze of back kitchens, dairies,
+larders, and sculleries, that melted along covered ways into a
+farm-house, visibly older than the main building, which again
+rambled out among barns, byres, pig-pens, stalls and stables to
+the dead fields behind.
+
+"Somehow," said Sophie, sitting exhausted on an ancient
+well-curb--"somehow one wouldn't insult these lovely old things
+by filling them with hay."
+
+George looked at long stone walls upholding reaches of
+silvery-oak weather-boarding; buttresses of mixed flint and
+bricks; outside stairs, stone upon arched stone; curves of thatch
+where grass sprouted; roundels of house-leeked tiles, and a huge
+paved yard populated by two cows and the repentant Rambler. He
+had not thought of himself or of the telegraph office for two and
+a half hours.
+
+"But why," said Sophie, as they went back through the crater of
+stricken fields,--" why is one expected to know everything in
+England? Why do they never tell?"
+
+"You mean about the Elphicks and the Moones?" he answered.
+
+"Yes--and the lawyers and the estate. Who are they? I wonder
+whether those painted floors in the green room were real oak.
+Don't you like us exploring things together--better than
+Pompeii?"
+
+George turned once more to look at the view. "Eight hundred acres
+go with the house--the old man told me. Five farms altogether.
+Rocketts is one of 'em."
+
+"I like Mrs. Cloke. But what is the old house called?"
+
+George laughed. "That's one of the things you're expected to
+know. He never told me."
+
+The Clokes were more communicative. That evening and thereafter
+for a week they gave the Chapins the official history, as one
+gives it to lodgers, of Friars Pardon the house and its five
+farms. But Sophie asked so many questions, and George was so
+humanly interested, that, as confidence in the strangers grew,
+they launched, with observed and acquired detail, into the lives
+and deaths and doings of the Elphicks and the Moones and their
+collaterals, the Haylings and the Torrells. It was a tale told
+serially by Cloke in the barn, or his wife in the dairy, the last
+chapters reserved for the kitchen o' nights by the big fire, when
+the two had been half the day exploring about the house, where
+old Iggulden, of the blue smock, cackled and chuckled to see
+them. The motives that swayed the characters were beyond their
+comprehension; the fates that shifted them were gods they had
+never met; the sidelights Mrs. Cloke threw on act and incident
+were more amazing than anything in the record. Therefore the
+Chapins listened delightedly, and blessed Mrs. Shonts.
+
+"But why--why--why--did So-and-so do so-and-so?" Sophie would
+demand from her seat by the pothook; and Mrs. Cloke would answer,
+smoothing her knees, "For the sake of the place."
+
+"I give it up," said George one night in their own room. "People
+don't seem to matter in this country compared to the places they
+live in. The way she tells it, Friars Pardon was a sort of
+Moloch."
+
+"Poor old thing!" They had been walking round the farms as usual
+before tea. "No wonder they loved it. Think of the sacrifices
+they made for it. Jane Elphick married the younger Torrell to
+keep it in the family. The octagonal room with the moulded
+ceiling next to the big bedroom was hers. Now what did he tell
+you while he was feeding the pigs?" said Sophie.
+
+"About the Torrell cousins and the uncle who died in Java. They
+lived at Burnt House--behind High Pardons, where that brook is
+all blocked up."
+
+"No; Burnt House is under High Pardons Wood, before you come to
+Gale Anstey," Sophie corrected.
+
+"Well, old man Cloke said--"
+
+Sophie threw open the door and called down into the kitchen,
+where the Clokes were covering the fire "Mrs. Cloke, isn't Burnt
+House under High Pardons?"
+
+"Yes, my dear, of course," the soft voice. answered absently. A
+cough. "I beg your pardon, Madam. What was it you said?"
+
+"Never mind. I prefer it the other way," Sophie laughed, and
+George re-told the missing chapter as she sat on the bed.
+
+"Here to-day an' gone to-morrow," said Cloke warningly. "They've
+paid their first month, but we've only that Mrs. Shonts's letter
+for guarantee."
+
+"None she sent never cheated us yet. It slipped out before I
+thought. She's a most humane young lady. They'll be going away in
+a little. An' you've talked a lot too, Alfred."
+
+"Yes, but the Elphicks are all dead. No one can bring my loose
+talking home to me. But why do they stay on and stay on so?"
+
+In due time George and Sophie asked each other that question, and
+put it aside. They argued that the climate--a pearly blend,
+unlike the hot and cold ferocities of their native land--suited
+them, as the thick stillness of the nights certainly suited
+George. He was saved even the sight of a metalled road, which, as
+presumably leading to business, wakes desire in a man; and the
+telegraph office at the village of Friars Pardon, where they sold
+picture post-cards and pegtops, was two walking miles across the
+fields and woods.
+
+For all that touched his past among his fellows, or their
+remembrance of him, he might have been in another planet; and
+Sophie, whose life had been very largely spent among husbandless
+wives of lofty ideals, had no wish to leave this present of God.
+The unhurried meals, the foreknowledge of deliciously empty hours
+to follow, the breadths of soft sky under which they walked
+together and reckoned time only by their hunger or thirst; the
+good grass beneath their feet that cheated the miles; their
+discoveries, always together, amid the farms--Griffons, Rocketts,
+Burnt House, Gale Anstey, and the Home Farm, where Iggulden of
+the blue smock-frock would waylay them, and they would ransack
+the old house once more; the long wet afternoons when, they
+tucked up their feet on the bedroom's deep window-sill over
+against the apple-trees, and talked together as never till then
+had they found time to talk--these things contented her soul, and
+her body throve.
+
+"Have you realized," she asked one morning, "that we've been here
+absolutely alone for the last thirty-four days?"
+
+"Have you counted them?" he asked.
+
+"Did you like them?" she replied.
+
+"I must have. I didn't think about them. Yes, I have. Six months
+ago I should have fretted myself sick. Remember at Cairo? I've
+only had two or three bad times. Am I getting better, or is it
+senile decay?"
+
+"Climate, all climate." Sophie swung her new-bought English
+boots, as she sat on the stile overlooking Friars Pardon, behind
+the Clokes's barn.
+
+"One must take hold of things though," he said, "if it's only to
+keep one's hand in." His eyes did not flicker now as they swept
+the empty fields. "Mustn't one?"
+
+"Lay out a Morristown links over Gale Anstey. I dare say you
+could hire it."
+
+"No, I'm not as English as that--nor as Morristown. Cloke says
+all the farms here could be made to pay."
+
+"Well, I'm Anastasia in the 'Treasure of Franchard.' I'm content
+to be alive and purr. There's no hurry."
+
+"No." He smiled. "All the same, I'm going to see after my mail."
+
+"You promised you wouldn't have any."
+
+"There's some business coming through that's amusing me. Honest.
+It doesn't get on my nerves at all."
+
+"Want a secretary?"
+
+"No, thanks, old thing! Isn't that quite English?"
+
+"Too English! Go away." But none the less in broad daylight she
+returned the kiss. "I'm off to Pardons. I haven't been to the
+house for nearly a week."
+
+"How've you decided to furnish Jane Elphick's bedroom?" he
+laughed, for it had come to be a permanent Castle in Spain
+between them.
+
+"Black Chinese furniture and yellow silk brocade," she answered,
+and ran downhill. She scattered a few cows at a gap with a
+flourish of a ground-ash that Iggulden had cut for her a week
+ago, and singing as she passed under the holmoaks, sought the
+farm-house at the back of Friars Pardon. The old man was not to
+be found, and she knocked at his half-opened door, for she needed
+him to fill her idle forenoon. A blue-eyed sheep-dog, a new
+friend, and Rambler's old enemy, crawled out and besought her to
+enter.
+
+Iggulden sat in his chair by the fire, a thistle-spud between his
+knees, his head drooped. Though she had never seen death before,
+her heart, that missed a beat, told her that he was dead. She did
+not speak or cry, but stood outside the door, and the dog licked
+her hand. When he threw up his nose, she heard herself saying:
+"Don't howl! Please don't begin to howl, Scottie, or I shall run
+away!"
+
+She held her ground while the shadows in the rickyard moved
+toward noon; sat after a while on the steps by the door, her arms
+round the dog's neck, waiting till some one should come. She
+watched the smokeless chimneys of Friars Pardon slash its roofs
+with shadow, and the smoke of Iggulden's last lighted fire
+gradually thin and cease. Against her will she fell to wondering
+how many Moones, Elphicks, and Torrells had been swung round the
+turn of the broad Mall stairs. Then she remembered the old man's
+talk of being "up-ended like a milk-can," and buried her face on
+Scottie's neck. At last a horse's feet clinked upon flags,
+rustled in the old grey straw of the rickyard, and she found
+herself facing the vicar--a figure she had seen at church
+declaiming impossibilities (Sophie was a Unitarian) in an
+unnatural voice.
+
+"He's dead," she said, without preface.
+
+"Old Iggulden? I was coming for a talk with him." The vicar
+passed in uncovered. "Ah!" she heard him say. "Heart-failure! How
+long have you been here?"
+
+"Since a quarter to eleven." She looked at her watch earnestly
+and saw that her hand did not shake.
+
+"I'll sit with him now till the doctor comes. D'you think you
+could tell him, and--yes, Mrs. Betts in the cottage with the
+wistaria next the blacksmith's? I'm afraid this has been rather a
+shock to you."
+
+Sophie nodded, and fled toward the village. Her body failed her
+for a moment; she dropped beneath a hedge, and looked back at the
+great house. In some fashion its silence and stolidity steadied
+her for her errand.
+
+Mrs. Betts, small, black-eyed, and dark, was almost as
+unconcerned as Friars Pardon.
+
+"Yiss, yiss, of course. Dear me! Well, Iggulden he had had his
+day in my father's time. Muriel, get me my little blue bag,
+please. Yiss, ma'am. They come down like ellum-branches in still
+weather. No warnin' at all. Muriel, my bicycle's be'ind the
+fowlhouse. I'll tell Dr. Dallas, ma'am."
+
+She trundled off on her wheel like a brown bee, while
+Sophie--heaven above and earth beneath changed--walked stiffly
+home, to fall over George at his letters, in a muddle of laughter
+and tears.
+
+"It's all quite natural for them," she gasped. "They come down
+like ellum-branches in still weather. Yiss, ma'am.' No, there
+wasn't anything in the least horrible, only--only--Oh, George,
+that poor shiny stick of his between his poor, thin knees! I
+couldn't have borne it if Scottie had howled. I didn't know the
+vicar was so--so sensitive. He said he was afraid it was
+ra--rather a shock. Mrs. Betts told me to go home, and I wanted
+to collapse on her floor. But I didn't disgrace myself. I--I
+couldn't have left him--could I?"
+
+"You're sure you've took no 'arm?" cried Mrs. Cloke, who had
+heard the news by farm-telegraphy, which is older but swifter
+than Marconi's.
+
+"No. I'm perfectly well," Sophie protested.
+
+"You lay down till tea-time." Mrs. Cloke patted her shoulder.
+"THEY'll be very pleased, though she 'as 'ad no proper
+understandin' for twenty years."
+
+"They" came before twilight--a black-bearded man in moleskins,
+and a little palsied old woman, who chirruped like a wren.
+
+"I'm his son," said the man to Sophie, among the lavender bushes.
+"We 'ad a difference--twenty year back, and didn't speak since.
+But I'm his son all the 'same, and we thank you for the
+watching."
+
+"I'm only glad I happened to be there," she answered, and from
+the bottom of her heart she meant it.
+
+"We heard he spoke a lot o' you--one time an' another since you
+came. We thank you kindly," the man added.
+
+"Are you the son that was in America?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, ma'am. On my uncle's farm, in Connecticut. He was what they
+call rood-master there."
+
+"Whereabouts in Connecticut?" asked George over her shoulder.
+
+"Veering Holler was the name. I was there six year with my
+uncle."
+
+"How small the world is!" Sophie cried. "Why, all my mother's
+people come from Veering Hollow. There must be some there
+still--the Lashmars. Did you ever hear of them?"
+
+"I remember hearing that name, seems to me," he answered, but his
+face was blank as the back of a spade.
+
+A little before dusk a woman in grey, striding like a
+foot-soldier, and bearing on her arm a long pole, crashed through
+the orchard calling for food. George, upon whom the unannounced
+English worked mysteriously, fled to the parlour; but Mrs. Cloke
+came forward beaming. Sophie could not escape.
+
+"We've only just heard of it;" said the stranger, turning on her.
+"I've been out with the otter-hounds all day. It was a splendidly
+sportin' thing "
+
+"Did you--er--kill?" said Sophie. She knew from books she could
+not go far wrong here.
+
+"Yes, a dry bitch--seventeen pounds," was the answer. "A
+splendidly sportin' thing of you to do. Poor old Iggulden--"
+
+"Oh--that!" said Sophie, enlightened.
+
+"If there had been any people at Pardons it would never have
+happened. He'd have been looked after. But what can you expect
+from a parcel of London solicitors?"
+
+Mrs. Cloke murmured something.
+
+"No. I'm soaked from the knees down. If I hang about I shall get
+chilled. A cup of tea, Mrs. Cloke, and I can eat one of your
+sandwiches as I go." She wiped her weather-worn face with a green
+and yellow silk handkerchief.
+
+"Yes, my lady!" Mrs. Cloke ran and returned swiftly.
+
+"Our land marches with Pardons for a mile on the south," she
+explained, waving the full cup, "but one has quite enough to do
+with one's own people without poachin'. Still, if I'd known, I'd
+have sent Dora, of course. Have you seen her this afternoon, Mrs.
+Cloke? No? I wonder whether that girl did sprain her ankle. Thank
+you." It was a formidable hunk of bread and bacon that Mrs. Cloke
+presented. "As I was sayin', Pardons is a scandal! Lettin' people
+die like dogs. There ought to be people there who do their duty.
+You've done yours, though there wasn't the faintest call upon
+you. Good night. Tell Dora, if she comes, I've gone on."
+
+She strode away, munching her crust, and Sophie reeled breathless
+into the parlour, to shake the shaking George.
+
+"Why did you keep catching my eye behind the blind? Why didn't
+you come out and do your duty?"
+
+"Because I should have burst. Did you see the mud on its cheek?"
+he said.
+
+"Once. I daren't look again. Who is she?"
+
+"God--a local deity then. Anyway, she's another of the things
+you're expected to know by instinct."
+
+Mrs. Cloke, shocked at their levity, told them that it was Lady
+Conant, wife of Sir Walter Conant, Baronet, a large landholder in
+the neighbourhood; and if not God; at least His visible
+Providence. George made her talk of that family for an hour.
+
+"Laughter," said Sophie afterward in their own room, "is the mark
+of the savage. Why couldn't you control your emotions? It's all
+real to her."
+
+"It's all real to me. That's my trouble," he answered in an
+altered tone. "Anyway, it's real enough to mark time with. Don't
+you think so?"
+
+"What d'you mean?" she asked quickly, though she knew his voice.
+
+"That I'm better. I'm well enough to kick."
+
+"What at?"
+
+"This!" He waved his hand round the one room. "I must have
+something to play with till I'm fit for work again."
+
+"Ah!" She sat on the bed and leaned forward, her hands clasped.
+"I wonder if it's good for you."
+
+"We've been better here than anywhere," he went on slowly. "One
+could always sell it again."
+
+She nodded gravely, but her eyes sparkled.
+
+"The only thing that worries me is what happened this morning. I
+want to know how you feel about it. If it's on your nerves in the
+least we can have the old farm at the back of the house pulled
+down, or perhaps it has spoiled the notion for you?"
+
+"Pull it down?" she cried. "You've no business faculty. Why,
+that's where we could live while we're putting the big house in
+order. It's almost under the same roof. No! What happened this
+morning seemed to be more of a--of a leading than anything else.
+There ought to be people at Pardons. Lady Conant's quite right."
+
+"I was thinking more of the woods and the roads. I could double
+the value of the place in six months."
+
+"What do they want for it?" She shook her head, and her loosened
+hair fell glowingly about her cheeks.
+
+"Seventy-five thousand dollars. They'll take sixty-eight."
+
+"Less than half what we paid for our old yacht when we married.
+And we didn't have a good time in her. You were--"
+
+"Well, I discovered I was too much of an American to be content
+to be a rich man's son. You aren't blaming me for that?"
+
+"Oh, no. Only it was a very businesslike honeymoon. How far are
+you along with the deal, George?"
+
+"I can mail the deposit on the purchase money to-morrow morning,
+and we can have the thing completed in a fortnight or three
+weeks--if you say so."
+
+"Friars Pardon--Friars Pardon!" Sophie chanted rapturously, her
+dark gray eyes big with delight. "All the farms? Gale Anstey,
+Burnt House, Rocketts, the Home Farm, and Griffons? Sure you've
+got 'em all?"
+
+"Sure." He smiled.
+
+"And the woods? High Pardons Wood, Lower Pardons, Suttons,
+Dutton's Shaw, Reuben's Ghyll, Maxey's Ghyll, and both the Oak
+Hangers? Sure you've got 'em all?"
+
+"Every last stick. Why, you know them as well as I do." He
+laughed. "They say there's five thousand--a thousand pounds'
+worth of lumber--timber they call it--in the Hangers alone."
+
+"Mrs. Cloke's oven must be mended first thing, and the kitchen
+roof. I think I'll have all this whitewashed," Sophie broke in,
+pointing to the ceiling. "The whole place is a scandal. Lady
+Conant is quite right. George, when did you begin to fall in love
+with the house? In the greenroom that first day? I did."
+
+"I'm not in love with it. One must do something to mark time till
+one's fit for work."
+
+"Or when we stood under the oaks, and the door opened? Oh! Ought
+I to go to poor Iggulden's funeral?" She sighed with utter
+happiness.
+
+"Wouldn't they call it a liberty now?" said he.
+
+"But I liked him."
+
+"But you didn't own him at the date of his death."
+
+"That wouldn't keep me away. Only, they made such a fuss about
+the watching"--she caught her breath--"it might be ostentatious
+from that point of view, too. Oh, George"--she reached for his
+hand--"we're two little orphans moving in worlds not realized,
+and we shall make some bad breaks. But we're going to have the
+time of our lives."
+
+"We'll run up to London to-morrow, and see if we can hurry those
+English law solicitors. I want to get to work."
+
+They went. They suffered many things ere they returned across the
+fields in a fly one Saturday night, nursing a two by
+two-and-a-half box of deeds and maps--lawful owners of Friars
+Pardon and the five decayed farms therewith.
+
+"I do most sincerely 'ope and trust you'll be 'appy, Madam," Mrs.
+Cloke gasped, when she was told the news by the kitchen fire.
+
+"Goodness! It isn't a marriage!" Sophie exclaimed, a little awed;
+for to them the joke, which to an American means work, was only
+just beginning.
+
+"If it's took in a proper spirit"--Mrs. Cloke's eye turned toward
+her oven.
+
+"Send and have that mended to-morrow," Sophie whispered.
+
+"We couldn't 'elp noticing," said Cloke slowly, "from the times
+you walked there, that you an' your lady was drawn to it,
+but--but I don't know as we ever precisely thought--" His wife's
+glance checked him.
+
+"That we were that sort of people," said George. "We aren't sure
+of it ourselves yet."
+
+"Perhaps," said Cloke, rubbing his knees, "just for the sake of
+saying something, perhaps you'll park it?"
+
+"What's that?" said George.
+
+"Turn it all into a fine park like Violet Hill"--he jerked a
+thumb to westward--"that Mr. Sangres bought. It was four farms,
+and Mr. Sangres made a fine park of them, with a herd of faller
+deer."
+
+"Then it wouldn't be Friars Pardon," said Sophie. "Would it?"
+
+"I don't know as I've ever heard Pardons was ever anything but
+wheat an' wool. Only some gentlemen say that parks are less
+trouble than tenants." He laughed nervously. "But the gentry, o'
+course, they keep on pretty much as they was used to."
+
+"I see," said Sophie. "How did Mr. Sangres make his money?"
+
+"I never rightly heard. It was pepper an' spices, or it may ha'
+been gloves. No. Gloves was Sir Reginald Liss at Marley End.
+Spices was Mr. Sangres. He's a Brazilian gentleman--very sunburnt
+like."
+
+"Be sure o' one thing. You won't 'ave any trouble," said Mrs.
+Cloke, just before they went to bed.
+
+Now the news of the purchase was told to Mr. and Mrs. Cloke alone
+at 8 P.M. of a Saturday. None left the farm till they set out for
+church next morning. Yet when they reached the church and were
+about to slip aside into their usual seats, a little beyond the
+font, where they could see the red-furred tails of the bellropes
+waggle and twist at ringing time, they were swept forward
+irresistibly, a Cloke on either flank (and yet they had not
+walked with the Clokes), upon the ever-retiring bosom of a
+black-gowned verger, who ushered them into a room of a pew at the
+head of the left aisle, under the pulpit.
+
+"This," he sighed reproachfully, "is the Pardons' Pew," and shut
+them in.
+
+They could see little more than the choir boys in the chancel,
+but to the roots of the hair of their necks they felt the
+congregation behind mercilessly devouring them by look.
+
+"When the wicked man turneth away." The strong, alien voice of
+the priest vibrated under the hammer-beam roof, and a loneliness
+unfelt before swamped their hearts, as they searched for places
+in the unfamiliar Church of England service. The Lord's Prayer
+"Our Father, which art"--set the seal on that desolation. Sophie
+found herself thinking how in other lands their purchase would
+long ere this have been discussed from every point of view in a
+dozen prints, forgetting that George for months had not been
+allowed to glance at those black and bellowing head-lines. Here
+was nothing but silence--not even hostility! The game was up to
+them; the other players hid their cards and waited. Suspense, she
+felt, was in the air, and when her sight cleared, saw, indeed, a
+mural tablet of a footless bird brooding upon the carven motto, "
+Wayte awhyle--wayte awhyle."
+
+At the Litany George had trouble with an unstable hassock, and
+drew the slip of carpet under the pewseat. Sophie pushed her end
+back also, and shut her eyes against a burning that felt like
+tears. When she opened them she was looking at her mother's
+maiden name, fairly carved on a blue flagstone on the pew floor:
+Ellen Lashmar. ob. 1796. aetat 27.
+
+She nudged George and pointed. Sheltered, as they kneeled, they
+looked for more knowledge, but the rest of the slab was blank.
+
+"Ever hear of her?" he whispered.
+
+"Never knew any of us came from here."
+
+"Coincidence?"
+
+"Perhaps. But it makes me feel better," and she smiled and winked
+away a tear on her lashes, and took his hand while they prayed
+for "all women labouring of child"--not "in the perils of
+childbirth"; and the sparrows who had found their way through the
+guards behind the glass windows chirped above the faded gilt and
+alabaster family tree of the Conants.
+
+The baronet's pew was on the right of the aisle. After service
+its inhabitants moved forth without haste, but so as to block
+effectively a dusky person with a large family who champed in
+their rear.
+
+"Spices, I think," said Sophie, deeply delighted as the Sangres
+closed up after the Conants. "Let 'em get away, George."
+
+But when they came out many folk whose eyes were one still
+lingered by the lychgate.
+
+"I want to see if any more Lashmars are buried here," said
+Sophie.
+
+"Not now. This seems to be show day. Come home quickly," he
+replied.
+
+A group of families, the Clokes a little apart, opened to let
+them through. The men saluted with jerky nods, the women with
+remnants of a curtsey. Only Iggulden's son, his mother on his
+arm, lifted his hat as Sophie passed.
+
+"Your people," said the clear voice of Lady Conant in her ear.
+
+"I suppose so," said Sophie, blushing, for they were within two
+yards of her; but it was not a question.
+
+"Then that child looks as if it were coming down with mumps. You
+ought to tell the mother she shouldn't have brought it to
+church."
+
+"I can't leave 'er behind, my lady," the woman said. "She'd set
+the 'ouse afire in a minute, she's that forward with the matches.
+Ain't you, Maudie dear?"
+
+"Has Dr. Dallas seen her?"
+
+"Not yet, my lady."
+
+"He must. You can't get away, of course. M-m! My idiotic maid is
+coming in for her teeth to-morrow at twelve. She shall pick her
+up--at Gale Anstey, isn't it?--at eleven."
+
+"Yes. Thank you very much, my lady."
+
+"I oughtn't to have done it," said Lady Conant apologetically,
+"but there has been no one at Pardons for so long that you'll
+forgive my poaching. Now, can't you lunch with us? The vicar
+usually comes too. I don't use the horses on a Sunday"--she
+glanced at the Brazilian's silver-plated chariot. "It's only a
+mile across the fields."
+
+"You--you're very kind," said Sophie, hating herself because her
+lip trembled.
+
+"My dear," the compelling tone dropped to a soothing gurgle,
+"d'you suppose I don't know how it feels to come to a strange
+county--country I should say--away from one's own people? When I
+first left the Shires--I'm Shropshire, you know--I cried for a
+day and a night. But fretting doesn't make loneliness any better.
+Oh, here's Dora. She did sprain her leg that day."
+
+"I'm as lame as a tree still," said the tall maiden frankly. "You
+ought to go out with the otter-hounds, Mrs. Chapin. I believe
+they're drawing your water next week."
+
+Sir Walter had already led off George, and the vicar came up on
+the other side of Sophie. There was no escaping the swift
+procession or the leisurely lunch, where talk came and went in
+low-voiced eddies that had the village for their centre. Sophie
+heard the vicar and Sir Walter address her husband lightly as
+Chapin! (She also remembered many women known in a previous life
+who habitually addressed their husbands as Mr. Such-an-one.)
+After lunch Lady Conant talked to her explicitly of maternity as
+that is achieved in cottages and farm-houses remote from aid, and
+of the duty thereto of the mistress of Pardons.
+
+A gate in a beech hedge, reached across triple lawns, let them
+out before tea-time into the unkempt south side of their land.
+
+"I want your hand, please," said Sophie as soon as they were safe
+among the beech boles and the lawless hollies. "D'you remember
+the old maid in 'Providence and the Guitar' who heard the
+Commissary swear, and hardly reckoned herself a maiden lady
+afterward? Because I'm a relative of hers. Lady Conant is--"
+
+"Did you find out anything about the Lashmars?" he interrupted.
+
+"I didn't ask. I'm going to write to Aunt Sydney about it first.
+Oh, Lady Conant said something at lunch about their having bought
+some land from some Lashmars a few years ago. I found it was at
+the beginning of last century."
+
+"What did you say?"
+
+"I said, 'Really, how interesting!' Like that. I'm not going to
+push myself forward. I've been hearing about Mr. Sangres's
+efforts in that direction. And you? I couldn't see you behind the
+flowers. Was it very deep water, dear?"
+
+George mopped a brow already browned by outdoor exposures.
+
+"Oh no--dead easy," he answered. "I've bought Friars Pardon to
+prevent Sir Walter's birds straying."
+
+A cock pheasant scuttered through the dry leaves and exploded
+almost under their feet. Sophie jumped.
+
+"That's one of 'em," said George calmly.
+
+"Well, your nerves are better, at any rate," said she. "Did you
+tell 'em you'd bought the thing to play with?"
+
+"No. That was where my nerve broke down. I only made one bad
+break--I think. I said I couldn't see why hiring land to men to
+farm wasn't as much a business proposition as anything else."
+
+"And what did they say?"
+
+"They smiled. I shall know what that smile means some day. They
+don't waste their smiles. D'you see that track by Gale Anstey?"
+
+They looked down from the edge of the hanger over a cup-like
+hollow. People by twos and threes in their Sunday best filed
+slowly along the paths that connected farm to farm.
+
+"I've never seen so many on our land before," said Sophie. "Why
+is it?"
+
+"To show us we mustn't shut up their rights of way."
+
+"Those cow-tracks we've been using cross lots?" said Sophie
+forcibly.
+
+"Yes. Any one of 'em would cost us two thousand pounds each in
+legal expenses to close."
+
+"But we don't want to," she said.
+
+"The whole community would fight if we did."
+
+"But it's our land. We can do what we like."
+
+"It's not our land. We've only paid for it. We belong to it, and
+it belongs to the people--our people they call 'em. I've been to
+lunch with the English too."
+
+They passed slowly from one bracken-dotted field to the
+next--flushed with pride of ownership, plotting alterations and
+restorations at each turn; halting in their tracks to argue,
+spreading apart to embrace two views at once, or closing in to
+consider one. Couples moved out of their way, but smiling
+covertly.
+
+"We shall make some bad breaks," he said at last.
+
+"Together, though. You won't let anyone else in, will you?"
+
+"Except the contractors. This syndicate handles, this proposition
+by its little lone."
+
+"But you might feel the want of some one," she insisted.
+
+"I shall--but it will be you. It's business, Sophie, but it's
+going to be good fun."
+
+"Please God," she answered flushing, and cried to herself as they
+went back to tea. "It's worth it. Oh, it's worth it."
+
+The repairing and moving into Friars Pardon was business of the
+most varied and searching, but all done English fashion, without
+friction. Time and money alone were asked. The rest lay in the
+hands of beneficent advisers from London, or spirits, male and
+female, called up by Mr. and Mrs. Cloke from the wastes of the
+farms. In the centre stood George and Sophie, a little aghast,
+their interests reaching out on every side.
+
+"I ain't sayin' anything against Londoners," said Cloke,
+self-appointed clerk of the outer works, consulting engineer,
+head of the immigration bureau, and superintendent of woods and
+forests; "but your own people won't go about to make more than a
+fair profit out of you."
+
+"How is one to know?" said George.
+
+"Five years from now, or so on, maybe, you'll be lookin' over
+your first year's accounts, and, knowin' what you'll know then,
+you'll say: 'Well, Billy Beartup'--or Old Cloke as it might
+be--'did me proper when I was new.' No man likes to have that
+sort of thing laid up against him."
+
+"I think I see," said George. "But five years is a long time to
+look ahead."
+
+"I doubt if that oak Billy Beartup throwed in Reuben's Ghyll will
+be fit for her drawin-room floor in less than seven," Cloke
+drawled.
+
+"Yes, that's my work," said Sophie. (Billy Beartup of Griffons, a
+woodman by training and birth, a tenant farmer by misfortune of
+marriage, had laid his broad axe at her feet a month before.)
+"Sorry if I've committed you to another eternity."
+
+"And we shan't even know where we've gone wrong with your new
+carriage drive before that time either," said Cloke, ever anxious
+to keep the balance true with an ounce or two in Sophie's favour.
+The past four months had taught George better than to reply. The
+carriage road winding up the hill was his present keen interest.
+They set off to look at it, and the imported American scraper
+which had blighted the none too sunny soul of "Skim" Winsh, the
+carter.
+
+But young Iggulden was in charge now, and under his guidance,
+Buller and Roberts, the great horses, moved mountains.
+
+"You lif' her like that, an' you tip her like that," he explained
+to the gang. "My uncle he was roadmaster in Connecticut."
+
+"Are they roads yonder?" said Skim, sitting under the laurels.
+
+"No better than accommodation roads. Dirt, they call 'em. They'd
+suit you, Skim."
+
+"Why?" said the incautious Skim.
+
+"Cause you'd take no hurt when you fall out of your cart drunk on
+a Saturday," was the answer.
+
+"I didn't last time neither," Skim roared.
+
+After the loud laugh, old Whybarne of Gale Anstey piped feebly,
+"Well, dirt or no dirt, there's no denyin' Chapin knows a good
+job when he sees it. 'E don't build one day and dee-stroy the
+next, like that nigger Sangres."
+
+"SHE's the one that knows her own mind," said Pinky, brother to
+Skim Winsh, and a Napoleon among carters who had helped to bring
+the grand piano across the fields in the autumn rains.
+
+"She had ought to," said Iggulden. "Whoa, Buller! She's a
+Lashmar. They never was double-thinking."
+
+"Oh, you found that? Has the answer come from your uncle?" said
+Skim, doubtful whether so remote a land as America had posts.
+
+The others looked at him scornfully. Skim was always a day behind
+the fair. Iggulden rested from his labours. "She's a Lashmar
+right enough. I started up to write to my uncle--at once--the
+month after she said her folks came from Veering Holler."
+
+"Where there ain't any roads?" Skim interrupted, but none
+laughed.
+
+"My uncle he married an American woman for his second, and she
+took it up like a like the coroner. She's a Lashmar out of the
+old Lashmar place, 'fore they sold to Conants. She ain't no Toot
+Hill Lashmar, nor any o' the Crayford lot. Her folk come out of
+the ground here, neither chalk nor forest, but wildishers. They
+sailed over to America--I've got it all writ down by my uncle's
+woman--in eighteen hundred an' nothing. My uncle says they're all
+slow begetters like."
+
+"Would they be gentry yonder now?" Skim asked.
+
+"Nah--there's no gentry in America, no matter how long you're
+there. It's against their law. There's only rich and poor
+allowed. They've been lawyers and such like over yonder for a
+hundred years but she's a Lashmar for all that."
+
+"Lord! What's a hundred years?" said Whybarne, who had seen
+seventy-eight of them.
+
+"An' they write too, from yonder--my uncle's woman writes--that
+you can still tell 'em by headmark. Their hair's foxy-red
+still--an' they throw out when they walk. He's in-toed-treads
+like a gipsy; but you watch, an' you'll see 'er throw, out--like
+a colt."
+
+"Your trace wants taking up." Pinky's large ears had caught the
+sound of voices, and as the two broke through the laurels the men
+were hard at work, their eyes on Sophie's feet.
+
+She had been less fortunate in her inquiries than Iggulden, for
+her Aunt Sydney of Meriden (a badged and certificated Daughter of
+the Revolution to boot) answered her inquiries with a two-paged
+discourse on patriotism, the leaflets of a Village Improvement
+Society, of which she was president, and a demand for an overdue
+subscription to a Factory Girls' Reading Circle. Sophie burned it
+all in the Orpheus and Eurydice grate, and kept her own counsel.
+
+"What I want to know," said George, when Spring was coming, and
+the gardens needed thought. "is who will ever pay me for my
+labour? I've put in at least half a million dollars' worth
+already."
+
+"Sure you're not taking too much out of yourself?" his wife
+asked.
+
+"Oh, no; I haven't been conscious of myself all winter." He
+looked at his brown English gaiters and smiled. "It's all behind
+me now. I believe I could sit down and think of all that--those
+months before we sailed."
+
+"Don't--ah, don't!" she cried.
+
+"But I must go back one day. You don't want to keep me out of
+business always--or do you?" He ended with a nervous laugh.
+
+Sophie sighed as she drew her own ground-ash (of old Iggulden's
+cutting) from the hall rack.
+
+"Aren't you overdoing it too? You look a little tired," he said.
+
+"You make me tired. I'm going to Rocketts to see Mrs. Cloke about
+Mary." (This was the sister of the telegraphist, promoted to be
+sewing-maid at Pardons.) "Coming?"
+
+"I'm due at Burnt House to see about the new well. By the way,
+there's a sore throat at Gale Anstey--"
+
+"That's my province. Don't interfere. The Whybarne children
+always have sore throats. They do it for jujubes."
+
+"Keep away from Gale Anstey till I make sure, honey. Cloke ought
+to have told me."
+
+"These people don't tell. Haven't you learnt that yet? But I'll
+obey, me lord. See you later!"
+
+She set off afoot, for within the three main roads that bounded
+the blunt triangle of the estate (even by night one could
+scarcely hear the carts on them), wheels were not used except for
+farm work. The footpaths served all other purposes. And though at
+first they had planned improvements, they had soon fallen in with
+the customs of their hidden kingdom, and moved about the
+soft-footed ways by woodland, hedgerow, and shaw as freely as the
+rabbits. Indeed, for the most part Sophie walked bareheaded
+beneath her helmet of chestnut hair; but she had been plagued of
+late by vague toothaches, which she explained to Mrs. Cloke, who
+asked some questions. How it came about Sophie never knew, but
+after a while behold Mrs. Cloke's arm was about her waist, and
+her head was on that deep bosom behind the shut kitchen door.
+
+"My dear! My dear!" the elder woman almost sobbed. "An' d'you
+mean to tell me you never suspicioned?  Why--why--where was you
+ever taught anything at all? Of course it is. It's what we've
+been only waitin' for, all of us. Time and again I've said to
+Lady--" she checked herself. "An' now we shall be as we should
+be."
+
+"But--but--but--" Sophie whimpered.
+
+"An' to see you buildin' your nest so busy--pianos and books--an'
+never thinkin' of a nursery!"
+
+"No more I did." Sophie sat bolt upright, and began to laugh.
+
+"Time enough yet." The fingers tapped thoughtfully on the broad
+knee. "But--they must be strange-minded folk over yonder with
+you! Have you thought to send for your mother? She dead? My dear,
+my dear! Never mind! She'll be happy where she knows. 'Tis God's
+work. An' we was only waitin' for it, for you've never failed in
+your duty yet. It ain't your way. What did you say about my
+Mary's doings?" Mrs. Cloke's face hardened as she pressed her
+chin on Sophie's forehead. "If any of your girls thinks to be'ave
+arbitrary now, I'll--But they won't, my dear. I'll see they do
+their duty too. Be sure you'll 'ave no trouble."
+
+When Sophie walked back across the fields heaven and earth
+changed about her as on the day of old Iggulden's death. For an
+instant she thought of the wide turn of the staircase, and the
+new ivory-white paint that no coffin corner could scar, but
+presently, the shadow passed in a pure wonder and bewilderment
+that made her reel. She leaned against one of their new gates and
+looked over their lands for some other stay.
+
+"Well," she said resignedly, half aloud, "we must try to make him
+feel that he isn't a third in our party," and turned the corner
+that looked over Friars Pardon, giddy, sick, and faint.
+
+Of a sudden the house they had bought for a whim stood up as she
+had never seen it before, low-fronted, broad-winged, ample,
+prepared by course of generations for all such things. As it had
+steadied her when it lay desolate, so now that it had meaning
+from their few months of life within, it soothed and promised
+good. She went alone and quickly into the hall, and kissed either
+door-post, whispering: "Be good to me. You know! You've never
+failed in your duty yet."
+
+When the matter was explained to George, he would have sailed at
+once to their own land, but this Sophie forbade.
+
+"I don't want science," she said. "I just want to be loved, and
+there isn't time for that at home. Besides," she added, looking
+out of the window, "it would be desertion."
+
+George was forced to soothe himself with linking Friars Pardon to
+the telegraph system of Great Britain by
+telephone--three-quarters of a mile of poles, put in by Whybarne
+and a few friends. One of these was a foreigner from the next
+parish. Said he when the line was being run: "There's an old
+ellum right in our road. Shall us throw her?"
+
+"Toot Hill parish folk, neither grace nor good luck, God help
+'em." Old Whybarne shouted the local proverb from three poles
+down the line. "We ain't goin' to lay any axe-iron to coffin-wood
+here not till we know where we are yet awhile. Swing round 'er,
+swing round!"
+
+To this day, then, that sudden kink in the straight line across
+the upper pasture remains a mystery to Sophie and George. Nor can
+they tell why Skim Winsh, who came to his cottage under Dutton
+Shaw most musically drunk at 10.45 P.M of every Saturday night,
+as his father had done before him, sang no more at the bottom of
+the garden steps, where Sophie always feared he would break his
+neck. The path was undoubtedly an ancient right of way, and at
+10.45 P.M. on Saturdays Skim remembered it was his duty to
+posterity to keep it open--till Mrs. Cloke spoke to him once. She
+spoke likewise to her daughter Mary, sewing maid at Pardons, and
+to Mary's best new friend, the five-foot-seven imported London
+house-maid, who taught Mary to trim hats, and found the country
+dullish.
+
+But there was no noise--at no time was there any noise--and when
+Sophie walked abroad she met no one in her path unless she had
+signified a wish that way. Then they appeared to protest that all
+was well with them and their children, their chickens, their
+roofs, their water-supply, and their sons in the police or the
+railway service.
+
+"But don't you find it dull, dear?" said George, loyally doing
+his best not to worry as the months went by.
+
+"I've been so busy putting my house in order I haven't had time
+to think," said she. "Do you?"
+
+"No--no. If I could only be sure of you."
+
+She turned on the green drawing-room's couch (it was Empire, not
+Heppelwhite after all), and laid aside a list of linen and
+blankets.
+
+"It has changed everything, hasn't it?" she whispered.
+
+"Oh, Lord, yes. But I still think if we went back to Baltimore "
+
+"And missed our first real summer together. No thank you, me
+lord."
+
+"But we're absolutely alone."
+
+"Isn't that what I'm doing my best to remedy? Don't you worry. I
+like it--like it to the marrow of my little bones. You don't
+realize what her house means to a woman. We thought we were
+living in it last year, but we hadn't begun to. Don't you rejoice
+in your study, George?"
+
+"I prefer being here with you." He sat down on the floor by the
+couch and took her hand.
+
+"Seven," she said, as the French clock struck. "Year before last
+you'd just be coming back from business."
+
+He winced at the recollection, then laughed. "Business! I've been
+at work ten solid hours to-day."
+
+"Where did you lunch? With the Conants?"
+
+"No; at Dutton Shaw, sitting on a log, with my feet in a swamp.
+But we've found out where the old spring is, and we're going to
+pipe it down to Gale Anstey next year."
+
+"I'll come and see to-morrow. Oh, please open the door, dear. I
+want to look down the passage. Isn't that corner by the
+stair-head lovely where the sun strikes in?" She looked through
+half-closed eyes at the vista of ivory-white and pale green all
+steeped in liquid gold.
+
+"There's a step out of Jane Elphick's bedroom," she went on--"and
+his first step in the world ought to be up. I shouldn't wonder if
+those people hadn't put it there on purpose. George, will it make
+any odds to you if he's a girl?"
+
+He answered, as he had many times before, that his interest was
+his wife, not the child.
+
+"Then you're the only person who thinks so." She laughed. "Don't
+be silly, dear. It's expected. I know. It's my duty. I shan't be
+able to look our people in the face if I fail."
+
+"What concern is it of theirs, confound 'em!"
+
+"You'll see. Luckily the tradition of the house is boys, Mrs.
+Cloke says, so I'm provided for. Shall you ever begin to
+understand these people? I shan't."
+
+"And we bought it for fun--for fun!" he groaned. "And here we are
+held up for goodness knows bow long!"
+
+"Why? Were you thinking of selling it?" He did not answer. "Do
+you remember the second Mrs. Chapin?" she demanded.
+
+This was a bold, brazen little black-browed woman--a widow for
+choice--who on Sophie's death was guilefully to marry George for
+his wealth and ruin him in a year. George being busy, Sophie had
+invented her some two years after her marriage, and conceived she
+was alone among wives in so doing.
+
+"You aren't going to bring her up again?" he asked anxiously.
+
+"I only want to say that I should hate any one who bought Pardons
+ten times worse than I used to hate the second Mrs. Chapin. Think
+what we've put into it of our two selves."
+
+"At least a couple of million dollars. I know I could have
+made--" He broke off.
+
+"The beasts!" she went on. "They'd be sure to build a red-brick
+lodge at the gates, and cut the lawn up for bedding out. You must
+leave instructions in your will that he's never to do that,
+George, won't you?"
+
+He laughed and took her hand again but said nothing till it was
+time to dress. Then he muttered "What the devil use is a man's
+country to him when he can't do business in it?"
+
+Friars Pardon stood faithful to its tradition. At the appointed
+time was born, not that third in their party to whom Sophie meant
+to be so kind, but a godling; in beauty, it was manifest,
+excelling Eros, as in wisdom Confucius; an enhancer of delights,
+a renewer of companionships and an interpreter of Destiny. This
+last George did not realise till he met Lady Conant striding
+through Dutton Shaw a few days after the event.
+
+"My dear fellow," she cried, and slapped him heartily on the
+back, "I can't tell you how glad we all are. Oh, she'll be all
+right. (There's never been any trouble over the birth of an heir
+at Pardons.) Now where the dooce is it?" She felt largely in her
+leather-boundskirt and drew out a small silver mug. "I sent a
+note to your wife about it, but my silly ass of a groom forgot to
+take this. You can save me a tramp. Give her my love." She
+marched off amid her guard of grave Airedales.
+
+The mug was worn and dented: above the twined initials, G.L., was
+the crest of a footless bird and the motto: " Wayte awhyle--wayte
+awhyle."
+
+"That's the other end of the riddle," Sophie whispered, when he
+saw her that evening. "Read her note. The English write beautiful
+notes."
+
+The warmest of welcomes to your little man. I hope he will
+appreciate his native land now he has come to it. Though you have
+said nothing we cannot, of course, look on him as a little
+stranger, and so I am sending him the old Lashmar christening
+mug. It has been with us since Gregory Lashmar, your
+great-grandmother's brother--
+
+
+George stared at his wife.
+
+"Go on," she twinkled, from the pillows.
+
+--mother's brother, sold his place to Walter's family. We seem to
+have acquired some of your household gods at that time, but
+nothing survives except the mug and the old cradle, which I found
+in the potting-shed and am having put in order for you. I hope
+little George--Lashmar, he will be too, won't he?--will live to
+see his grandchildren cut their teeth on his mug.
+
+    Affectionately yours,
+             ALICE CONANT.
+
+P.S.--How quiet you've kept about it all!
+
+"Well, I'm--"
+
+"Don't swear," said Sophie. "Bad for the infant mind."
+
+"But how in the world did she get at it? Have you ever said a
+word about the Lashmars?"
+
+"You know the only time--to young Iggulden at Rocketts--when
+Iggulden died."
+
+"Your great-grandmother's brother! She's traced the whole
+connection--more than your Aunt Sydney could do. What does she
+mean about our keeping quiet?"
+
+Sophie's eyes sparkled. "I've thought that out too. We've got
+back at the English at last. Can't you see that she thought that
+we thought my mother's being a Lashmar was one of those things
+we'd expect the English to find out for themselves, and that's
+impressed her?" She turned the mug in her white hands, and sighed
+happily. "'Wayte awhyle--wayte awhyle.' That's not a bad motto,
+George. It's been worth it."
+
+"But still I don't quite see--"
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if they don't think our coming here was part
+of a deep-laid scheme to be near our ancestors. They'd understand
+that. And look how they've accepted us, all of them."
+
+"Are we so undesirable in ourselves?" George grunted.
+
+"Be just, me lord. That wretched Sangres man has twice our money.
+Can you see Marm Conant slapping him between the shoulders? Not
+by a jugful! The poor beast doesn't exist!"
+
+"Do you think it's that then?" He looked toward the cot by the
+fire where the godling snorted.
+
+"The minute I get well I shall find out from Mrs. Cloke what
+every Lashmar gives in doles (that's nicer than tips) every time
+a Lashmite is born. I've done my duty thus far, but there's much
+expected of me."
+
+Entered here Mrs. Cloke, and hung worshipping over the cot. They
+showed her the mug and her face shone. "Oh, now Lady Conant's
+sent it, it'll be all proper, ma'am, won't it? 'George' of course
+he'd have to be, but seein' what he is we was hopin'--all your
+people was hopin'--it 'ud be 'Lashmar' too, and that'ud just
+round it out. A very 'andsome mug quite unique, I should imagine.
+'Wayte awhyle--wayte awhyle.' That's true with the Lashmars, I've
+heard. Very slow to fill their houses, they are. Most like Master
+George won't open 'is nursery till he's thirty."
+
+"Poor lamb!" cried Sophie. "But how did you know my folk were
+Lashmars?"
+
+Mrs. Cloke thought deeply. "I'm sure I can't quite say, ma'am,
+but I've a belief likely that it was something you may have let
+drop to young Iggulden when you was at Rocketts. That may have
+been what give us an inkling. An' so it came out, one thing in
+the way o' talk leading to another, and those American people at
+Veering Holler was very obligin' with news, I'm told, ma'am."
+
+"Great Scott!" said George, under his breath. "And this is the
+simple peasant!"
+
+"Yiss," Mrs. Cloke went on. "An' Cloke was only wonderin' this
+afternoon--your pillow's slipped my dear, you mustn't lie that
+a-way--just for the sake o' sayin' something, whether you
+wouldn't think well now of getting the Lashmar farms back, sir.
+They don't rightly round off Sir Walter's estate. They come
+caterin' across us more. Cloke, 'e 'ud be glad to show you over
+any day."
+
+"But Sir Walter doesn't want to sell, does he?"
+
+"We can find out from his bailiff, sir, but"--with cold
+contempt--"I think that trained nurse is just comin' up from her
+dinner, so 'm afraid we'll 'ave to ask you, sir ... Now, Master
+George--Ai-ie! Wake a litty minute, lammie!"
+
+A few months later the three of them were down at the brook in
+the Gale Anstey woods to consider the rebuilding of a footbridge
+carried away by spring floods. George Lashmar Chapin wanted all
+the bluebells on God's earth that day to eat, and--Sophie adored
+him in a voice like to the cooing of a dove; so business was
+delayed.
+
+"Here's the place," said his father at last among the water
+forget-me-nots. "But where the deuce are the larch-poles, Cloke?
+I told you to have them down here ready."
+
+"We'll get 'em down if f you say so," Cloke answered, with a
+thrust of the underlip they both knew.
+
+"But I did say so. What on earth have you brought that timber-tug
+here for? We aren't building a railway bridge. Why, in America,
+half-a-dozen two-by-four bits would be ample."
+
+"I don't know nothin' about that," said Cloke.
+
+"An' I've nothin' to say against larch--IF you want to make a
+temp'ry job of it. I ain't 'ere to tell you what isn't so, sir;
+an' you can't say I ever come creepin' up on you, or tryin' to
+lead you further in than you set out--"
+
+A year ago George would have danced with impatience. Now he
+scraped a little mud off his old gaiters with his spud, and
+waited.
+
+"All I say is that you can put up larch and make a temp'ry job of
+it; and by the time the young master's married it'll have to be
+done again. Now, I've brought down a couple of as sweet
+six-by-eight oak timbers as we've ever drawed. You put 'em in an'
+it's off your mind or good an' all. T'other way--I don't say it
+ain't right, I'm only just sayin' what I think--but t'other way,
+he'll no sooner be married than we'll lave it all to do again.
+You've no call to regard my words, but you can't get out of
+that."
+
+"No," said George after a pause; "I've been realising that for
+some time. Make it oak then; we can't get out of it."
+
+
+
+                 THE RECALL
+
+            I am the land of their fathers,
+               In me the virtue stays;
+            I will bring back my children,
+               After certain days.
+            Under their feet in the grasses
+               My clinging magic runs.
+            They shall return as strangers,
+               They shall remain as sons.
+            Over their heads in the branches
+               Of their new-bought, ancient trees,
+            I weave an incantation,
+               And draw them to my knees.
+            Scent of smoke in the evening,
+               Smell of rain in the night,
+            The hours, the days and the seasons
+               Order their souls aright;
+            Till I make plain the meaning
+               Of all my thousand years
+            Till I fill their hearts with knowledge,
+               While I fill their eyes with tears. 
+
+
+
+GARM--A HOSTAGE
+
+0ne night, a very long time ago, I drove to an Indian military
+cantonment called Mian Mir to see amateur theatricals. At the
+back of the Infantry barracks a soldier, his cap over one eye,
+rushed in front of the horses and shouted that he was a dangerous
+highway robber. As a matter of fact, he was a friend of mine, so
+I told him to go home before any one caught him; but he fell
+under the pole, and I heard voices of a military guard in search
+of some one.
+
+The driver and I coaxed him into the carriage, drove home
+swiftly, undressed him and put him to bed, where he waked next
+morning with a sore headache, very much ashamed. When his uniform
+was cleaned and dried, and he had been shaved and washed and made
+neat, I drove him back to barracks with his arm in a fine white
+sling, and reported that I had accidentally run over him. I did
+not tell this story to my friend's sergeant, who was a hostile
+and unbelieving person, but to his lieutenant, who did not know
+us quite so well.
+
+Three days later my friend came to call, and at his heels
+slobbered and fawned one of the finest bull-terriers--of the
+old-fashioned breed, two parts bull and one terrier--that I had
+ever set eyes on. He was pure white, with a fawn-coloured saddle
+just behind his neck, and a fawn diamond at the root of his thin
+whippy tail. I had admired him distantly for more than a year;
+and Vixen, my own fox-terrier, knew him too, but did not approve.
+
+"'E's for you," said my friend; but he did not look as though he
+liked parting with him.
+
+"Nonsense! That dog's worth more than most men, Stanley," I said.
+
+"'E's that and more. 'Tention!"
+
+The dog rose on his hind legs, and stood upright for a full
+minute.
+
+"Eyes right!"
+
+He sat on his haunches and turned his head sharp to the right. At
+a sign he rose and barked thrice. Then he shook hands with his
+right paw and bounded lightly to my shoulder. Here he made
+himself into a necktie, limp and lifeless, hanging down on either
+side of my neck. I was told to pick him up and throw him in the
+air. He fell with a howl, and held up one leg.
+
+"Part o' the trick," said his owner. "You're going to die now.
+Dig yourself your little grave an' shut your little eye."
+
+Still limping, the dog hobbled to the garden-edge, dug a hole and
+lay down in it. When told that he was cured, he jumped out,
+wagging his tail, and whining for applause. He was put through
+half-a-dozen other tricks, such as showing how he would hold a
+man safe (I was that man, and he sat down before me, his teeth
+bared, ready to spring), and how he would stop eating at the word
+of command. I had no more than finished praising him when my
+friend made a gesture that stopped the dog as though he had been
+shot, took a piece of blue-ruled canteen-paper from his helmet,
+handed it to me and ran away, while the dog looked after him and
+howled. I read:
+
+SIR--I give you the dog because of what you got me out of. He is
+the best I know, for I made him myself, and he is as good as a
+man. Please do not give him too much to eat, and please do not
+give him back to me, for I'm not going to take him, if you will
+keep him. So please do not try to give him back any more. I have
+kept his name back, so you can call him anything and he will
+answer. but please do not give him back. He can kill a man as
+easy as anything, but please do not give him too much meat. He
+knows more than a man.
+
+Vixen sympathetically joined her shrill little yap to the
+bull-terrier's despairing cry, and I was annoyed, for I knew that
+a man who cares for dogs is one thing, but a man who loves one
+dog is quite another. Dogs are at the best no more than verminous
+vagrants, self-scratchers, foul feeders, and unclean by the law
+of Moses and Mohammed; but a dog with whom one lives alone for at
+least six months in the year; a free thing, tied to you so
+strictly by love that without you he will not stir or exercise; a
+patient, temperate, humorous, wise soul, who knows your moods
+before you know them yourself, is not a dog under any ruling.
+
+I had Vixen, who was all my dog to me; and I felt what my friend
+must have felt, at tearing out his heart in this style and
+leaving it in my garden. However, the dog understood clearly
+enough that I was his master, and did not follow the soldier. As
+soon as he drew breath I made much of him, and Vixen, yelling
+with jealousy, flew at him. Had she been of his own sex, he might
+have cheered himself with a fight, but he only looked worriedly
+when she nipped his deep iron sides, laid his heavy head on my
+knee, and howled anew. I meant to dine at the Club that night;
+but as darkness drew in, and the dog snuffed through the empty
+house like a child trying to recover from a fit of sobbing, I
+felt that I could not leave him to suffer his first evening
+alone. So we fed at home, Vixen on one side, and the stranger-dog
+on the other; she watching his every mouthful, and saying
+explicitly what she thought of his table manners, which were much
+better than hers.
+
+It was Vixen's custom, till the weather grew hot, to sleep in my
+bed, her head on the pillow like a Christian; and when morning
+came I would always find that the little thing had braced her
+feet against the wall and pushed me to the very edge of the cot.
+This night she hurried to bed purposefully, every hair up, one
+eye on the stranger, who had dropped on a mat in a helpless,
+hopeless sort of way, all four feet spread out, sighing heavily.
+She settled her head on the pillow several times, to show her
+little airs and graces, and struck up her usual whiney sing-song
+before slumber. The stranger-dog softly edged toward me. I put
+out my hand and he licked it. Instantly my wrist was between
+Vixen's teeth, and her warning aaarh! said as plainly as speech,
+that if I took any further notice of the stranger she would bite.
+
+I caught her behind her fat neck with my left hand, shook her
+severely, and said:
+
+"Vixen, if you do that again you'll be put into the verandah.
+Now, remember!"
+
+She understood perfectly, but the minute I released her she
+mouthed my right wrist once more, and waited with her ears back
+and all her body flattened, ready to bite. The big dog's tail
+thumped the floor in a humble and peace-making way.
+
+I grabbed Vixen a second time, lifted her out of bed like a
+rabbit (she hated that and yelled), and, as I had promised, set
+her out in the verandah with the bats and the moonlight. At this
+she howled. Then she used coarse language--not to me, but to the
+bullterrier--till she coughed with exhaustion. Then she ran round
+the house trying every door. Then she went off to the stables and
+barked as though some one were stealing the horses, which was an
+old trick of hers. Last she returned, and her snuffing yelp said,
+"I'll be good! Let me in and I'll' be good!"
+
+She was admitted and flew to her pillow. When she was quieted I
+whispered to the other dog, "You can lie on the foot of the bed."
+The bull jumped up at once, and though I felt Vixen quiver with
+rage, she knew better than to protest. So we slept till the
+morning, and they had early breakfast with me, bite for bite,
+till the horse came round and we went for a ride. I don't think
+the bull had ever followed a horse before. He was wild with
+excitement, and Vixen, as usual, squealed and scuttered and
+scooted, and took charge of the procession.
+
+There was one corner of a village near by, which we generally
+passed with caution, because all the yellow pariah-dogs of the
+place gathered about it.
+
+They were half-wild, starving beasts, and though utter cowards,
+yet where nine or ten of them get together they will mob and kill
+and eat an English dog. I kept a whip with a long lash for them.
+
+That morning they attacked Vixen, who, perhaps of design, had
+moved from beyond my horse's shadow.
+
+The bull was ploughing along in the dust, fifty yards behind,
+rolling in his run, and smiling as bull-terriers will. I heard
+Vixen squeal; half a dozen of the curs closed in on her; a white
+streak came up behind me; a cloud of dust rose near Vixen, and,
+when it cleared, I saw one tall pariah with his back broken, and
+the bull wrenching another to earth. Vixen retreated to the
+protection of my whip, and the bull paddled back smiling more
+than ever, covered with the blood of his enemies. That decided me
+to call him "Garin of the Bloody Breast," who was a great person
+in his time, or "Garm" for short; so, leaning forward, I told him
+what his temporary name would be. He looked up while I repeated
+it, and then raced away. I shouted "Garin!" He stopped, raced
+back, and came up to ask my will.
+
+Then I saw that my soldier friend was right, and that that dog
+knew and was worth more than a man. At the end of the ride I gave
+an order which Vixen knew and hated: "Go away and get washed!" I
+said. Garin understood some part of it, and Vixen interpreted the
+rest, and the two trotted off together soberly. When I went to
+the back verandah Vixen had been washed snowy-white, and was very
+proud of herself, but the dog-boy would not touch Garm on any
+account unless I stood by. So I waited while he was being
+scrubbed, and Garm, with the soap creaming on the top of his
+broad head, looked at me to make sure that this was what I
+expected him to endure. He knew perfectly that the dog-boy was
+only obeying orders.
+
+"Another time," I said to the dog-boy, "you will wash the great
+dog with Vixen when I send them home."
+
+"Does he know?" said the dog-boy, who understood the ways of
+dogs.
+
+"Garm," I said, "another time you will be washed with Vixen."
+
+I knew that Garm understood. Indeed, next washing-day, when Vixen
+as usual fled under my bed, Garm stared at the doubtful dog-boy
+in the verandah, stalked to the place where he had been washed
+last time, and stood rigid in the tub.
+
+But the long days in my office tried him sorely. We three would
+drive off in the morning at half-past eight and come home at six
+or later. Vixen knowing the routine of it, went to sleep under my
+table; but the confinement ate into Garm's soul. He generally sat
+on the verandah looking out on the Mall; and well I knew what he
+expected.
+
+Sometimes a company of soldiers would move along on their way to
+the Fort, and Garm rolled forth to inspect them; or an officer in
+uniform entered into the office, and it was pitiful to see poor
+Garm's welcome to the cloth--not the man. He would leap at him,
+and sniff and bark joyously, then run to the door and back again.
+One afternoon I heard him bay with a full throat--a thing I had
+never heard before--and he disappeared. When I drove into my
+garden at the end of the day a soldier in white uniform scrambled
+over the wall at the far end, and the Garm that met me was a
+joyous dog. This happened twice or thrice a week for a month.
+
+I pretended not to notice, but Garm knew and Vixen knew. He would
+glide homewards from the office about four o'clock, as though he
+were only going to look at the scenery, and this he did so
+quietly that but for Vixen I should not have noticed him. The
+jealous little dog under the table would give a sniff and a
+snort, just loud enough to call my attention to the flight. Garm
+might go out forty times in the day and Vixen would never stir,
+but when he slunk off to see his true master in my garden she
+told me in her own tongue. That was the one sign she made to
+prove that Garm did not altogether belong to the family. They
+were the best of friends at all times, but, Vixen explained that
+I was never to forget Garm did not love me as she loved me.
+
+I never expected it. The dog was not my dog could never be my
+dog--and I knew he was as miserable as his master who tramped
+eight miles a day to see him. So it seemed to me that the sooner
+the two were reunited the better for all. One afternoon I sent
+Vixen home alone in the dog-cart (Garm had gone before), and rode
+over to cantonments to find another friend of mine, who was an
+Irish soldier and a great friend of the dog's master.
+
+I explained the whole case, and wound up with:
+
+"And now Stanley's in my garden crying over his dog. Why doesn't
+he take him back? They're both unhappy."
+
+"Unhappy! There's no sense in the little man any more. But 'tis
+his fit."
+
+"What is his fit? He travels fifty miles a week to see the brute,
+and he pretends not to notice me when he sees me on the road; and
+I'm as unhappy as he is. Make him take the dog back."
+
+"It's his penance he's set himself. I told him by way of a joke,
+afther you'd run over him so convenient that night, whin he was
+drunk--I said if he was a Catholic he'd do penance. Off he went
+wid that fit in his little head an' a dose of fever, an nothin'
+would suit but givin' you the dog as a hostage."
+
+"Hostage for what? I don't want hostages from Stanley."
+
+"For his good behaviour. He's keepin' straight now, the way it's
+no pleasure to associate wid him."
+
+"Has he taken the pledge?"
+
+"If 'twas only that I need not care. Ye can take the pledge for
+three months on an' off. He sez he'll never see the dog again,
+an' so mark you, he'll keep straight for evermore. Ye know his
+fits? Well, this is wan of them. How's the dog takin' it ?"
+
+"Like a man. He's the best dog in India. Can't you make Stanley
+take him back?"
+
+"I can do no more than I have done. But ye know his fits. He's
+just doin' his penance. What will he do when he goes to the
+Hills? The doctor's put him on the list."
+
+It is the custom in India to send a certain number of invalids
+from each regiment up to stations in the Himalayas for the hot
+weather; and though the men ought to enjoy the cool and the
+comfort, they miss the society of the barracks down below, and do
+their best to come back or to avoid going. I felt that this move
+would bring matters to a head, so I left Terrence hopefully,
+though he called after me "He won't take the dog, sorr. You can
+lay your month's pay on that. Ye know his fits."
+
+I never pretended to understand Private Ortheris; and so I did
+the next best thing I left him alone.
+
+That summer the invalids of the regiment to which my friend
+belonged were ordered off to the Hills early, because the doctors
+thought marching in the cool of the day would do them good. Their
+route lay south to a place called Umballa, a hundred and twenty
+miles or more. Then they would turn east and march up into the
+hills to Kasauli or Dugshai or Subathoo. I dined with the
+officers the night before they left--they were marching at five
+in the morning. It was midnight when I drove into my garden, and
+surprised a white figure flying over the wall.
+
+"That man," said my butler, "has been here since nine, making
+talk to that dog. He is quite mad."
+
+I did not tell him to go away because he has been here many times
+before, and because the dog-boy told me that if I told him to go
+away, that great dog would immediately slay me. He did not wish
+to speak to the Protector of the Poor, and he did not ask for
+anything to eat or drink."
+
+"Kadir Buksh," said I, "that was well done, for the dog would
+surely have killed thee. But I do not think the white soldier
+will come any more."
+
+Garm slept ill that night and whimpered in his dreams. Once he
+sprang up with a clear, ringing bark, and I heard him wag his
+tail till it waked him and the bark died out in a howl. He had
+dreamed he was with his master again, and I nearly cried. It was
+all Stanley's silly fault.
+
+The first halt which the detachment of invalids made was some
+miles from their barracks, on the Amritsar road, and ten miles
+distant from my house. By a mere chance one of the officers drove
+back for another good dinner at the Club (cooking on the line of
+march is always bad), and there I met him. He was a particular
+friend of mine, and I knew that he knew how to love a dog
+properly. His pet was a big fat retriever who was going up to the
+Hills for his health, and, though it was still April, the round,
+brown brute puffed and panted in the Club verandah as though he
+would burst.
+
+"It's amazing," said the officer, "what excuses these invalids of
+mine make to get back to barracks. There's a man in my company
+now asked me for leave to go back to cantonments to pay a debt
+he'd forgotten. I was so taken by the idea I let him go, and he
+jingled off in an ekka as pleased as Punch. Ten miles to pay a
+debt! Wonder what it was really?"
+
+"If you'll drive me home I think I can show you," I said.
+
+So he went over to my house in his dog-cart with the retriever;
+and on the way I told him the story of Garm.
+
+"I was wondering where that brute had gone to. He's the best dog
+in the regiment," said my friend. "I offered the little fellow
+twenty rupees for him a month ago. But he's a hostage, you say,
+for Stanley's good conduct. Stanley's one of the best men I have
+when he chooses."
+
+"That's the reason why," I said. "A second-rate man wouldn't have
+taken things to heart as he has done."
+
+We drove in quietly at the far end of the garden, and crept round
+the house. There was a place close to the wall all grown about
+with tamarisk trees, where I knew Garm kept his bones. Even Vixen
+was not allowed to sit near it. In the full Indian moonlight I
+could see a white uniform bending over the dog.
+
+"Good-bye, old man," we could not help hearing Stanley's voice.
+"For 'Eving's sake don't get bit and go mad by any measly pi-dog.
+But you can look after yourself, old man. You don't get drunk an'
+run about 'ittin' your friends. You takes your bones an' you eats
+your biscuit, an' you kills your enemy like a gentleman. I'm
+goin' away--don't 'owl--I'm goin' off to Kasauli, where I won't
+see you no more."
+
+I could hear him holding Garm's nose as the dog threw it up to
+the stars.
+
+"You'll stay here an' be'ave, an'--an' I'll go away an' try to
+be'ave, an' I don't know 'ow to leave you. I don't know--"
+
+"I think this is damn silly," said the officer, patting his
+foolish fubsy old retriever. He called to the private, who leaped
+to his feet, marched forward, and saluted.
+
+"You here?" said the officer, turning away his head.
+
+"Yes, sir, but I'm just goin' back."
+
+"I shall be leaving here at eleven in my cart. You come with me.
+I can't have sick men running about fall over the place. Report
+yourself at eleven, here."
+
+We did not say much when we went indoors, but the officer
+muttered and pulled his retriever's ears.
+
+He was a disgraceful, overfed doormat of a dog; and when he
+waddled off to my cookhouse to be fed, I had a brilliant idea.
+
+At eleven o'clock that officer's dog was nowhere to be found, and
+you never heard such a fuss as his owner made. He called and
+shouted and grew angry, and hunted through my garden for half an
+hour.
+
+Then I said:
+
+"He's sure to turn up in the morning. Send a man in by rail, and
+I'll find the beast and return him."
+
+"Beast?" said the officer. "I value that dog considerably more
+than I value any man I know. It's all very fine for you to
+talk--your dog's here."
+
+So she was--under my feet--and, had she been missing, food and
+wages would have stopped in my house till her return. But some
+people grow fond of dogs not worth a cut of the whip. My friend
+had to drive away at last with Stanley in the back seat; and then
+the dog-boy said to me:
+
+"What kind of animal is Bullen Sahib's dog? Look at him!"
+
+I went to the boy's hut, and the fat old reprobate was lying on a
+mat carefully chained up. He must have heard his master calling
+for twenty minutes, but had not even attempted to join him.
+
+"He has no face," said the dog-boy scornfully. "He is a
+punniar-kooter (a spaniel). He never tried to get that cloth off
+his jaws when his master called. Now Vixen-baba would have jumped
+through the window, and that Great Dog would have slain me with
+his muzzled mouth. It is true that there are many kinds of dogs."
+
+Next evening who should turn up but Stanley. The officer had sent
+him back fourteen miles by rail with a note begging me to return
+the retriever if I had found him, and, if I had not, to offer
+huge rewards. The last train to camp left at half-past ten, and
+Stanley, stayed till ten talking to Garm. I argued and entreated,
+and even threatened to shoot the bull-terrier, bat the little man
+was as firm as a rock, though I gave him a good dinner and talked
+to him most severely. Garm knew as well as I that this was the
+last time he could hope to see his man, and followed Stanley like
+a shadow. The retriever said nothing, but licked his lips after
+his meal and waddled off without so much as saying "Thank you" to
+the disgusted dog-boy.
+
+So that last meeting was over, and I felt as wretched as Garm,
+who moaned in his sleep all night. When we went to the office he
+found a place under the table close to Vixen, and dropped flat
+till it was time to go home. There was no more running out into
+the verandahs, no slinking away for stolen talks with Stanley. As
+the weather grew warmer the dogs were forbidden to run beside the
+cart, but sat at my side on the seat, Vixen with her head under
+the crook of my left elbow, and Garm hugging the left handrail.
+
+Here Vixen was ever in great form. She had to attend to all the
+moving traffic, such as bullock-carts that blocked the way, and
+camels, and led ponies; as well as to keep up her dignity when
+she passed low friends running in the dust. She never yapped for
+yapping's sake, but her shrill, high bark was known all along the
+Mall, and other men's terriers ki-yied in reply, and
+bullock-drivers looked over their shoulders and gave us the road
+with a grin.
+
+But Garm cared for none of these things. His big eyes were on the
+horizon and his terrible mouth was shut. There was another dog in
+the office who belonged to my chief. We called him "Bob the
+Librarian," because he always imagined vain rats behind the
+bookshelves, and in hunting for them would drag out half the old
+newspaper-files. Bob was a well-meaning idiot, but Garm did not
+encourage him. He would slide his head round the door panting,
+"Rats! Come along Garm!" and Garm would shift one forepaw over
+the other, and curl himself round, leaving Bob to whine at a most
+uninterested back. The office was nearly as cheerful as a tomb in
+those days.
+
+Once, and only once, did I see Garm at all contented with his
+surroundings. He had gone for an unauthorised walk with Vixen
+early one Sunday morning, and a very young and foolish
+artilleryman (his battery had just moved to that part of the
+world) tried to steal them both. Vixen, of course, knew better
+than to take food from soldiers, and, besides, she had just
+finished her breakfast. So she trotted back with a large piece of
+the mutton that they issue to our troops, laid it down on my
+verandah, and looked up to see what I thought. I asked her where
+Garin was, and she ran in front of the horse to show me the way.
+
+About a mile up the road we came across our artilleryman sitting
+very stiffly on the edge of a culvert with a greasy handkerchief
+on his knees. Garin was in front of him, looking rather pleased.
+When the man moved leg or hand, Garin bared his teeth in silence.
+A broken string hung from his collar, and the other half of, it
+lay, all warm, in the artilleryman's still hand. He explained to
+me, keeping his eyes straight in front of him, that he had met
+this dog (he called him awful names) walking alone, and was going
+to take him to the Fort to be killed for a masterless pariah.
+
+I said that Garin did not seem to me much of a pariah, but that
+he had better take him to the Fort if he thought best. He said he
+did not care to do so. I told him to go to the Fort alone. He
+said he did not want to go at that hour, but would follow my
+advice as soon as I had called off the dog. I instructed Garin to
+take him to the Fort, and Garm marched him solemnly up to the
+gate, one mile and a half under a hot sun, and I told the
+quarter-guard what had happened; but the young artilleryman was
+more angry than was at all necessary when they began to laugh.
+Several regiments, he was told, had tried to steal Garm in their
+time.
+
+That month the hot weather shut down in earnest, and the dogs
+slept in the bathroom on the cool wet bricks where the bath is
+placed. Every morning, as soon as the man filled my bath the two
+jumped in, and every morning the man filled the bath a second
+time. I said to him that he might as well fill a small tub
+specially for the dogs. "Nay," said he smiling, "it is not their
+custom. They would not understand. Besides, the big bath gives
+them more space."
+
+The punkah-coolies who pull the punkahs day and night came to
+know Garin intimately. He noticed that when the swaying fan
+stopped I would call out to the coolie and bid him pull with a
+long stroke. If the man still slept I would wake him up. He
+discovered, too, that it was a good thing to lie in the wave of
+air under the punkah. Maybe Stanley had taught him all about this
+in barracks. At any rate, when the punkah stopped, Garin would
+first growl and cock his eye at the rope, and if that did not
+wake the man it nearly always did--he would tiptoe forth and talk
+in the sleeper's ear. Vixen was a clever little dog, but she
+could never connect the punkah and the coolie; so Garin gave me
+grateful hours of cool sleep. But--he was utterly wretched--as
+miserable as a human being; and in his misery he clung so closely
+to me that other men noticed it, and were envious. If I moved
+from one room to another Garin followed; if my pen stopped
+scratching, Garm's head was thrust into my hand; if I turned,
+half awake, on the pillow, Garm was up and at my side, for he
+knew that I was his only link with his master, and day and night,
+and night and day, his eyes asked one question--"When is this
+going to end?"
+
+Living with the dog as I did, I never noticed that he was more
+than ordinarily upset by the hot weather, till one day at the
+Club a man said: "That dog of yours will die in a week or two.
+He's a shadow." Then I dosed Garin with iron and quinine, which
+he hated; and I felt very anxious. He lost his appetite, and
+Vixen was allowed to eat his dinner under his eyes. Even that did
+not make him swallow, and we held a consultation on him, of the
+best man-doctor in the place; a lady-doctor, who cured the sick
+wives of kings; and the Deputy Inspector-General of the
+veterinary service of all India. They pronounced upon his
+symptoms, and I told them his story, and Garm lay on a sofa
+licking my hand.
+
+"He's dying of a broken heart," said the lady-doctor suddenly.
+
+"'Pon my word," said the Deputy Inspector General, "I believe
+Mrs. Macrae is perfectly right as usual."
+
+The best man-doctor in the place wrote a prescription, and the
+veterinary Deputy Inspector-General went over it afterwards to be
+sure that the drugs were in the proper dog-proportions; and that
+was the first time in his life that our doctor ever allowed his
+prescriptions to be edited. It was a strong tonic, and it put the
+dear boy on his feet for a week or two; then he lost flesh again.
+I asked a man I knew to take him up to the Hills with him when he
+went, and the man came to the door with his kit packed on the top
+of the carriage. Garin took in the situation at one red glance.
+The hair rose along his back; he sat down in front of me and
+delivered the most awful growl I have ever heard in the jaws of a
+dog. I shouted to my friend to get away at once, and as soon as
+the carriage was out of the garden Garin laid his head on my knee
+and whined. So I knew his answer, and devoted myself to getting
+Stanley's address in the Hills.
+
+My turn to go to the cool came late in August. We were allowed
+thirty days' holiday in a year, if no one fell sick, and we took
+it as we could be spared. My chief and Bob the Librarian had
+their holiday first, and when they were gone I made a calendar,
+as I always did, and hung it up at the head of my cot, tearing
+off one day at a time till they returned. Vixen had gone up to
+the Hills with me five times before; and she appreciated the cold
+and the damp and the beautiful wood fires there as much as I did.
+
+"Garm," I said, "we are going back to Stanley at Kasauli.
+Kasauli--Stanley; Stanley Kasauli." And I repeated it twenty
+times. It was not Kasauli really, but another place. Still I
+remembered what Stanley had said in my garden on the last night,
+and I dared not change the name. Then Garm began to tremble; then
+he barked; and then he leaped up at me, frisking and wagging his
+tail.
+
+"Not now," I said, holding up my hand. "When I say 'Go,' we'll
+go, Garm." I pulled out the little blanket coat and spiked collar
+that Vixen always wore up in the Hills to protect her against
+sudden chills and thieving leopards, and I let the two smell them
+and talk it over. What they said of course I do not know; but it
+made a new dog of Garm. His eyes were bright; and he barked
+joyfully when I spoke to him. He ate his food, and he killed his
+rats for the next three weeks, and when he began to whine I had
+only to say "Stanley--Kasauli; Kasauli--Stanley," to wake him up.
+I wish I had thought of it before.
+
+My chief came back, all brown with living in the open air, and
+very angry at finding it so hot in the plains. That same
+afternoon we three and Kadir Buksh began to pack for our month's
+holiday, Vixen rolling in and out of the bullock-trunk twenty
+times a minute, and Garm grinning all over and thumping on the
+floor with his tail. Vixen knew the routine of travelling as well
+as she knew my office-work. She went to the station, singing
+songs, on the front seat of the carriage, while Garin sat with
+me. She hurried into the railway carriage, saw Kadir Buksh make
+up my bed for the night, got her drink of water, and curled up
+with her black-patch eye on the tumult of the platform. Garin
+followed her (the crowd gave him a lane all to himself) and sat
+down on the pillows with his eyes blazing, and his tail a haze
+behind him.
+
+We came to Umballa in the hot misty dawn, four or five men, who
+had been working hard fox eleven months, shouting for our
+dales--the two-horse travelling carriages that were to take us up
+to Kalka at the foot of the Hills. It was all new to Garm. He did
+not understand carriages where you lay at full length on your
+bedding, but Vixen knew and hopped into her place at once; Garin
+following. The Kalka Road, before the railway was built, was
+about forty-seven miles long, and the horses were changed every
+eight miles. Most of them jibbed, and kicked, and plunged, but
+they had to go, and they went rather better than usual for Garm's
+deep bay in their rear.
+
+There was a river to be forded, and four bullocks pulled the
+carriage, and Vixen stuck her head out of the sliding-door and
+nearly fell into the water while she gave directions. Garin was
+silent and curious, and rather needed reassuring about Stanley
+and Kasauli. So we rolled, barking and yelping, into Kalka for
+lunch, and Garm ate enough for two.
+
+After Kalka the road wound among the hills, and we took a
+curricle with half-broken ponies, which were changed every six
+miles. No one dreamed of a railroad to Simla in those days, for
+it was seven thousand feet up in the air. The road was more than
+fifty miles long, and the regulation pace was just as fast as the
+ponies could go. Here, again, Vixen led Garm from one carriage to
+the other; jumped into the back seat, and shouted. A cool breath
+from the snows met us about five miles out of Kalka, and she
+whined for her coat, wisely fearing a chill on the liver. I had
+had one made for Garm too, and, as we climbed to the fresh
+breezes, I put it on, and arm chewed it uncomprehendingly, but I
+think he was grateful.
+
+"Hi-yi-yi-yi!" sang Vixen as we shot round the curves;
+"Toot-toot-toot!" went the driver's bugle at the dangerous
+places, and "yow! yow!" bayed Garm. Kadir Buksh sat on the front
+seat and smiled. Even he was glad to get away from the heat of
+the Plains that stewed in the haze behind us. Now and then we
+would meet a man we knew going down to his work again, and he
+would say: "What's it like below?" and I would shout: "Hotter
+than cinders. What's it like up above?" and he would shout back:
+"Just perfect!" and away we would go.
+
+Suddenly Kadir Buksh said, over his shoulder: "Here is Solon";
+and Garm snored where he lay with his head on my knee. Solon is
+an unpleasant little cantonment, but it has the advantage of
+being cool and healthy. It is all bare and windy, and one
+generally stops at a rest-house nearby for something to eat. I
+got out and took both dogs with me, while Kadir Buksh made tea. A
+soldier told, us we should find Stanley "out there," nodding his
+head towards a bare, bleak hill.
+
+When we climbed to the top we spied that very Stanley, who had
+given me all this trouble, sitting on a rock with his face in his
+hands, and his overcoat hanging loose about him. I never saw
+anything so lonely and dejected in my life as this one little
+man, crumpled up and thinking, on the great gray hillside.
+
+Here Garm left me.
+
+He departed without a word, and, so far as I could see, without
+moving his legs. He flew through the air bodily, and I heard the
+whack of him as he flung himself at Stanley, knocking the little
+man clean over. They rolled on the ground together, shouting, and
+yelping, and hugging. I could not see which was dog and which was
+man, till Stanley got up and whimpered.
+
+He told me that he had been suffering from fever at intervals,
+and was very weak. He looked all he said, but even while I
+watched, both man and dog plumped out to their natural sizes,
+precisely as dried apples swell in water. Garin was on his
+shoulder, and his breast and feet all at the same time, so that
+Stanley spoke all through a cloud of Garin--gulping, sobbing,
+slavering Garm. He did not say anything that I could understand,
+except that he had fancied he was going to die, but that now he
+was quite well, and that he was not going to give up Garin any
+more to anybody under the rank of Beelzebub.
+
+Then he said he felt hungry, and thirsty, and happy.
+
+We went down to tea at the rest-house, where Stanley stuffed
+himself with sardines and raspberry jam, and beer, and cold
+mutton and pickles, when Garm wasn't climbing over him; and then
+Vixen and I went on.
+
+Garm saw how it was at once. He said good-bye to me three times,
+giving me both paws one after another, and leaping on to my
+shoulder. He further escorted us, singing Hosannas at the top of
+his voice, a mile down the road. Then he raced back to his own
+master.
+
+Vixen never opened her mouth, but when the cold twilight came,
+and we could see the lights of Simla across the hills, she
+snuffled with her nose at the breast of my ulster. I unbuttoned
+it, and tucked her inside. Then she gave a contented little
+sniff, and fell fast asleep, her head on my breast, till we
+bundled out at Simla, two of the four happiest people in all the
+world that night.
+
+
+
+                THE POWER OF THE DOG
+
+       There is sorrow enough in the natural way
+       From men and women to fill our day;
+       But when we are certain of sorrow in store,
+       Why do we always arrange for more? 
+       Brothers and sisters, I bid you beware
+       Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.
+
+       Buy a pup and your money will buy
+       Love unflinching that cannot lie--
+       Perfect passion and worship fed
+       By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head. 
+       Nevertheless it is hardly fair
+       To risk your heart for a dog to tear.
+
+       When the fourteen years which Nature permits
+       Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits,
+       And the vet's unspoken prescription runs
+       To lethal chambers or loaded guns,
+       Then you will find--it's your own affair
+       But . . . you've given your heart to a dog to tear.
+
+       When the body that lived at your single will
+       When the whimper of welcome is stilled (how still!)
+       When the spirit that answered your every mood
+       Is gone wherever it goes--for good,
+       You will discover how much you care,
+       And will give your heart to a dog to tear!
+
+       We've sorrow enough in the natural way,
+       When it comes to burying Christian clay. 
+       Our loves are not given, but only lent,
+       At compound interest of cent per cent. 
+       Though it is not always the case, I believe,
+       That the longer we've kept 'em, the more do we grieve:
+       For, when debts are payable, right or wrong,
+       A short-time loan is as bad as a long
+       So why in Heaven (before we are there!)
+       Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear? 
+
+
+
+THE MOTHER HIVE
+
+If the stock had not been old and overcrowded, the Wax-moth would
+never have entered; but where bees are too thick on the comb
+there must be sickness or parasites. The heat of the hive had
+risen with the June honey-flow, and though the farmers worked,
+until their wings ached, to keep people cool, everybody suffered.
+
+A young bee crawled up the greasy trampled alighting-board.
+"Excuse me," she began, "but it's my first honey-flight. Could
+you kindly tell me if this is my--"
+
+"--own hive?" the Guard snapped. "Yes! Buzz in, and be
+foul-brooded to you!  Next!"
+
+"Shame!" cried half a dozen old workers with worn wings and
+nerves, and there was a scuffle and a hum.
+
+The little grey Wax-moth, pressed close in a crack in the
+alighting-board, had waited this chance all day. She scuttled in
+like a ghost, and, knowing the senior bees would turn her out at
+once, dodged into a brood-frame, where youngsters who had not yet
+seen the winds blow or the flowers nod discussed life. Here she
+was safe, for young bees will tolerate any sort of stranger.
+Behind her came the bee who had been slanged by the Guard.
+
+"What is the world like, Melissa?" said a companion. "Cruel! I
+brought in a full load of first-class stuff, and the Guard told
+me to go and be foul-brooded!" She sat down in the cool draught
+across the combs.
+
+"If you'd only heard," said the Wax-moth silkily, "the insolence
+of the Guard's tone when she cursed our sister. It aroused the
+Entire Community." She laid an egg. She had stolen in for that
+purpose.
+
+"There was a bit of a fuss on the Gate," Melissa chuckled. "You
+were there, Miss?" She did not know how to address the slim
+stranger.
+
+"Don't call me 'Miss.' I'm a sister to all in affliction--just a
+working-sister. My heart bled for you beneath your burden." The
+Wax-moth caressed Melissa with her soft feelers and laid another
+egg.
+
+"You mustn't lay here," cried Melissa. "You aren't a Queen."
+
+"My dear child, I give you my most solemn word of honour those
+aren't eggs. Those are my principles, and I am ready to die for
+them." She raised her voice a little above the rustle and tramp
+round her. "If you'd like to kill me, pray do."
+
+"Don't be unkind, Melissa," said a young bee, impressed by the
+chaste folds of the Wax-moth's wing, which hid her ceaseless
+egg-dropping.
+
+"I haven't done anything," Melissa answered. "She's doing it
+all."
+
+"Ah, don't let your conscience reproach you later, but when
+you've killed me, write me, at least, as one that loved her
+fellow-worker."
+
+Laying at every sob, the Wax-moth backed into a crowd of young
+bees, and left Melissa bewildered and annoyed. So she lifted up
+her little voice in the darkness and cried, "Stores!" till a gang
+of cell-fillers hailed her, and she left her load with them.
+
+"I'm afraid I foul-brooded you just now," said a voice over her
+shoulder. "I'd been on the Gate for three hours, and one would
+foul-brood the Queen herself after that. No offence meant."
+
+"None taken," Melissa answered cheerily. "I shall be on Guard
+myself, some day. What's next to do?"
+
+"There's a rumour of Death's Head Moths about. Send a gang of
+youngsters to the Gate, and tell them to narrow it in with a
+couple of stout scrap-wax pillars. It'll make the Hive hot, but
+we can't have Death's Headers in the middle of our honey-flow."
+
+"My Only Wings! I should think not!" Melissa had all a sound
+bee's hereditary hatred against the big, squeaking, feathery
+Thief of the Hives. "Tumble out!" she called across the
+youngsters' quarters. "All you who aren't feeding babies, show a
+leg. Scrap-wax pillars for the Ga-ate!" She chanted the order at
+length.
+
+"That's nonsense," a downy, day-old bee answered. "In the first
+place, I never heard of a Death's Header coming into a hive.
+People don't do such things. In the second, building pillars to
+keep 'em out is purely a Cypriote trick, unworthy of British
+bees. In the third, if you trust a Death's Head, he will trust
+you. Pillar-building shows lack of confidence. Our dear sister in
+grey says so."
+
+"Yes. Pillars are un-English and provocative, and a waste of wax
+that is needed for higher and more practical ends," said the
+Wax-moth from an empty store-cell.
+
+"The safety of the Hive is the highest thing I've ever heard of.
+You mustn't teach us to refuse work," Melissa began.
+
+"You misunderstand me, as usual, love. Work's the essence of
+life; but to expend precious unreturning vitality and real labour
+against imaginary danger, that is heartbreakingly absurd! If I
+can only teach a--a little toleration--a little ordinary kindness
+here toward that absurd old bogey you call the Death's Header, I
+shan't have lived in vain."
+
+"She hasn't lived in vain, the darling!" cried twenty bees
+together. "You should see her saintly life, Melissa! She just
+devotes herself to spreading her principles, and--and--she looks
+lovely!"
+
+An old, baldish bee came up the comb.
+
+"Pillar-workers for the Gate! Get out and chew scraps. Buzz off!"
+she said. The Wax-moth slipped aside.
+
+The young bees trooped down the frame, whispering. "What's the
+matter with 'em?" said the oldster. "Why do they call each other
+'ducky' and 'darling'? Must be the weather." She sniffed
+suspiciously. "Horrid stuffy smell here. Like stale quilts. Not
+Wax-moth, I hope, Melissa?"
+
+"Not to my knowledge," said Melissa, who, of course, only knew
+the Wax-moth as a lady with principles, and had never thought to
+report her presence. She had always imagined Wax-moths to be like
+blood-red dragon-flies.
+
+"You had better fan out this corner for a little," said the old
+bee and passed on. Melissa dropped her head at once, took firm
+hold with her fore-feet, and fanned obediently at the regulation
+stroke three hundred beats to the second. Fanning tries a bee's
+temper, because she must always keep in the same place where she
+never seems to be doing any good, and, all the while, she is
+wearing out her only wings. When a bee cannot fly, a bee must not
+live; and a bee knows it. The Wax-moth crept forth, and caressed
+Melissa again.
+
+"I see," she murmured, "that at heart you are one of Us."
+
+"I work with the Hive," Melissa answered briefly.
+
+"It's the same thing. We and the Hive are one."
+
+"Then why are your feelers different from ours? Don't cuddle so."
+
+"Don't be provincial, Carissima. You can't have all the world
+alike--yet."
+
+"But why do you lay eggs?" Melissa insisted. "You lay 'em like a
+Queen--only you drop them in patches all over the place. I've
+watched you."
+
+"Ah, Brighteyes, so you've pierced my little subterfuge? Yes,
+they are eggs. By and by they'll spread our principles. Aren't
+you glad?"
+
+"You gave me your most solemn word of honour that they were not
+eggs."
+
+"That was my little subterfuge, dearest--for the sake of the
+Cause. Now I must reach the young." The Wax-moth tripped towards
+the fourth brood-frame where the young bees were busy feeding the
+babies.
+
+It takes some time for a sound bee to realize a malignant and
+continuous lie. "She's very sweet and feathery," was all that
+Melissa thought, "but her talk sounds like ivy honey tastes. I'd
+better get to my field-work again."
+
+She found the Gate in a sulky uproar. The youngsters told off to
+the pillars had refused to chew scrap-wax because it made their
+jaws ache, and were clamouring for virgin stuff.
+
+"Anything to finish the job!" said the badgered Guards. "Hang up,
+some of you, and make wax for these slack-jawed sisters."
+
+Before a bee can make wax she must fill herself with honey. Then
+she climbs to safe foothold and hangs, while other gorged bees
+hang on to her in a cluster. There they wait in silence till the
+wax comes. The scales are either taken out of the maker's pockets
+by the workers, or tinkle down on the workers while they wait.
+The workers chew them (they are useless unchewed) into the
+all-supporting, all-embracing Wax of the Hive.
+
+But now, no sooner was the wax-cluster in position than the
+workers below broke out again.
+
+"Come down!" they cried. "Come down and work! Come on, you
+Levantine parasites! Don't think to enjoy yourselves up there
+while we're sweating down here!"
+
+The cluster shivered, as from hooked fore-foot to hooked
+hind-foot it telegraphed uneasiness. At last a worker sprang up,
+grabbed the lowest waxmaker, and swung, kicking above her
+companions.
+
+"I can make wax too!" she bawled. "Give me a full gorge and I'll
+make tons of it."
+
+"Make it, then," said the bee she had grappled. The spoken word
+snapped the current through the cluster. It shook and glistened
+like a cat's fur in the dark. "Unhook!" it murmured. "No wax for
+any one to-day."
+
+"You lazy thieves! Hang up at once and produce our wax," said the
+bees below.
+
+"Impossible! The sweat's gone. To make your wax we must have
+stillness, warmth, and food. Unhook! Unhook!"
+
+They broke up as they murmured, and disappeared among the other
+bees, from whom, of course, they were undistinguishable.
+
+"Seems as if we'd have to chew scrap-wax for these pillars, after
+all," said a worker.
+
+"Not by a whole comb," cried the young bee who had broken the
+cluster. "Listen here! I've studied the question more than twenty
+minutes. It's as simple as falling off a daisy. You've heard of
+Cheshire, Root and Langstroth?"
+
+They had not, but they shouted "Good old Langstroth!" just the
+same.
+
+"Those three know all that there is to be known about making
+hives. One or t'other of 'em must have made ours, and if they've
+made it, they're bound to look after it. Ours is a 'Guaranteed
+Patent Hive.' You can see it on the label behind."
+
+"Good old guarantee! Hurrah for the label behind!" roared the
+bees.
+
+"Well, such being the case, I say that when we find they've
+betrayed us, we can exact from them a terrible vengeance."
+
+"Good old vengeance! Good old Root! 'Nuff said! Chuck it!" The
+crowd cheered and broke away as Melissa dived through.
+
+"D'you know where Langstroth, Root and Cheshire, live if you
+happen to want em? she asked of the proud panting orator.
+
+"Gum me if I know they ever lived at all! But aren't they
+beautiful names to buzz about? Did you see how it worked up the
+sisterhood?"
+
+"Yes; but it didn't defend the Gate," she replied.
+
+"Ah, perhaps that's true, but think how delicate my position is,
+sister. I've a magnificent appetite, and I don't like working.
+It's bad for the mind. My instinct tells me that I can act as a
+restraining influence on others. They would have been worse, but
+for me."
+
+But Melissa had already risen clear, and was heading for a
+breadth of virgin white clover, which to an overtired bee is as
+soothing as plain knitting to a woman.
+
+"I think I'll take this load to the nurseries," she said, when
+she had finished. "It was always quiet there in my day," and she
+topped off with two little pats of pollen for the babies.
+
+She was met on the fourth brood-comb by a rush of excited sisters
+all buzzing together.
+
+"One at a time! Let me put down my load. Now, what is it
+Sacharissa?" she said.
+
+"Grey Sister--that fluffy one, I mean--she came and said we ought
+to be out in the sunshine gathering honey, because life was
+short. She said any old bee could attend to our babies, and some
+day old bees would. That isn't true, Melissa, is it? No old bees
+can take us away from our babies, can they?"
+
+"Of course not. You feed the babies while your heads are soft.
+When your heads harden, you go on to field-work. Any one knows
+that."
+
+"We told her so! We told her so; but she only waved her feelers,
+and said we could all lay eggs like Queens if we chose. And I'm
+afraid lots of the weaker sisters believe her, and are trying to
+do it. So unsettling!"
+
+Sacharissa sped to a sealed worker-cell whose lid pulsated, as
+the bee within began to cut its way out.
+
+"Come along, precious!" she murmured, and thinned the frail top
+from the other side. A pale, damp, creased thing hoisted itself
+feebly on to the comb. Sacharissa's note changed at once. "No
+time to waste! Go up the frame and preen yourself!" she said.
+"Report for nursing-duty in my ward to-morrow evening at six.
+Stop a minute. What's the matter with your third right leg?"
+
+The young bee held it out in silence--unmistakably a drone leg
+incapable of packing pollen.
+
+"Thank you. You needn't report till the day after to-morrow."
+Sacharissa turned to her companion. "That's the fifth oddity
+hatched in my ward since noon. I don't like it."
+
+"There's always a certain number of 'em," said Melissa. "You
+can't stop a few working sisters from laying, now and then, when
+they overfeed themselves. They only raise dwarf drones."
+
+But we're hatching out drones with workers' stomachs; workers
+with drones' stomachs; and albinoes and mixed-leggers who can't
+pack pollen--like that poor little beast yonder. I don't mind
+dwarf drones any more than you do (they all die in July), but
+this steady hatch of oddities frightens me, Melissa!"
+
+"How narrow of you! They are all so delightfully clever and
+unusual and interesting," piped the Wax-moth from a crack above
+them. "Come here, you dear, downy duck, and tell us all about
+your feelings."
+
+"I wish she'd go!" Sacharissa lowered her voice. "She meets
+these--er -oddities as they dry out, and cuddles 'em in corners."
+
+"I suppose the truth is that we're over-stocked and too well fed
+to swarm," said Melissa.
+
+"That is the truth," said the Queen's voice behind them. They had
+not heard the heavy royal footfall which sets empty cells
+vibrating. Sacharissa offered her food at once. She ate and
+dragged her weary body forward. "Can you suggest a remedy?" she
+said.
+
+"New principles!" cried the Wax-moth from her crevice. "We'll
+apply them quietly later."
+
+"Suppose we sent out a swarm?" Melissa suggested. "It's a little
+late, but it might ease us off."
+
+"It would save us, but--I know the Hive! You shall see for
+yourself." The old Queen cried the Swarming Cry, which to a bee
+of good blood should be what the trumpet was to Job's war-horse.
+In spite of her immense age (three, years), it rang between the
+canon-like frames as a pibroch rings in a mountain pass; the
+fanners changed their note, and repeated it up in every gallery;
+and the broad-winged drones, burly and eager, ended it on one
+nerve-thrilling outbreak of bugles: "La Reine le veult! Swarm!
+Swar-rm! Swar-r-rm!"
+
+But the roar which should follow the Call was wanting. They heard
+a broken grumble like the murmur of a falling tide.
+
+"Swarm? What for? Catch me leaving a good bar-frame Hive, with
+fixed foundations, for a rotten, old oak out in the open where it
+may rain any minute! We're all right! It's a 'Patent Guaranteed
+Hive.' Why do they want to turn us out? Swarming be gummed!
+Swarming was invented to cheat a worker out of her proper
+comforts. Come on off to bed!"
+
+The noise died out as the bees settled in empty cells for the
+night.
+
+"You hear?" said the Queen. "I know the Hive!"
+
+"Quite between ourselves, I taught them that," cried the
+Wax-moth. "Wait till my principles develop, and you'll see the
+light from a new quarter."
+
+"You speak truth for once," the Queen said suddenly, for she
+recognized the Wax-moth. "That Light will break into the top of
+the Hive. A Hot Smoke will follow it, and your children will not
+be able to hide in any crevice."
+
+"Is it possible?" Melissa whispered. "I-we have sometimes heard a
+legend like it."
+
+"It is no legend," the old Queen answered. "I had it from my
+mother, and she had it from hers. After the Wax-moth has grown
+strong, a Shadow will fall across the gate; a Voice will speak
+from behind a Veil; there will be Light, and Hot Smoke, and
+earthquakes, and those who live will see everything that they
+have done, all together in one place, burned up in one great
+fire." The old Queen was trying to tell what she had been told of
+the Bee Master's dealings with an infected hive in the apiary,
+two or three seasons ago; and, of course, from her point of view
+the affair was as important as the Day of Judgment.
+
+"And then?" asked horrified Sacharissa.
+
+"Then, I have heard that a little light will burn in a great
+darkness, and perhaps the world will begin again. Myself, I think
+not."
+
+"Tut! Tut!" the Wax-moth cried. "You good, fat people always
+prophesy ruin if things don't go exactly your way. But I grant
+you there will be changes."
+
+There were. When her eggs hatched, the wax was riddled with
+little tunnels, coated with the dirty clothes of the
+caterpillars. Flannelly lines ran through the honey-stores, the
+pollen-larders, the foundations, and, worst of all, through the
+babies in their cradles, till the Sweeper Guards spent half their
+time tossing out useless little corpses. The lines ended in a
+maze of sticky webbing on the face of the comb. The caterpillars
+could not stop spinning as they walked, and as they walked
+everywhere, they smarmed and garmed everything. Even where it did
+not hamper the bees' feet, the stale, sour smell of the stuff put
+them off their work; though some of the bees who had taken to egg
+laying said it encouraged them to be mothers and maintain a vital
+interest in life.
+
+When the caterpillars became moths, they made friends with the
+ever-increasing Oddities--albinoes, mixed-leggers, single-eyed
+composites, faceless drones, halfqueens and laying sisters; and
+the ever-dwindling band of the old stock worked themselves bald
+and fray-winged to feed their queer charges. Most of the Oddities
+would not, and many, on account of their malformations, could
+not, go through a day's field-work; but the Wax-moths, who were
+always busy on the brood-comb, found pleasant home occupations
+for them. One albino, for instance, divided the number of pounds
+of honey in stock by the number of bees in the Hive, and proved
+that if every bee only gathered honey for seven and three quarter
+minutes a day, she would have the rest of the time to herself,
+and could accompany the drones on their mating flights. The
+drones were not at all pleased.
+
+Another, an eyeless drone with no feelers, said that all
+brood-cells should be perfect circles, so as not to interfere
+with the grub or the workers. He proved that the old six-sided
+cell was solely due to the workers building against each other on
+opposite sides of the wall, and that if there were no
+interference, there would be no angles. Some bees tried the new
+plan for a while, and found it cost eight times more wax than the
+old six sided specification; and, as they never allowed a cluster
+to hang up and make wax in peace, real wax was scarce. However,
+they eked out their task with varnish stolen from new coffins at
+funerals, and it made them rather sick. Then they took to cadging
+round sugar-factories and breweries, because it was easiest to
+get their material from those places, and the mixture of glucose
+and beer naturally fermented in store and blew the store-cells
+out of shape, besides smelling abominably. Some of the sound bees
+warned them that ill-gotten gains never prosper, but the Oddities
+at once surrounded them and balled them to death. That was a
+punishment they were almost as fond of as they were of eating,
+and they expected the sound bees to feed them. Curiously enough
+the age-old instinct of loyalty and devotion towards the Hive
+made the sound bees do this, though their reason told them they
+ought to slip away and unite with some other healthy stock in the
+apiary.
+
+"What, about seven and three-quarter minutes' work now?" said
+Melissa one day as she came in. "I've been at it for five hours,
+and I've only half a load."
+
+"Oh, the Hive subsists on the Hival Honey which the Hive
+produces," said a blind Oddity squatting in a store-cell.
+
+"But honey is gathered from flowers outside two miles away
+sometimes," cried Melissa.
+
+"Pardon me," said the blind thing, sucking hard. "But this is the
+Hive, is it not?"
+
+"It was. Worse luck, it is."
+
+"And the Hival Honey is here, is it not?" It opened a fresh
+store-cell to prove it.
+
+"Ye-es, but it won't be long at this rate," said Melissa.
+
+"The rates have nothing to do with it. This Hive produces the
+Hival Honey. You people never seem to grasp the economic
+simplicity that underlies all life."
+
+"Oh, me!" said poor Melissa, "haven't you ever been beyond the
+Gate?"
+
+"Certainly not. A fool's eyes are in the ends of the earth. Mine
+are in my head." It gorged till it bloated.
+
+Melissa took refuge in her poorly paid field-work and told
+Sacharissa the story.
+
+"Hut!" said that wise bee, fretting with an old maid of a
+thistle. "Tell us something new. The Hive's full of such as
+him--it, I mean."
+
+"What's the end to be? All the honey going out and none coming
+in. Things can't last this way!" said Melissa.
+
+"Who cares?" said Sacharissa. "I know now how drones feel the day
+before they're killed. A short life and a merry one for me."
+
+"If it only were merry! But think of those awful, solemn,
+lop-sided Oddities waiting for us at home crawling and clambering
+and preaching--and dirtying things in the dark."
+
+"I don't mind that so much as their silly songs, after we've fed
+'em, all about 'work among the merry, merry blossoms," said
+Sacharissa from the deeps of a stale Canterbury bell.
+
+"I do. How's our Queen?" said Melissa.
+
+"Cheerfully hopeless, as usual. But she lays an egg now and
+then."
+
+"Does she so?" Melissa backed out of the next bell with a jerk.
+"Suppose now, we sound workers tried to raise a Princess in some
+clean corner?"
+
+"You'd be put to it to find one. The Hive's all Wax-moth and
+muckings. But--well?"
+
+"A Princess might help us in the time of the Voice behind the
+Veil that the Queen talks of. And anything is better than working
+for Oddities that chirrup about work that they can't do, and
+waste what we bring home."
+
+"Who cares?" said Sacharissa. "I'm with you, for the fun of it.
+The Oddities would ball us to death, if they knew. Come home, and
+we'll begin."
+
+There is no room to tell how the experienced Melissa found a
+far-off frame so messed and mishandled by abandoned cell-building
+experiments that, for very shame, the bees never went there. How
+in that ruin she blocked out a Royal Cell of sound wax, but
+disguised by rubbish till it looked like a kopje among deserted
+kopjes. How she prevailed upon the hopeless Queen to make one
+last effort and lay a worthy egg. How the Queen obeyed and died.
+How her spent carcass was flung out on the rubbish heap, and how
+a multitude of laying sisters went about dropping drone-eggs
+where they listed, and said there was no more need of Queens.
+How, covered by this confusion, Sacharissa educated certain young
+bees to educate certain new-born bees in the almost lost art of
+making Royal Jelly. How the nectar for it was won out of hours in
+the teeth of chill winds. How the hidden egg hatched true--no
+drone, but Blood Royal. How it was capped, and how desperately
+they worked to feed and double-feed the now swarming Oddities,
+lest any break in the food-supplies should set them to
+instituting inquiries, which, with songs about work, was their
+favourite amusement. How in an auspicious hour, on a moonless
+night, the Princess came forth a Princess indeed, and how Melissa
+smuggled her into a dark empty honey-magazine, to bide her time;
+and how the drones, knowing she was there, went about singing the
+deep disreputable love-songs of the old days--to the scandal of
+the laying sisters, who do not think well of drones. These things
+are, written in the Book of Queens, which is laid up in the
+hollow of the Great Ash Ygdrasil.
+
+After a few days the weather changed again and became glorious.
+Even the Oddities would now join the crowd that hung out on the
+alighting-board, and would sing of work among the merry, merry
+blossoms till an untrained ear might have received it for the hum
+of a working hive. Yet, in truth, their store-honey had been
+eaten long ago. They lived from day to day on the efforts of the
+few sound bees, while the Wax-moth fretted and consumed again
+their already ruined wax. But the sound bees never mentioned
+these matters. They knew, if they did, the Oddities would hold a
+meeting and ball them to death.
+
+"Now you see what we have done," said the Wax-moths. "We have
+created New Material, a New Convention, a New Type, as we said we
+would."
+
+"And new possibilities for us," said the laying sisters
+gratefully. "You have given us a new life's work, vital and
+paramount."
+
+"More than that," chanted the Oddities in the sunshine; "you have
+created a new heaven and a new earth. Heaven, cloudless and
+accessible" (it was a perfect August evening) "and Earth teeming
+with the merry, merry blossoms, waiting only our honest toil to
+turn them all to good. The--er--Aster, and the Crocus, and
+the--er--Ladies' Smock in her season, the Chrysanthemum after her
+kind, and the Guelder Rose bringing forth abundantly withal."
+
+"Oh, Holy Hymettus!" said Melissa, awestruck. "I knew they didn't
+know how honey was made, but they've forgotten the Order of the
+Flowers! What will become of them?"
+
+A Shadow fell across the alighting-board as the Bee Master and
+his son came by. The Oddities crawled in and a Voice behind a
+Veil said: "I've neglected the old Hive too long. Give me the
+smoker."
+
+Melissa heard and darted through the gate. "Come, oh come!" she
+cried. "It is the destruction the Old Queen foretold. Princess,
+come!"
+
+"Really, you are too archaic for words," said an Oddity in an
+alley-way. "A cloud, I admit, may have crossed the sun; but why
+hysterics? Above all, why Princesses so late in the day? Are you
+aware it's the Hival Tea-time? Let's sing grace."
+
+Melissa clawed past him with all six legs. Sacharissa had run to
+what was left of the fertile brood-comb. "Down and out!" she
+called across the brown breadth of it. "Nurses, guards, fanners,
+sweepers--out!
+
+Never mind the babies. They're better dead.--Out, before the
+Light and the Hot Smoke!"
+
+The Princess's first clear fearless call (Melissa had found her)
+rose and drummed through all the frames. "La Reine le veult!
+Swarm! Swar-rm! Swar-r-rm!"
+
+The Hive shook beneath the shattering thunder of a stuck-down
+quilt being torn back.
+
+"Don't be alarmed, dears," said the Wax-moths. "That's our work.
+Look up, and you'll see the dawn of the New Day."
+
+Light broke in the top of the hive as the Queen had,
+prophesied--naked light on the boiling, bewildered bees.
+
+Sacharissa rounded up her rearguard, which dropped headlong off
+the frame, and joined the Princess's detachment thrusting toward
+the Gate. Now panic was in full blast, and each sound bee found
+herself embraced by at least three Oddities. The first instinct
+of a frightened bee is to break into the stores and gorge herself
+with honey; but there were no stores left, so the Oddities fought
+the sound bees.
+
+"You must feed us, or we shall die!" they cried, holding and
+clutching and slipping, while the silent scared earwigs and
+little spiders twisted between their legs. "Think of the Hive,
+traitors! The Holy Hive!"
+
+"You should have thought before!" cried the sound bees., "Stay
+and see the dawn of your New Day."
+
+They reached the Gate at last over the soft bodies of many to
+whom they had ministered.
+
+"On! Out! Up!" roared Melissa in the Princess's ear. "For the
+Hive's sake! To the Old Oak!"
+
+The Princess left the alighting-board, circled once, flung
+herself at the lowest branch of the Old Oak, and her little loyal
+swarm--you could have covered it with a pint mug--followed,
+hooked, and hung.
+
+"Hold close!" Melissa gasped. "The old legends have come true!
+Look!"
+
+The Hive was half hidden by smoke, and Figures moved through the
+smoke. They heard a frame crack stickily, saw it heaved high and
+twirled round between enormous hands--a blotched, bulged, and
+perished horror of grey wax, corrupt brood, and small
+drone-cells, all covered with crawling Oddities, strange to the
+sun.
+
+"Why, this isn't a hive! This is a museum of curiosities," said
+the Voice behind the Veil. It was only the Bee Master talking to
+his son.
+
+"Can you blame 'em, father?" said a second voice. "It's rotten
+with Wax-moth. See here!"
+
+Another frame came up. A finger poked through it, and it broke
+away in rustling flakes of ashy rottenness.
+
+"Number Four Frame! That was your mother's pet comb once,"
+whispered Melissa to the Princess. "Many's the good egg I've
+watched her lay there."
+
+"Aren't you confusing pod hoc with propter hoc?" said the Bee
+Master. "Wax-moth only succeed when weak bees let them in." A
+third frame crackled and rose into the light. "All this is full
+of laying workers' brood. That never happens till the stock's
+weakened. Phew!"
+
+He beat it on his knee like a tambourine, and it also crumbled to
+pieces.
+
+The little swarm shivered as they watched the dwarf drone-grubs
+squirm feebly on the grass. Many sound bees had nursed on that
+frame, well knowing their work was useless; but the actual sight
+of even useless work destroyed disheartens a good worker.
+
+"No, they have some recuperative power left," said the second
+voice. "Here's a Queen cell!"
+
+"But it's tucked away among--What on earth has come to the little
+wretches? They seem to have lost the instinct of cell-building."
+The father held up the frame where the bees had experimented in
+circular cell-work. It looked like the pitted head, of a decaying
+toadstool.
+
+"Not altogether," the son corrected. "There's one line, at least,
+of perfectly good cells."
+
+"My work," said Sacharissa to herself. "I'm glad Man does me
+justice before--"
+
+That frame, too, was smashed out and thrown atop of the others
+and the foul earwiggy quilts.
+
+As frame after frame followed it, the swarm beheld the upheaval,
+exposure, and destruction of all that had been well or ill done
+in every cranny of their Hive for generations past. There was
+black comb so old that they had forgotten where it hung; orange,
+buff, and ochre-varnished store-comb, built as bees were used to
+build before the days of artificial foundations; and there was a
+little, white, frail new work. There were sheets on sheets of
+level, even brood-comb that had held in its time unnumbered
+thousands of unnamed workers; patches of obsolete drone-comb,
+broad and high-shouldered, showing to what marks the male grub
+was expected to grow; and two-inch deep honey-magazines, empty,
+but still magnificent, the whole gummed and glued into twisted
+scrap-work, awry on the wires; half-cells, beginnings abandoned,
+or grandiose, weak-walled, composite cells pieced out with
+rubbish and capped with dirt.
+
+Good or bad, every inch of it was so riddled by the tunnels of
+the Wax-moth that it broke in clouds of dust as it was flung on
+the heap.
+
+"Oh, see!" cried Sacharissa. "The Great Burning that Our Queen
+foretold. Who can bear to look?"
+
+A flame crawled up the pile of rubbish, and they smelt singeing
+wax.
+
+The Figures stooped, lifted the Hive and shook it upside down
+over the pyre. A cascade of Oddities, chips of broken comb,
+scale, fluff, and grubs slid out, crackled, sizzled, popped a
+little, and then the flames roared up and consumed all that fuel.
+
+"We must disinfect," said a Voice. "Get me a sulphur-candle,
+please."
+
+The shell of the Hive was returned to its place, a light was set
+in its sticky emptiness, tier by tier the Figures built it up,
+closed the entrance, and went away. The swarm watched the light
+leaking through the cracks all the long night. At dawn one
+Wax-moth came by, fluttering impudently.
+
+"There has been a miscalculation about the New Day, my dears,"
+she began; "one can't expect people to be perfect all at once.
+That was our mistake."
+
+"No, the mistake was entirely ours," said the Princess.
+
+"Pardon me," said the Wax-moth. "When you think of the enormous
+upheaval--call it good or bad--which our influence brought about,
+you will admit that we, and we alone--"
+
+"You?" said the Princess. "Our stock was not strong. So you
+came--as any other disease might have come. Hang close, all my
+people."
+
+When the sun rose, Veiled Figures came down, and saw their swarm
+at the bough's end waiting patiently within sight of the old
+Hive--a handful, but prepared to go on.
+
+
+
+               THE BEES AND THE FLIES
+
+             A FARMER of the Augustan age
+             Perused in Virgil's golden page,
+             The story of the secret won
+             From Proteus by Cyrene's son
+             How the dank sea-god sowed the swain
+             Means to restore his hives again
+             More briefly, how a slaughtered bull
+             Breeds honey by the bellyful.
+
+             The egregious rustic put to death
+             A bull by stopping of its breath:
+             Disposed the carcass in a shed
+             With fragrant herbs and branches spread. 
+             And, having thus performed the charm,
+             Sat down to wait the promised swarm.
+
+             Nor waited long . . . The God of Day
+             Impartial, quickening with his ray
+             Evil and good alike, beheld
+             The carcass--and the carcass swelled! 
+             Big with new birth the belly heaves
+             Beneath its screen of scented leaves;
+             Past any doubt, the bull conceives!
+
+             The farmer bids men bring more hives
+             To house the profit that arrives;
+             Prepares on pan, and key and kettle,
+             Sweet music that shall make 'em settle;
+             But when to crown the work he goes,
+             Gods! What a stink salutes his nose! 
+             Where are the honest toilers? 
+             Where The gravid mistress of their care?
+             A busy scene, indeed, he sees,
+             But not a sign or sound of bees. 
+             Worms of the riper grave unhid
+             By any kindly coffin lid,
+             Obscene and shameless to the light,
+             Seethe in insatiate appetite,
+             Through putrid offal; while above
+             The hissing blow-fly seeks his love,
+             Whose offspring, supping where they supt,
+             Consume corruption twice corrupt. 
+
+
+
+WITH THE NIGHT MAIL
+
+A STORY OF 2000 A. D.
+
+(Together with extracts from the magazine in which it appeared)
+
+A nine o'clock of a gusty winter night I stood on the lower
+stages of one of the G.P.O. outward mail towers. My purpose was a
+run to Quebec in "Postal Packet 162 or such other as may be
+appointed"; and the Postmaster-General himself countersigned the
+order. This talisman opened all doors, even those in the
+despatching-caisson at the foot of the tower, where they were
+delivering the sorted Continental mail. The bags lay packed close
+as herrings in the long grey underbodies which our G.P.O. still
+calls "coaches." Five such coaches were filled as I watched, and
+were shot up the guides to be locked on to their waiting packets
+three hundred feet nearer the stars.
+
+From the despatching-caisson I was conducted by a courteous and
+wonderfully learned official Mr. L.L. Geary, Second Despatcher of
+the Western Route--to the Captains' Room (this wakes an echo of
+old romance), where the mail captains come on for their turn of
+duty. He introduces me to the captain of "162"--Captain Purnall,
+and his relief, Captain Hodgson. The one is small and dark; the
+other large and red; but each has the brooding sheathed glance
+characteristic of eagles and aeronauts. You can see it in the
+pictures of our racing professionals, from L.V. Rautsch to little
+Ada Warrleigh--that fathomless abstraction of eyes habitually
+turned through naked space.
+
+On the notice-board in the Captains' Room, the pulsing arrows of
+some twenty indicators register, degree by geographical degree,
+the progress of as many homeward-bound packets. The word "Cape"
+rises across the face of a dial; a gong strikes: the South
+African mid-weekly mail is in at the Highgate Receiving Towers.
+That is all. It reminds one comically of the traitorous little
+bell which in pigeon-fanciers', lofts notifies the return of a
+homer.
+
+"Time for us to be on the move," says Captain Purnall, and we are
+shot up by the passenger-lift to the top of the despatch-towers.
+"Our coach will lock on when it is filled and the clerks are
+aboard."
+
+"No. 162" waits for us in Slip E of the topmost stage. The great
+curve of her back shines frostily under the lights, and some
+minute alteration of trim makes her rock a little in her
+holding-down slips.
+
+Captain Purnall frowns and dives inside. Hissing softly, "162"
+comes to rest as level as a rule. From her North Atlantic Winter
+nose-cap (worn bright as diamond with boring through uncounted
+leagues of hail, snow, and ice) to the inset of her three built
+out propeller-shafts is some two hundred and forty feet. Her
+extreme diameter, carried well forward, is thirty-seven. Contrast
+this with the nine hundred by ninety-five of any crack liner, and
+you will realize the power that must drive a hull through all
+weathers at more than the emergency speed of the Cyclonic!
+
+The eye detects no joint in her skin plating save the sweeping
+hair-crack of the bow-rudder--Magniac's rudder that assured us
+the dominion of the unstable air and left its inventor penniless
+and half-blind. It is calculated to Castelli's "gullwing" curve.
+Raise a few feet of that all but invisible plate three-eighths of
+an inch and she will yaw five miles to port or starboard ere she
+is under control again. Give her full helm and she returns on her
+track like a whip-lash. Cant the whole forward--a touch on the
+wheel will suffice--and she sweeps at your good direction up or
+down. Open the complete circle and she presents to the air a
+mushroom-head that will bring her up all standing within a half
+mile.
+
+"Yes," says Captain Hodgson, answering my thought, "Castelli
+thought he'd discovered the secret of controlling aeroplanes when
+he'd only found out how to steer dirigible balloons. Magniac
+invented his rudder to help war-boats ram each other; and war
+went out of fashion and Magniac he went out of his mind because
+he said he couldn't serve his country any more. I wonder if any
+of us ever know what we're really doing."
+
+"If you want to see the coach locked you'd better go aboard. It's
+due now," says Mr. Geary. I enter through the door amidships.
+There is nothing here for display. The inner skin of the
+gas-tanks comes down to within a foot or two of my head and turns
+over just short of the turn of the bilges. Liners and yachts
+disguise their tanks with decoration, but the G.P.O. serves them
+raw under a lick of grey official paint. The inner skin shuts off
+fifty feet of the bow and as much of the stern, but the
+bow-bulkhead is recessed for the lift-shunting apparatus as the
+stern is pierced for the shaft-tunnels. The engine-room lies
+almost amidships. Forward of it, extending to the turn of the bow
+tanks, is an aperture--a bottomless hatch at present--into which
+our coach will be locked. One looks down over the coamings three
+hundred feet to the despatching-caisson whence voices boom
+upward. The light below is obscured to a sound of thunder, as our
+coach rises on its guides. It enlarges rapidly from a
+postage-stamp to a playing-card; to a punt and last a pontoon.
+The two clerks, its crew, do not even look up as it comes into
+place. The Quebec letters fly under their fingers and leap into
+the docketed racks, while both captains and Mr. Geary satisfy
+them selves that the coach is locked home. A clerk passes the
+way-bill over the hatch coaming. Captain Purnall thumb-marks and
+passes it to Mr. Geary. Receipt has been given and taken.
+"Pleasant run," says Mr. Geary, and disappears through the door
+which a foot high pneumatic compressor locks after him.
+
+"A-ah!" sighs the compressor released. Our holding-down clips
+part with a tang. We are clear.
+
+Captain Hodgson opens the great colloid underbody porthole
+through which I watch over-lighted London slide eastward as the
+gale gets hold of us. The first of the low winter clouds cuts off
+the well-known view and darkens Middlesex. On the south edge of
+it I can see a postal packet's light ploughing through the white
+fleece. For an instant she gleams like a star ere she drops
+toward the Highgate Receiving Towers. "The Bombay Mail," says
+Captain Hodgson, and looks at his watch. "She's forty minutes
+late."
+
+"What's our level?" I ask.
+
+"Four thousand. Aren't you coming up on the bridge?"
+
+The bridge (let us ever praise the G.P.O. as a repository of
+ancientest tradition!) is represented by a view of Captain
+Hodgson's legs where he stands on the Control Platform that runs
+thwart-ships overhead. The bow colloid is unshuttered and Captain
+Purnall, one hand on the wheel, is feeling for a fair slant. The
+dial shows 4300 feet.  "It's steep to-night," he mutters, as tier
+on tier of cloud drops under. "We generally pick up an easterly
+draught below three thousand at this time o' the year. I hate
+slathering through fluff."
+
+"So does Van Cutsem. Look at him huntin' for a slant!" says
+Captain Hodgson. A foglight breaks cloud a hundred fathoms below.
+The Antwerp Night Mail makes her signal and rises between two
+racing clouds far to port, her flanks blood-red in the glare of
+Sheerness Double Light. The gale will have us over the North Sea
+in half-an-hour, but Captain Purnall lets her go
+composedly--nosing to every point of the compass as she rises.
+
+"Five thousand-six, six thousand eight hundred"--the dip-dial
+reads ere we find the easterly drift, heralded by a flurry of
+snow at the thousand fathom level. Captain Purnall rings up the
+engines and keys down the governor on the switch before him.
+There is no sense in urging machinery when Eolus himself gives
+you good knots for nothing. We are away in earnest now--our nose
+notched home on our chosen star. At this level the lower clouds
+are laid out, all neatly combed by the dry fingers of the East.
+Below that again is the strong westerly blow through which we
+rose. Overhead, a film of southerly drifting mist draws a
+theatrical gauze across the firmament. The moonlight turns the
+lower strata to silver without a stain except where our shadow
+underruns us. Bristol and Cardiff Double Lights (those statelily
+inclined beams over Severnmouth) are dead ahead of us; for we
+keep the Southern Winter Route. Coventry Central, the pivot of
+the English system, stabs upward once in ten seconds its spear of
+diamond light to the north; and a point or two off our starboard
+bow The Leek, the great cloud-breaker of Saint David's Head,
+swings its unmistakable green beam twenty-five degrees each way.
+There must be half a mile of fluff over it in this weather, but
+it does not affect The Leek.
+
+"Our planet's over-lighted if anything," says Captain Purnall at
+the wheel, as Cardiff-Bristol slides under. "I remember the old
+days of common white verticals that 'ud show two or three hundred
+feet up in a mist, if you knew where to look for 'em. In really
+fluffy weather they might as well have been under your hat. One
+could get lost coming home then, an' have some fun. Now, it's
+like driving down Piccadilly."
+
+He points to the pillars of light where the cloud-breakers bore
+through the cloud-floor. We see nothing of England's outlines:
+only a white pavement pierced in all directions by these manholes
+of variously coloured fire--Holy Island's white and red--St.
+Bee's interrupted white, and so on as far as the eye can reach.
+Blessed be Sargent, Ahrens, and the Dubois brothers, who invented
+the cloud-breakers of the world whereby we travel in security!
+
+"Are you going to lift for The Shamrock?" asks Captain Hodgson.
+Cork Light (green, fixed) enlarges as we rush to it. Captain
+Purnall nods. There is heavy traffic hereabouts--the cloud-bank
+beneath us is streaked. with running fissures of flame where the
+Atlantic boats are hurrying Londonward just clear of the fluff.
+Mail-packets are supposed, under the Conference rules, to have
+the five-thousand-foot lanes to themselves, but the foreigner in
+a hurry is apt to take liberties with English air. "No. 162"
+lifts to a long-drawn wail of the breeze in the fore-flange of
+the rudder and we make Valencia (white, green, white) at a safe
+7000 feet, dipping our beam to an incoming Washington packet.
+
+There is no cloud on the Atlantic, and faint streaks of cream
+round Dingle Bay show where the driven seas hammer the coast. A
+big S.A.T.A. liner (Societe Anonyme des Transports Aeriens) is
+diving and lifting half a mile below us in search of some break
+in the solid west wind. Lower still lies a disabled Dane she is
+telling the liner all about it in International. Our General
+Communication dial has caught her talk and begins to eavesdrop.
+Captain Hodgson makes a motion to shut it off but checks himself.
+"Perhaps you'd like to listen," he says.
+
+"Argol of St. Thomas," the Dane whimpers. "Report owners three
+starboard shaft collar-bearings fused. Can make Flores as we are,
+but impossible further. Shall we buy spares at Fayal?"
+
+The liner acknowledges and recommends inverting the bearings. The
+Argol answers that she has already done so without effect, and
+begins to relieve her mind about cheap German enamels for
+collar-bearings. The Frenchman assents cordially, cries "Courage,
+mon ami," and switches off.
+
+Then lights sink under the curve of the ocean.
+
+"That's one of Lundt & Bleamers' boats," says Captain Hodgson.
+"Serves 'em right for putting German compos in their
+thrust-blocks. She won't be in Fayal to-night! By the way,
+wouldn't you like to look round the engine-room?"
+
+I have been waiting eagerly for this invitation and I follow
+Captain Hodgson from the control-platform, stooping low to avoid
+the bulge of the tanks. We know that Fleury's gas can lift
+anything, as the world-famous trials of '89 showed, but its
+almost indefinite powers of expansion necessitate vast tank room.
+Even in this thin air the lift-shunts are busy taking out
+one-third of its normal lift, and still "162" must be checked by
+an occasional downdraw of the rudder or our flight would become a
+climb to the stars. Captain Purnall prefers an overlifted to an
+underlifted ship; but no two captains trim ship alike. "When I
+take the bridge," says Captain Hodgson, "you'll see me shunt
+forty per cent of the lift out of the gas and run her on the
+upper rudder. With a swoop upward instead of a swoop downward, as
+you say. Either way will do. It's only habit. Watch our dip-dial!
+Tim fetches her down once every thirty knots as regularly as
+breathing."
+
+So is it shown on the dip-dial. For five or six minutes the arrow
+creeps from 6700 to 7300. There is the faint "szgee" of the
+rudder, and back slides the arrow to 6000 on a falling slant of
+ten or fifteen knots.
+
+"In heavy weather you jockey her with the screws as well," says
+Captain Hodgson, and, unclipping the jointed bar which divides
+the engine-room from the bare deck, he leads me on to the floor.
+Here we find Fleury's Paradox of the Bulk-headed Vacuum--which we
+accept now without thought--literally in full blast. The three
+engines are H.T.&T. assisted-vacuo Fleury turbines running from
+3000 to the Limit--that is to say, up to the point when the
+blades make the air "bell"--cut out a vacuum for themselves
+precisely as over-driven marine propellers used to do. "162's"
+Limit is low on account of the small size of her nine screws,
+which, though handier than the old colloid Thelussons, "bell"
+sooner. The midships engine, generally used as a reinforce, is
+not running; so the port and starboard turbine vacuum-chambers
+draw direct into the return-mains.
+
+The turbines whistle reflectively. From the low-arched
+expansion-tanks on either side the valves descend pillarwise to
+the turbine-chests, and thence the obedient gas whirls through
+the spirals of blades with a force that would whip the teeth out
+of a power saw. Behind, is its own pressure held in leash of
+spurred on by the lift-shunts; before it, the vacuum where
+Fleury's Ray dances in violet-green bands and whirled turbillons
+of flame. The jointed U-tubes of the vacuum-chamber are
+pressure-tempered colloid (no glass would endure the strain for
+an instant) and a junior engineer with tinted spectacles watches
+the Ray intently. It is the very heart of the machine--a mystery
+to this day. Even Fleury who begat it and, unlike Magniac, died a
+multi-millionaire, could not explain how the restless little imp
+shuddering in the U-tube can, in the fractional fraction of a
+second, strike the furious blast of gas into a chill
+greyish-green liquid that drains (you can hear it trickle) from
+the far end of the vacuum through the eduction-pipes and the
+mains back to the bilges. Here it returns to its gaseous, one had
+almost written sagacious, state and climbs to work afresh.
+Bilge-tank, upper tank, dorsal-tank, expansion-chamber, vacuum,
+main-return (as a liquid), and bilge-tank once more is the
+ordained cycle. Fleury's Ray sees to that; and the engineer with
+the tinted spectacles sees to Fleury's Ray. If a speck of oil, if
+even the natural grease of the human finger touch the hooded
+terminals, Fleury's Ray will wink and disappear and must be
+laboriously built up again. This means half a day's work for all
+hands and an expense of, one hundred and seventy-odd pounds to
+the G.P.O. for radium-salts and such trifles.
+
+"Now look at our thrust-collars. You won't find much German compo
+there. Full-jewelled, you see," says Captain Hodgson as the
+engineer shunts open the top of a cap. Our shaft-bearings are
+C.M.C. (Commercial Minerals Company) stones, ground with as much
+care as the lens of a telescope. They cost L837 apiece. So far we
+have not arrived at their term of life. These bearings came from
+"No. 97," which took them over from the old Dominion of Light
+which had them out of the wreck of the Persew aeroplane in the
+years when men still flew wooden kites over oil engines!
+
+They are a shining reproof to all low-grade German "ruby"
+enamels, so-called "boort" facings, and the dangerous and
+unsatisfactory alumina compounds which please dividend-hunting
+owners and turn skippers crazy. The rudder-gear and the gas
+lift-shunt, seated side by side under the engine-room dials, are
+the only machines in visible motion. The former sighs from time
+to time as the oil plunger rises and falls half an inch. The
+latter, cased and guarded like the U-tube aft, exhibits another
+Fleury Ray, but inverted and more green than violet. Its function
+is to shunt the lift out of the gas, and this it will do without
+watching. That is all! A tiny pump-rod wheezing and whining to
+itself beside a sputtering green lamp. A hundred and fifty feet
+aft down the flat-topped tunnel of the tanks a violet light,
+restless and irresolute. Between the two, three white-painted
+turbine-trunks, like eel-baskets laid on their side, accentuate
+the empty perspectives. You can hear the trickle of the liquefied
+gas flowing from the vacuum into the bilge-tanks and the soft
+gluck-glock of gaslocks closing as Captain Purnall brings "162"
+down by the head. The hum of the turbines and the boom of the air
+on our skin is no more than a cotton-wool wrapping to the
+universal stillness. And we are running an eighteen-second mile.
+
+I peer from the fore end of the engine-room over the
+hatch-coamings into the coach. The mail-clerks are sorting the
+Winnipeg, Calgary, and Medicine Hat bags; but there is a pack of
+cards ready on the table.
+
+Suddenly a bell thrills; the engineers run to the turbine-valves
+and stand by; but the spectacled slave of the Ray in the U-tube
+never lifts his head. He must watch where he is. We are
+hard-braked and going astern; there is language from the Control
+Platform.
+
+"Tim's sparking badly about something," says the unruffled
+Captain Hodgson. "Let's look."
+
+Captain Purnall is not the suave man we left half an hour since,
+but the embodied authority of the G.P.O. Ahead of us floats an
+ancient, aluminum-patched, twin-screw tramp of the dingiest, with
+no more right to the 5000-foot lane than has a horse-cart to a
+modern road. She carries an obsolete "barbette" conning tower--a
+six-foot affair with railed platform forward--and our warning
+beam plays on the top of it as a policeman's lantern flashes on
+the area sneak. Like a sneak-thief, too, emerges a shock-headed
+navigator in his shirt-sleeves. Captain Purnall wrenches open the
+colloid to talk with him man to man. There are times when Science
+does not satisfy.
+
+"What under the stars are you doing here, you sky-scraping
+chimney-sweep?" he shouts as we two drift side by side. "Do you
+know this is a Mail-lane? You call yourself a sailor, sir? You
+ain't fit to peddle toy balloons to an Esquimaux. Your name and
+number! Report and get down, and be--!"
+
+"I've been blown up once," the shock-headed man cries, hoarsely,
+as a dog barking. "I don't care two flips of a contact for
+anything you can do, Postey."
+
+"Don't you, sir? But I'll make you care. I'll have you towed
+stern first to Disko and broke up. You can't recover insurance if
+you're broke for obstruction. Do you understand that?"
+
+Then the stranger bellows: "Look at my propellers! There's been a
+wulli-wa down below that has knocked us into umbrella-frames!
+We've been blown up about forty thousand feet! We're all one
+conjuror's watch inside! My mate's arm's broke; my engineer's
+head's cut open; my Ray went out when the engines smashed; and
+... and ... for pity's sake give me my height, Captain! We doubt
+we're dropping."
+
+"Six thousand eight hundred. Can you hold it?" Captain Purnall
+overlooks all insults, and leans half out of the colloid, staring
+and snuffing. The stranger leaks pungently.
+
+"We ought to blow into St. John's with luck. We're trying to plug
+the fore-tank now, but she's simply whistling it away," her
+captain wails.
+
+"She's sinking like a log," says Captain Purnall in an undertone.
+"Call up the Banks Mark Boat, George." Our dip-dial shows that
+we, keeping abreast the tramp, have dropped five hundred feet the
+last few minutes.
+
+Captain Purnall presses a switch and our signal beam begins to
+swing through the night, twizzling spokes of light across
+infinity.
+
+"That'll fetch something," he says, while Captain Hodgson watches
+the General Communicator. He has called up the North Banks Mark
+Boat, a few hundred miles west, and is reporting the case.
+
+"I'll stand by you," Captain Purnall roars to the lone figure on
+the conning-tower.
+
+"Is it as bad as that?" comes the answer. "She isn't insured.
+She's mine."
+
+"Might have guessed as much," mutters Hodgson. "Owner's risk is
+the worst risk of all!"
+
+"Can't I fetch St. John's--not even with this breeze?" the voice
+quavers.
+
+"Stand by to abandon ship. Haven't you any lift in you, fore or
+aft?"
+
+"Nothing but the midship tanks, and they're none too tight. You
+see, my Ray gave out and--" he coughs in the reek of the escaping
+gas.
+
+"You poor devil!" This does not reach our friend. "What does the
+Mark Boat say, George?"
+
+"Wants to know if there's any danger to traffic. Says she's in a
+bit of weather herself, and can't quit station. I've turned in a
+General Call, so even if they don't see our beam some one's bound
+to help--or else we must. Shall I clear our slings? Hold on! Here
+we are! A Planet liner, too! She'll be up in a tick!"
+
+"Tell her to have her slings ready," cries his brother captain.
+"There won't be much time to spare ... Tie up your mate," he
+roars to the tramp.
+
+"My mate's all right. It's my engineer. He's gone crazy."
+
+"Shunt the lift out of him with a spanner. Hurry!"
+
+"But I can make St. John's if you'll stand by."
+
+"You'll make the deep, wet Atlantic in twenty minutes. You're
+less than fifty-eight hundred now. Get your papers."
+
+A Planet liner, east bound, heaves up in a superb spiral and
+takes the air of us humming. Her underbody colloid is open land
+her transporter-slings hang down like tentacles. We shut off our
+beam as she adjusts herself--steering to a hair--over the tramp's
+conning-tower. The mate comes up, his arm strapped to his side,
+and stumbles into the cradle. A man with a ghastly scarlet head
+follows, shouting that he must go back and build up his Ray. The
+mate assures him that he will find a nice new Ray all ready in
+the liner's engine-room. The bandaged head goes up wagging
+excitedly. A youth and a woman follow. The liner cheers hollowly
+above us, and we see the passengers' faces at the saloon colloid.
+
+"That's a pretty girl. What's the fool waiting for now?" says
+Captain Purnall.
+
+The skipper comes up, still appealing to us to stand by and see
+him fetch St. John's. He dives below and returns--at which we
+little human beings in the void cheer louder than ever--with the
+ship's kitten. Up fly the liner's hissing slings; her underbody
+crashes home and she hurtles away again. The dial shows less than
+3000 feet. The Mark Boat signals we must attend to the derelict,
+now whistling her death-song, as she falls beneath us in long
+sick zigzags.
+
+"Keep our beam on her and send out a General Warning," says
+Captain Purnall, following her down. There is no need. Not a
+liner in air but knows the meaning of that vertical beam and
+gives us and our quarry a wide berth.
+
+"But she'll drown in the water, won't she?" I ask. "Not always,"
+is his answer. "I've known a derelict up-end and sift her engines
+out of herself and flicker round the Lower Lanes for three weeks
+on her forward tanks only. We'll run no risks. Pith her, George,
+and look sharp. There's weather ahead."
+
+Captain Hodgson opens the underbody colloid, swings the heavy
+pithing-iron out of its rack which in liners is generally cased
+as a smoking-room settee, and at two hundred feet releases the
+catch. We hear the whir of the crescent-shaped arms opening as
+they descend. The derelict's forehead is punched in, starred
+across, and rent diagonally. She falls stern first, our beam upon
+her; slides like a lost soul down that pitiless ladder of light,
+and the Atlantic takes her.
+
+"A filthy business," says Hodgson. "I wonder what it must have
+been like in the old days?"
+
+The thought had crossed my mind, too. What if that wavering
+carcass had been filled with the men of the old days, each one of
+them taught (that is the horror of it!) that, after death he
+would very possibly go for ever to unspeakable torment?
+
+And scarcely a generation ago, we (one knows now that we are only
+our fathers re-enlarged upon the earth), we, I say, ripped and
+rammed and pithed to admiration.
+
+Here Tim, from the Control Platform, shouts that we are to get
+into our inflators and to bring him his at once.
+
+We hurry into the heavy rubber suits--the engineers are already
+dressed--and inflate at the air-pump taps. G.P.O. inflators are
+thrice as thick as a racing man's "flickers," and chafe
+abominably under the armpits. George takes the wheel until Tim
+has blown himself up to the extreme of rotundity. If you kicked
+him off the c. p. to the deck he would bounce back. But it is
+"162" that will do the kicking.
+
+"The Mark Boat's mad--stark ravin' crazy," he snorts, returning
+to command. "She says there's a bad blow-out ahead and wants me
+to pull over to Greenland. I'll see her pithed first! We wasted
+half an hour fussing over that dead duck down under, and now I'm
+expected to go rubbin' my back all round the Pole. What does she
+think a Postal packet's made of? Gummed silk? Tell her we're
+coming on straight, George."
+
+George buckles him into the Frame and switches on the Direct
+Control. Now under Tim's left toe lies the port-engine
+Accelerator; under his left heel the Reverse, and so with the
+other foot. The lift-shunt stops stand out on the rim of the
+steering-wheel where the fingers of his left hand can play on
+them. At his right hand is the midships engine lever ready to be
+thrown into gear at a moment's notice. He leans forward in his
+belt, eyes glued to the colloid, and one ear cocked toward the
+General Communicator. Henceforth he is the strength and direction
+of "162," through whatever may befall.
+
+The Banks Mark Boat is reeling out pages of A. B. .C. Directions
+to the traffic at large. We are to secure all "loose objects";
+hood up our Fleury Rays; and "on no account to attempt to clear
+snow from our conning-towers till the weather abates."
+Under-powered craft, we are told, can ascend to the limit of
+their lift, mail-packets to look out for them accordingly; the
+lower lanes westward are pitting very badly, "with frequent
+blow-outs, vortices, laterals, etc."
+
+Still the clear dark holds up unblemished. The only warning is
+the electric skin-tension (I feel as though I were a lace-maker's
+pillow) and an irritability which the gibbering of the General
+Communicator increases almost to hysteria.
+
+We have made eight thousand feet since we pithed the tramp and
+our turbines are giving us an honest two hundred and ten knots.
+
+Very far to the west an elongated blur of red, low down, shows us
+the North Banks Mark Boat. There are specks of fire round her
+rising and falling--bewildered planets about an unstable
+sun--helpless shipping hanging on to her light for company's
+sake. No wonder she could not quit station.
+
+She warns us to look out for the back-wash of the bad vortex in
+which (her beam shows it) she is even now reeling.
+
+The pits of gloom about us begin to fill with very faintly
+luminous films--wreathing and uneasy shapes. One forms itself
+into a globe of pale flame that waits shivering with eagerness
+till we sweep by. It leaps monstrously across the blackness,
+alights on the precise tip of our nose, pirouettes there an
+instant, and swings off. Our roaring bow sinks as though that
+light were lead--sinks and recovers to lurch and stumble again
+beneath the next blow-out. Tim's fingers on the lift-shunt strike
+chords of numbers--1:4:7:--2:4:6:--7:5:3, and so on; for he is
+running by his tanks only, lifting or lowering her against the
+uneasy air. All three engines are at work, for the sooner we have
+skated over this thin ice the better. Higher we dare not go. The
+whole upper vault is charged with pale krypton vapours, which our
+skin friction may excite to unholy manifestations. Between the
+upper and lower levels--5000 and 7000, hints the Mark Boat--we
+may perhaps bolt through if ... Our bow clothes itself in blue
+flame and falls like a sword. No human skill can keep pace with
+the changing tensions. A vortex has us by the beak and we dive
+down a two-thousand foot slant at an angle (the dip-dial and my
+bouncing body record it) of thirty-five. Our turbines scream
+shrilly; the propellers cannot bite on the thin air; Tim shunts
+the lift out of five tanks at once and by sheer weight drives her
+bullet wise through the maelstrom till she cushions with jar on
+an up-gust, three thousand feet below.
+
+"Now we've done it," says George in my ear: "Our skin-friction,
+that last slide, has played Old Harry with the tensions! Look out
+for laterals, Tim; she'll want some holding."
+
+"I've got her," is the answer. "Come up, old woman."
+
+She comes up nobly, but the laterals buffet her left and right
+like the pinions of angry angels. She is jolted off her course
+four ways at once, and cuffed into place again, only to be swung
+aside and dropped into a new chaos. We are never without a
+corposant grinning on our bows or rolling head over heels from
+nose to midships, and to the crackle of electricity around and
+within us is added once or twice the rattle of hail--hail that
+will never fall on any sea. Slow we must or we may break our
+back, pitch-poling.
+
+"Air's a perfectly elastic fluid," roars George above the tumult.
+"About as elastic as a head sea off the Fastnet, ain't it?"
+
+He is less than just to the good element. If one intrudes on the
+Heavens when they are balancing their volt-accounts; if one
+disturbs the High Gods' market-rates by hurling steel hulls at
+ninety knots across tremblingly adjusted electric tensions, one
+must not complain of any rudeness in the reception. Tim met it
+with an unmoved countenance, one corner of his under lip caught
+up on a tooth, his eyes fleeting into the blackness twenty miles
+ahead, and the fierce sparks flying from his knuckles at every
+turn of the hand. Now and again he shook his head to clear the
+sweat trickling from his eyebrows, and it was then that George,
+watching his chance, would slide down the life-rail and swab his
+face quickly with a big red handkerchief. I never imagined that a
+human being could so continuously labour and so collectedly think
+as did Tim through that Hell's half-hour when the flurry was at
+its worst. We were dragged hither and yon by warm or, frozen
+suctions, belched up on the tops of wulii-was, spun down by
+vortices and clubbed aside by laterals under a dizzying rush of
+stars in the, company of a drunken moon.
+
+I heard the rushing click of the midship-engine-lever sliding in
+and out, the low growl of the lift-shunts, and, louder than the
+yelling winds without, the scream of the bow-rudder gouging into
+any lull that promised hold for an instant. At last we began to
+claw up on a cant, bow-rudder and port-propeller together; only
+the nicest balancing of tanks saved us from spinning like the
+rifle-bullet of the old days.
+
+"We've got to hitch to windward of that Mark Boat somehow,"
+George cried.
+
+"There's no windward," I protested feebly, where I swung shackled
+to a stanchion. "How can there be?"
+
+He laughed--as we pitched into a thousand foot blow-out--that red
+man laughed beneath his inflated hood!
+
+"Look!" he said. "We must clear those refugees with a high lift."
+
+The Mark Boat was below and a little to the sou'west of us,
+fluctuating in the centre of her distraught galaxy. The air was
+thick with moving lights at every level. I take it most of them
+were trying to lie head to wind, but, not being hydras, they
+failed. An under-tanked Moghrabi boat had risen to the limit of
+her lift, and, finding no improvement, had dropped a couple of
+thousand. There she met a superb wulli-wa, and was blown up
+spinning like a dead leaf. Instead of shutting off she went
+astern and, naturally, rebounded as from a wall almost into the
+Mark Boat, whose language (our G. C. took it in) was humanly
+simple.
+
+"If they'd only ride it out quietly it 'ud be better," said
+George in a calm, while we climbed like a bat above them all.
+"But some skippers -will navigate without enough lift. What does
+that Tad-boat think she is doing, Tim?"
+
+"Playin' kiss in the ring," was Tim's unmoved reply. A
+Trans-Asiatic Direct liner had found a smooth and butted into it
+full power. But there was a vortex at the tail of that smooth, so
+the T. A. D. was flipped out like a pea from off a finger-nail,
+braking madly as she fled down and all but over-ending.
+
+"Now I hope she's satisfied," said Tim. "I'm glad I'm not a Mark
+Boat . . . Do I want help?" The General Communicator dial had
+caught his ear. "George, you may tell that gentleman with my
+love--love, remember, George--that I do not want help. Who is the
+officious sardine-tin?"
+
+"A Rimouski drogher on the look-out for a tow."
+
+"Very kind of the Rimouski drogher. This postal packet isn't
+being towed at present."
+
+"Those droghers will go anywhere on a chance of salvage," George
+explained. "We call' em kittiwakes."
+
+A long-beaked, bright steel ninety-footer floated at ease for one
+instant within hail of us, her slings coiled ready for rescues,
+and a single hand in her open tower. He was smoking. Surrendered
+to the insurrection of the airs through which we tore our way, he
+lay in absolute peace. I saw the smoke of his pipe ascend
+untroubled ere his boat dropped, it seemed, like a stone in a
+well.
+
+We had just cleared the Mark Boat and her disorderly neighbours
+when the storm ended as suddenly as it had begun. A shooting-star
+to northward filled the sky with the green blink of a meteorite
+dissipating itself in our atmosphere.
+
+Said George: "That may iron out all the tensions." Even as he
+spoke, the conflicting winds came to rest; the levels filled; the
+laterals died out in long, easy swells; the air-ways were
+smoothed before us. In less than three minutes the covey round
+the Mark Boat had shipped their power-lights and whirred away
+upon their businesses.
+
+"What's happened?" I gasped. The nerve-store within and the
+volt-tingle without had passed: my inflators weighed like lead.
+
+"God, He knows!" said Captain George soberly "That old
+shooting-star's skin-friction has discharged the different
+levels. I've seen it happen before. Phew: What a relief!"
+
+We dropped from ten to six thousand and got rid of our clammy
+suits. Tim shut off and stepped out of the Frame. The Mark Boat
+was coming up behind us. He opened the colloid in that heavenly
+stillness and mopped his face.
+
+"Hello, Williams!" he cried. "A degree or two out o' station,
+ain't you?"
+
+"May be," was the answer from the Mark Boat. "I've had some
+company this evening."
+
+"So I noticed. Wasn't that quite a little draught?"
+
+"I warned you. Why didn't you pull out north? The east-bound
+packets have."
+
+"Me? Not till I'm running a Polar consumptives' sanatorium boat.
+I was squinting through a colloid before you were out of your
+cradle, my son."
+
+"I'd be the last man to deny it," the captain of the Mark Boat
+replies softly. "The way you handled her just now--I'm a pretty
+fair judge of traffic in a volt-hurry--it was a thousand
+revolutions beyond anything even I've ever seen."
+
+Tim's back supples visibly to this oiling. Captain George on the
+c. p. winks and points to the portrait of a singularly attractive
+maiden pinned up on Tim's telescope bracket above the
+steering-wheel.
+
+I see. Wholly and entirely do I see!
+
+There is some talk overhead of "coming round to tea on Friday," a
+brief report of the derelict's fate, and Tim volunteers as he
+descends: "For an A. B. C. man young Williams is less of a
+high-tension fool than some. Were you thinking of taking her on,
+George? Then I'll just have a look round that port-thrust seems
+to me it's a trifle warm--and we'll jog along."
+
+The Mark Boat hums off joyously and hangs herself up in her
+appointed eyrie. Here she will stay a shutterless observatory; a
+life-boat station; a salvage tug; a court of ultimate
+appeal-cum-meteorological bureau for three hundred miles in all
+directions, till Wednesday next when her relief slides across the
+stars to take her buffeted place. Her black hull, double
+conning-tower, and ever-ready slings represent all that remains
+to the planet of that odd old word authority. She is responsible
+only to the Aerial Board of Control the A. B. C. of which Tim
+speaks so flippantly. But that semi-elected, semi-nominated body
+of a few score of persons of both sexes, controls this planet.
+"Transportation is Civilisation," our motto runs. Theoretically,
+we do what we please so long as we do not interfere with the
+traffic AND ALL IT IMPLIES. Practically , the A. B. C. confirms
+or annuls all international arrangements and, to judge from its
+last report, finds our tolerant, humorous, lazy little planet
+only too ready to shift the whole burden of public administration
+on its shoulders. 
+
+I discuss this with Tim, sipping mate on the c. p. while George
+fans her along over the white blur of the Banks in beautiful
+upward curves of fifty miles each. The dip-dial translates them
+on the tape in flowing freehand.
+
+Tim gathers up a skein of it and surveys the last few feet, which
+record "162's" path through the volt-flurry.
+
+"I haven't had a fever-chart like this to show up in five years,"
+he says ruefully.
+
+A postal packet's dip-dial records every yard of every run. The
+tapes then go to the A. B. C., which collates and makes composite
+photographs of them for the instruction of captains. Tim studies
+his irrevocable past, shaking his head.
+
+"Hello! Here's a fifteen-hundred-foot drop at fifty-five degrees!
+We must have been standing on our heads then, George."
+
+"You don't say so," George answers. "I fancied I noticed it at
+the time."
+
+George may not have Captain Purnall's catlike swiftness, but he
+is all an artist to the tips of the broad fingers that play on
+the shunt-stops. The delicious flight-curves come away on the
+tape with never a waver. The Mark Boat's vertical spindle of
+light lies down to eastward, setting in the face of the following
+stars. Westward, where no planet should rise, the triple
+verticals of Trinity Bay (we keep still to the Southern route)
+make a low-lifting haze. We seem the only thing at rest under all
+the heavens; floating at ease till the earth's revolution shall
+turn up our landing-towers.
+
+And minute by minute our silent clock gives us a sixteen-second
+mile.
+
+"Some fine night," says Tim, "we'll be even with that clock's
+Master."
+
+"He's coming now," says George, over his shoulder. "I'm chasing
+the night west."
+
+The stars ahead dim no more than if a film of mist had been drawn
+under unobserved, but the deep airboom on our skin changes to a
+joyful shout.
+
+"The dawn-gust," says Tim. "It'll go on to meet the Sun. Look!
+Look! There's the dark being crammed back over our bows! Come to
+the after-colloid. I'll show you something."
+
+The engine-room is hot and stuffy; the clerks in the coach are
+asleep, and the Slave of the Ray is ready to follow them. Tim
+slides open the aft colloid and reveals the curve of the
+world--the ocean's deepest purple--edged with fuming and
+intolerable gold.
+
+Then the Sun rises and through the colloid strikes out our lamps.
+Tim scowls in his face.
+
+"Squirrels in a cage," he mutters. "That's all we are. Squirrels
+in a cage! He's going twice as fast as us. Just you wait a few
+years, my shining friend, and we'll take steps that will amaze
+you. We'll Joshua you!"
+
+Yes, that is our dream: to turn all earth into the Yale of Ajalon
+at our pleasure. So far, we can drag out the dawn to twice its
+normal length in these latitudes. But some day--even on the
+Equator--we shall hold the Sun level in his full stride.
+
+Now we look down on a sea thronged with heavy traffic. A big
+submersible breaks water suddenly. Another and another follows
+with a swash and a suck and a savage bubbling of relieved
+pressures. The deep-sea freighters are rising to lung up after
+the long night, and the leisurely ocean is all patterned with
+peacock's eyes of foam.
+
+"We'll lung up, too," says Tim, and when we return to the c. p.
+George shuts off, the colloids are opened, and the fresh air
+sweeps her out. There is no hurry. The old contracts (they will
+be revised at the end of the year) allow twelve hours for a run
+which any packet can put behind her in ten. So we breakfast in
+the arms of an easterly slant which pushes us along at a languid
+twenty.
+
+To enjoy life, and tobacco, begin both on a sunny morning half a
+mile or so above the dappled Atlantic cloud-belts and after a
+volt-flurry which has cleared and tempered your nerves. While we
+discussed the thickening traffic with the superiority that comes
+of having a high level reserved to ourselves, we heard (and I for
+the first time) the morning hymn on a Hospital boat.
+
+She was cloaked by a skein of ravelled fluff beneath us and we
+caught the chant before she rose into the sunlight. "Oh, ye Winds
+of God," sang the unseen voices: "bless ye the Lord! Praise Him
+and magnify Him for ever!"
+
+We slid off our caps and joined in. When our shadow fell across
+her great open platforms they looked up and stretched out their
+hands neighbourly while they sang. We could see the doctors and
+the nurses and the white-button-like faces of the cot-patients.
+She passed slowly beneath us, heading northward, her hull, wet
+with the dews of the night, all ablaze in the sunshine. So took
+she the shadow of a cloud and vanished, her song continuing. "Oh,
+ye holy and humble men of heart, bless ye the Lord! Praise Him
+and magnify Him for ever."
+
+"She's a public lunger or she wouldn't have been singing the
+Benedicite; and she's a Greenlander or she wouldn't have
+snow-blinds over her colloids," said George at last. "She'll be
+bound for Frederikshavn or one of the Glacier sanatoriums for a
+month.
+
+If she was an accident ward she'd be hung up at the
+eight-thousand-foot level. Yes--consumptives."
+
+"Funny how the new things are the old thing I've read in books,"
+Tim answered, "that savages used to haul their sick and wounded
+up to the tops of hills because microbes were fewer there. We
+hoist 'em in sterilized air for a while. Same idea. How much do
+the doctors say we've added to the average life of man?"
+
+"Thirty years," says George with a twinkle in his eye. "Are we
+going to spend 'em all up here, Tim?"
+
+"Flap ahead, then. Flap ahead. Who's hindering?" the senior
+captain laughed, as we went in.
+
+We held a good lift to clear the coastwise and Continental
+shipping; and we had need of it. Though our route is in no sense
+a populated one, there is a steady trickle of traffic this way
+along. We met Hudson Bay furriers out of the Great Preserve,
+hurrying to make their departure from Bonavista with sable and
+black fox for the insatiable markets. We overcossed Keewatin
+liners, small and cramped; but their captains, who see no land
+between Trepassy and Lanco, know what gold they bring back from
+West Erica. Trans-Asiatic Directs we met, soberly ringing the
+world round the Fiftieth Meridian at an honest seventy knots; and
+white-painted Ackroyd & Hunt fruiters out of the south fled
+beneath us, their ventilated hulls whistling like Chinese kites.
+Their market is in the North among the northern sanatoria where
+you can smell their grape-fruit and bananas across the cold
+snows. Argentine beef boats we sighted too, of enormous capacity
+and unlovely outline. They, too, feed the northern health
+stations in icebound ports where submersibles dare not rise.
+
+Yellow-bellied ore-flats and Ungava petrol-tanks punted down
+leisurely out of the north, like strings of unfrightened wild
+duck. It does not pay to "fly" minerals and oil a mile farther
+than is necessary; but the risks of transhipping to submersibles
+in the ice pack off Nain or Hebron are so great that these heavy
+freighters fly down to Halifax direct, and scent the air as they
+go. They are the biggest tramps aloft except the Athabasca
+grain-tubs. But these last, now that the wheat is moved, are
+busy, over the world's shoulder, timber-lifting in Siberia.
+
+We held to the St. Lawrence (it is astonishing how the old
+water-ways still pull us children of the air), and followed his
+broad line of black between its drifting iceblocks, all down the
+Park that the wisdom of our fathers--but every one knows the
+Quebec run.
+
+We dropped to the Heights Receiving Towers twenty minutes ahead
+of time, and there hung at ease till the Yokohama Intermediate
+Packet could pull out and give us our proper slip. It was curious
+to watch the action of the holding-down clips all along the
+frosty river front as the boats cleared or came to rest. A big
+Hamburger was leaving Pont Levis and her crew, unshipping the
+platform railings, began to sing "Elsinore"--the oldest of our
+chanteys. You know it of course:
+
+     Mother Rugen's tea-house on the Baltic 
+      Forty couple waltzing on the floor!
+     And you can watch my Ray,
+     For I must go away 
+      And dance with Ella Sweyn at Elsinore!
+
+Then, while they sweated home the covering-plates:
+
+     Nor-Nor-Nor-Nor
+     West from Sourabaya to the Baltic--
+      Ninety knot an hour to the Skaw!
+     Mother Rugen's tea-house on the Baltic 
+      And a dance with Ella Sweyn at Elsinore!
+
+The clips parted with a gesture of indignant dismissal, as though
+Quebec, glittering under her snows, were casting out these light
+and unworthy lovers. Our signal came from the Heights. Tim turned
+and floated up, but surely then it was with passionate appeal
+that the great tower arms flung open--or did I think so because
+on the upper staging a little hooded figure also opened her arms
+wide toward her father?
+
+   *     *    *     *    *     *    *     * 
+
+In ten seconds the coach with its clerks clashed down to the
+receiving-caisson; the hostlers displaced the engineers at the
+idle turbines, and Tim, prouder of this than all, introduced me
+to the maiden of the photograph on the shelf. "And by the way,"
+said he to her, stepping forth in sunshine under the hat of civil
+life, "I saw young Williams in the Mark Boat. I've asked him to
+tea on Friday."
+
+
+
+             AERIAL BOARD OF CONTROL
+
+                Lights
+
+No changes in English Inland lights for week ending Dec. 18th.
+
+CAPE VERDE--Week ending Dec. 18. Verde inclined guide-light
+changes from 1st proximo to triple flash--green white green--in
+place of occulting red as heretofore. The warning light for
+Harmattan winds will be continuous vertical glare (white) on all
+oases of trans-Saharan N. E. by E. Main Routes.
+
+INVERCARGIL (N. Z.)--From 1st prox.: extreme southerly light
+(double red) will exhibit white beam inclined 45 degrees on
+approach of Southerly Buster. Traffic flies high off this coast
+between April and October.
+
+TABLE BAY--Devil's Peak Glare removed to Simonsberg. Traffic
+making Table Mountain coastwise keep all lights from Three Anchor
+Bay at least two thousand feet under, and do not round to till
+East of E. shoulder Devil's Peak.
+
+SANDHEADS LIGHT -Green triple vertical marks new private
+landing-stage for Bay and Burma traffic only.
+
+SNAEFELL JOKUL--White occulting light withdrawn for winter.
+
+PATAGONIA--No summer light south Cape Pilar. This includes Staten
+Island and Port Stanley.
+
+C. NAVARIN--Quadruple fog flash (white), one minute intervals
+(new).
+
+EAST CAPE--Fog--flash -single white with single bomb, 30 sec.
+intervals (new).
+
+MALAYAN ARCHIPELAGO--Lights unreliable owing eruptions. Lay from
+Cape Somerset to Singapore direct, keeping highest levels.
+
+
+For the Board:
+
+ CATTERTHUN }
+ ST. JUST   }    Lights.
+ VAN HEDDER }
+
+
+
+Casualties
+
+Week ending Dec. 18th.
+
+SABLE ISLAND--Green single barbette-tower freighter, number
+indistinguishable, up-ended, and fore-tank pierced after
+collision, passed 300-ft. level Q P. as. Dec. 15th. Watched
+to water and pithed by Mark Boat.
+
+N. F. BANKS--Postal Packet 162 reports Halma freighter
+(Fowey--St. John's) abandoned, leaking after weather, 46 151 N.
+50 15' W. Crew rescued by Planet liner Asteroid. Watched to
+water and pithed by Postal Packet, Dec. 14th.
+
+KERGUELEN, MARK BOAT reports last call from Cymena freighter
+(Gayer
+Tong Huk & Co.) taking water and sinking in snow-storm South
+McDonald Islands. No wreckage recovered. Messages and wills of
+crew at all A. B. C. offices.
+
+FEZZAN--T. A. D. freighter Ulema taken ground during Harmattan on
+Akakus Range. Under plates strained. Crew at Ghat where repairing
+Dec. 13th.
+
+BISCAY, MARK BOAT reports Caducci (Valandingham Line) slightly
+spiked in western gorge Point de Benasdue. Passengers transferred
+Andorra (Fulton Line). Barcelona Mark Boat salving cargo Dec.
+12th.
+
+ASCENSION, MARE BOAT--Wreck of unknown racing-plane, Parden
+rudder, wire-stiffened xylonite vans, and Harliss engine-seating,
+sighted and salved 7 20' S. 18 41' W. Dec. 15th. Photos at all A.
+B. C. offices.
+
+
+Missing
+
+No answer to General Call having been received during the last
+week from following overdues, they are posted as missing:
+
+ Atlantis, W.17630 . Canton--Valparaiso
+ Audhumla W. 889 . Stockholm--Odessa
+ Berenice, W. 2206 .. . Riga--Vladivostock
+ Draw, E. 446 . . Coventry--Pontes
+ Arenas Tontine, E. 5068 . C. Wrath--Ungava
+ Wu-Sung, E. 41776 . . Hankow--Lobito Bay
+
+General Call (all Mark Boats) out for:
+
+Jane Eyre, W. 6990 . Port Rupert--City of Mexico
+Santander, W. 6514 . . Gobi Desert--Manila
+Y. Edmundsun, E. 9690 . . Kandahar--Fiume
+
+         Broke for Obstruction, and Quitting Levels
+
+VALKYRIE (racing plane), A. J. Hartley owner, New York
+     (twice warned).
+ GEISHA (racing plane), S. van Cott owner, Philadelphia
+     (twice warned).
+ MARVEL of PERU (racing plane), J. X. Peixoto owner, Rio de
+Janeiro (twice warned).
+ For the Board:
+
+ LAZAREFF }
+ McKEOUGH }  Traffic
+ GOLDBRATT } 
+
+
+
+                NOTES
+
+               High-Level Sleet
+
+The Northern weather so far shows no sign of improvement. From
+all quarters come complaints of the unusual prevalence of sleet
+at the higher levels. Racing planes and digs alike have suffered
+severely--the former from 'unequal deposits of half-frozen slush
+on their vans (and only those who have "held up" a badly balanced
+plane in a cross-wind know what that means), and the latter from
+loaded bows and snow-cased bodies. As a consequence, the Northern
+and North-western upper levels have been practically abandoned,
+and the high fliers have returned to the ignoble security of the
+Three, Five, and Six hundred foot levels. But there remain a few
+undaunted sun-hunters who, in spite of frozen stays and
+ice-jammed connecting-rods, still haunt the blue empyrean.
+
+
+                Bat-Boat Racing
+
+The scandals of the past few years have at last moved the
+yachting world to concerted action in regard to "bat" boat
+racing. We have been treated to the spectacle of what are
+practically keeled racing-planes driven a clear five foot or more
+above the water, and only eased down to touch their so-called "
+native element" as they near the line. Judges and starters have
+been conveniently blind to this absurdity, but the public
+demonstration off St. Catherine's Light at the Autumn Regattas
+has borne ample, if tardy, fruit. In the future the "bat" is to
+be a boat, and the long-unheeded demand of the true sportsman for
+"no daylight under mid-keel in smooth water" is in a fair way to
+be conceded. The new rule severely restricts plane area and lift
+alike. The gas compartments are permitted both fore and aft, as
+in the old type, but the water-ballast central tank is rendered
+obligatory. These things work, if not for perfection, at least
+for the evolution of a sane and wholesome waterborne cruiser. The
+type of rudder is unaffected by the new rules, so we may expect
+to see the Long-Davidson make (the patent on which has just
+expired) come largely into use henceforward, though the strain on
+the sternpost in turning at speeds over forty miles an hour is
+admittedly very severe. But bat-boat racing has a great future
+before it.
+
+
+                Crete and the A. B. C.
+
+The story of the recent Cretan crisis, as told in the A. B. C.
+Monthly Report, is not without humour. Till the 25th October
+Crete, as all our planet knows, was the sole surviving European
+repository of "autonomous institutions," "local self-government,"
+and the rest of the archaic lumber devised in the past for the
+confusion of human affairs. She has lived practically on the
+tourist traffic attracted by her annual pageants of Parliaments,
+Boards, Municipal Councils, etc., etc. Last summer the islanders
+grew wearied, as their premier explained, of "playing at being
+savages for pennies," and proceeded to pull down all the
+landing-towers on the island and shut off general communication
+till such time as the A. B. C. should annex them. For
+side-splitting comedy we would refer our readers to the
+correspondence between the Board of Control and the Cretan
+premier during the "war." However, all's well that ends well. The
+A. B. C. have taken over the administration of Crete on normal
+lines; and tourists must go elsewhere to witness the"debates,"
+"resolutions," and "popular movements" of the old days. The only
+people to suffer will be the Board of Control, which is
+grievously overworked already. It is easy enough to condemn the
+Cretans for their laziness; but when one recalls the large,
+prosperous, and presumably public-spirited communities which
+during the last few years have deliberately thrown themselves
+into the hands of the A. B. C., one, cannot be too hard upon St.
+Paul's old friends.
+
+
+
+                CORRESPONDENCE
+
+                Skylarking on the Equator
+
+To THE EDITOR: Only last week, while crossing the Equator (W.
+26-15), I became aware of a furious and irregular cannonading
+some fifteen or twenty knots S. 4 E. Descending to the 500 ft.
+level, I found a party of Transylvanian tourists engaged in
+exploding scores of the largest pattern atmospheric bombs (A. B.
+C. standard) and, in the intervals of their pleasing labours,
+firing bow and stern smoke-ring swivels. This orgie--I can give
+it no other name--went on for at least two hours, and naturally
+produced violent electric derangements. My compasses, of course,
+were thrown out, my bow was struck twice, and I received two
+brisk shocks from the lower platform-rail. On remonstrating, I
+was told that these "professors" were engaged in scientific
+experiments. The extent of their "scientific" knowledge, may be
+judged by the fact that they expected to produce (I give their
+own words)" a little blue sky" if "they went on long enough."
+This in the heart of the Doldrums at 450 feet! I have no
+objection to any amount of blue sky in its proper place (it can
+be found at the 4000 level for practically twelve months out of
+the year), but I submit, with all deference to the educational
+needs of Transylvania, that "skylarking" in the centre of a
+main-travelled road where, at the best of times, electricity
+literally drips off one's stanchions and screw blades, is
+unnecessary. When my friends had finished, the road was seared,
+and blown, and pitted with unequal pressure layers, spirals,
+vortices, and readjustments for at least an hour. I pitched badly
+twice in an upward rush--solely due to these diabolical
+throw-downs--that came near to wrecking my propeller. Equatorial
+work at low levels is trying enough in all conscience without the
+added terrors of scientific hooliganism in the Doldrums.
+     Rhyl. J. VINCENT MATHEN.
+
+[We entirely sympathize with Professor Mathen's views, but till
+the Board sees fit to further regulate the Southern areas in
+which scientific experiments may be conducted, we shall always be
+exposed to the risk which our correspondent describes.
+Unfortunately, a chimera bombinating in a vacuum is, nowadays,
+only too capable of producing secondary causes.- Editor.]
+
+
+                Answers to Correspondents
+
+VIGILANS--The Laws of Auroral Derangements are still imperfectly
+understood. Any overheated motor may of course "seize" without
+warning; but so many complaints have reached us of accidents
+similar to yours while shooting the Aurora that we are inclined
+to believe with Lavalle that the upper strata of the Aurora
+Borealis are practically one big electric "leak," and that the
+paralysis of your engines was due to complete magnetization of
+all metallic parts. Low-flying planes often "glue up" when near
+the Magnetic Pole, and there is no reason in science why the same
+disability should not be experienced at higher levels when the
+Auroras are "delivering" strongly.
+
+INDIGNANT--On your own showing, you were not under control. That
+you could not hoist the necessary N. U. C. lights on approaching
+a traffic-lane because your electrics had short-circuited is a
+misfortune which might befall any one. The A. B. C., being
+responsible for the planet's traffic, cannot, however, make
+allowance for this kind of misfortune. A reference to the Code
+will show that you were fined on the lower scale.
+
+PLANISTON--(1) The Five Thousand Kilometre (overland) was won
+last year by L. V. Rautsch; R. M. Rautsch, his brother, in the
+same week pulling off the Ten Thousand (oversee). R. M.'s average
+worked out at a fraction over 500 kilometres per hour, thus
+constituting a record. (2) Theoretically, there is no limit to
+the lift of a dirigible. For commercial and practical purposes
+15,000 tons is accepted as the most manageable.
+
+PATERFAMILIAS--None whatever. He is liable for direct damage both
+to your chimneys and any collateral damage caused by fall of
+bricks into garden, etc., etc. Bodily inconvenience and mental
+anguish may be included, but the average courts are not, as a
+rule, swayed by sentiment. If you can prove that his grapnel
+removed any portion of your roof, you had better rest your case
+on decoverture of domicile (see Parkins v. Duboulay). We
+sympathize with your position, but the night of the 14th was
+stormy and confused, and--you may have to anchor on a stranger's
+chimney yourself some night. Verbum sap!
+
+ALDEBARAN--(1) war, as a paying concern, ceased in 1987. (2) The
+Convention of London expressly reserves to every nation the right
+of waging war so long as it does not interfere with the traffic
+and all that implies. (3) The A. B. C. was constituted in 1949.
+
+L. M. P.--(1) Keep her full head-on at half power, taking
+advantage of the lulls to speed up and creep into it. She will
+strain much less this way than in quartering across a gale. (2)
+Nothing is to be gained by reversing into a following gale, and
+there is always risk of a turnover. (3) The formulae for stun'sle
+brakes are uniformly unreliable, and will continue to be so as
+long as air is compressible.
+
+PEGAMOID- (1) Personally we prefer glass or flux compounds to any
+other material for winter work nose-caps as being absolutely
+non-hygroscopic. (2) We cannot recommend any particular make.
+
+PULMONAR--(1) For the symptoms you describe, try the Gobi Desert
+Sanatoria. The low levels of most of the Saharan Sanatoria are
+against them except at the outset of the disease. (2) We do not
+recommend boarding-houses or hotels in this column.
+
+BEGINNER--On still days the air above a large inhabited city
+being slightly warmer--i.e., thinner--than the atmosphere of the
+surrounding country, a plane drops a little on entering the
+rarefied area, precisely as a ship sinks a little in fresh water.
+Hence the phenomena of "jolt" and your "inexplicable collisions"
+with factory chimneys. In air, as on earth, it is safest to fly
+high.
+
+EMERGENCY--There is only one rule of the road in air, earth, and
+water. Do you want the firmament to yourself?
+
+PICCIOLA--Both Poles have been overdone in Art and Literature.
+Leave them to Science for the next twenty years. You did not send
+a stamp with your verses.
+
+NORTH NIGERIA--The Mark Boat was within her right in warning you
+off the Reserve. The shadow of a low-flying dirigible scares the
+game. You can buy all the photos you need at Sokoto.
+
+NEW ERA--It is not etiquette to overcross an A. B. C. official's
+boat without asking permission. He is one of the body responsible
+for the planet's traffic, and for that reason must not be
+interfered with. You, presumably, are out on your own business or
+pleasure, and must leave him alone. For humanity's sake don't try
+to be "democratic."
+
+EXCORIATED--All inflators chafe sooner or later. You must go on
+till your skin hardens by practice. Meantime vaseline.
+
+
+
+                REVIEW
+
+           The Life of Xavier Lavalle
+     (Reviewed by Rene Talland. Ecole Aeronautique, Paris)
+
+Ten years ago Lavalle, "that imperturbable dreamer of the
+heavens," as Lazareff hailed him, gathered together the fruits of
+a lifetime's labour, and gave it, with well-justified contempt,
+to a world bound hand and foot to Barald's Theory of Vertices and
+"compensating electric nodes." "They shall see," he wrote--in
+that immortal postscript to The Heart of the Cyclone--"the Laws
+whose existence they derided written in fire beneath them."
+
+"But even here," he continues, "there is no finality. Better a
+thousand times my conclusions should be discredited than that my
+dead name should lie across the threshold of the temple of
+Science--a bar to further inquiry."
+
+So died Lavalle--a prince of the Powers of the Air, and even at
+his funeral Cellier jested at "him who had gone to discover the
+secrets of the Aurora Borealis."
+
+If I choose thus to be banal, it is only to remind you that
+Collier's theories are today as exploded as the ludicrous
+deductions of the Spanish school. In the place of their fugitive
+and warring dreams we have, definitely, Lavalle's Law of the
+Cyclone which he surprised in darkness and cold at the foot of
+the overarching throne of the Aurora Borealis. It is there that
+I, intent on my own investigations, have passed and re-passed a
+hundred times the worn leonine face, white as the snow beneath
+him, furrowed with wrinkles like the seams and gashes upon the
+North Cape; the nervous hand, integrally a part of the mechanism
+of his flighter; and above all, the wonderful lambent eyes turned
+to the zenith.
+
+"Master," I would cry as I moved respectfully beneath him, "what
+is it you seek today?" and always the answer, clear and without
+doubt, from above: "The old secret, my son!"
+
+The immense egotism of youth forced me on my own path, but (cry
+of the human always!) had I known--if I had known--I would many
+times have bartered my poor laurels for the privilege, such as
+Tinsley and Herrera possess, of having aided him in his
+monumental researches.
+
+It is to the filial piety of Victor Lavalle that we owe the two
+volumes consecrated to the ground-life of his father, so full of
+the holy intimacies of the domestic hearth. Once returned from
+the abysms of the utter North to that little house upon the
+outskirts of Meudon, it was not the philosopher, the daring
+observer, the man of iron energy that imposed himself on his
+family, but a fat and even plaintive jester, a farceur incarnate
+and kindly, the co-equal of his children, and, it must be
+written, not seldom the comic despair of Madame Lavalle, who, as
+she writes five years after the marriage, to her venerable
+mother, found "in this unequalled intellect whose name I bear the
+abandon of a large and very untidy boy." Here is her letter:
+
+"Xavier returned from I do not know where at midnight, absorbed
+in calculations on the eternal question of his Aurora--la belle
+Aurore, whom I begin to hate. Instead of anchoring,--I had set
+out the guide-light above our roof, so he had but to descend and
+fasten the plane--he wandered, profoundly distracted, above the
+town with his anchor down! Figure to yourself, dear mother, it is
+the roof of the mayor's house that the grapnel first engages!
+That I do not regret, for the mayor's wife and I are not
+sympathetic; but when Xavier uproots my pet araucaria and bears
+it across the garden into the conservatory I protest at the top
+of my voice. Little Victor in his night-clothes runs to the
+window, enormously amused at the parabolic flight without reason,
+for it is too dark to see the grapnel, of my prized tree. The
+Mayor of Meudon, thunders at our door in the name of the Law,
+demanding, I suppose, my husband's head. Here is the conversation
+through the megaphone--Xavier is two hundred feet above us:
+
+"'Mons. Lavalle, descend and make reparation for outrage of
+domicile. Descend, Mons. Lavalle!'
+
+"No one answers.
+
+"'Xavier Lavalle, in the name of the Law, descend arid submit to
+process for outrage of domicile.'
+
+"Xavier, roused from his calculations, comprehending only the
+last words: 'Outrage of domicile? My dear mayor, who is the man
+that has corrupted thy Julie?'
+
+"The mayor, furious, 'Xavier Lavalle--'
+
+"Xavier, interrupting: 'I have not that felicity. I am only a
+dealer in cyclones!'
+
+"My faith, he raised one then! All Meudon attended in the
+streets, and my Xavier, after a long time comprehending what he
+had done, excused himself in a thousand apologies. At last the
+reconciliation was effected in our house over a supper at two in
+the morning--Julie in a wonderful costume of compromises, and I
+have her and the mayor pacified in bed in the blue room."
+
+And on the next day, while the mayor rebuilds his roof, her
+Xavier departs anew for the Aurora Borealis, there to commence
+his life's work. M. Victor Lavalle tells us of that historic
+collision (en plane) on the flank of Hecla between Herrera, then
+a pillar of the Spanish school, and the man destined to confute
+his theories and lead him intellectually captive. Even through
+the years, the immense laugh of Lavalle as he sustains the
+Spaniard's wrecked plane, and cries: "Courage! I shall not fall
+till I have found Truth, and I hold you fast!" rings like the
+call of trumpets. This is that Lavalle whom the world, immersed
+in speculations of immediate gain, did not know nor suspect--the
+Lavalle whom they adjudged to the last a pedant and a theorist.
+
+The human, as apart from the scientific, side (developed in his
+own volumes) of his epoch-making discoveries is marked with a
+simplicity, clarity, and good sense beyond praise. I would
+specially refer such as doubt the sustaining influence of
+ancestral faith upon character and will to the eleventh and
+nineteenth chapters, in which are contained the opening and
+consummation of the Tellurionical Records extending over nine
+years. Of their tremendous significance be sure that the modest
+house at Meudon knew as little as that the Records would one day
+be the planet's standard in all official meteorology. It was
+enough for them that their Xavier--this son, this father, this
+husband--ascended periodically to commune with powers, it might
+be angelic, beyond their comprehension, and that they united
+daily in prayers for his safety.
+
+"Pray for me," he says upon the eve of each of his excursions,
+and returning, with an equal simplicity, he renders thanks "after
+supper in the little room where he kept his barometers."
+
+To the last Lavalle was a Catholic of the old school,
+accepting--he who had looked into the very heart of the
+lightnings--the dogmas of papal infallibility, of absolution, of
+confession--of relics great and small. Marvellous--enviable
+contradiction!
+
+The completion of the Tellurionical Records closed what Lavalle
+himself was pleased to call the theoretical side of his
+labours--labours from which the youngest and least impressionable
+planeur might well have shrunk. He had traced through cold and
+heat, across the deeps of the oceans, with instruments of his own
+invention, over the inhospitable heart of the polar ice and the
+sterile visage of the deserts, league by league, patiently,
+unweariedly, remorselessly, from their ever-shifting cradle under
+the magnetic pole to their exalted death-bed in the utmost ether
+of the upper atmosphere each one of the Isoconical Tellurions
+Lavalle's Curves, as we call them today. He had disentangled the
+nodes of their intersections, assigning to each its regulated
+period of flux and reflux. Thus equipped, he summons Herrera and
+Tinsley, his pupils, to the final demonstration as calmly as
+though he were ordering his flighter for some mid-day journey to
+Marseilles.
+
+"I have proved my thesis," he writes. "It remains now only that
+you should witness the proof. We go to Manila to-morrow. A
+cyclone will form off the Pescadores S. 17 E. in four days, and
+will reach its maximum intensity twenty-seven hours after
+inception. It is there I will show you the Truth."
+
+A letter heretofore unpublished from Herrera to Madame Lavalle
+tells us how the Master's prophecy was verified.
+
+I will not destroy its simplicity or its significance by any
+attempt to quote. Note well, though, that Herrera's preoccupation
+throughout that day and night of superhuman strain is always for
+the Master's bodily health and comfort.
+
+"At such a time," he writes, "I forced the Master to take the
+broth"; or "I made him put on the fur coat as you told me." Nor
+is Tinsley (see pp. 184, 85) less concerned. He prepares the
+nourishment. He cooks eternally, imperturbably, suspended in the
+chaos of which the Master interprets the meaning. Tinsley, bowed
+down with the laurels of both hemispheres, raises himself to yet
+nobler heights in his capacity of a devoted chef. It is almost
+unbelievable! And yet men write of the Master as cold, aloof,
+self-contained. Such characters do not elicit the joyous and
+unswerving devotion which Lavalle commanded throughout life.
+Truly, we have changed very little in the course of the ages! The
+secrets of earth and sky and the links that bind them, we
+felicitate ourselves we are on the road to discover; but our
+neighbours' heart and mind we misread, we misjudge, we condemn
+now as ever. Let all, then, who love a man read these most human,
+tender, and wise volumes.
+
+
+               *************
+
+transcriber's note: These "advertisements" appeared in the format
+that would have been used in a newspaper or magazine ad
+section--that is in two columns for the smaller ads, and in
+quarter, half, full and double page layouts for the others. also
+L is used as the symbol for pounds.
+               *************
+
+
+------------------------------------------------
+
+                MISCELLANEOUS
+                 [ WANTS ]
+
+REQUIRED IMMEDIATELY, FOR East Africa, a thoroughly competent
+Plane and Dirigible Driver, acquainted with Petrol Radium and
+Helium motors and generators. Low-level work only, but must
+understand heavy-weight digs.
+      MOSSAMEDES TRANSPORT ASSOC.
+             84 Palestine Buildings, E. C. 
+
+------------------------------------------------
+
+MAN WANTED-DIG DRIVER for Southern Alps with Saharan summer
+trips. High levels, high speed. high wages:
+               Apply M. SIDNEY
+         Hotel San Stefano. Monte Carlo.
+
+------------------------------------------------
+
+FAMILY DIRIGIBLE. A COMPETENT, steady man wanted for slow speed,
+low level Tangye dirigible. No night work, no sea trips. Must be
+member of the Church of England, and make himself useful in the
+garden.
+                M. R.
+         The Rectory, Gray's Barton, Wilts.
+
+------------------------------------------------
+
+COMMERCIAL DIG, CENTRAL and Southern Europe. A smart, active man
+for a L. M. T. Dig. Night work only. Headquarters London and
+Cairo. A linguist preferred.
+                BAGMAN
+    Charing Cross Hotel, W. C. (urgent.)
+
+------------------------------------------------
+
+FOR SALE--A BARGAIN--Single Plane, narrow-gauge vans, Pinke
+motor. Restayed this autumn. Hansen air-kit, 58 in. chest, 153
+collar. Can be seen by appointment.
+             N. 2650 This office.
+
+------------------------------------------------
+
+             The BEE-LINE BOOKSHOP
+
+BELT'S WAY-BOOKS, giving town lights for all towns over 4,000
+pop. as laid down by A. B. O. 
+THE WORLD. Complete 2 vols. Thin Oxford, limp back. 12L 6d.
+BELT'S COASTAL ITINERARY. Short Lights of the World. 7s. 6d.
+THE TRANSATLANTIC AND MEDITERRANEAN TRAFFIC LINES.
+        (By authority of the A.B.C.) Paper,
+       1s. 6d.; cloth. 2s. 6d. Ready, Jan. 16.
+ARCTIC AEROPLANING. Siemens and Gait. Cloth, bds. Ss. 6d.
+LAVALLE'S HEART OF THE CYCLONE, with supplementary charts. 4s.
+6d.
+RIMINGTON'S PITFALLS IN THE AIR, and Table of Comparative
+Densities  3s. 6d.
+ANGELO'S DESERT IN A DIRIGIBLE. New edition, revised. 5s. 9d.
+VAUGHAN'S PLANE RACING IN CALM AND STORM. 2s. 6d.
+VAUGHAN'S HINTS TO THE AIRMATEUR 1s.
+HOFMAN'S LAWS OF LIFT AND VELOCITY. With diagrams, 3s. 6d.
+DE VITRE'S THEORY OF SHIFTING BALLAST IN DIRIGIBLES. 2s. 6d.
+SANGERS WEATHERS OF THE WORLD. 4s.
+SANGER'S TEMPERATURES AT HIGH ALTITUDES. 4s.
+HAWKIN'S FOG AND HOW To AVOID IT. 3s.
+VAN ZUYLAN'S SECONDARY EFFECTS OF THUNDERSTORMS. 4s. 6d.
+DAHLGREN'S AIR CURRENTS AND EPIDEMIC DISEASES. 5s. 6d.
+REDMAYNE'S DISEASE AND THE BAROMETER. 7s. 6d.
+WALTON'S HEALTH RESORTS OF THE GOBI AND SHAMO. 3s. 6d.
+WALTON'S THE POLE AND PULMONARY COMPLAINTS. 7s. ad.
+MUTLOWS HIGH LEVEL BACTERIOLOGY. 7s. 6d.
+HALLIWELL'S ILLUMINATED STAR MAP, with clockwork attachment,
+ giving apparent motion of heavens, boxed, complete with
+ clamps for binnacle, 36 inch size, only L2. 2. 0.
+ Invaluable for night work.) With A.B.C. certificate. L3. 10s.
+0d. Zalinski's Standard Works:
+ PASSES OF THE HIMALAYAS, 5s.
+ PASSES OF THE SIERRAS, 5s.
+ PASSES OF THE ROOKIES. 5s.
+ PASSES OF THE URALS, 5s.
+  The four boxed, limp cloth, with charts, 15s.
+GRAY'S AIR CURRENTS at MOUNTAIN GORGES, 7s. 6d.
+
+        A. C. BELT & SON, READING
+------------------------------------------------
+            SAFETY WEAR FOR AERONAUTS
+------------------------------------------------
+Fickers!             Flickers!            Flickers!
+
+             HIGH LEVEL FLICKERS
+
+         "He that is down need fear no fall,"
+        Fear not! You will fall lightly as down!
+
+Hansen's air-kits are down in all respects. Tremendous reductions
+in prices previous to winter stocking. Pure para kit with
+cellulose seat and shoulder-pads, weighted to balance. Unequalled
+for all drop-work.
+
+     Our trebly resilient heavy kit is the ne plus ultra of
+              comfort and safety.
+
+Gas-buoyed, waterproof, hail-proof, nonconducting Flickers with
+pipe and nozzle fitting all types of generator. Graduated tap on
+left hip.
+
+         Hansen's Flickers Lead the Aerial Flight
+               197 Oxford Street
+
+   The new weighted Flicker with tweed or cheviot surface
+ cannot be distinguished from the ordinary suit till inflated.
+
+Fickers!             Flickers!            Flickers!
+------------------------------------------------
+
+             APPLIANCES FOR AIR PLANES
+
+------------------------------------------------
+        What
+                 "SKID"
+         was to our forefathers on the ground,
+                 "PITCH"
+             is to their sons in the air.
+
+The popularity of the large, unwieldy, slow, expensive Dirigible
+over the light swift, Plane is mainly due to the former's
+immunity from pitch.
+
+Collison's forward-socketed Air Van renders it impossible for any
+plane to pitch. The C.F.S. is automatic, simple as a shutter,
+certain\ as a power hammer, safe as oxygen. Fitted to any make of
+plane.
+
+                 COLLISON
+                186 Brompton Road
+               Workshops, Chiswick
+
+                LUNDIE do MATTERS
+           Sole Agts for East'n Hemisphere
+
+------------------------------------------------
+
+              STARTERS AND GUIDES
+
+Hotel, club, and private house plane-starters, slips and guides
+affixed by skilled workmen in accordance with local building
+laws.
+
+Rackstraww's forty-foot collapsible steel starters with automatic
+release at end of travel--prices per foot run, clamps and
+crampons included. The safest on the market.
+
+
+              Weaver & Denison
+                Middleboro
+
+------------------------------------------------
+
+            AIR PLANES AND DIRIGIBLE GOODS
+
+------------------------------------------------
+
+                 REMEMBER
+
+              Planes are swift--so is Death
+              Planes are cheap--so is Life
+
+Why does the plane builder insist on the safety of his machines?
+      Methinks the gentleman protests too much.
+
+The Standard Dig Construction Company do not build kites.
+
+      They build, equip and guarantee dirigibles.
+
+
+             Standard Dig construction Co.
+             Millwall and Buenos Ayres
+
+------------------------------------------------
+HOVERS
+
+                 POWELL'S
+                Wind Hovers
+
+for 'planes lying-to in heavy weather, save the motor and strain
+on the forebody. Will not send to leeward. "Albatross"
+wind-hovers, rigid-ribbed; according to h.p. and weight.
+
+             We fit and test free to
+           40 east of Greenwich Village
+
+                L. & W. POWELL
+             196 Victoria Street, W.
+
+------------------------------------------------
+
+                 REMEMBER
+
+        We shall always be pleased to see you.
+
+We build and test and guarantee our dirigibles or all purposes.
+They go up when you please and they do not come down till you
+please.
+
+You can please yourself, but--you might as well choose a
+dirigible.
+
+         STANDARD DIRIGIBLE CONSTRUCTION CO.
+            Millwall and Buenos Ayres
+
+------------------------------------------------
+
+               GAYER AND HUNT
+             Birmingham   and   Birmingham
+                 Eng.          Ala.
+
+               Towers. Landing Stages,
+                 Slips and Lifts
+                 public and private
+
+   Contractors to the A. B. C., South-Western European Postal
+             Construction Dept. Sole patentees and owners of the
+Collison anti-quake diagonal tower-tie. Only gold medal Kyoto
+Exhibition of Aerial Appliances, 1997.
+
+------------------------------------------------
+
+               AIR PLANES AND DIRIGIBLES
+
+------------------------------------------------
+
+                 C. M. C.
+             Our Synthetical Mineral
+               BEARINGS
+
+are chemically and crystal logically identical with the minerals
+whose names they bear. Any size, any surface. Diamond,
+Rock-Crystal, Agate and Ruby Bearings-cups, caps and collars for
+the higher speeds. For tractor bearings and spindles-Imperative.
+For rear propellers-Indispensable. For all working
+parts-Advisable.
+
+              Commercial Minerals Co.
+                 107 Minories
+
+------------------------------------------------
+
+                 RESURGAM!
+
+     If you have not Clothed YOURSELF in a
+
+              NORMANDIE RESURGAM
+
+YOU WILL PROBABLY NOT BE INTERESTED IN OUR NEXT WEEK'S LIST OF
+AIR-KIT.
+
+               RESURGAM AIR-KIT EMPORIUM
+
+                HYMANS & GRAHAM
+             1198 Lower Broadway, New York
+
+------------------------------------------------
+
+                   REMEMBER!
+
+------------------------------------------------
+
+* It is now nearly, a generation since the Plane was to
+supersede the Dirigible for all purposes. * TO-DAY none of the
+Planet's freight is carried en plane. * Less than two per rent of
+the Planet's passengers are carried en plane.
+
+We design, equip guarantee Dirigibles for all purposes.
+
+Standard Dig Construction Company MILLWALL and BUENOS AYRES
+------------------------------------------------
+
+                 BAT-BOATS
+------------------------------------------------
+
+
+     FLINT & MANTEL
+          SOUTHAMPTON
+              FOR SALE
+
+at the end of Season the following Bat-Boats:
+
+GRISELDA, 65 knt., 42 ft., 430(nom.) Maginnis Motor,
+  under-rake rudder.
+MABELLE, 50 knt., 40 ft., 310 Hargreaves Motor, 
+  Douglas' lock-steering gear.
+IVEMONA, 50 knt., 35 ft., 300 Hargreaves (Radium accelerator),
+  Miller keel and rudder.
+
+The above are well known on the South Coast as sound, wholesome
+knockabout boats, with ample cruising accommodation. Griselda
+carries spare set of Hofman racing vans and can be lied three
+foot clear in smooth water with ballast-tank swung aft. The
+others do not lift, clear of water, and are recommended for
+beginners.
+
+Also, by private treaty, racing B.B. Tarpon (76 winning flags)
+120 knt., 60 ft.; Long-Davidson double under-rake rudder, new
+this season and unstrained. 850 nom. Maginnis motor, Radium
+relays and Pond generator. Bronze breakwater forward, and treble
+reinforced forefoot and entry. Talfourd rockered keel: Triple set
+of Hofman vans, giving maximum lifting surface of 5327 sq. ft.
+
+Tarpon-has been lifted and held seven feet for two miles between
+touch and touch.
+
+Our Autumn List of racing and family Bats ready on the 9th
+January.
+
+------------------------------------------------
+
+             AIR PLANES AND STARTERS
+
+------------------------------------------------
+
+                HINKS MODERATOR
+
+            Monorail overhead starter
+           for family and private planes
+          up to twenty-five foot over all
+
+Absolutely Safe
+
+    Hinks & Co.. Birmingham
+------------------------------------------------
+               J. D. ARDAGH
+
+I AM NOT CONCERNED WITH YOUR PLANE I AFTER IT LEAVES MY GUIDES,
+BUT TILL THEN I HOLD MYSELF PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR LIFE,
+SAFETY, AND COMFORT. MY HYDRAULIC BUFFER-STOP CANNOT RELEASE
+TILL THE MOTORS ARE WORKING UP TO BEARING SPEED, THUS SECURING
+A SAFE AND GRACEFUL FLIGHT WITHOUT PITCHING.
+
+       Remember our motto, "Upward and Outward,"
+  and do not trust yourself to so-called "rigid" guide-bars
+
+           J. D. ARDAGH, BELFAST AND TURIN
+
+------------------------------------------------
+
+               ACCESSORIES AND SPARES
+
+------------------------------------------------
+
+               CHRISTIAN WRIGHT & OLDIS
+                  ESTABLISHED 1924
+
+               ACCESSORIES and SPARES
+
+     Hooded Binnacles with dip-dials automatically recording
+           change of level (illuminated face).
+
+All heights from 50 to 15,000 feet            L2 10 0
+With Aerial Board of Control certificate      L3 11 0
+Foot and Hand Foghoms; Sirens toned to any club note; with
+air-chest belt-driven horn motor              L6 8 0
+Wireless installations syntonised to A.B.C. requirements, in neat
+mahogany case, hundred mile range             L3 3 0
+
+Grapnels, mushroom--anchors, pithing-irons, winches, hawsers,
+snaps, shackles and mooring ropes, for lawn, city, and public
+installations.
+
+Detachable under-cars, aluminum or stamped steel.
+
+Keeled under-cars for planes: single-action detaching-gear,
+turning car into boat with one motion of the wrist. Invaluable
+for sea trips.
+
+Head, side, and riding lights (by size) Nos.00 to 20 A.B.C.
+Standard. Rockets and fog-bombs in colours and tones of the
+principal clubs (boxed).
+    A selection of twenty                   L2 17 6
+    International night-signals (boxed)     L1 11 6
+
+Spare generators guaranteed to lifting power marked on cover
+(prices according to power).
+
+Wind-noses for dirigibles--Pegamoid, cane-stiffened, lacquered
+cane or aluminum and flux for winter work.
+
+Smoke-ring cannon for hail storms, swivel mounted, bow or stern.
+
+Propeller blades: metal, tungsten backed; paper-mache wire
+stiffened; ribbed Xylonite (Nickson's patent); all razor-edged
+(price by pitch and diameter).
+
+Compressed steel bow-screws for winter work.
+
+Fused Ruby or Commercial Mineral Co. bearings and collars.
+Agate-mounted thrust-blocks up to 4 inch.
+
+Magniac's bow-rudders--(Lavales patent grooving).
+
+Wove steel beltings for outboard motors (nonmagnetic).
+
+Radium batteries, all powers to 150 h.p. (in pairs).
+
+Helium batteries, all powers to 300 h.p. (tandem).
+
+Stun'sle brakes worked from upper or lower platform.
+
+Direct plunge-brakes worked from lower platform only, loaded silk
+or fibre, wind-tight.
+
+CATALOGUES FREE THROUGHOUT THE PLANET
+
+------------------------------------------------
+
+
+                THE FOUR ANGELS
+
+    As ADAM lay a-dreaming beneath the Apple Tree,
+    The Angel of the Earth came down, and offered Earth in fee.
+          But Adam did not need it,
+          Nor the plough he would not speed it,
+    Singing:--"Earth and Water, Air and Fire,
+           What more can mortal man desire?"
+             (The Apple Tree's in bud.)
+
+    As Adam lay a-dreaming beneath the Apple Tree,
+    The Angel of the Waters offered all the Seas in fee.
+         But Adam would not take 'em,
+         Nor the ships he wouldn't make 'em,
+    Singing:--"Water, Earth and Air and Fire,
+           What more can mortal man desire?"
+             (The Apple Tree's in leaf.)
+
+    As Adam lay a-dreaming beneath the Apple Tree,
+    The Angel of the Air he offered all the Air in fee.
+          But Adam did not crave it,
+          Nor the flight he wouldn't brave it,
+    Singing:--"Air and Water, Earth and Fire,
+           What more can mortal man desire?"
+             (The Apple Tree's in bloom.)
+
+    As Adam lay a-dreaming beneath the Apple Tree,
+    The Angel of the Fire rose up and not a word said he.
+          But he wished a fire and made it,
+          And in Adam's heart he laid it,
+    Singing.--"Fire, fire, burning Fire,
+           Stand up and reach your heart's desire!"
+             (The Apple Blossom's set.)
+
+    As Adam was a-working outside of Eden-Wall,
+    He used the Earth, he used the Seas, he used the Air and all;
+           And out of black disaster
+           He arose to be the master
+    Of Earth and Water, Air and Fire,
+           But never reached his heart's desire!
+             (The Apple Tree's cut down!)
+
+
+
+A DEAL IN COTTON
+
+Long and long ago, when Devadatta was King of Benares, I wrote
+some tales concerning Strickland of the Punjab Police (who
+married Miss Youghal), and Adam, his son. Strickland has finished
+his Indian Service, and lives now at a place in England called
+Weston-super-Mare, where his wife plays the organ in one of the
+churches. Semi-occasionally he comes up to London, and
+occasionally his wife makes him visit his friends. Otherwise he
+plays golf and follows the harriers for his figure's sake.
+
+If you remember that Infant who told a tale to Eustace Cleever
+the novelist, you will remember that he became a baronet with a
+vast estate. He has, owing to cookery, a little lost his figure,
+but he never loses his friends. I have found a wing of his house
+turned into a hospital for sick men, and there I once spent a
+week in the company of two dismal nurses and a specialist in
+"Sprue." Another time the place was full of schoolboys--sons of
+Anglo-Indians whom the Infant had collected for the holidays, and
+they nearly broke his keeper's heart.
+
+But my last visit was better. The Infant called me up by wire,
+and I fell into the arms of a friend of mine, Colonel A.L.
+Corkran, so that the years departed from us, and we praised
+Allah, who had not yet terminated the Delights, nor separated the
+Companions.
+
+Said Corkran, when he had explained how it felt to command a
+native Infantry regiment on the border: "The Stricks are coming
+for to-night-with their boy."
+
+"I remember him. The little fellow I wrote a story about," I
+said. "Is he in the Service?"
+
+"No. Strick got him into the Centro-Euro-Africa Protectorate.
+He's Assistant-Commissioner at Dupe--wherever that is.
+Somaliland, ain't it, Stalky?" asked the Infant.
+
+Stalky puffed out his nostrils scornfully. "You're only three
+thousand miles out. Look at the atlas."
+
+"Anyhow, he's as rotten full of fever as the rest of you," said
+the Infant, at length on the big divan. "And he's bringing a
+native servant with him. Stalky be an athlete, and tell Ipps to
+put him in the stable room."
+
+"Why?  Is he a Yao--like the fellow Wade brought here--when your
+housekeeper had fits?" Stalky often visits the Infant, and has
+seen some odd things.
+
+"No. He's one of old Strickland's Punjabi policemen--and quite
+European--I believe."
+
+"Hooray!  Haven't talked Punjabi for three months--and a Punjabi
+from Central Africa ought to be amusin'."
+
+We heard the chuff of the motor in the porch, and the first to
+enter was Agnes Strickland, whom the Infant makes no secret of
+adoring.
+
+He is devoted, in a fat man's placid way, to at least eight
+designing women; but she nursed him once through a bad bout of
+Peshawur fever, and when she is in the house, it is more than all
+hers.
+
+"You didn't send rugs enough," she began. "Adam might have taken
+a chill."
+
+"It's quite warm in the tonneau. Why did you let him ride in
+front? "
+
+"Because he wanted to," she replied, with the mother's smile, and
+we were introduced to the shadow of a young man leaning heavily
+on the shoulder of a bearded Punjabi Mohammedan.
+
+"That is all that came home of him," said his father to me. There
+was nothing in it of the child with whom I had journeyed to
+Dalhousie centuries since."
+
+"And what is this uniform?" Stalky asked of Imam Din, the
+servant, who came to attention on the marble floor.
+
+"The uniform of the Protectorate troops, Sahib. Though I am the
+Little Sahib's body-servant, it is not seemly for us white men to
+be attended by folk dressed altogether as servants."
+
+"And--and you white men wait at table on horseback?" Stalky
+pointed to the man's spurs.
+
+"These I added for the sake of honour when I came to England,"
+said Imam Din Adam smiled the ghost of a little smile that I
+began to remember, and we put him on the big couch for
+refreshments. Stalky asked him how much leave he had, and he said
+"Six months."
+
+"But he'll take another six on medical certificate," said Agnes
+anxiously. Adam knit his brows.
+
+"You don't want to--eh? I know. Wonder what my second in command
+is doing." Stalky tugged his moustache, and fell to thinking of
+his Sikhs.
+
+"Ah!" said the Infant. "I've only a few thousand pheasants to
+look after. Come along and dress for dinner. We're just
+ourselves. What flower is your honour's ladyship commanding for
+the table?"
+
+"Just ourselves?" she said, looking at the crotons in the great
+hall. "Then let's have marigolds the little cemetery ones."
+
+So it was ordered.
+
+Now, marigolds to us mean hot weather, discomfort, parting, and
+death. That smell in our nostrils, and Adam's servant in waiting,
+we naturally fell back more and more on the old slang, recalling
+at each glass those who had gone before. We did not sit at the
+big table, but in the bay window overlooking the park, where they
+were carting the last of the hay. When twilight fell we would not
+have candles, but waited for the moon, and continued our talk in
+the dusk that makes one remember.
+
+Young Adam was not interested in our past except where it had
+touched his future. I think his mother held his hand beneath the
+table. Imam Din--shoeless, out of respect to the floors--brought
+him his medicine, poured it drop by drop, and asked for orders.
+
+"Wait to take him to his cot when he grows weary," said his
+mother, and Imam Din retired into the shadow by the ancestral
+portraits.
+
+"Now what d'you expect to get out of your country?" the Infant
+asked, when--our India laid aside we talked Adam's Africa. It
+roused him at once.
+
+"Rubber -nuts -gums -and so on," he said. "But our real future is
+cotton. I grew fifty acres of it last year in my District."
+
+"My District!" said his father. "Hear him, Mummy!"
+
+"I did though! I wish I could show you the sample. Some
+Manchester chaps said it was as good as any Sea Island cotton on
+the market."
+
+"But what made you a cotton-planter, my son?" she asked.
+
+"My Chief said every man ought to have a shouk (a hobby) of
+sorts, and he took the trouble to ride a day out of his way to
+show me a belt of black soil that was just the thing for cotton."
+
+"Ah! What was your Chief like?" Stalky asked, in his silkiest
+tones.
+
+"The best man alive--absolutely. He lets you blow your own nose
+yourself. The people call him"--Adam jerked out some heathen
+phrase--"that means the Man with the Stone Eyes, you know."
+
+"I'm glad of that. Because I've heard from other quarters"
+Stalky's sentence burned like a slow match, but the explosion was
+not long delayed. "Other quarters!" Adam threw out a thin hand.
+"Every dog has his fleas. If you listen to them, of course!" The
+shake of his head was as I remembered it among his father's
+policemen twenty years before, and his mother's eyes shining
+through the dusk called on me to adore it. I kicked Stalky on the
+shin. One must not mock a young man's first love or loyalty.
+
+A lump of raw cotton appeared on the table.
+
+"I thought there might be a need. Therefore I packed it between
+our shirts," said the voice of Imam Din.
+
+"Does he know as much English as that?" cried the Infant, who had
+forgotten his East.
+
+We all admired the cotton for Adam's sake, and, indeed, it was
+very long and glossy.
+
+"It's--it's only an experiment," he said. "We're such awful
+paupers we can't even pay for a mailcart in my District. We use a
+biscuit-box on two bicycle wheels. I only got the money for
+that"--he patted the stuff--"by a pure fluke."
+
+"How much did it cost?" asked Strickland.
+
+"With seed and machinery--about two hundred pounds. I had the
+labour done by cannibals."
+
+"That sounds promising." Stalky reached for a fresh cigarette.
+
+"No, thank you," said Agnes. "I've been at Weston-super-Mare a
+little too long for cannibals. I'll go to the music-room and try
+over next Sunday's hymns."
+
+She lifted the boy's hand lightly to her lips, and tripped across
+the acres of glimmering floor to the music-room that had been the
+Infant's ancestors' banqueting hall. Her grey and silver dress
+disappeared under the musicians' gallery; two electrics broke
+out, and she stood backed against the lines of gilded pipes.
+
+"There's an abominable self-playing attachment here!" she called.
+
+"Me!" the Infant answered, his napkin on his shoulder. "That's
+how I play Parsifal."
+
+"I prefer the direct expression. Take it away, Ipps."
+
+We heard old Ipps skating obediently all over the floor.
+
+"Now for the direct expression," said Stalky, and moved on the
+Burgundy recommended by the faculty to enrich fever-thinned
+blood.
+
+"It's nothing much. Only the belt of cotton-soil my chief showed
+me ran right into the Sheshaheli country. We haven't been able to
+prove cannibalism against that tribe in the courts; but when a
+Sheshaheli offers you four pounds of woman's breast, tattoo marks
+and all, skewered up in a plantain leaf before breakfast, you--"
+
+"Naturally burn the villages before lunch," said Stalky.
+
+Adam shook his head. "No troops," he sighed. "I told my Chief
+about it, and he said we must wait till they chopped a white man.
+He advised me if ever I felt like it not to commit a--a barren
+felo de se, but to let the Sheshaheli do it. Then he could
+report, and then we could mop 'em up!"
+
+"Most immoral! That's how we got--" Stalky quoted the name of a
+province won by just such a sacrifice.
+
+"Yes, but the beasts dominated one end of my cotton-belt like
+anything. They chivied me out of it when I went to take soil for
+analysis--me and Imam Din."
+
+"Sahib! Is there a need?" The voice came out of the darkness, and
+the eyes shone over Adam's shoulder ere it ceased.
+
+"None. The name was taken in talk." Adam abolished him with a
+turn of the finger. "I couldn't make a casus belli of it just
+then, because my Chief had taken all the troops to hammer a gang
+of slave kings up north. Did you ever hear of our war against Ibn
+Makarrah? He precious nearly lost us the Protectorate at one
+time, though he's an ally of ours now."
+
+"Wasn't he rather a pernicious brute, even as they go?" said
+Stalky. "Wade told me about him last year."
+
+"Well, his nickname all through the country was 'The Merciful,'
+and he didn't get that for nothing. None of our people ever
+breathed his proper name. They said 'He' or 'That One,' and they
+didn't say it aloud, either. He fought us for eight months."
+
+"I remember. There was a paragraph about it in one of the
+papers," I said.
+
+"We broke him, though. No--the slavers don't come our way,
+because our men have the reputation of dying too much, the first
+month after they're captured. That knocks down profits, you see."
+
+"What about your charming friends, the Sheshahelis?" said the
+Infant.
+
+"There's no market for Sheshaheli. People would as soon buy
+crocodiles. I believe, before we annexed the country, Ibn
+Makarrah dropped down on 'em once--to train his young men--and
+simply hewed 'em in pieces. The bulk of my people are
+agriculturists just the right stamp for cotton-growers. What's
+Mother playing?--'Once in royal'?"
+
+The organ that had been crooning as happily as a woman over her
+babe restored, steadied to a tune.
+
+"Magnificent! Oh, magnificent! " said the Infant loyally. I had
+never heard him sing but once, and then, though it was early in
+the tolerant morning, his mess had rolled him into a lotus pond.
+
+"How did you get your cannibals to work for you?" asked
+Strickland.
+
+"They got converted to civilization after my Chief smashed Ibn
+Makarrah--just at the time I wanted 'em. You see my Chief had
+promised me in writing that if I could scrape up a surplus he
+would not bag it for his roads this time, but I might have it for
+my cotton game. I only needed two hundred pounds. Our revenues
+didn't run to it."
+
+"What is your revenue?" Stalky asked in the vernacular.
+
+"With hut-tax, traders' game and mining licenses, not more than
+fourteen thousand rupees; every penny of it ear-marked months
+ahead." Adam sighed.
+
+"Also there is a fine for dogs straying in the Sahib's camp. Last
+year it exceeded three rupees," Imam Din said quietly.
+
+"Well, I thought that was fair. They howled so. We were rather
+strict on fines. I worked up my native clerk--Bulaki Ram--to a
+ferocious pitch of enthusiasm. He used to calculate the profits
+of our cotton-scheme to three points of decimals, after office. I
+tell you I envied your magistrates here hauling money out of
+motorists every week I had managed to make our ordinary revenue
+and expenditure just about meet, and I was crazy to get the odd
+two hundred pounds for my cotton. That sort of thing grows on a
+chap when he's alone--and talks aloud!"
+
+"Hul-lo! Have you been there already?" the father said, and Adam
+nodded.
+
+"Yes. Used to spout what I could remember of 'Marmion' to a tree,
+sir. Well then my luck turned. One evening an English-speaking
+nigger came in towing a corpse by the feet. (You get used to
+little things like that.) He said he'd found it, and please would
+I identify, because if it was one of Ibn Makarrah's men there
+might be a reward. It was an old Mohammedan, with a strong dash
+of Arab--a smallboned, bald-headed chap, and I was just wondering
+how it had kept so well in our climate when it sneezed. You ought
+to have seen the nigger! He fetched a howl and bolted like--like
+the dog in 'Tom Sawyer,' when he sat on the what's-its-name
+beetle. He yelped as he ran, and the corpse went on sneezing. I
+could see it had been sarkied. (That's a sort of gum-poison,
+pater, which attacks the nerve centres. Our chief medical officer
+is writing a monograph about it.) So Imam Din and I emptied out
+the corpse one time, with my shaving soap and trade gunpowder,
+and hot water.
+
+"I'd seen a case of sarkie before; so when the skin peeled off
+his feet, and he stopped sneezing, I knew he'd live. He was bad,
+though; lay like a log for a week while Imam Din and I massaged
+the paralysis out of him. Then he told us he was a Hajji--had
+been three times to Mecca--come in from French Africa, and that
+he'd met the nigger by the wayside--just like a case of thuggee,
+in India--and the nigger had poisoned him. That seemed reasonable
+enough by what I knew of Coast niggers."
+
+"You believed him?" said his father keenly.
+
+"There was no reason I shouldn't. The nigger never came back, and
+the old man stayed with me for two months," Adam returned. "You
+know what the best type of a Mohammedan gentleman can be, pater?
+He was that."
+
+"None finer, none finer," was the answer.
+
+"Except a Sikh," Stalky grunted.
+
+"He'd been to Bombay; he knew French Africa inside out; he could
+quote poetry and the Koran all day long. He played chess--you
+don't know what that meant to me -like a master. We used to talk
+about the regeneration of Turkey and the Sheik-ul-Islam between
+moves. Oh, everything under the sun we talked about! He was
+awfully open-minded. He believed in slavery, of course, but he
+quite saw that it would have to die out. That's why he agreed
+with me about developing the resources of the district by
+cotton-growing, you know."
+
+"You talked of that too?" said Strickland.
+
+"Rather. We discussed it for hours. You don't know what it meant
+to me. A wonderful man. Imam Din, was not our Hajji marvellous?"
+
+"Most marvellous! It was all through the Hajji that we found the
+money for our cotton-play." Imam Din had moved, I fancy, behind
+Strickland's chair.
+
+"Yes. It must have been dead against his convictions too. He
+brought me news when I was down with fever at Dupe that one of
+Ibn Makarrah's men was parading through my District with a bunch
+of slaves--in the Fork!"
+
+"What's the matter with the Fork, that you can't abide it?" said
+Stalky. Adam's voice had risen at the last word.
+
+"Local etiquette, sir," he replied, too earnest to notice
+Stalky's atrocious pun. "If a slaver runs slaves through British
+territory he ought to pretend that they're his servants. Hawkin'
+'em about in the Fork--the forked stick that you put round their
+necks, you know--is insolence--same as not backing your topsails
+in the old days. Besides, it unsettles the District."
+
+"I thought you said slavers didn't come your way," I put in.
+
+"They don't. But my Chief was smoking 'em out of the North all
+that season, and they were bolting into French territory any road
+they could find. My orders were to take no notice so long as they
+circulated, but open slave-dealing in the Fork, was too much. I
+couldn't go myself, so I told a couple of our Makalali police and
+Imam Din to make talk with the gentleman one time. It was rather
+risky, and it might have been expensive, but it turned up trumps.
+They were back in a few days with the slaver (he didn't show
+fight) and a whole crowd of witnesses, and we tried him in my
+bedroom, and fined him properly. Just to show you how demoralized
+the brute must have been (Arabs often go dotty after a defeat),
+he'd snapped up four or five utterly useless Sheshaheli, and was
+offering 'em to all and sundry along the road. Why, he offered
+'em to you, didn't he, Imam Din?"
+
+"I was witness that he offered man-eaters' for sale," said Imam
+Din.
+
+"Luckily for my cotton-scheme, that landed, him both ways. You
+see, he had slaved and exposed slaves for sale in British
+territory. That meant the double fine if I could get it out of
+him."
+
+"What was his defence?" said Strickland, late of the Punjab
+Police.
+
+"As far as I remember--but I had a temperature of 104 degrees at
+the time--he'd mistaken the meridians of longitude. Thought he
+was in French territory. Said he'd never do it again, if we'd let
+him off with a fine. I could have shaken hands with the brute for
+that. He paid up cash like a motorist and went off one time."
+
+"Did you see him?"
+
+"Ye-es. Didn't I, Imam Din?"
+
+"Assuredly the Sahib both saw and spoke to the slaver. And the
+Sahib also made a speech to the man-eaters when he freed them,
+and they swore to supply him with labour for all his cotton-play.
+The Sahib leaned on his own servant's shoulder the while."
+
+"I remember something of that. I remember Bulaki Ram giving me
+the papers to sign, and I distinctly remember him locking up the
+money in the safe--two hundred and ten beautiful English
+sovereigns. You don't know what that meant to me! I believe it
+cured my fever; and as soon as I could, I staggered off with the
+Hajji to interview the Sheshaheli about labour. Then I found out
+why they had been so keen to work! It wasn't gratitude. Their big
+village had been hit by lightning and burned out a week or two
+before, and they lay flat in rows around me asking me for a job.
+I gave it 'em."
+
+"And so you were very happy?" His mother had stolen up behind us.
+"You liked your cotton, dear?" She tidied the lump away.
+
+"By Jove, I was happy!" Adam yawned. "Now if any one," he looked
+at the Infant, "cares to put a little money into the scheme,
+it'll be the making of my District. I can't give you figures,
+sir, but I assure--"
+
+"You'll take your arsenic, and Imam Din'll take you up to bed,
+and I'll come and tuck you in."
+
+Agnes leaned forward, her rounded elbows on his shoulders, hands
+joined across his dark hair, and "Isn't he a darling?" she said
+to us, with just the same heart-rending lift to the left eyebrow
+and the same break of her voice as sent Strickland mad among the
+horses in the year '84. We were quiet when they were gone. We
+waited till Imam Din returned to us from above and coughed at the
+door, as only dark-hearted Asia can.
+
+"Now," said Strickland, "tell us what truly befell, son of my
+servant."
+
+"All befell as our Sahib has said. Only--only there was an
+arrangement--a little arrangement on account of his cotton-play."
+
+"Tell! Sit! I beg your pardon, Infant," said Strickland.
+
+But the Infant had already made the sign, and we heard Imam Din
+hunker down on the floor: One gets little out of the East at
+attention.
+
+"When the fever came on our Sahib in our roofed house at Dupe,"
+he began, "the Hajji listened intently to his talk. He expected
+the names of women; though I had already told him that Our virtue
+was beyond belief or compare, and that Our sole desire was this
+cotton-play. Being at last convinced, the Hajji breathed on our
+Sahib's forehead, to sink into his brain news concerning a
+slave-dealer in his district who had made a mock of the law.
+Sahib," Imam Din turned to Strickland, "our Sahib answered to
+those false words as a horse of blood answers to the spur. He sat
+up. He issued orders for the apprehension of the slavedealer.
+Then he fell back. Then we left him."
+
+"Alone--servant of my son, and son of my servant?" said his
+father.
+
+"There was an old woman which belonged to the Hajji. She had come
+in with the Hajji's money-belt. The Hajji told her that if our
+Sahib died, she would die with him. And truly our Sahib had given
+me orders to depart."
+
+"Being mad with fever--eh?"
+
+"What could we do, Sahib? This cotton-play was his heart's
+desire. He talked of it in his fever. Therefore it was his
+heart's desire that the Hajji went to fetch. Doubtless the Hajji
+could have given him money enough out of hand for ten
+cottonplays; but in this respect also our Sahib's virtue was
+beyond belief or compare. Great Ones do not exchange moneys.
+Therefore the Hajji said--and I helped with my counsel--that we
+must make arrangements to get the money in all respects
+conformable with the English Law. It was great trouble to us,
+but--the Law is the Law. And the Hajji showed the old woman the
+knife by which she would die if our Sahib died. So I accompanied
+the Hajji."
+
+"Knowing who he was?" said Strickland.
+
+"No! Fearing the man. A virtue went out from him overbearing the
+virtue of lesser persons. The Hajji told Bulaki Ram the clerk to
+occupy the seat of government at Dupe till our return. Bulaki Ram
+feared the Hajji, because the Hajji had often gloatingly
+appraised his skill in figures at five thousand rupees upon any
+slave-block. The Hajji then said to me: 'Come, and we will make
+the man-eaters play the cotton-game for my delight's delight' The
+Hajji loved our Sahib with the love of a father for his son, of a
+saved for his saviour, of a Great One for a Great One. But I
+said: 'We cannot go to that Sheshaheli place without a hundred
+rifles. We have here five.' The Hajji said: 'I have untied as
+knot in my head-handkerchief which will be more to us than a
+thousand.' I saw that he had so loosed it that it lay flagwise on
+his shoulder. Then I knew that he was a Great One with virtue in
+him.
+
+"We came to the highlands of the Sheshaheli on the dawn of the
+second day--about the time of the stirring of the cold wind. The
+Hajji walked delicately across the open place where their filth
+is, and scratched upon the gate which was shut. When it opened I
+saw the man-eaters lying on their cots under the eaves of the
+huts. They rolled off: they rose up, one behind the other the
+length of the street, and the fear on their faces was as leaves
+whitening to a breeze. The Hajji stood in the gate guarding his
+skirts from defilement. The Hajji said: 'I am here once again.
+Give me six and yoke up.' They zealously then pushed to us with
+poles six, and yoked them with a heavy tree. The Hajji then said:
+"Fetch fire from the morning hearth, and come to windward.' The
+wind is strong on those headlands at sunrise, so when each had
+emptied his crock of fire in front of that which was before him,
+the broadside of the town roared into flame, and all went. The
+Hajji then said: 'At the end of a time there will come here the
+white man ye once chased for sport. He will demand labour to
+plant such and such stuff. Ye are that labour, and your spawn
+after you.' They said, lifting their heads a very little from the
+edge of the ashes: ' We are that labour, and our spawn after us.'
+The Hajji said: 'What is also my name?' They said: 'Thy name is
+also The Merciful' The Hajji said: 'Praise then my mercy'; and
+while they did this, the Hajji walked away, I following."
+
+The Infant made some noise in his throat, and reached for more
+Burgundy.
+
+"About noon one of our six fell dead. Fright only frights Sahib!
+None had--none could--touch him. Since they were in pairs, and
+the other of the Fork was mad and sang foolishly, we waited for
+some heathen to do what was needful. There came at last Angari
+men with goats. The Hajji said: 'What do ye see? They said: 'Oh,
+our Lord, we neither see nor hear.' The Hajji said: 'But I
+command ye to see and to hear and to say.' They said: 'Oh, our
+Lord, it is to our commanded eyes as though slaves stood in a
+Fork.' The Hajji said: 'So testify before the officer who waits
+you in the town of Dupe.' They said: 'What shall come to us
+after?' The Hajji said: 'The just reward for the informer. But if
+ye do not testify, then a punishment which shall cause birds, to
+fall from the trees in terror and monkeys to scream for pity.'
+Hearing this, the Angari men hastened to Dupe. The Hajji then
+said to me: 'Are those things sufficient to establish our case,
+or must I drive in a village full?' I said that three witnesses
+amply established any case, but as yet, I said, the Hajji had not
+offered his slaves for sale. It is true, as our Sahib said just
+now, there is one fine for catching slaves, and yet another for
+making to sell them. And it was the double fine that we needed,
+Sahib, for our Sahib's cotton-play. We had fore-arranged all this
+with Bulaki Ram, who knows the English Law, and, I thought the
+Hajji remembered, but he grew angry, and cried out: 'O God,
+Refuge of the Afflicted, must I, who am what I am, peddle this'
+dog's meat by the roadside to gain his delight for my heart's
+delight?" None the less, he admitted it was the English Law, and
+so he offered me the six--five--in a small voice, with an averted
+head. The Sheshaheli do not smell of sour milk as heathen should.
+They smell like leopards, Sahib. This is because they eat men."
+
+"Maybe," said Strickland. "But where were thy wits? One witness
+is not sufficient to establish the fact of a sale."
+
+"What could we do, Sahib? There was the Hajji's reputation to
+consider. We could not have called in a heathen witness for such
+a thing. And, moreover, the Sahib forgets that the defendant
+himself was making this case. He would not contest his own
+evidence. Otherwise, I know the law of evidence well enough.
+
+"So then we went to Dupe, and while Bulaki Ram waited among the
+Angari men, 'I ran to see our Sahib in bed. His eyes were very
+bright, and his mouth was full of upside-down orders, but the old
+woman had not loosened her hair for death. The Hajji said: 'Be
+quick with my trial. I am not Job!' The Hajji was a learned man.
+We made the trial swiftly to a sound of soothing voices round the
+bed. Yet--yet, because no man can be sure whether a Sahib of that
+blood sees, or does not see, we made it strictly in the manner of
+the forms of the English Law. Only the witnesses and the slaves
+and the prisoner we kept without for his nose's sake."
+
+"Then he did not see the prisoner?" said Strickland.
+
+"I stood by to shackle up an Angari in case he should demand it,
+but by God's favour he was too far fevered to ask for one. It is
+quite true he signed the papers. It is quite true he saw the
+money put away in the safe--two hundred and ten English pounds
+and it is quite true that the gold wrought on him as a strong
+cure. But as to his seeing the prisoner, and having speech with
+the man-eaters--the Hajji breathed all that on his forehead to
+sink into his sick brain. A little, as ye have heard, has
+remained . . . . Ah, but when the fever broke, and our Sahib
+called for the fine-book, and the thin little picture-books from
+Europe with the pictures of ploughs and hoes, and
+cotton=3Dmills--ah, then he laughed as he used to laugh, Sahib.
+It was his heart's desire, this cotton-play. The Hajji loved him,
+as who does not? It was a little, little arrangement, Sahib, of
+which--is it necessary to tell all the world?"
+
+"And when didst thou know who the Hajji was?" said Strickland.
+
+"Not for a certainty till he and our Sahib had returned from
+their visit to the Sheshaheli country. It is quite true as our
+Sahib says, the man-eaters lay, flat around his feet, and asked
+for spades to cultivate cotton. That very night, when I was
+cooking the dinner, the Hajji said to me: 'I go to my own place,
+though God knows whether the Man with the Stone Eyes have left me
+an ox, a slave, or a woman.' I said: 'Thou art then That One?'
+The Hajji said: 'I am ten thousand rupees reward into thy hand.
+Shall we make another law-case and get more cotton machines for
+the boy?' I said: 'What dog am I to do this? May God prolong thy
+life a thousand years!' The Hajji said: 'Who has seen to-morrow?
+God has given me as it were a son in my old age, and I praise
+Him. See that the breed is not lost!'
+
+"He walked then from the cooking-place to our Sahib's
+office-table under the tree, where our Sahib held in his hand a
+blue envelope of Service newly come in by runner from the North.
+At this, fearing evil news for the Hajji, I would have restrained
+him, but he said: 'We be both Great Ones. Neither of us will
+fail.' Our Sahib looked up to invite the Hajji to approach before
+he opened the letter, but the Hajji stood off till our Sahib had
+well opened and well read the letter. Then the Hajji said: 'Is it
+permitted to say farewell?' Our Sahib stabbed the letter on the
+file with a deep and joyful breath and cried a welcome. The Hajji
+said: 'I go to my own place,' and he loosed from his neck a
+chained heart of ambergris set in soft gold and held it forth.
+Our Sahib snatched it swiftly in the closed fist, down turned,
+and said 'If thy name be written hereon, it is needless, for a
+name is already engraved on my heart.' The Hajji said: 'And on
+mine also is a name engraved; but there is no name on the
+amulet.' The Hajji stooped to our Sahib's feet, but our Sahib
+raised and embraced him, and the Hajji covered his mouth with his
+shoulder-cloth, because it worked, and so he went away."
+
+"And what order was in the Service letter?" Stalky murmured.
+
+"Only an order for our Sahib to write a report on some new cattle
+sickness. But all orders come in the same make of envelope. We
+could not tell what order it might have been."
+
+"When he opened the letter--my son--made he no sign? A cough? An
+oath?" Strickland asked.
+
+"None, Sahib. I watched his hands. They did not shake. Afterward
+he wiped his face, but he was sweating before from the heat."
+
+"Did he know? Did he know who the Hajji was?" said the Infant in
+English.
+
+"I am a poor man. Who can say what a Sahib of that get knows or
+does not know? But the Hajji is right. The breed should not be
+lost. It is not very hot for little children in Dupe, and as
+regards nurses, my sister's cousin at Jull--"
+
+"H'm! That is the boy's own concern. I wonder if his Chief ever
+knew?" said Strickland.
+
+"Assuredly," said Imam Din. "On the night before our Sahib went
+down to the sea, the Great Sahib--the Man with the Stone
+Eyes--dined with him in his camp, I being in charge of the table.
+They talked a long while and the Great Sahib said: 'What didst
+thou think of That One?' (We do not say Ibn Makarrah yonder.) Our
+Sahib said: 'Which one?' The Great Sahib said: 'That One which
+taught thy man-eaters to grow cotton for thee. He was in thy
+District three months to my certain knowledge, and I looked by
+every runner that thou wouldst send me in his head.' Our Sahib
+said: 'If his head had been needed, another man should have been
+appointed to govern my District, for he was my friend.' The Great
+Sahib laughed and said: 'If I had needed a lesser man in thy
+place be sure I would have sent him, as, if I had needed the head
+of That One, be sure I would have sent men to bring it to me. But
+tell me now, by what means didst thou twist him to thy use and
+our profit in this cotton-play?' Our Sahib said: 'By God, I did
+not use that man in any fashion whatever. He was my friend.' The
+Great Sahib said: ' 'Toh Vac! (Bosh!) Tell!' Our Sahib shook his
+head as he does--as he did when a child--and they looked at each
+other like sword-play men in the ring at a fair. The Great Sahib
+dropped his eyes first and he said: 'So be it. I should perhaps
+have answered thus in my youth. No matter. I have made treaty
+with That One as an ally of the State. Some day he shall tell me
+the tale.' Then I brought in fresh coffee, and they ceased. But I
+do not think That One will tell the Great Sahib more than our
+Sahib told him."
+
+"Wherefore?" I asked.
+
+"Because they are both Great Ones, and I have observed in my life
+that Great Ones employ words very little between each other in
+their dealings; still less when they speak to a third concerning
+those dealings. Also they profit by silence . . . . Now I think
+that the mother has come down from the room, and I will go rub
+his feet till he sleeps."
+
+His ears had caught Agnes's step at the stair-head and presently
+she passed us on her way to the music room humming the
+Magnificat.
+
+
+
+               THE NEW KNIGHTHOOD
+
+            Who gives him the Bath?
+              "I," said the wet,
+            Rank Jungle-sweat,
+              "I'll give him the Bath!"
+
+            Who'll sing the psalms?
+              "We," said the Palms.
+            "Ere the hot wind becalms,
+              We'll sing the psalms."
+
+            Who lays on the sword?
+              "I," said the Sun,
+            "Before he has done,
+              I'll lay on the sword."
+
+            Who fastens his belt?
+              "I," said Short-Rations,
+            "I know all the fashions
+              Of tightening a belt!"
+
+            Who buckles his spur?
+              "I," said his Chief,
+            Exacting and brief,
+              "I'll give him the spur."
+
+            Who'll shake his hand?
+              "I," said the Fever,
+            "And I'm no deceiver,
+              I'll shake his hand."
+
+            Who brings him the wine?
+              "I," said Quinine,
+            "It's a habit of mine,
+              I'll come with his wine."
+
+            Who'll put him to proof?
+              "I," said All Earth,
+            "Whatever he's worth,
+              I'll put to the proof."
+
+            Who'll choose him for Knight?
+              "I," said his Mother,
+            "Before any other,
+              My very own knight!"
+
+         And after this fashion, adventure to seek,
+         Was Sir Galahad made--as it might be last week!
+
+
+
+THE PUZZLER
+
+I had not seen Penfentenyou since the Middle Nineties, when he
+was Minister of Ways and Woodsides in De Thouar's first
+Administration. Last summer, though he nominally held the same
+portfolio, he was his Colony's Premier in all but name, and the
+idol of his own province, which is two and a half times the size
+of England. Politically, his creed was his growing country; and
+he came over to England to develop a Great Idea in her behalf.
+
+Believing that he had put it in train, I made haste to welcome
+him to my house for a week.
+
+That he was chased to my door by his own Agent-General in a
+motor; that they turned my study into a Cabinet Meeting which I
+was not invited to attend; that the local telegraph all but broke
+down beneath the strain of hundred word coded cables; and that I
+practically broke into the house of a stranger to get him
+telephonic facilities on a Sunday, are things I overlook. What I
+objected to was his ingratitude, while I thus tore up England to
+help him. So I said: "Why on earth didn't you see your Opposite
+Number in Town instead of bringing your office work here?"
+
+"Eh? Who?" said he, looking up from his fourth cable since lunch.
+
+"See the English Minister for Ways and Woodsides."
+
+"I saw him," said Penfentenyou, without enthusiasm.
+
+It seemed that he had called twice on the gentleman, but without
+an appointment--("I thought if I wasn't big enough, my business
+was")--and each time had found him engaged. A third party
+intervening, suggested that a meeting might be arranged if due
+notice were given.
+
+"Then," said Penfentenyou, "I called at the office at ten
+o'clock."
+
+"But they'd be in bed," I cried.
+
+"One of the babies was awake. He told me that--that 'my sort of
+questions "'--he slapped the pile of cables--"were only taken
+between 11 and 2 P.M. So I waited."
+
+"And when you got to business?" I asked.
+
+He made a gesture of despair. "It was like talking to children.
+They'd never heard of it."
+
+"And your Opposite Number?"
+
+Penfentenyou described him.
+
+"Hush! You mustn't talk like that!" I shuddered. "He's one of the
+best of good fellows. You should meet him socially."
+
+"I've done that too," he said. "Have you?"
+
+"Heaven forbid!" I cried; "but that's the proper thing to say."
+
+"Oh, he said all the proper things. Only I thought as this was
+England that they'd more or less have the hang of all
+the--general hang-together of my Idea. But I had to explain it
+from the beginning."
+
+"Ah!  They'd probably mislaid the papers," I said, and I told him
+the story of a three-million pound insurrection caused by a
+deputy Under-Secretary sitting upon a mass of green-labelled
+correspondence instead of reading it.
+
+"I wonder it doesn't happen every week," the answered. "D'you
+mind my having the Agent-General to dinner again tonight? I'll
+wire, and he can motor down."
+
+The Agent-General arrived two hours later, a patient and
+expostulating person, visibly torn between the pulling Devil of a
+rampant Colony, and the placid Baker of a largely uninterested
+England. But with Penfentenyou behind him he had worked; for he
+told us that Lord Lundie--the Law Lord was the final authority on
+the legal and constitutional aspects of the Great Idea, and to
+him it must be referred.
+
+"Good Heavens alive!" thundered Penfentenyou. "I told you to get
+that settled last Christmas."
+
+"It was the middle of the house-party season," said the
+Agent-General mildly. "Lord Lundie's at Credence Green now--he
+spends his holidays there. It's only forty miles off."
+
+"Shan't I disturb his Holiness?" said Penfentenyou heavily.
+"Perhaps 'my sort of questions,"' he snorted, "mayn't be
+discussed except at midnight."
+
+"Oh, don't be a child," I said.
+
+"What this country needs," said Penfentenyou, "is--" and for ten
+minutes he trumpeted rebellion.
+
+"What you need is to pay for your own protection," I cut in when
+he drew breath, and I showed him a yellowish paper, supplied
+gratis by Government, which is called Schedule D. To my merciless
+delight he had never seen the thing before, and I completed my
+victory over him and all the Colonies with a Brassey's "Naval
+Annual" and a "Statesman's Year Book."
+
+The Agent-General interposed with agent-generalities (but they
+were merely provocateurs) about Ties of Sentiment.
+
+"They be blowed!" said Penfentenyou. "What's the good of
+sentiment towards a Kindergarten?"
+
+"Quite so. Ties of common funk are the things that bind us
+together; and the sooner you new nations realize it the better.
+What you need is an annual invasion. Then you'd grow up."
+
+"Thank you! Thank you!" said the Agent-General. "That's what I am
+always trying to tell my people."
+
+"But, my dear fool," Penfentenyou almost wept, "do you pretend
+that these banana-fingered amateurs at home are grown up?"
+
+"You poor, serious, pagan man," I retorted, "if you take 'em that
+way, you'll wreck your Great Idea."
+
+"Will you take him to Lord Lundie's to-morrow?" said the
+Agent-General promptly.
+
+"I suppose I must," I said, "if you won't."
+
+"Not me! I'm going home," said the Agent-General, and departed. I
+am glad that I am no colony's Agent-General.
+
+Penfentenyou continued to argue about naval contributions till
+1.15 A.M., though I was victor from the first.
+
+At ten o'clock I got him and his correspondence into the motor,
+and he had the decency to ask whether he had been unpolished
+over-night. I replied that I waited an apology. This he made
+excuse for renewed arguments, and used wayside shows as
+illustrations of the decadence of England.
+
+For example we burst a tyre within a mile of Credence Green, and,
+to save time, walked into the beautifully kept little village.
+His eye was caught by a building of pale-blue tin, stencilled
+"Calvinist Chapel," before whose shuttered windows an Italian
+organ-grinder .with a petticoated monkey was playing "Dolly
+Grey-"
+
+"Yes. That's it!" snapped the egoist. "That's a parable of the
+general situation in England. And look at those brutes!" A huge
+household removals van was halted at a public-house. The men in
+charge were drinking beer from blue and white mugs. It seemed to
+me a pretty sight, but Penfentenyou said it represented Our
+National Attitude.
+
+Lord Lundie's summer resting-place we learned was a farm, a
+little out of the village, up a hill round which curled a high
+hedged road. Only an initiated few spend their holidays at
+Credence Green, and they have trained the householders to keep
+the place select. Penfentenyou made a grievance of this as we
+walked up the lane, followed at a distance by the organ-grinder.
+
+"Suppose he is having a house-party," he said: "Anything's
+possible in this insane land."
+
+Just at that minute we found ourselves opposite an empty villa.
+Its roof was of black slate, with bright unweathered
+ridge-tiling; its walls were of blood-coloured brick, cornered
+and banded with vermiculated stucco work, and there was cobalt,
+magenta, and purest apple-green window-glass on either side of
+the front door. The whole was fenced from the road by a low,
+brick-pillared, flint wall, topped with a cast-iron Gothic rail,
+picked out in blue and gold.
+
+Tight beds of geranium, calceolaria, and lobelia speckled the
+glass-plat, from whose centre rose one of the finest araucarias
+(its other name by the way is "monkey-puzzler"), that it has ever
+been my lot to see. It must have been full thirty feet high, and
+its foliage exquisitely answered the iron railings. Such bijou ne
+plus ultras, replete with all the amenities, do not, as I pointed
+out to Penfentenyou, transpire outside of England.
+
+A hedge, swinging sharp right, flanked the garden, and above it
+on a slope of daisy-dotted meadows we could see Lord Lundie's
+tiled and half-timbered summer farmhouse. Of a sudden we heard
+voices behind the tree--the fine full tones of the unembarrassed
+English, speaking to their equals--that tore through the hedge
+like sleet through rafters.
+
+"That it is not called 'monkey-puzzler' for nothing, I willingly
+concede"--this was a rich and rolling note--"but on the other
+hand--"
+
+"I submit, me lud, that the name implies that it might, could,
+would, or should be ascended by a monkey, and not that the ascent
+is a physical impossibility. I believe one of our South American
+spider monkeys wouldn't hesitate . . . By Jove, it might be worth
+trying, if--"
+
+This was a crisper voice than the first. A third, higher-pitched,
+and full of pleasant affectations, broke in.
+
+"Oh, practical men, there is no ape here. Why do you waste one of
+God's own days on unprofitable discussion? Give me a match!"
+
+"I've a good mind to make you demonstrate in your own person.
+Come on, Bubbles! We'll make Jimmy climb!"
+
+There was a sound of scuffling, broken by squeaks from Jimmy of
+the high voice. I turned back and drew Penfentenyou into the side
+of the flanking hedge. I remembered to have read in a society
+paper that Lord Lundie's lesser name was "Bubbles."
+
+"What are they doing?" Penfentenyou said sharply. "Drunk?"
+
+"Just playing! Superabundant vitality of the Race, you know.
+We'll watch 'em," I answered. The noise ceased.
+
+"My deliver," Jimmy gasped. "The ram caught in the thicket,
+and--I'm the only one who can talk Neapolitan! Leggo my collar!"
+He cried aloud in a foreign tongue, and was answered from the
+gate.
+
+"It's the Calvinistic organ-grinder," I whispered. I had already
+found a practicable break at the bottom of the hedge. "They're
+going to try to make the monkey climb, I believe."
+
+"Here--let me look!" Penfentenyou flung himself down, and rooted
+till he too broke a peep-hole. We lay side by side commanding the
+entire garden at ten yards' range.
+
+"You know 'em?" said Penfentenyou, as I made some noise or other.
+
+"By sight only. The big fellow in flannels is Lord Lundie; the
+light-built one with the yellow beard painted his picture at the
+last Academy: He's a swell R.A., James Loman."
+
+"And the brown chap with the hands?"
+
+"Tomling, Sir Christopher Tomling, the South American engineer
+who built the--"
+
+"San Juan Viaduct. I know," said Penfentenyou. "We ought to have
+had him with us . . . . Do you think a monkey would climb the
+tree?"
+
+The organ-grinder at the gate fenced his beast with one arm as
+Jimmy-talked.
+
+"Don't show off your futile accomplishments," said Lord Lundie.
+"Tell him it's an experiment. Interest him!"
+
+"Shut up, Bubbles. You aren't in court," Jimmy',replied. "This
+needs delicacy. Giuseppe says--"
+
+"Interest the monkey," the brown engineer interrupted. "He won't
+climb for love. Cut up to the house and get some biscuits,
+Bubbles--sugar ones and an orange or two. No need to tell our
+womenfolk."
+
+The huge white figure lobbed off at a trot which would not have
+disgraced a boy of seventeen. I gathered from something Jimmy let
+fall that the three had been at Harrow together.
+
+"That Tomling has a head on his Shoulders," muttered
+Penfentenyou. "Pity we didn't get him for the Colony. But the
+question is, will the monkey climb?"
+
+"Be quick, Jimmy. Tell the man we'll give him five bob for the
+loan of the beast. Now run the organ under the tree, and we'll
+dress it when Bubbles comes back," Sir Christopher cried.
+
+"I've often wondered," said Penfentenyou, "whether it would
+puzzle a monkey?" He had forgotten the needs of his Growing
+Nation, and was earnestly parting the white-thorn stems with his
+fingers.
+
+   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
+
+Giuseppe and Jimmy did as they were told, the monkey following
+them with a wary and malignant eye.
+
+"Here's a discovery," said Jimmy. "The singing part of this organ
+comes off the wheels." He spoke volubly to the proprietor. "Oh,
+it's so as Giuseppe can take it to his room o' nights. And play
+it. D'you hear that? The organ-grinder, after his day's crime,
+plays his accursed machine for love. For love, Chris! And Michael
+Angelo was one of 'em!"
+
+"Don't jaw! Tell him to take the beast's petticoat off," said Sir
+Christopher Tomling.
+
+Lord Lundie returned, very little winded, through a gap higher up
+the hedge.
+
+"They're all out, thank goodness!" he cried, "but I've raided
+what I could. Macrons glaces, candied fruit, and a bag of
+oranges."
+
+"Excellent!" said the world-renowned contractor.
+
+"Jimmy, you're the light-weight; jump up on the organ and impale
+these things on the leaves as I hand 'em!"
+
+"I see," said Jimmy, capering like a springbuck. "Upward and
+onward, eh? First, he'll reach out for--how infernal prickly
+these leaves are!--this biscuit. Next we'll lure him on--(that's
+about the reach of his arm)--with the marron glare, and then
+he'll open out this orange. How human! How like your ignoble
+career, Bubbles!"
+
+With care and elaboration they ornamented that tree's lower
+branches with sugar-topped biscuits, oranges, bits of banana, and
+marrons glares till it looked very ape's path to Paradise.
+
+"Unchain the Gyascutis!" said Sir Christopher commandingly.
+Giuseppe placed the monkey atop of the organ, where the beast,
+misunderstanding, stood on his head.
+
+"He's throwing himself on the mercy of the Court, me lud," said
+Jimmy. "No--now he's interested. Now he's reaching after higher
+things. What wouldn't I give to have here" (he mentioned a name
+not unhonoured in British Art). "Ambition plucking apples of
+Sodom!" (the monkey had pricked himself and was swearing).
+"Genius hampered by Convention? Oh, there's a whole bushelful of
+allegories in it!"
+
+"Give him time. He's balancing the probabilities," said Lord
+Lundie.
+
+The three closed round the monkey,--hanging on his every motion
+with an earnestness almost equal to ours. The great judge's
+head--seamed and vertical forehead, iron mouth, and pike-like
+under-jaw, all set on that thick neck rising out of the white
+flannelled collar--was thrown against the puckered green silk of
+the organ-front as it might have been a cameo of Titus. Jimmy,
+with raised eyes and parted lips, fingered his grizzled chestnut
+beard, and I was near enough to-note, the capable beauty of his
+hands. Sir Christopher stood a little apart, his arms folded
+behind his back, one heavy brown boot thrust forward, chin in as
+curbed, and black eyebrows lowered to shade the keen eyes.
+
+Giuseppe's dark face between flashing earrings, a twisted rag of
+red and yellow silk round his throat, turned from the reaching
+yearning monkey to the pink and white biscuits spiked on the
+bronzed leafage. And upon them all fell the serious and
+workmanlike sun of an English summer forenoon.
+
+"Fils de Saint Louis, montez au ciel!" said Lord Lundie suddenly
+in a voice that made me think of Black Caps. I do not know what
+the monkey thought, because at that instant he leaped off the
+organ and disappeared.
+
+There was a clash of broken glass behind the tree.
+
+The monkey's face, distorted with passion, appeared at an upper
+window of the house, and a starred hole in the stained-glass
+window to the left of 'the front door showed the first steps of
+his upward path.
+
+"We've got to catch him," cried Sir Christopher. "Come along!"
+
+They pushed at the door, which was unlocked.
+
+"Yes. But consider the ethics of the case," said Jimmy. "Isn't
+this burglary or something, Bubbles?"
+
+"Settle that when he's caught," said Sir Christopher. We're
+responsible for the beast."
+
+A furious clanging of bells broke out of the empty house,
+followed by muffed gurglings and trumpetings.
+
+"What the deuce is that?" I asked, half aloud.
+
+"The plumbing, of course," said Penfentenyou. "What a pity! I
+believe he'd have climbed if Lord Lundie hadn't put him off!"
+
+"Wait a moment, Chris," said Jimmy the interpreter; " Guiseppe
+says he may answer to the music of his infancy. Giuseppe,
+therefore, will go in with the "organ. Orpheus with his lute, you
+know. Avante, Orpheus! There's no Neapolitan for bathroom, but I
+fancy your friend is there."
+
+"I'm not going into another man's house with a, hurdy-gurdy,"
+said Lord Lundie, recoiling, as Giuseppe unshipped the working
+mechanism of the organ (it developed a hang-down leg) from its
+wheels, slipped a strap round his shoulders, and gave the handle
+a twist.
+
+"Don't be a cad, Bubbles," was Jimmy's answer. "You couldn't
+leave us now if you were on the Woolsack. Play, Orpheus! The Cadi
+accompanies."
+
+   *    *    *     *   *    *    *    *    *  
+
+
+With a whoop, a buzz, and a crash, the organ sprang to life under
+the hand of Giuseppe, and the procession passed through the
+rained-to-imitate-walnut front door. A moment later we saw the
+monkey ramping on the roof.
+
+"He'll be all over the township in a minute if we don't head
+him," said Penfentenyou, leaping to his feet, and crashing into
+the garden. We headed him with pebbles till he retired through a
+window to the tuneful reminder that he had left a lot of little
+things behind him. As we passed the front door it swung open, and
+showed Jimmy the artist sitting at the bottom of a newly-cleaned
+staircase. He waggled his hands at us, and when we entered we saw
+that the man was stricken speechless. His eyes grew red--red like
+a ferret's--and what little breath he had whistled shrilly. At
+first we thought it was a fit, and then we saw that it was
+mirth--the inopportune mirth of the Artistic Temperament.
+
+The house palpitated to an infamous melody punctuated by the
+stump of the barrel-organ's one leg, as Giuseppe, above, moved
+from room to room after his rebel slave. Now and again a floor
+shook a little under the combined rushes of Lord Lundie and Sir
+Christopher Tomling, who gave many and contradictory orders. But
+when they could they cursed Jimmy with splendid thoroughness.
+
+"Have you anything to do with the house?" panted Jimmy at last.
+"Because we're using it just now." He gulped. "And I'm
+ah--keeping cave."
+
+"All right," said Penfentenyou, and shut the hall door.
+
+"Jimmy, you unspeakable blackguard) Jimmy, you cur! You coward!"
+(Lord Lundie's voice overbore the flood of melody.) "Come up
+here! Giussieppe's saying something we don't understand."
+
+Jimmy listened and interpreted between hiccups.
+
+"He says you'd better play the organ, Bubbles, and let him do the
+stalking. The monkey knows him."
+
+"By Jove, he's quite right," said Sir Christopher ,from the
+landing. "Take it, Bubbles, at once."
+
+"My God!" said Lord Lundie in horror.
+
+The chase reverberated over our heads, from the attics to the
+first floor and back again. Bodies and Voices met in collision
+and argument, and once or twice the organ hit walls and doors.
+Then it broke forth in a new manner.
+
+"He's playing it," said Jimmy. "I know his acute Justinian ear.
+Are you fond of music?"
+
+"I think Lord Lundie plays very well for a beginner," I ventured.
+
+"Ah! That's the trained legal intellect. Like mastering a brief.
+I haven't got it." He wiped his eyes and shook.
+
+"Hi!" said Penfentenyou, looking through the stained glass window
+down the garden. "What's that!"
+
+   *    *    *     *   *    *    *    *    * 
+
+
+A household removals van, in charge of four men, had halted at
+the gate. A husband and his wife householders beyond
+question--quavered irresolutely up the path. He looked tired. She
+was certainly cross. In all this haphazard world the last couple
+to understand a scientific experiment.
+
+I laid hands on Jimmy--the clamour above drowning speech and with
+Penfentenyou's aid, propped him against the window, that he
+should see.
+
+He saw, nodded, fell as an umbrella can fall, and kneeling, beat
+his forehead on the shut door. Penfentenyou slid the bolt.
+
+The furniture men reinforced the two figures on the path, and
+advanced, spreading generously.
+
+"Hadn't we better warn them up-stairs?" I suggested:
+
+"No. I'll die first!" said Jimmy. "I'm pretty near it now.
+Besides, they called me names."
+
+I turned from the Artist to the Administrator.
+
+"Coeteris paribus, I think we'd better be going," said
+Penfentenyou, dealer in crises.
+
+"Ta--take me with you," said Jimmy. "I've no reputation to lose,
+but I'd like to watch 'em from--er--outside the picture."
+
+"There's always a modus viviendi," Penfentenyou murmured, and
+tiptoed along the hall to a back door, which he opened quite
+silently. We passed into a tangle of gooseberry bushes where, at
+his statesmanlike example, we crawled on all fours, and regained
+the hedge.
+
+Here we lay up, secure in our alibi.
+
+"But your firm,"--the woman was wailing to the furniture removals
+men--"your firm promised me everything should be in yesterday.
+And it's to-day! You should have been here yesterday!"
+
+"The last tenants ain't out yet, lydy," said one of them.
+
+Lord Lundie was rapidly improving in technique, though
+organ-grinding, unlike the Law, is more of a calling than a
+trade, and he hung occasionally on a dead centre. Giuseppe, I
+think, was singing, but I could not understand the drift of Sir
+Christopher's remarks. They were Spanish.
+
+The woman said something we did not catch.
+
+"You might 'ave sub-let it," the man insisted. "Or your gentleman
+'ere might."
+
+"But I didn't. Send for the Police at once."
+
+"I wouldn't do that, lydy. They're only fruit pickers on a beano.
+They aren't particular where they sleep."
+
+"D'you mean they've been sleeping there? I only had it cleaned
+last week. Get them out."
+
+"Oh, if you say so, we'll 'ave 'em out of it in two twos. Alf,
+fetch me the spare swingle-bar."
+
+"Don't! You'll knock the paint off the door. Get them out!"
+
+"What the 'ell else am I trying to do for you, lydy?" the man
+answered with pathos; but the woman wheeled on her mate.
+
+"Edward! They're all drunk here, and they're all mad there. Do
+something!" she said.
+
+Edward took one short step forward, and sighed "Hullo!" in the
+direction of the turbulent house. The woman walked up and down,
+the very figure of Domestic Tragedy. The furniture men swayed a
+little on their heels, and -
+
+"Got him!" The shout rang through all the windows at once. It was
+followed by a blood-hound-like bay from Sir Christopher, a
+maniacal prestissimo on the organ, and loud cries, for Jimmy. But
+Jimmy, at my side, rolled his congested eyeballs, owl-wise.
+
+"I never knew them," he said. "I'm an orphan."
+
+   *    *    *     *   *    *    *    *    * 
+
+
+The front, door opened, and the three came forth to short-lived
+triumph. I had never before seen a Law Lord dressed as for
+tennis, with a stump-leg barrel-organ strapped to his shoulder.
+But it is a shy bird in this plumage. Lord Lundie strove to
+disembarrass himself of his accoutrements much as an ill-trained
+Punch and Judy dog tries to escape backwards through his frilled
+collar. Sir Christopher, covered with limewash, cherished a
+bleeding thumb, and the almost crazy monkey tore at Giuseppe's
+hair.
+
+The men on both sides reeled, but the woman stood her ground.
+"Idiots!" she said, and once more, "Idiots!"
+
+I could have gladdened a few convicts of my acquaintance with a
+photograph of Lord Lundie at that instant.
+
+"Madam," he began, wonderfully preserving the roll in his voice,
+"it was a monkey."
+
+Sir Christopher sucked his thumb and nodded.
+
+"Take it away and go," she replied. "Go away!"
+
+I would have gone, and gladly, on this permission, but these
+still strong men must ever be justifying themselves. Lord Lundie
+turned to the husband, who for the first time spoke.
+
+"I have rented this house. I am moving in," he said.
+
+"We ought to have been in yesterday," the woman interrupted.
+
+"Yes. We ought to have been in yesterday. Have you slept there
+overnight?" said the man peevishly.
+
+"No; I assure you we haven't," said Lord Lundie.
+
+"Then go away. Go quite away," cried the woman.
+
+They went--in single file down the path. They went silently,
+restrapping the organ on its wheels, and rechaining the monkey to
+the organ.
+
+"Damn it all!" said Penfentenyou. "They do face the music, and
+they do stick by each other in private life!"
+
+"Ties of Common Funk," I answered. Giuseppe ran to the gate and
+fled back to the possible world. Lord Lundie and Sir Christopher,
+constrained by tradition, paced slowly.
+
+Then it came to pass that the woman, who walked behind them,
+lifted up her eyes, and beheld the tree which they had dressed.
+
+"Stop!" she called; and they stopped. "Who did that?"
+
+There was no answer. The Eternal Bad Boy in every man hung its
+head before the Eternal Mother in every woman.
+
+"Who put these disgusting things there?" she repeated.
+
+Suddenly Penfentenyou, Premier of his Colony in all but name,
+left Jimmy and me, and appeared at the gate. (If he is not turned
+out of office, that is how he will appear on the Day of
+Armageddon.)
+
+"Well done you!" he cried zealously, and doffed his hat to the
+woman. "Have you any children, madam?" he demanded.
+
+"Yes, two. They should have been here to-day. The firm promised 
+--"
+
+"Then we're not a minute too soon. That monkey escaped. It was a
+very dangerous beast. 'Might have frightened your children into
+fits. All the organ-grinder's fault! A most lucky thing these
+gentlemen caught it when they did. I hope you aren't badly
+mauled, Sir Christopher?" Shaken as I was (I wanted to get away
+and laugh) I could not but admire the scoundrel's consummate tact
+in leading his second highest trump. An ass would have introduced
+Lord Lundie and they would not have believed him.
+
+It took the trick. The couple smiled, and gave respectful thanks
+for their deliverance by such hands from such perils.
+
+"Not in the least," said Lord Lundie. "Anybody--any father would
+have done as much, and pray don't apologize your mistake was
+quite natural." A furniture man sniggered here, and Lord Lundie
+rolled an Eye of Doom on their ranks. "By the way, if you have
+trouble with these persons--they seem to have taken as much as is
+good for them--please let me know. Er--Good morning!"
+
+They turned into the lane.
+
+"Heavens!" said Jimmy, brushing himself down. "Who's that real
+man with the real head?" and we hurried after them, for they were
+running unsteadily, squeaking like rabbits as they ran. We
+overtook them in a little nut wood half a mile up the road, where
+they had turned aside, and were rolling. So we rolled with them,
+and ceased not till we had arrived at the extremity of
+exhaustion.
+
+"You--you saw it all, then?" said Lord Lundie, rebuttoning his
+nineteen-inch collar.
+
+"I saw it was a vital question from the first," responded
+Penfentenyou, and blew his nose.
+
+"It was. By the way, d'you mind telling me your name?"
+
+
+Summa. Penfentenyou's Great Idea has gone through, a little
+chipped at the edges, but in fine and far-reaching shape. His
+Opposite Number worked at it like a mule--a bewildered mule,
+beaten from behind, coaxed from in front, and propped on either
+soft side by Lord Lundie of the compressed mouth and the searing
+tongue.
+
+Sir Christopher Tomling has been ravished from the Argentine,
+where, after all, he was but preparing trade-routes for hostile
+peoples, and now adorns the forefront of Penfentenyou's Advisory
+Board. This was an unforeseen extra, as was Jimmy's gratis
+full-length--(it will be in this year's Academy) of Penfentenyou,
+who has returned to his own place.
+
+Now and again, from afar off, between the slam and bump of his
+shifting scenery, the glare of his manipulated limelight, and the
+controlled rolling of his thunder-drums, I catch his voice,
+lifted in encouragement and advice to his fellow-countrymen. He
+is quite sound on Ties of Sentiment, and--alone of Colonial
+Statesmen ventures to talk of the Ties of Common Funk.
+
+Herein I have my reward.
+
+
+
+               THE PUZZLER
+
+ The Celt in all his variants from Builth to Ballyhoo,
+ His mental processes are plain--one knows what he will do,
+ And can logically predicate his finish by his start:
+ But the English--ah, the English!--they are quite a race apart.
+
+ Their psychology is bovine, their outlook crude and rare;
+ They abandon vital matters to be tickled with a straw;
+ But the straw that they were tickled with--the chaff that
+       they were fed with--
+ They convert into a weaver's beam to break their foeman's head   
+     with.
+
+  For undemocratic reasons and for motives not of State,
+  They arrive at their conclusions--largely inarticulate.
+  Being void of self-expression they confide their views to none;
+  But sometimes, in a smoking-room, one learns why things were    
+      done.
+
+  In telegraphic sentences, half swallowed at the ends,
+  They hint a matter's inwardness--and there the matter ends.
+  And while the Celt is talking from Valencia to Kirkwall,
+  The English--ah, the English!--don't say anything at all!
+
+
+
+LITTLE FOXES
+
+A TALE OF THE GIHON HUNT
+
+A fox came out of his earth on the banks of the Great River
+Gihon, which waters Ethiopia. He saw a white man riding through
+the dry dhurra-stalks, and, that his destiny might be fulfilled,
+barked at him.
+
+The rider drew rein among the villagers round his stirrup.
+
+"What," said he, "is that?"
+
+"That," said the Sheikh of the village, "is a fox, O Excellency
+Our Governor."
+
+"It is not, then, a jackal?"
+
+"No jackal, but Abu Hussein the father of cunning."
+
+"Also," the white man spoke half aloud, "I am Mudir of this
+Province."
+
+"It is true," they cried. "Ya, Saart el Mudir" (O Excellency Our
+Governor).
+
+The Great River Gihon, well used to the moods of kings, slid
+between his mile-wide banks toward the sea, while the Governor
+praised God in a loud and searching cry never before heard by the
+river.
+
+When he had lowered his right forefinger from behind his right
+ear, the villagers talked to him of their crops--barley, dhurrah,
+millet, onions, and the like. The Governor stood in his stirrups.
+North he looked up a strip of green cultivation a few hundred
+yards wide that lay like a carpet between the river and the tawny
+line of the desert. Sixty miles that strip stretched before him,
+and as many behind. At every half-mile a groaning water-wheel
+lifted the soft water from the river to the crops by way of a
+mud-built aqueduct. A foot or so wide was the water-channel; five
+foot or more high was the bank on which it ran, and its base was
+broad in proportion. Abu Hussein, misnamed the Father of Cunning,
+drank from the river below his earth, and his shadow was long in
+the low sun. He could not understand the loud cry which the
+Governor had cried.
+
+The Sheikh of the village spoke of the crops from which the
+rulers of all lands draw revenue; but the Governor's eyes were
+fixed, between his horse's ears, on the nearest water-channel.
+
+"Very like a ditch in Ireland," he murmured, and smiled, dreaming
+of a razor-topped bank in distant Kildare.
+
+Encouraged by that smile, the Sheikh continued. "When crops fail
+it is necessary to remit taxation. Then it is a good thing, O
+Excellency Our Governor, that you come and see the crops which
+have failed, and discover that we have not lied."
+
+"Assuredly." The Governor shortened his reins. The horse cantered
+on, rose at the embankment of the water-channel, changed leg
+cleverly on top, and hopped down in a cloud of golden dust.
+
+Abu Hussein from his earth watched with interest. He had never
+before seen such things.
+
+"Assuredly," the Governor repeated, and came back by the way he
+had gone. "It is always best to see for one's self."
+
+An ancient and still bullet-speckled stern-wheel steamer, with a
+barge lashed to her side, came round the river bend. She whistled
+to tell the Governor his dinner was ready, and the horse, seeing
+his fodder piled on the barge, whinnied back.
+
+"Moreover," the Sheikh added, "in the days of the Oppression the
+Emirs and their creatures dispossessed many people of their
+lands. All up and down the river our people are waiting to return
+to their lawful fields."
+
+"Judges have been appointed to settle that matter," said the
+Governor. "They will presently come in steamers and hear the
+witnesses."
+
+"Wherefore? Did the Judges kill the Emirs? We would rather be
+judged by the men who executed God's judgment on the Emirs. We
+would rather abide by your decision, O Excellency Our Governor."
+
+The Governor nodded. It was a year since he had seen the Emirs
+stretched close and still round the reddened sheepskin where lay
+El Mahdi, the Prophet of God. Now there remained no trace of
+their dominion except the old steamer, once part of a Dervish
+flotilla, which was his house and office. She sidled into the
+shore, lowered a plank, and the Governor followed his horse
+aboard.
+
+Lights burned on her till late, dully reflected in the river that
+tugged at her mooring-ropes. The Governor read, not for the first
+time, the administration reports of one John Jorrocks, M.F.H.
+
+"We shall need," he said suddenly to his Inspector, "about ten
+couple. I'll get 'em when I go home. You'll be Whip, Baker?"
+
+The Inspector, who was not yet twenty-five, signified his assent
+in the usual manner, while Abu Hussein barked at the vast desert
+moon.
+
+"Ha!" said the Governor, coming out in his pyjamas, "we'll be
+giving you capivi in another three months, my friend."
+
+     *      *      *      *      *     
+
+It was four, as a matter of fact, ere a steamer with a melodious
+bargeful of hounds anchored at that landing. The Inspector leaped
+down among them, and the homesick wanderers received him as a
+brother.
+
+"Everybody fed 'em everything on board ship, but they're real
+dainty hounds at bottom," the Governor explained. "That's Royal
+you've got hold of--the pick of the bunch--and the bitch that's
+got, hold of you--she's a little excited--is May Queen. Merriman,
+out of Cottesmore Maudlin, you know."
+
+"I know. 'Grand old betch with the tan eyebrows,"' the Inspector
+cooed. "Oh, Ben!  I shall take an interest in life now. Hark to
+'em! O hark!"
+
+Abu Hussein, under the high bank, went about his night's work. An
+eddy carried his scent to the barge, and three villages heard the
+crash of music that followed. Even then Abu Hussein did not know
+better than to bark in reply.
+
+"Well, what about my Province?" the Governor asked.
+
+"Not so bad," the Inspector answered, with Royal's head between
+his knees. "Of course, all the villages want remission of taxes,
+but, as far as I can see, the whole country's stinkin' with
+foxes. Our trouble will be choppin' 'em in cover. I've got a list
+of the only villages entitled to any remission. What d'you call
+this flat-sided, blue-mottled beast with the jowl?"
+
+"Beagle-boy. I have my doubts about him. Do you think we can get
+two days a week?"
+
+"Easy; and as many byes as you please. The Sheikh of this village
+here tells me that his barley has failed, and he wants a fifty
+per cent remission."
+
+"We'll begin with him to-morrow, and look at his crops as we go.
+Nothing like personal supervision," said the Governor.
+
+They began at sunrise. The pack flew off the barge in every
+direction, and, after gambols, dug like terriers at Abu Hussein's
+many earths. Then they drank themselves pot-bellied on Gihon
+water while the Governor and the Inspector chastised them with
+whips. Scorpions were added; for May Queen nosed one, and was
+removed to the barge lamenting. Mystery (a puppy, alas!) met a
+snake, and the blue-mottled Beagle-boy (never a dainty hound) ate
+that which he should have passed by. Only Royal, of the Belvoir
+tan head and the sad, discerning eyes, made any attempt to uphold
+the honour of England before the watching village.
+
+"You can't expect everything," said the Governor after breakfast.
+
+"We got it, though--everything except foxes. Have you seen May
+Queen's nose?" said the Inspector.
+
+"And Mystery's dead. We'll keep 'em coupled next time till we get
+well in among the crops. I say, what a babbling body-snatcher
+that Beagle-boy is! Ought to be drowned!"
+
+"They bury people so damn casual hereabouts. Give him another
+chance," the Inspector pleaded, not knowing that he should live
+to repent most bitterly.
+
+"Talkin' of chances," said the Governor, "this Sheikh lies about
+his barley bein' a failure. If it's high enough to hide a hound
+at this time of year, it's all right. And he wants a fifty per
+cent remission, you said?"
+
+"You didn't go on past the melon patch where I tried to turn
+Wanderer. It's all burned up from there on to the desert. His
+other water-wheel has broken down, too," the Inspector replied.
+
+"Very good. We'll split the difference and allow him twenty-five
+per cent off. Where'll we meet to-morrow?"
+
+"There's some trouble among the villages down the river about
+their land-titles. It's good goin' ground there, too," the
+Inspector said.
+
+The next meet, then, was some twenty miles down the river, and
+the pack were not enlarged till they were fairly among the
+fields. Abu Hussein was there in force--four of him. Four
+delirious hunts of four minutes each--four hounds per fox--ended
+in four earths just above the river. All the village looked on.
+
+"We forgot about the earths. The banks are riddled with 'em.
+This'll defeat us," said the Inspector.
+
+"Wait a moment!" The Governor drew forth a sneezing hound. "I've
+just remembered I'm Governor of these parts."
+
+"Then turn out a black battalion to stop for us. We'll need 'em,
+old man."
+
+The Governor straightened his back. "Give ear, O people!" he
+cried. "I make a new Law!"
+
+The villagers closed in. He called:--
+
+"Henceforward I will give one dollar to the man on whose land Abu
+Hussein is found. And another dollar"--he held up the coin--"to
+the man on whose land these dogs shall kill him. But to the man
+on whose land Abu Hussein shall run into a hole such as is this
+hole, I will give not dollars, but a most unmeasurable beating.
+Is it understood?"
+
+"Our Excellency," a man stepped forth, "on my land Abu Hussein
+was found this morning. Is it not so, brothers?"
+
+None denied. The Governor tossed him over four dollars without a
+word.
+
+"On my land they all went into their holes," cried another.
+"Therefore I must be beaten."
+
+"Not so. The land is mine, and mine are the beatings."
+
+This second speaker thrust forward his shoulders already bared,
+and the villagers shouted.
+
+"Hullo! Two men anxious to be licked? There must be some swindle
+about the land," said the Governor. Then in the local vernacular:
+"What are your rights to the beating?"
+
+As a river-reach changes beneath a slant of the sun, that which
+had been a scattered mob changed to a court of most ancient
+justice. The hounds tore and sobbed at Abu Hussein's hearthstone,
+all unnoticed among the legs of the witnesses, and Gihon, also
+accustomed to laws, purred approval.
+
+"You will not wait till the Judges come up the river to settle
+the dispute?" said the Governor at last.
+
+"No!" shouted all the village save the man who had first asked to
+be beaten. "We will abide by Our Excellency's decision. Let Our
+Excellency turn out the creatures of the Emirs who stole our land
+in the days of the Oppression."
+
+"And thou sayest?" the Governor turned to the man who had first
+asked to be beaten.
+
+"I say 1 will wait till the wise Judges come down in the steamer.
+Then I will bring my many witnesses," he replied.
+
+"He is rich. He will bring many witnesses," the village Sheikh
+muttered.
+
+"No need. Thy own mouth condemns thee!" the Governor cried. "No
+man lawfully entitled to his land would wait one hour before
+entering upon it. Stand aside!" The man, fell back, and the
+village jeered him.
+
+The second claimant stooped quickly beneath the lifted
+hunting-crop. The village rejoiced.
+
+"Oh, Such an one; Son of such an one," said the Governor,
+prompted by the Sheikh, "learn, from the day when I send the
+order, to block up all the holes where Abu Hussein may hide
+on--thy--land!"
+
+The light flicks ended. The man stood up triumphant. By that
+accolade had the Supreme Government acknowledged his title before
+all men.
+
+While the village praised the perspicacity of the Governor, a
+naked, pock-marked child strode forward to the earth, and stood
+on one leg, unconcerned as a young stork.
+
+"Hal" he said, hands behind his back. "This should be blocked up
+with bundles of dhurra stalks--or, better, bundles of thorns."
+
+"Better thorns," said the Governor. "Thick ends innermost."
+
+The child nodded gravely and squatted on the sand.
+
+"An evil day for thee, Abu Hussein," he shrilled into the mouth
+of the earth. "A day of obstacles to thy flagitious returns in
+the morning."
+
+"Who is it?" the Governor asked the Sheikh. "It thinks."
+
+"Farag the Fatherless. His people were slain in the days of the
+Oppression. The man to whom Our Excellency has awarded the land
+is, as it were, his maternal uncle."
+
+"Will it come with me and feed the big dogs?" said the Governor.
+
+The other peering children drew back. "Run!" they cried. "Our
+Excellency will feed Farag to the big dogs."
+
+"I will come," said Farag. "And I will never go." He threw his
+arm round Royal's neck, and the wise beast licked his face.
+
+"Binjamin, by Jove!" the Inspector cried.
+
+"No!" said the Governor. "I believe he has the makings of a James
+Pigg!"
+
+Farag waved his hand to his uncle, and led Royal on to the barge.
+The rest of the pack followed.
+
+     *      *      *      *      *     
+
+Gihon, that had seen many sports, learned to know the Hunt barge
+well. He met her rounding his bends on grey December dawns to
+music wild and lamentable as the almost forgotten throb of
+Dervish drums, when, high above Royal's tenor bell, sharper even
+than lying Beagle-boy's falsetto break, Farag chanted deathless
+war against Abu Hussein and all his seed. At sunrise the river
+would shoulder her carefully into her place, and listen to the
+rush and scutter of the pack fleeing up the gang-plank, and the
+tramp of the Governor's Arab behind them. They would pass over
+the brow into the dewless crops where Gihon, low and shrunken,
+could only guess what they were about when Abu Hussein flew down
+the bank to scratch at a stopped earth, and flew back into the
+barley again. As Farag had foretold, it was evil days for Abu
+Hussein ere he learned to take the necessary steps and to get
+away crisply. Sometimes Gihon saw the whole procession of the
+Hunt silhouetted against the morning-blue, bearing him company
+for many merry miles. At every half mile the horses and the
+donkeys jumped the water-channels--up, on, change your leg, and
+off again like figures in a zoetrope, till they grew small along
+the line of waterwheels. Then Gibon waited their rustling return
+through the crops, and took them to rest on his bosom at ten
+o'clock. While the horses ate, and Farag slept with his head on
+Royal's flank, the Governor and his Inspector worked for the good
+of the Hunt and his Province.
+
+After a little time there was no need to beat any man for
+neglecting his earths. The steamer's destination was telegraphed
+from waterwheel to waterwheel, and the villagers stopped out and
+put to according. If an earth were overlooked, it meant some
+dispute as to the ownership of the land, and then and there the
+Hunt checked and settled it in this wise: The Governor and the
+Inspector side by side, but the latter half a horse's length to
+the rear; both bare-shouldered claimants well in front; the
+villagers half-mooned behind them, and Farag with the pack, who
+quite understood the performance, sitting down on the left.
+Twenty minutes were enough to settle the most complicated case,
+for, as the Governor said to a judge on the steamer, "One gets at
+the truth in a hunting-field a heap quicker than in your
+lawcourts."
+
+"But when the evidence is conflicting?" the Judge suggested.
+
+"Watch the field. They'll throw tongue fast enough if you're
+running a wrong scent. You've never had an appeal from one of my
+decisions yet."
+
+The Sheikhs on horseback--the lesser folk on clever donkeys--the
+children so despised by Farag soon understood that villages which
+repaired their waterwheels and channels stood highest in the
+Governor's favour. He bought their barley, for his horses.
+
+"Channels," he said, "are necessary that we may all jump them.
+They are necessary, moreover, for the crops. Let there be many
+wheels and sound channels--and much good barley."
+
+"Without money," replied an aged Sheikh, "there are no
+waterwheels."
+
+"I will lend the money," said the Governor.
+
+"At what interest, O Our Excellency?"
+
+"Take you two of May Queen's puppies to bring up in your village
+in such a manner that they do not eat filth, nor lose their hair,
+nor catch fever from lying in the sun, but become wise hounds."
+
+"Like Ray-yal--not like Bigglebai?" (Already it was an insult
+along the River to compare a man to the shifty anthropophagous
+blue-mottled harrier.)
+
+"Certainly, like Ray-yal--not in the least like Bigglebai. That
+shall be the interest on the loan. Let the puppies thrive and the
+waterwheel be built, and I shall be content," said the Governor.
+
+"The wheel shall be built, but, O Our Excellency, if by God's
+favour the pups grow to be well-smelters, not filth-eaters, not
+unaccustomed to their names, not lawless, who will do them and me
+justice at the time of judging the young dogs?"
+
+"Hounds, man, hounds! Ha-wands, O Sheikh, we call them in their
+manhood."
+
+"The ha-wands when they are judged at the Sha-ho. I have
+unfriends down the river to whom Our Excellency has also
+entrusted ha-wands to bring up."
+
+"Puppies, man! Pah-peaz we call them, O Sheikh, in their
+childhood."
+
+"Pah-peat. My enemies may judge my pah-peaz unjustly at the
+Sha-ho. This must be thought of."
+
+"I see the obstacle. Hear now! If the new waterwheel is built in
+a month without oppression, thou, O Sheikh, shalt be named one of
+the judges to judge the pah-peaz at the Sha-ho. Is it
+understood?"
+
+"Understood. We will build the wheel. I and my seed are
+responsible for the repayment of the loan. Where are my pah-peaz?
+If they eat fowls, must they on any account eat the feathers?"
+
+"On no account must they eat the feathers. Farag in the barge
+will tell thee how they are to live."
+
+There is no instance of any default on the Governor's personal
+and unauthorized loans, for which they called him the Father of
+Waterwheels. But the first puppyshow at the capital needed
+enormous tact and the presence of a black battalion
+ostentatiously drilling in the barrack square to prevent trouble
+after the prize-giving.
+
+But who can chronicle the glories of the Gihon Hunt--or their
+shames? Who remembers the kill in the market-place, when the
+Governor bade the assembled sheikhs and warriors observe how the
+hounds would instantly devour the body of Abu Hussein; but how,
+when he had scientifically broken it up, the weary pack turned
+from it in loathing, and Farag wept because he said the world's
+face had been blackened? What men who have not yet ridden beyond
+the sound of any horn recall the midnight run which
+ended--Beagleboy leading--among tombs; the hasty whip-off, and
+the oath, taken Abo e bones, to forget the worry? The desert run,
+when Abu Hussein forsook the cultivation, and made a six-mile
+point to earth in a desolate khor--when strange armed riders on
+camels swooped out of a ravine, and instead of giving battle,
+offered to take the tired hounds home on their beasts. Which they
+did, and vanished.
+
+Above all, who remembers the death of Royal, when a certain
+Sheikh wept above the body of the stainless hound as it might
+have been his son's--and that day the Hunt rode no more? The
+badly-kept log-book says little of this, but at the end of their
+second season (forty-nine brace) appears the dark entry: "New
+blood badly wanted. They are beginning to listen to beagle-boy."
+
+     *      *      *      *      *     
+
+The Inspector attended to the matter when his leave fell due.
+
+"Remember," said the Governor, "you must get us the best blood in
+England--real, dainty hounds--expense no object, but don't trust
+your own judgment. Present my letters of introduction, and take
+what they give you.
+
+The Inspector presented his letters in a society where they make
+much of horses, more of hounds, and are tolerably civil to men
+who can ride. They passed him from house to house, mounted him
+according to his merits, and fed him, after five years of goat
+chop and Worcester sauce, perhaps a thought too richly.
+
+The seat or castle where he made his great coup does not much
+matter. Four Masters of Foxhounds were at table, and in a mellow
+hour the Inspector told them stories of the Gihon Hunt. He ended:
+"Ben said I wasn't to trust my own judgment about hounds, but I
+think there ought to be a special tariff for Empire-makers."
+
+As soon as his hosts could speak, they reassured him on this
+point.
+
+"And now tell us about your first puppy-show all over again,"
+said one.
+
+"And about the earth-stoppin'. Was that all Ben's own invention?"
+said another.
+
+"Wait a moment," said a large, clean-shaven man--not an
+M.F.H.--at the end of the table. "Are your villagers habitually
+beaten by your Governor when they fail to stop foxes' holes?"
+
+The tone and the phrase were enough even if, as the Inspector
+confessed afterwards, the big, blue double-chinned man had not
+looked so like Beagle-boy. He took him on for the honour of
+Ethiopia.
+
+"We only hunt twice a week--sometimes three times. I've never
+known a man chastised more than four times a week unless there's
+a bye."
+
+The large loose-lipped man flung his napkin down, came round the
+table, cast himself into the chair next the Inspector, and leaned
+forward earnestly, so that he breathed in the Inspector's face.
+
+"Chastised with what?" he said.
+
+"With the kourbash--on the feet. A kourbash is a strip of old
+hippo-hide with a sort of keel on it, like the cutting edge of a
+boar's tusk. But we use the rounded side for a first offender."
+
+"And do any consequences follow this sort of thing? For the
+victim, I mean--not for you?"
+
+Ve-ry rarely. Let me be fair. I've never seen a man die under the
+lash, but gangrene may set up if the kourbash has been pickled."
+
+"Pickled in what?" All the table was still and interested.
+
+"In copperas, of course. Didn't you know that" said the
+Inspector.
+
+"Thank God I didn't." The large man sputtered visibly.
+
+The Inspector wiped his face and grew bolder.
+
+"You mustn't think we're careless about our earthstoppers. We've
+a Hunt fund for hot tar. Tar's a splendid dressing if the
+toe-nails aren't beaten off. But huntin' as large a country as we
+do, we mayn't be back at that village for a month, and if the
+dressings ain't renewed, and gangrene sets in, often as not you
+find your man pegging about on his stumps. We've a well-known
+local name for 'em down the river. We call 'em the Mudir's
+Cranes. You see, I persuaded the Governor only to bastinado on
+one foot."
+
+"On one foot? The Mudir's Cranes!" The large man turned purple to
+the top of his bald head. " Would you mind giving me the local
+word for Mudir's Cranes?"
+
+From a too well-stocked memory the Inspector drew one short
+adhesive word which surprises by itself even unblushing Ethiopia.
+He spelt it out, saw the large man write it down on his cuff and
+withdraw. Then the Inspector translated a few of its
+significations and implications to the four Masters of Foxhounds.
+He left three days later with eight couple of the best hounds in
+England--a free and a friendly and an ample gift from four packs
+to the Gihon Hunt. He had honestly meant to undeceive the large
+blue mottled man, but somehow forgot about it.
+
+The new draft marks a new chapter in the Hunt's history. From an
+isolated phenomenon in a barge it became a permanent institution
+with brick-built kennels ashore, and an influence social,
+political, and administrative, co-terminous with the boundaries
+of the province. Ben, the Governor, departed to England, where he
+kept a pack of real dainty hounds, but never ceased to long for
+the old lawless lot. His successors were ex-officio Masters of
+the Gihon Hunt, as all Inspectors were Whips. For one reason;
+Farag, the kennel huntsman, in khaki and puttees, would obey
+nothing under the rank of an Excellency, and the hounds would
+obey no one but Farag; for another, the best way of estimating
+crop returns and revenue was by riding straight to hounds; for a
+third, though Judges down the river issued signed and sealed
+land-titles to all lawful owners, yet public opinion along the
+river never held any such title valid till it had been confirmed,
+according to precedent, by the Governor's hunting crop in the
+hunting field, above the wilfully neglected earth. True, the
+ceremony had been cut down to three mere taps on the shoulder,
+but Governors who tried to evade that much found themselves and
+their office compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses who
+took up their time with lawsuits and, worse still, neglected the
+puppies. The older sheikhs, indeed, stood out for the
+unmeasurable beatings of the old days--the sharper the
+punishment, they argued, the surer the title; but here the hand
+of modern progress was against them, and they contented
+themselves with telling tales of Ben the first Governor, whom
+they called the Father of Waterwheels, and of that heroic age
+when men, horses, and hounds were worth following.
+
+This same Modern Progress which brought dog biscuit and brass
+water-taps to the kennels was at work all over the world. Forces,
+Activities, and Movements sprang into being, agitated themselves,
+coalesced, and, in one political avalanche, overwhelmed a
+bewildered, and not in the least intending it, England. The
+echoes of the New Era were borne into the Province on the wings
+of inexplicable cables. The Gihon Hunt read speeches and
+sentiments, and policies which amazed them, and they thanked God,
+prematurely, that their Province was too far off, too hot, and
+too hard worked to be reached by those speakers or their
+policies. But they, with others, under-estimated the scope and
+purpose of the New Era.
+
+One by one, the Provinces of the Empire were hauled up and
+baited, hit and held, lashed under the belly, and forced back on
+their haunches for the amusement of their new masters in the
+parish of Westminster. One by one they fell away, sore and angry,
+to compare stripes with each other at the ends of the uneasy
+earth. Even so the Gihon Hunt, like Abu Hussein in the old days,
+did not understand. Then it reached them through the Press that
+they habitually flogged to death good revenue-paying cultivators
+who neglected to stop earths; but that the few, the very few who
+did not die under hippohide whips soaked in copperas, walked
+about on their gangrenous ankle-bones, and were known in derision
+as the Mudir's Cranes. The charges were vouched for in the House
+of Commons by a Mr. Lethabie Groombride, who had formed a
+Committee, and was disseminating literature: The Province
+groaned; the Inspector--now an Inspector of Inspectors--whistled.
+He had forgotten the gentleman who sputtered in people's faces.
+
+"He shouldn't have looked so like Beagle-boy!" was his sole
+defence when he met the Governor at breakfast on the steamer
+after a meet.
+
+"You shouldn't have joked with an animal of that class," said
+Peter the Governor. "Look what Farag has brought me!"
+
+It was a pamphlet, signed on behalf of a Committee by a lady
+secretary, but composed by some person who thoroughly understood
+the language of the Province. After telling the tale of the
+beatings, it recommended all the beaten to institute criminal
+proceedings against their Governor, and, as soon as might be, to
+rise against English oppression and tyranny. Such documents were
+new in Ethiopia in those days.
+
+The Inspector read the last half page. "But--but," he stammered,
+"this is impossible. White men don't write this sort of stuff."
+
+"Don't they, just?" said the Governor. "They get made Cabinet
+Ministers for doing it too. I went home last year. I know."
+
+"It'll blow over," said the Inspector weakly.
+
+"Not it. Groombride is coming down here to investigate the matter
+in a few days."
+
+"For himself?"
+
+"The Imperial Government's behind him. Perhaps you'd like to look
+t my orders." The Governor laid down an uncoded cable. The
+whiplash to it ran: "You will afford Mr. Groombride every
+facility for his inquiry, and will be held responsible that no
+obstacles are put in his way to the fullest possible examination
+of any witnesses which he may consider necessary. He will be
+accompanied by his own interpreter, who must not be tampered
+with."
+
+"That's to me--Governor of the Province!" said Peter the
+Governor.
+
+"It seems about enough," the Inspector answered.
+
+Farag, kennel-huntsman, entered the saloon, as was his privilege.
+
+"My uncle, who was beaten by the Father of Waterwheels, would
+approach, O Excellency," he said, "and there are others on the
+bank."
+
+"Admit," said the Governor.
+
+There tramped aboard sheikhs and villagers to the number of
+seventeen. In each man's hand was a copy of the pamphlet; in each
+man's eye terror and uneasiness of the sort that Governors spend
+and are spent to clear away. Farag's uncle, now Sheikh of the
+village, spoke: "It is written in this book, Excellency, that the
+beatings whereby we hold our lands are all valueless. It is
+written that every man who received such a beating from the
+Father of Waterwheels who slow the Emirs, should instantly begin
+a lawsuit, because the title to his land is not valid."
+
+"It is so written. We do not wish lawsuits. We wish to hold the
+land as it was given to us after the days of the Oppression,"
+they cried.
+
+The Governor glanced at the Inspector. This was serious. To cast
+doubt on the ownership of land means, in Ethiopia, the letting in
+of waters, and the getting out of troops.
+
+"Your titles are good," said the Governor. The Inspector
+confirmed with a nod.
+
+"Then what is the meaning of these writings which came from down
+the river where the Judges are?" Farag's uncle waved his copy.
+"By whose order are we ordered to slay you, O Excellency Our
+Governor?"
+
+"It is not written that you are to slay me."
+
+"Not in those very words, but if we leave an earth unstopped, it
+is the same as though we wished to save Abu Hussein from the
+hounds. These writings say: 'Abolish your rulers.' How can we
+abolish except we kill? We hear rumours of one who comes from
+down the river soon to lead us to kill."
+
+"Fools!" said the Governor. "Your titles are good. This is
+madness!"
+
+"It is so written," they answered like a pack.
+
+"Listen," said the Inspector smoothly. "I know who caused the
+writings to be written and sent. He is a man of a blue-mottled
+jowl, in aspect like Bigglebai who ate unclean matters. He will
+come up the river and will give tongue about the beatings."
+
+"Will he impeach our land-titles? An evil day for him!"
+
+"Go slow, Baker," the Governor whispered. "They'll kill him if
+they get scared about their land."
+
+"I tell a parable." The Inspector lit a cigarette. "Declare which
+of you took to walk the children of Milkmaid?"
+
+"Melik-meid First or Second?" said Farag quickly.
+
+"The second--the one which was lamed by the thorn."
+
+"No--no. Melik-meid the Second strained her shoulder leaping my
+water-channel," a sheikh cried. "Melik-meid the First was lamed
+by the thorns on the day when Our Excellency fell thrice."
+
+"True--true. The second Melik-meid's mate was Malvolio, the pied
+hound," said the Inspector.
+
+"I had two of the second Melik-meid's pups," said Farag's uncle.
+"They died of the madness in their ninth month."
+
+"And how did they do before they died?" said the Inspector.
+
+"They ran about in the sun, and slavered at the mouth till they
+died."
+
+"Wherefore?"
+
+"God knows. He sent the madness. It was no fault of mine."
+
+"Thy own mouth hath answered thee." The Inspector laughed. "It is
+with men as it is with dogs. God afflicts some with a madness. It
+is no fault of ours if such men run about in the sun and froth at
+the mouth. The man who is coming will emit spray from his mouth
+in speaking, and will always edge and push in towards his
+hearers. When ye see and hear him ye will understand that he is
+afflicted of God: being mad. He is in God's hands."
+
+"But our titles--are our titles to our lands good?" the crowd
+repeated.
+
+"Your titles are in my hands--they are good," said the Governor.
+
+"And he who wrote the writings is an afflicted of God?" said
+Farag's uncle.
+
+"The Inspector hath said it," cried the Governor. "Ye will see
+when the man comes. O sheikhs and men, have we ridden together
+and walked puppies together, and bought and sold barley for the
+horses that after these years we should run riot on the scent of
+a madman--an afflicted of God?"
+
+"But the Hunt pays us to kill mad jackals," said Farag's uncle.
+"And he who questions my titles to my land "
+
+"Aahh! 'Ware riot!" The Governor's hunting-crop cracked like a
+three-pounder. "By Allah," he thundered, "if the afflicted of God
+come to any harm at your hands, I myself will shoot every hound
+and every puppy, and the Hunt shall ride no more. On your heads
+be it. Go in peace, and tell the others."
+
+"The Hunt shall ride no more," said Farag's uncle. "Then how can
+the land be governed? No--no, O Excellency Our Governor, we will
+not harm a hair on the head of the afflicted of God. He shall be
+to us as is Abu Hussein's wife in the breeding season."
+
+When they were gone the Governor mopped his forehead.
+
+"We must put a few soldiers in every village this Groombride
+visits, Baker. Tell 'em to keep out of sight, and have an eye on
+the villagers. He's trying 'em rather high."
+
+"O Excellency," said the smooth voice of Farag, laying the Field
+and Country Life square on the table, "is the afflicted of God
+who resembles Bigglebai one with the man whom the Inspector met
+in the great house in England, and to whom he told the tale of
+the Mudir's Cranes?"
+
+"The same man, Farag," said the Inspector.
+
+"I have often heard the Inspector tell the tale to ,Our
+Excellency at feeding-time in the kennels; but since I am in the
+Government service I have never told it to my people. May I loose
+that tale among the villages?"
+
+     *      *      *      *      *     
+
+The Governor nodded. " No harm," said he.
+
+The details of Mr. Groombride's arrival, with his interpreter,
+whom he proposed should eat with him at the Governor's table, his
+allocution to the Governor on the New Movement, and the sins of
+Imperialism, I purposely omit. At three in the afternoon Mr.
+Groombride said: "I will go out now and address your victims in
+this village."
+
+"Won't you find it rather hot?" said the Governor. "They
+generally take 'a nap till sunset at this time of year."
+
+Mr. Groombride's large, loose lips set. "That," he replied
+pointedly, "would be enough to decide me. I fear you have not
+quite mastered your instructions. May I ask you to send for my
+interpreter? I hope he has not been tampered with by your
+subordinates."
+
+He was a yellowish boy called Abdul, who had well eaten and drunk
+with Farag. The Inspector, by the way, was not present at the
+meal.
+
+"At whatever risk, I shall go unattended," said Mr. Groombride.
+"Your presence would cow them -from giving evidence. Abdul, my
+good friend, would you very kindly open the umbrella?"
+
+He passed up the gang-plank to the village, and with no more
+prelude than a Salvation Army picket in a Portsmouth slum, cried:
+"Oh, my brothers!"
+
+He did not guess how his path had been prepared. The village was
+widely awake. Farag, in loose, flowing garments, quite unlike a
+kennel huntsman's khaki and puttees, leaned against the wall of
+his uncle's house. "Come and see the afflicted of God,." he cried
+musically, "whose face, indeed, resembles that of Bigglebai."
+
+The village came, and decided that on the whole Farag was right.
+
+"I can't quite catch what they are saying," said Mr. Groombride.
+
+"They saying they very much pleased to see you, Sar," Adbul
+interpreted.
+
+"Then I do think they might have sent a deputation to the
+steamer; but I suppose they were frightened of the officials.
+Tell them not to be frightened, Abdul."
+
+"He says you are not to be frightened," Abdul explained. A child
+here sputtered with laughter. "Refrain from mirth," Farag cried.
+"The afflicted of God is the guest of The Excellency Our
+Governor. We are responsible for every hair of his head."
+
+"He has none," a voice spoke. "He has the white and the shining
+mange."
+
+"Now tell them what I have come for, Abdul, and please keep the
+umbrella well up. I think I shall reserve myself for my little
+vernacular speech at the end."
+
+"Approach! Look! Listen!" Abdul chanted. "The afflicted of God
+will now make sport. Presently he will speak in your tongue, and
+will consume you with mirth. I have been his servant for three
+weeks. I will tell you about his undergarments and his perfumes
+for his head."
+
+He told them at length.
+
+"And didst thou take any of his perfume bottles?" said Farag at
+the end.
+
+"I am his servant. I took two," Abdul replied.
+
+"Ask him," said Farag's uncle, "what he knows about our
+land-titles. Ye young men are all alike." He waved a pamphlet.
+Mr. Groombride smiled to see how the seed sown in London had
+borne fruit by Gihon. Lo! All the seniors held copies of the
+pamphlet.
+
+"He knows less than a buffalo. He told me on the steamer that he
+was driven out of his own land by Demah-Kerazi which is a devil
+inhabiting crowds and assemblies," said Abdul.
+
+"Allah between us and evil!" a woman cackled from the darkness of
+a hut. "Come in, children, he may have the Evil Eye."
+
+"No, my aunt," said Farag. "No afflicted of God has an evil eye.
+Wait till ye hear his mirth-provoking speech which he will
+deliver. I have heard it twice from Abdul."
+
+"They seem very quick to grasp the point. How far have you got,
+Abdul?"
+
+"All about the beatings, sar. They are highly interested."
+
+"Don't forget about the local self-government, and please hold
+the umbrella over me. It is hopeless to destroy unless one first
+builds up."
+
+"He may not have the Evil Eye," Farag's uncle grunted, "but his
+devil led him too certainly to question my land-title. Ask him
+whether he still doubts my land-title?"
+
+"Or mine, or mine?" cried the elders.
+
+"What odds? He is an afflicted of God," Farag called. "Remember
+the tale I told you."
+
+"Yes, but he is an Englishman, and doubtless of influence, or Our
+Excellency would not entertain him. Bid the down-country jackass
+ask him."
+
+"Sar," said Abdul, "these people, much fearing they may be turned
+out of their land in consequence of your remarks. Therefore they
+ask you to make promise no bad consequences following your
+visit."
+
+Mr. Groombride held his breath and turned purple. Then he stamped
+his foot.
+
+"Tell them," he cried, "that if a hair of any one of their heads
+is touched by any official on any account whatever, all England
+shall ring with it. Good God! What callous oppression! The dark
+places of the earth are full of cruelty." He wiped his face, and
+throwing out his arms cried: "Tell them, oh! tell the poor, serfs
+not to be afraid of me. Tell them I come to redress their
+wrongs--not, heaven knows, to add to their burden."
+
+The long-drawn gurgle of the practised public speaker pleased
+them much.
+
+"That is how the new water-tap runs out in the kennel," said
+Farag. "The Excellency Our Governor entertains him that he may
+make sport. Make him say the mirth-moving speech."
+
+"What did he say about my land-titles?" Farag's uncle was not to
+be turned.
+
+"He says," Farag interpreted, "that he desires, nothing better
+than that you should live on your lands in peace. He talks as
+though he believed himself to be Governor."
+
+"Well. We here are all witnesses to what he has said. Now go
+forward with the sport." Farag's uncle smoothed his garments.
+"How diversely hath Allah made His creatures! On one He bestows
+strength to slay Emirs; another He causes to go mad and wander in
+the sun, like the afflicted sons of Melik-meid."
+
+"Yes, and to emit spray from the mouth, as the Inspector told us.
+All will happen as the Inspector foretold," said Farag. " I have
+never yet seen the Inspector thrown out during any run."
+
+"I think," Abdul plucked at Mr. Groombride's sleeves, "I think
+perhaps it is better now, Sar, if you give your fine little
+native speech. They not understanding English, but much pleased
+at your condescensions."
+
+"Condescensions?" Mr. Groombride spun round. "If they only knew
+how I felt towards them in my heart! If I could express a tithe
+of my feelings! I must stay here and learn the language. Hold up
+the umbrella, Abdull I think my little speech will show them I
+know something of their vie intime."
+
+It was a short, simple; carefully learned address, and the
+accent, supervised by Abdul on the steamer, allowed the hearers
+to guess its meaning, which was a request to see one of the
+Mudir's Cranes; since the desire of the speaker's life, the
+object to which he would consecrate his days, was to improve the
+condition of the Mudir's Cranes. But first he must behold them
+with his own eyes. Would, then, his brethren, whom he loved, show
+him a Mudir's Crane whom he desired to love?
+
+Once, twice, and again in his peroration he repeated his demand,
+using always--that they might see he was acquainted with their
+local argot--using always, I say, the word which the Inspector
+had given him in England long ago--the short, adhesive word
+which, by itself, surprises even unblushing Ethiopia.
+
+There are limits to the sublime politeness of an ancient people.
+A bulky, blue-chinned man in white clothes, his name red-lettered
+across his lower shirtfront, spluttering from under a green-lined
+umbrella almost tearful appeals to be introduced to the
+Unintroducible; naming loudly the Unnameable; dancing, as it
+seemed, in perverse joy at mere mention of the
+Unmentionable--found those limits. There was a moment's hush, and
+then such mirth as Gihon through his centuries had never heard--a
+roar like to the roar of his own cataracts in flood. Children
+cast themselves on the ground, and rolled back and forth cheering
+and whooping; strong men, their faces hidden in their clothes,
+swayed in silence, till the agony became insupportable, and they
+threw up their heads and bayed at the sun; women, mothers and
+virgins, shrilled shriek upon mounting shriek, and slapped their
+thighs as it might have been the roll of musketry. When they
+tried to draw breath, some half-strangled voice would quack out
+the word, and the riot began afresh. Last to fall was the
+city-trained Abdul. He held on to the edge of apoplexy, then
+collapsed, throwing the umbrella from him.
+
+Mr. Groombride should not be judged too harshly. Exercise and
+strong emotion under a hot sun, the shock of public ingratitude,
+for the moment rued his spirit. He furled the umbrella, and with
+t beat the prostrate Abdul, crying that he had been betrayed. In
+which posture the Inspector, on horseback, followed by the
+Governor, suddenly found him.
+
+     *      *      *      *      *     
+
+"That's all very well," said the Inspector, when he had taken
+Abdul's dramatically dying depositions on the steamer, "but you
+can't hammer a native merely because he laughs at you. I see
+nothing for it but the law to take its course."
+
+"You might reduce the charge to--er--tampering with an
+interpreter," said the Governor. Mr. Groombride was too far gone
+to be comforted.
+
+"It's the publicity that I fear," he wailed. "Is there no
+possible means of hushing up the affair? You don't know what a
+question--a single question in the House means to a man of my
+position--the ruin of my political career, I assure you."
+
+"I shouldn't have imagined it," said the Governor thoughtfully.
+
+"And, though perhaps I ought not to say it, I am not without
+honour in my own country--or influence. A word in season, as you
+know, Your Excellency. It might carry an official far."
+
+The Governor shuddered.
+
+"Yes, that had to come too," he said to himself. "Well, look
+here. If I tell this man of yours to withdraw the charge against
+you, you can go to Gehenna for aught I care. The only condition I
+make is that if you write--I suppose that's part of your business
+about your travels, you don't praise me!"
+
+So far Mr. Groombride has loyally adhered to this understanding.
+
+
+
+               GALLIO'S SONG
+
+          All day long to the judgment-seat
+           The crazed Provincials drew--
+          All day long at their ruler's feet
+           Howled for the blood of the Jew.
+          Insurrection with one accord
+           Banded itself and woke:
+          And Paul was about to open his mouth
+           When Achaia's Deputy spoke
+
+          "Whether the God descend from above
+           Or the man ascend upon high,
+          Whether this maker of tents be Jove
+           Or a younger deity--
+          I will be no judge between your gods
+           And your godless bickerings,
+          Lictor, drive them hence with rods--
+           I care for none of these things!
+
+          "Were it a question of lawful due
+           Or a labourer's hire denied,
+          Reason would I should bear with you
+           And order it well to be tried
+          But this is a question of words and names
+           And I know the strife it brings,
+          I will not pass upon any your claims.
+           I care for none of these things.
+
+          "One thing only I see most clear,
+           As I pray you also see.
+          Claudius Caesar hath set me here
+           Rome's Deputy to be.
+          It is Her peace that ye go to break
+           Not mine, nor any king's,
+          But, touching your clamour of 'conscience sake,'
+           I care for none of these things!"
+
+
+
+THE HOUSE SURGEON
+
+On an evening after Easter Day, I sat at a table in a homeward
+bound steamer's smoking-room, where half a dozen of us told ghost
+stories. As our party broke up a man, playing Patience in the
+next alcove, said to me: "I didn't quite catch the end of that
+last story about the Curse on the family's first-born."
+
+"It turned out to be drains," I explained. "As soon as new ones
+were put into the house the Curse was lifted, I believe. I never
+knew the people myself."
+
+"Ah! I've had my drains up twice; I'm on gravel too."
+
+"You don't mean to say you've a ghost in your house? Why didn't
+you join our party?"
+
+"Any more orders, gentlemen, before the bar closes?" the steward
+interrupted.
+
+"Sit down again, and have one with me," said the Patience player.
+"No, it isn't a ghost. Our trouble is more depression than
+anything else."
+
+"How interesting? Then it's nothing any one can see?"
+
+"It's--it's nothing worse than a little depression. And the odd
+part is that there hasn't been a death in the house since it was
+built--in 1863. The lawyer said so. That decided me--my good
+lady, rather and he made me pay an extra thousand for it."
+
+"How curious. Unusual, too!" I said.
+
+"Yes; ain't it? It was built for three sisters--Moultrie was the
+name--three old maids. They all lived together; the eldest owned
+it. I bought it from her lawyer a few years ago, and if I've
+spent a pound on the place first and last, I must have spent five
+thousand. Electric light, new servants' wing, garden--all that
+sort of thing. A man and his family ought to be happy after so
+much expense, ain't it?" He looked at me through the bottom of
+his glass.
+
+"Does it affect your family much?"
+
+"My good lady--she's a Greek, by the way--and myself are
+middle-aged. We can bear up against depression; but it's hard on
+my little girl. I say little; but she's twenty. We send her
+visiting to escape it. She almost lived at hotels and hydros,
+last year, but that isn't pleasant for her. She used to be a
+canary--a perfect canary--always singing. You ought to hear her.
+She doesn't sing now. That sort of thing's unwholesome for the
+young, ain't it?"
+
+"Can't you get rid of the place?" I suggested.
+
+"Not except at a sacrifice, and we are fond of it. Just suits us
+three. We'd love it if we were allowed."
+
+"What do you mean by not being allowed?"
+
+"I mean because of the depression. It spoils everything."
+
+"What's it like exactly?"
+
+"I couldn't very well explain. It must be seen to be appreciated,
+as the auctioneers say. Now, I was much impressed by the story
+you were telling just now."
+
+"It wasn't true," I said.
+
+"My tale is true. If you would do me the pleasure to come down
+and spend a night at my little place, you'd learn more than you
+would if I talked till morning. Very likely 'twouldn't touch your
+good self at all. You might be--immune, ain't it? On the other
+hand, if this influenza,--influence does happen to affect you,
+why, I think it will be an experience."
+
+While he talked he gave me his card, and I read his name was L.
+Maxwell M'Leod, Esq., of Holmescroft. A City address was tucked
+away in a corner.
+
+"My business," he added, "used to be furs. If you are interested
+in furs--I've given thirty years of my life to 'em."
+
+"You're very kind," I murmured.
+
+"Far from it, I assure you. I can meet you next Saturday
+afternoon anywhere in London you choose to name, and I'll be only
+too happy to motor you down. It ought to be a delightful run at
+this time of year the rhododendrons will be out. I mean it. You
+don't know how truly I mean it. Very probably--it won't affect
+you at all. And--I think I may say I have the finest collection
+of narwhal tusks in the world. All the best skins and horns have
+to go through London, and L. Maxwell M'Leod, he knows where they
+come from, and where they go to. That's his business."
+
+For the rest of the voyage up-channel Mr. M'Leod talked to me of
+the assembling, preparation, and sale of the rarer furs; and told
+me things about the manufacture of fur-lined coats which quite
+shocked me. Somehow or other, when we landed on Wednesday, I
+found myself pledged to spend that week-end with him at
+Holmescroft.
+
+On Saturday he met me with a well-groomed motor, and ran me out,
+in an hour and a half, to an exclusive residential district of
+dustless roads and elegantly designed country villas, each
+standing in from three to five acres of perfectly appointed land.
+He told me land was selling at eight hundred pounds the acre, and
+the new golf links, whose Queen Anne pavilion we passed, had cost
+nearly twenty-four thousand pounds to create.
+
+Holmescroft was a large, two-storied, low, creeper-covered
+residence. A verandah at the south side gave on to a garden and
+two tennis courts, separated by a tasteful iron fence from a most
+park-like meadow of five or six acres, where two Jersey cows
+grazed. Tea was ready in the shade of a promising copper beech,
+and I could see groups on the lawn of young men and maidens
+appropriately clothed, playing lawn tennis in the sunshine.
+
+"A pretty scene, ain't it?" said Mr. M'Leod. "My good lady's
+sitting under the tree, and that's my little girl in pink on the
+far court. But I'll take you to your room, and you can see 'em
+all later."
+
+He led me through a wide parquet-floored hall furnished in pale
+lemon, with huge Cloisonnee vases, an ebonized and gold grand
+piano, and banks of pot flowers in Benares brass bowls, up a pale
+oak staircase to a spacious landing, where there was a green
+velvet settee trimmed with silver. The blinds were down, and the
+light lay in parallel lines on the floors.
+
+He showed me my room, saying cheerfully: "You may be a little
+tired. One often is without knowing it after a run through
+traffic. Don't come down till you feel quite restored. We shall
+all be in the garden."
+
+My room was rather warm, and smelt of perfumed soap. I threw up
+the window at once, but it opened so close to the floor and
+worked so clumsily that I came within an ace of pitching out,
+where I should certainly have ruined a rather lop-sided laburnum
+below. As I set about washing off the journey's dust, I began to
+feel a little tired. But, I reflected, I had not come down here
+in this weather and among these new surroundings to be depressed;
+so I began to whistle.
+
+And it was just then that I was aware of a little grey shadow, as
+it might have been a snowflake seen against the light, floating
+at an immense distance in the background of my brain. It annoyed
+me, and I shook my head to get rid of it. Then my brain
+telegraphed that it was the forerunner of a swift-striding gloom
+which there was yet time to escape if I would force my thoughts
+away from it, as a man leaping for life forces his body forward
+and away from the fall of a wall. But the gloom overtook me
+before I could take in the meaning of the message. I moved toward
+the bed, every nerve already aching with the foreknowledge of the
+pain that was to be dealt it, and sat down, while my amazed and
+angry soul dropped, gulf by gulf, into that horror of great
+darkness which is spoken of in the Bible, and which, as
+auctioneers say, must be experienced to be appreciated.
+
+Despair upon despair, misery upon misery, fear after fear, each
+causing their distinct and separate woe, packed in upon me for an
+unrecorded length of time, until at last they blurred together,
+and I heard a click in my brain like the click in the ear when
+one descends in a diving bell, and I knew that the pressures were
+equalised within and without, and that, for the moment, the worst
+was at an end. But I knew also that at any moment the darkness
+might come down anew; and while, I dwelt on this speculation
+precisely as a man torments a raging tooth with his tongue, it
+ebbed away into the little grey shadow on the brain of its first
+coming, and once more I heard my brain, which knew what would
+recur, telegraph to every quarter fox help, release or diversion.
+
+The door opened, and M'Leod reappeared. I thanked him politely,
+saying I was charmed with my room, anxious to meet Mrs. M'Leod,
+much refreshed with my wash, and so on and so forth. Beyond a
+little stickiness at the corners of my mouth, it seemed to me
+that I was managing my words admirably; the while that I myself
+cowered at the bottom of unclimbable pits. M'Leod laid his hand
+on my shoulder, and said "You've got it now already, ain't it?"
+
+"Yes," I answered. "It's making me sick!"
+
+"It will pass off when you come outside. I give you my word it
+will then pass off. Come!"
+
+I shambled out behind him, and wiped my forehead in the hall.
+
+"You musn't mind," he said. "I expect the run tired you. My good
+lady is sitting there under the copper beech."
+
+She was a fat woman in an apricot-coloured gown, with a heavily
+powdered face, against which her black long-lashed eyes showed
+like currants in dough. I was introduced to many fine ladies and
+gentlemen of those parts. Magnificently appointed landaus and
+covered motors swept in and out of the drive, and the air was gay
+with the merry outcries of the tennis players.
+
+As twilight drew on they all went away, and I was left alone with
+Mr. and Mrs. M'Leod, while tall menservants and maidservants took
+away the tennis and tea things. Miss M'Leod had walked a little
+down the drive with a light-haired young man, who apparently knew
+everything about every South American railway stock. He had told
+me at tea that these were the days of financial specialisation.
+
+"I think it went off beautifully, my dear," said Mr. M'Leod to
+his wife; and to me: "You feel all right now, ain't it? Of course
+you do."
+
+Mrs. M'Leod surged across the gravel. Her husband skipped nimbly
+before her into the south verandah, turned a switch, and all
+Holmescroft was flooded with light.
+
+"You can do that from your room also," he said as they went in.
+"There is something in money, ain't it?"
+
+Miss M'Leod came up behind me in the dusk. "We have not yet been
+introduced," she said, "but I suppose you are staying the night?"
+
+"Your father was kind enough to ask me," I replied.
+
+She nodded. "Yes, I know; and you know too, don't you? I saw your
+face when you came to shake hands with mamma. You felt the
+depression very soon. It is simply frightful in that bedroom
+sometimes. What do you think it is--bewitchment? In Greece, where
+I was a little girl, it might have been; but not in England, do
+you think? Or do you?"
+
+"Cheer up, Thea. It will all come right," he insisted.
+
+"No, papa." She shook her dark head. "Nothing is right while it
+comes."
+
+"It is nothing that we ourselves have ever done in our lives that
+I will swear to you," said Mrs. M'Leod suddenly. "And we have
+changed our servants several times. So we know it is not them."
+
+"Never mind. Let us enjoy ourselves while we can," said Mr.
+M'Leod, opening the champagne.
+
+But we did not enjoy ourselves. The talk failed. There were long
+silences.
+
+"I beg your pardon," I said, for I thought some one at my elbow
+was about to speak.
+
+"Ah! That is the other thing!" said Miss M'Leod. Her mother
+groaned.
+
+We were silent again, and, in a few seconds it must have been, a
+live grief beyond words--not ghostly dread or horror, but aching,
+helpless grief--overwhelmed us, each, I felt, according to his or
+her nature, and held steady like the beam of a burning glass.
+Behind that pain I was conscious there was a desire on somebody's
+part to explain something on which some tremendously important
+issue hung.
+
+Meantime I rolled bread pills and remembered my sins; M'Leod
+considered his own reflection in a spoon; his wife seemed to be
+praying, and the girl fidgetted desperately with hands and feet,
+till the darkness passed on--as though the malignant rays of a
+burning-glass had been shifted from us."
+
+"There," said Miss M'Leod, half rising. "Now you see what makes a
+happy home. Oh, sell it--sell it, father mine, and let us go
+away!"
+
+"But I've spent thousands on it. You shall go to Harrogate next
+week, Thea dear."
+
+"I'm only just back from hotels. I am so tired of packing."
+
+"Cheer up, Thea. It is over. You know it does not often come here
+twice in the same night. I think we shall dare now to be
+comfortable."
+
+He lifted a dish-cover, and helped his wife and daughter. His
+face was lined and fallen like an old man's after debauch, but
+his hand did not shake, and his voice was clear. As he worked to
+restore us by speech and action, he reminded me of a grey-muzzled
+collie herding demoralised sheep.
+
+After dinner we sat round the dining-room fire the drawing-room
+might have been under the Shadow for aught we knew talking with
+the intimacy of gipsies by the wayside, or of wounded comparing
+notes after a skirmish. By eleven o'clock the three between them
+had given me every name and detail they could recall that in any
+way bore on the house, and what they knew of its history.
+
+We went to bed in a fortifying blaze of electric light. My one
+fear was that the blasting gust of depression would return--the
+surest way, of course, to bring it. I lay awake till dawn,
+breathing quickly and sweating lightly, beneath what De Quincey
+inadequately describes as "the oppression of inexpiable guilt."
+Now as soon as the lovely day was broken, I fell into the most
+terrible of all dreams--that joyous one in which all past evil
+has not only been wiped out of our lives, but has never been
+committed; and in the very bliss of our assured innocence, before
+our loves shriek and change countenance, we wake to the day we
+have earned.
+
+It was a coolish morning, but we preferred to breakfast in the
+south verandah. The forenoon we spent in the garden, pretending
+to play games that come out of boxes, such as croquet and clock
+golf. But most of the time we drew together and talked. The young
+man who knew all about South American railways took Miss M'Leod
+for a walk in the afternoon, and at five M'Leod thoughtfully
+whirled us all up to dine in town.
+
+"Now, don't say you will tell the Psychological Society, and that
+you will come again," said Miss M'Leod, as we parted. "Because I
+know you will not."
+
+"You should not say that," said her mother. "You should say,
+'Goodbye, Mr. Perseus. Come again.'"
+
+"Not him!" the girl cried. "He has seen the Medusa's head!"
+
+Looking at myself in the restaurant's mirrors, it seemed to me
+that I had not much benefited by my week-end. Next morning I
+wrote out all my Holmescroft notes at fullest length, in the hope
+that by so doing I could put it all behind me. But the experience
+worked on my mind, as they say certain imperfectly understood
+rays work on the body.
+
+I am less calculated to make a Sherlock Holmes than any man I
+know, for I lack both method and patience, yet the idea of
+following up the trouble to its source fascinated me. I had no
+theory to go on, except a vague idea that I had come between two
+poles of a discharge, and had taken a shock meant for some one
+else. This was followed by a feeling of intense irritation. I
+waited cautiously on myself, expecting to be overtaken by horror
+of the supernatural, but my self persisted in being humanly
+indignant, exactly as though it had been the victim of a
+practical joke. It was in great pains and upheavals--that I felt
+in every fibre but its dominant idea, to put it coarsely, was to
+get back a bit of its own. By this I knew that I might go forward
+if I could find the way.
+
+After a few days it occurred to me to go to the office of Mr.
+J.M.M. Baxter--the solicitor who had sold Holmescroft to M'Leod.
+I explained I had some notion of buying the place. Would he act
+for me in the matter ?
+
+Mr. Baxter, a large, greyish, throaty-voiced man, showed no
+enthusiasm. "I sold it to Mr. M'Leod," he said. "It 'ud scarcely
+do for me to start on the running-down tack now. But I can
+recommend--"
+
+"I know he's asking an awful price," I interrupted, "and atop of
+it he wants an extra thousand for what he calls your clean bill
+of health."
+
+Mr. Baxter sat up in his chair. I had all his attention.
+
+"Your guarantee with the house. Don't you remember it?"
+
+"Yes, yes. That no death had taken place in the house since it
+was built: I remember perfectly."
+
+He did not gulp as untrained men do when they lie, but his jaws
+moved stickily, and his eyes, turning towards the deed boxes on
+the wall, dulled. I counted seconds, one, two, three--one, two,
+three up to ten. A man, I knew, can live through ages of mental
+depression in that time.
+
+"I remember perfectly." His mouth opened a little as though it
+had tasted old bitterness.
+
+"Of course that sort of thing doesn't appeal to me." I went on.
+"I don't expect to buy a house free from death."
+
+"Certainly not. No one does. But it was Mr. M'Leod's fancy--his
+wife's rather, I believe; and since we could meet it--it was my
+duty to my clients at whatever cost to my own feelings--to make
+him pay."
+
+"That's really why I came to you. I understood from him you knew
+the place well."
+
+"Oh, yes. Always did. It originally belonged to some connections
+of mine."
+
+"The Misses Moultrie, I suppose. How interesting! They must have
+loved the place before the country round about was built up."
+
+"They were very fond of it indeed."
+
+"I don't wonder. So restful and sunny. I don't see how they could
+have brought themselves to part with it."
+
+Now it is one of the most constant peculiarities of the English
+that in polite conversation--and I had striven to be polite--no
+one ever does or sells anything for mere money's sake.
+
+"Miss Agnes--the youngest--fell ill" (he spaced his words a
+little), "and, as they were very much attached to each other,
+that broke up the home."
+
+"Naturally. I fancied it must have been something of that kind.
+One doesn't associate the Staffordshire Moultries" (my Demon of
+Irresponsibility at that instant created 'em), "with--with being
+hard up."
+
+"I don't know whether we're related to them," he answered
+importantly. "We may be, for our branch of the family comes from
+the Midlands."
+
+I give this talk at length, because I am so proud of my first
+attempt at detective work. When I left him, twenty minutes later,
+with instructions to move against the owner of Holmescroft, with
+a view to purchase, I was more bewildered than any Doctor Watson
+at the opening of a story.
+
+Why should a middle-aged solicitor turn plovers' egg colour and
+drop his jaw when reminded of so innocent and festal a matter as
+that no death had ever occurred in a house that he had sold? If I
+knew my English vocabulary at all, the tone in which he said the
+youngest sister "fell ill" meant that she had gone out of her
+mind. That might explain his change of countenance, and it was
+just possible that her demented influence still hung about
+Holmescroft; but the rest was beyond me.
+
+I was relieved when I reached M'Leod's City office, and could
+tell him what I had done--not what I thought.
+
+M'Leod was quite willing to enter into the game of the pretended
+purchase, but did not see how it would help if I knew Baxter.
+
+"He's the only living soul I can get at who was connected with
+Holmescroft," I said.
+
+"Ah! Living soul is good," said M'Leod. "At any rate our little
+girl will be pleased that you are still interested in us. Won't
+you come down some day this week?"
+
+"How is it there now?" I asked.
+
+He screwed up his face. "Simply frightful!" he said. "Thea is at
+Droitwich."
+
+"I should like it immensely, but I must cultivate Baxter for the
+present. You'll be sure and keep him busy your end, won't you?"
+
+He looked at me with quiet contempt. "Do not be afraid. I shall
+be a good Jew. I shall be my own solicitor."
+
+Before a fortnight was over, Baxter admitted ruefully that M'Leod
+was better than most firms in the business: We buyers were coy,
+argumentative, shocked at the price of Holmescroft, inquisitive,
+and cold by turns, but Mr. M'Leod the seller easily met and
+surpassed us; and Mr. Baxter entered every letter, telegram, and
+consultation at the proper rates in a cinematograph-film of a
+bill. At the end of a month he said it looked as though M'Leod,
+thanks to him, were really going to listen to reason. I was many
+pounds out of pocket, but I had learned something of Mr. Baxter
+on the human side. I deserved it. Never in my life have I worked
+to conciliate, amuse, and flatter a human being as I worked over
+my solicitor.
+
+It appeared that he golfed. Therefore, I was an enthusiastic
+beginner, anxious to learn. Twice I invaded his office with a bag
+(M'Leod lent it) full of the spelicans needed in this detestable
+game, and a vocabulary to match. The third time the ice broke,
+and Mr. Baxter took me to his links, quite ten miles off, where
+in a maze of tramway lines, railroads, and nursery-maids, we
+skelped our divotted way round nine holes like barges plunging
+through head seas. He played vilely and had never expected to
+meet any one worse; but as he realised my form, I think he began
+to like me, for he took me in hand by the two hours together.
+After a fortnight he could give me no more than a stroke a hole,
+and when, with this allowance, I once managed to beat him by one,
+he was honestly glad, and assured me that I should be a golfer if
+I stuck to it. I was sticking to it for my own ends, but now and
+again my conscience pricked me; for the man was a nice man.
+Between games he supplied me with odd pieces of evidence, such as
+that he had known the Moultries all his life, being their cousin,
+and that Miss Mary, the eldest, was an unforgiving woman who
+would never let bygones be. I naturally wondered what she might
+have against him; and somehow connected him unfavourably with mad
+Agnes.
+
+"People ought to forgive and forget," he volunteered one day
+between rounds. "Specially where, in the nature of things, they
+can't be sure of their deductions. Don't you think so?"
+
+"It all depends on the nature of the evidence on which one forms
+one's judgment," I answered.
+
+"Nonsense!" he cried. "I'm lawyer enough to know that there's
+nothing in the world so misleading as circumstantial evidence.
+Never was."
+
+"Why? Have you ever seen men hanged on it?"
+
+"Hanged? People have been supposed to be eternally lost on it,"
+his face turned grey again. "I don't know how it is with you, but
+my consolation is that God must know. He must! Things that seem
+on the face of 'em like murder, or say suicide, may appear
+different to God. Heh?"
+
+"That's what the murderer and the suicide can always hope--I
+suppose."
+
+"I have expressed myself clumsily as usual. The facts as God
+knows 'em--may be different--even after the most clinching
+evidence. I've always said that--both as a lawyer and a man, but
+some people won't--I don't want to judge 'em--we'll say they
+can't--believe it; whereas I say there's always a working
+chance--a certainty--that the worst hasn't happened." He stopped
+and cleared his throat. "Now, let's come on! This time next week
+I shall be taking my holiday."
+
+"What links?" I asked carelessly, while twins in a perambulator
+got out of our line of fire.
+
+"A potty little nine-hole affair at a hydro in the Midlands. My
+cousins stay there. Always will. Not but what the fourth and the
+seventh holes take some doing. You could manage it, though," he
+said encouragingly. "You're doing much better. It's only your
+approach shots that are weak."
+
+"You're right. I can't approach for nuts! I shall go to pieces
+while you're away--with no one to coach me," I said mournfully.
+
+"I haven't taught you anything," he said, delighted with the
+compliment.
+
+"I owe all I've learned to you, anyhow. When will you come back?"
+
+"Look here," he began. "I don't know, your engagements, but I've
+no one to play with at Burry Mills. Never have. Why couldn't you
+take a few days off and join me there? I warn you it will be
+rather dull. It's a throat and gout place-baths, massage,
+electricity, and so forth. But the fourth and the seventh holes
+really take some doing."
+
+"I'm for the game," I answered valiantly; Heaven well knowing
+that I hated every stroke and word of it.
+
+"That's the proper spirit. As their lawyer I must ask you not to
+say anything to my cousins about Holmescroft. It upsets 'em.
+Always did. But speaking as man to man, it would be very pleasant
+for me if you could see your way to--"
+
+I saw it as soon as decency permitted, and thanked him sincerely.
+According to my now well-developed theory he had certainly
+misappropriated his aged cousins' monies under power of attorney,
+and had probably driven poor Agnes Moultrie out of her wits, but
+I wished that he was not so gentle, and good-tempered, and
+innocent eyed.
+
+Before I joined him at Burry Mills Hydro, I spent a night at
+Holmescroft. Miss M'Leod had returned from her Hydro, and first
+we made very merry on the open lawn in the sunshine over the
+manners and customs of the English resorting to such places. She
+knew dozens of hydros, and warned me how to behave in them, while
+Mr. and Mrs. M'Leod stood aside and adored her.
+
+"Ah! That's the way she always comes back to us," he said. "Pity
+it wears off so soon, ain't it? You ought to hear her sing 'With
+mirth thou pretty bird.'"
+
+We had the house to face through the evening, and there we
+neither laughed nor sung. The gloom fell on us as we entered, and
+did not shift till ten o'clock, when we crawled out, as it were,
+from beneath it.
+
+"It has been bad this summer," said Mrs. M'Leod in a whisper
+after we realised that we were freed. "Sometimes I think the
+house will get up and cry out--it is so bad."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Have you forgotten what comes after the depression ?"
+
+So then we waited about the small fire, and the dead air in the
+room presently filled and pressed down upon us with the sensation
+(but words are useless here) as though some dumb and bound power
+were striving against gag and bond to deliver its soul of an
+articulate word. It passed in a few minutes, and I fell to
+thinking about Mr. Baxter's conscience and Agnes Moultrie, gone
+mad in the well-lit bedroom that waited me. These reflections
+secured me a night during which I rediscovered how, from purely
+mental causes, a man can be physically sick; but the sickness was
+bliss compared to my dreams when the birds waked. On my
+departure, M'Leod gave me a beautiful narwhal's horn, much as a
+nurse gives a child sweets for being brave at a dentist's.
+
+"There's no duplicate of it in the world," he said, "else it
+would have come to old Max M'Leod;" and he tucked it into the
+motor. Miss M'Leod on the far side of the car whispered, "Have
+you found out anything, Mr. Perseus?"
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"Then I shall be chained to my rock all my life," she went on.
+"Only don't tell papa."
+
+I supposed she was thinking of the young gentleman who
+specialised in South American rails, for I noticed a ring on the
+third finger of her left hand.
+
+I went straight from that house to Burry Mills Hydro, keen for
+the first time in my life on playing golf, which is guaranteed to
+occupy the mind. Baxter had taken me a room communicating with
+his own, and after lunch introduced me to a tall, horse-headed
+elderly lady of decided manners, whom a white-haired maid pushed
+along in a bath-chair through the park-like grounds of the Hydro.
+She was Miss Mary Moultrie, and she coughed and cleared her
+throat just like Baxter. She suffered--she told me it was a
+Moultrie castemark--from some obscure form of chronic bronchitis,
+complicated with spasm of the glottis; and, in a dead, flat
+voice, with a sunken eye that looked and saw not, told me what
+washes, gargles, pastilles, and inhalations she had proved most
+beneficial. From her I was passed on to her younger sister, Miss
+Elizabeth, a small and withered thing with twitching lips,
+victim, she told me, to very much the same sort of throat, but
+secretly devoted to another set of medicines. When she went away
+with Baxter and the bath-chair, I fell across a major of the
+Indian army with gout in his glassy eyes, and a stomach which he
+had taken all round the Continent. He laid everything before me;
+and him I escaped only to be confided in by a matron with a
+tendency to follicular tonsilitis and eczema. Baxter waited hand
+and foot on his cousins till five o'clock, trying, as I saw, to
+atone for his treatment of the dead sister. Miss Mary ordered him
+about like a dog.
+
+"I warned you it would be dull," he said when we met in the
+smoking-room.
+
+"It's tremendously interesting," I said. "But how about a look
+round the links?"
+
+"Unluckily damp always affects my eldest cousin. I've got to buy
+her a new bronchitis-kettle. Arthurs broke her old one
+yesterday."
+
+We slipped out to the chemist's shop in the town, and he bought a
+large glittering tin thing whose workings he explained.
+
+"I'm used to this sort of work. I come up here pretty often," he
+said. "I've the family throat too."
+
+"You're a good man," I said. "A very good man."
+
+He turned towards me in the evening light among the beeches, and
+his face was changed to what it might have been a generation
+before.
+
+"You see," he said huskily, "there was the youngest--Agnes.
+Before she fell ill, you know. But she didn't like leaving her
+sisters. Never would." He hurried on with his odd-shaped load and
+left me among the ruins of my black theories. The man with that
+face had done Agnes Moultrie no wrong.
+
+We never played our game. I was waked between two and three in
+the morning from my hygienic bed by Baxter in an ulster over
+orange and white pyjamas, which I should never have suspected
+from his character.
+
+"My cousin has had some sort of a seizure," he said. "Will you
+come? I don't want to wake the doctor. Don't want to make a
+scandal. Quick!"
+
+So I came quickly, and led by the white-haired Arthurs in a
+jacket and petticoat, entered a double-bedded room reeking with
+steam and Friar's Balsam. The electrics were all on. Miss Mary--I
+knew her by her height--was at the open window, wrestling with
+Miss Elizabeth, who gripped her round the knees.
+
+Miss Mary's hand was at her own throat, which was streaked with
+blood.
+
+"She's done it. She's done it too!" Miss Elizabeth panted. "Hold
+her! Help me!"
+
+"Oh, I say! Women don't cut their throats," Baxter whispered.
+
+"My God! Has she cut her throat?" the maid cried out, and with no
+warning rolled over in a faint. Baxter pushed her under the
+wash-basins, and leaped to hold the gaunt woman who crowed and
+whistled as she struggled toward the window. He took her by the
+shoulder, and she struck out wildly:
+
+"All right! She's only cut her hand," he said. "Wet towel quick!"
+
+While I got that he pushed her backward. Her strength seemed
+almost as great as his. I swabbed at her throat when I could, and
+found no mark; then helped him to control her a little. Miss
+Elizabeth leaped back to bed, wailing like a child.
+
+"Tie up her hand somehow," said Baxter. "Don't let it drip about
+the place. She"--he stepped on broken glass in his slippers, "she
+must have smashed a pane."
+
+Miss Mary lurched towards the open window again, dropped on her
+knees, her head on the sill, and lay quiet, surrendering the cut
+hand to me.
+
+"What did she do?" Baxter turned towards Miss Elizabeth in the
+far bed.
+
+"She was going to throw herself out of the window," was the
+answer. "I stopped her, and sent Arthurs for you. Oh, we can
+never hold up our heads again!"
+
+Miss Mary writhed and fought for breath. Baxter found a shawl
+which he threw over her shoulders.
+
+"Nonsense!" said he. "That isn't like Mary;" but his face worked
+when he said it.
+
+"You wouldn't believe about Aggie, John. Perhaps you will now!"
+said Miss Elizabeth. "I saw her do it, and she's cut her throat
+too!"
+
+"She hasn't," I said. "It's only her hand."
+
+Miss Mary suddenly broke from us with an indescribable grunt,
+flew, rather than ran, to her sister's bed, and there shook her
+as one furious schoolgirl would shake another.
+
+"No such thing," she croaked. "How dare you think so, you wicked
+little fool?"
+
+"Get into bed, Mary," said Baxter. "You'll catch a chill."
+
+She obeyed, but sat up with the grey shawl round her lean
+shoulders, glaring at her sister. "I'm better now," she panted. "
+Arthurs let me sit out too long. Where's Arthurs? The kettle."
+
+"Never mind Arthurs," said Baxter. "You get the kettle." I
+hastened to bring it from the side table. "Now, Mary, as God sees
+you, tell me what you've done."
+
+His lips were dry, and he could not moisten. them with his
+tongue.
+
+Miss Mary applied herself to the mouth of the kettle, and between
+indraws of steam said: "The spasm came on just now, while I was
+asleep. I was nearly choking to death. So I went to the window
+I've done it often before, without, waking any one. Bessie's such
+an old maid about draughts. I tell you I was choking to death. I
+couldn't manage the catch, and I nearly fell out. That window
+opens too low. I cut my hand trying to save myself. Who has tied
+it up in this filthy handkerchief? I wish you had had my throat,
+Bessie. I never was nearer dying!" She scowled on us all
+impartially, while her sister sobbed.
+
+From the bottom of the bed we heard a quivering voice: "Is she
+dead? Have they took her away? Oh, I never could bear the sight
+o' blood!"
+
+"Arthurs," said Miss Mary, "you are an hireling. Go away!"
+
+It is my belief that Arthurs crawled out on all fours, but I was
+busy picking up broken glass from the carpet.
+
+Then Baxter, seated by the side of the bed, began to
+cross-examine in a voice I scarcely recognised. No one could for
+an instant have doubted the genuine rage of Miss Mary against her
+sister, her cousin, or her maid; and that a doctor should have
+been called in for she did me the honour of calling me
+doctor--was the last drop. She was choking with her throat; had
+rushed to the window for air; had near pitched out, and in
+catching at the window bars had cut her hand. Over and over she
+made this clear to the intent Baxter. Then she turned on her
+sister and tongue-lashed her savagely.
+
+"You mustn't blame me," Miss Bessie faltered at last. "You know
+what we think of night and day.".
+
+"I'm coming to that," said Baxter. "Listen to me. What you did,
+Mary, misled four people into thinking you--you meant to do away
+with yourself."
+
+"Isn't one suicide in the family enough? Oh God, help and pity
+us! You couldn't have believed that!" she cried.
+
+"The evidence was complete. Now, don't you think," Baxter's
+finger wagged under her nose--"can't you think that poor Aggie
+did the same thing at Holmescroft when she fell out of the
+window?"
+
+"She had the same throat," said Miss Elizabeth. "Exactly the same
+symptoms. Don't you remember, Mary?"
+
+"Which was her bedroom?" I asked of Baxter in an undertone.
+
+"Over the south verandah, looking on to the tennis lawn."
+
+"I nearly fell out of that very window when I was at
+Holmescroft--opening it to get some air. The sill doesn't come
+much above your knees," I said.
+
+"You hear that, Mary? Mary, do you hear What this gentleman says?
+Won't you believe that what nearly happened to you must have
+happened to poor Aggie that night? For God's sake--for her
+sake--Mary, won't you believe?"
+
+There was a long silence while the steam kettle puffed.
+
+"If I could have proof--if I could have proof," said she, and
+broke into most horrible tears.
+
+Baxter motioned to me, and I crept away to my room, and lay awake
+till morning, thinking more specially of the dumb Thing at
+Holmescroft which wished to explain itself. I hated Miss Mary as
+perfectly as though I had known her for twenty years, but I felt
+that, alive or dead, I should not like her to condemn me.
+
+Yet at mid-day, when I saw Miss Mary in her bathchair, Arthurs
+behind and Baxter and Miss Elizabeth on either side, in the
+park-like grounds of the Hydro, I found it difficult to arrange
+my words.
+
+"Now that you know all about it," said Baxter aside, after the
+first strangeness of our meeting was over, "it's only fair to
+tell you that my poor cousin did not die in Holmescroft at all.
+She was dead when they found her under the window in the morning.
+Just dead."
+
+"Under that laburnum outside the window?" I asked, for I suddenly
+remembered the crooked evil thing.
+
+"Exactly. She broke the tree in falling. But no death has ever
+taken place in the house, so far as we were concerned. You can
+make yourself quite easy on that point. Mr. M'Leod's extra
+thousand for what you called the 'clean bill of health' was
+something toward my cousins' estate when we sold. It was my duty
+as their lawyer to get it for them--at any cost to my own
+feelings."
+
+I know better than to argue when the English talk about their
+duty. So I agreed with my solicitor.
+
+"Their sister's death must have been a great blow to your
+cousins," I went on. The bath-chair was behind me.
+
+"Unspeakable," Baxter whispered. "They brooded on it day and
+night. No wonder. If their theory of poor Aggie making away with
+herself was correct, she was eternally lost!"
+
+"Do you believe that she made away with herself?"
+
+"No, thank God! Never have! And after what happened to Mary last
+night, I see perfectly what happened to poor Aggie. She had the
+family throat too. By the way, Mary thinks you are a doctor.
+Otherwise she wouldn't like your having been in her room."
+
+"Very good. Is she convinced now about her sister's death?"
+
+"She'd give anything to be able to believe it, but she's a hard
+woman, and brooding along certain lines makes one groovy. I have
+sometimes been afraid of her reason--on the religious side, don't
+you know. Elizabeth doesn't matter. Brain of a hen. Always had."
+
+Here Arthurs summoned me to the bath-chair, and the ravaged face,
+beneath its knitted Shetland wool hood, of Miss Mary Moultrie.
+
+"I need not remind you, I hope, of the seal of secrecy--absolute
+secrecy--in your profession," she began. "Thanks to my cousin's
+and my sister's stupidity, you have found out " she blew her
+nose.
+
+"Please don't excite her, sir," said Arthurs at the back.
+
+"But, my dear Miss Moultrie, I only know what I've seen, of
+course, but it seems to me that what you thought was a tragedy in
+your sister's case, turns out, on your own evidence, so to speak,
+to have been an accident--a dreadfully sad one--but absolutely an
+accident."
+
+"Do you believe that too?" she cried. "Or are you only saying it
+to comfort me?"
+
+"I believe it from the bottom of my heart. Come down to
+Holmescroft for an hour--for half an hour and satisfy yourself."
+
+"Of what? You don't understand. I see the house every day-every
+night. I am always there in spirit--waking or sleeping. I
+couldn't face it in reality."
+
+"But you must," I said. "If you go there in the spirit the
+greater need for you to go there in the flesh. Go to your
+sister's room once more, and see the window--I nearly fell out of
+it myself. It's--it's awfully low and dangerous. That would
+convince you," I pleaded.
+
+"Yet Aggie had slept in that room for years," she interrupted.
+
+"You've slept in your room here for a long time, haven't you? But
+you nearly fell out of the window when you were choking."
+
+"That is true. That is one thing true," she nodded. "And I might
+have been killed as--perhaps Aggie was killed."
+
+"In that case your own sister and cousin and maid would have said
+you had committed suicide, Miss Moultrie. Come down to
+Holmescroft, and go over the place just once."
+
+"You are lying," she said quite quietly. "You don't want me to
+come down to see a window. It is something else. I warn you we
+are Evangelicals. We don't believe in prayers for the dead. 'As
+the tree falls--'"
+
+"Yes. I daresay. But you persist in thinking that your sister
+committed suicide "
+
+"No! No! I have always prayed that I might have misjudged her."
+
+Arthurs at the bath-chair spoke up: "Oh, Miss Mary! you would
+'ave it from the first that poor Miss Aggie 'ad made away with
+herself; an', of course, Miss Bessie took the notion from you:
+Only Master--Mister John stood out, -and--and I'd 'ave taken my
+Bible oath you was making away with yourself last night."
+
+Miss Mary leaned towards me, one finger on my sleeve.
+
+"If going to Holmescroft kills me," she said, "you will have the
+murder of a fellow-creature on your conscience for all eternity."
+
+"I'll risk it," I answered. Remembering what torment the mere
+reflection of her torments had cast on Holmescroft, and
+remembering, above all, the dumb Thing that filled the house with
+its desire to speak, I felt that there might be worse things.
+
+Baxter was amazed at the proposed visit, but at a nod from that
+terrible woman went off to make arrangements. Then I sent a
+telegram to M'Leod bidding him and his vacate Holmescroft for
+that afternoon. Miss Mary should be alone with her dead, as I had
+been alone.
+
+I expected untold trouble in transporting her, but to do her
+justice, the promise given for the journey, she underwent it
+without murmur, spasm, or unnecessary word. Miss Bessie, pressed
+in a corner by the window, wept behind her veil, and from time to
+time tried to take hold of her sister's hand. Baxter wrapped
+himself in his newly found happiness as selfishly as a
+bridegroom, for he sat still and smiled.
+
+"So long as I know that Aggie didn't make away with herself," he
+explained, "I tell you frankly I don't care what happened. She's
+as hard as a rock--Mary. Always was. She won't die."
+
+We led her out on to the platform like a blind woman, and so got
+her into the fly. The half-hour crawl to Holmescroft was the most
+racking experience of the day. M'Leod had obeyed my instructions.
+There was no one visible in the house or the gardens; and the
+front door stood open.
+
+Miss Mary rose from beside her sister, stepped forth first, and
+entered the hall.
+
+"Come, Bessie," she cried.
+
+"I daren't. Oh, I daren't."
+
+"Come!" Her voice had altered. I felt Baxter start. "There's
+nothing to be afraid of."
+
+"Good heavens!" said Baxter. "She's running up the stairs. We'd
+better follow."
+
+"Let's wait below. She's going to the room."
+
+We heard the door of the bedroom I knew open and shut, and we
+waited in the lemon-coloured hall, heavy with the scent of
+flowers.
+
+"I've never been into it since it was sold," Baxter sighed. "What
+a lovely, restful plate it is! Poor Aggie used to arrange the
+flowers."
+
+"Restful?" I began, but stopped of a sudden, for I felt all over
+my bruised soul that Baxter was speaking truth. It was a light,
+spacious, airy house, full of the sense of well-being and
+peace--above all things, of peace. I ventured into the
+dining-room where the thoughtful M'Leod's had left a small fire.
+There was no terror there, present or lurking; and in the
+drawing-room, which for good reasons we had never cared to enter,
+the sun and the peace and the scent of the flowers worked
+together as is fit in an inhabited house. When I returned to the
+hall, Baxter was sweetly asleep on a couch, looking most unlike a
+middle-aged solicitor who had spent a broken night with an
+exacting cousin.
+
+There was ample time for me to review it all--to felicitate
+myself upon my magnificent acumen (barring some errors about
+Baxter as a thief and possibly a murderer), before the door above
+opened, and Baxter, evidently a light sleeper, sprang awake.
+
+"I've had a heavenly little nap," he said, rubbing his eyes with
+the backs of his hands like a child. "Good Lord! That's not their
+step!"
+
+But it was. I had never before been privileged to see the Shadow
+turned backward on the dial--the years ripped bodily off poor
+human shoulders--old sunken eyes filled and alight--harsh lips
+moistened and human.
+
+"John," Miss Mary called, " I know now. Aggie didn't do it!" and
+"She didn't do it!" echoed Miss
+
+"I did not think it wrong to say a prayer," Miss Mary continued.
+"Not for her soul, but for our peace. Then I was convinced."
+
+"Then we got conviction," the younger sister piped.
+
+"We've misjudged poor Aggie, John. But I feel she knows now.
+Wherever she is, she knows that we know she is guiltless."
+
+"Yes, she knows. I felt it too," said Miss Elizabeth.,
+
+"I never doubted," said John' Baxter, whose face was beautiful at
+that hour. "Not from the first. Never have!"
+
+"You never offered me proof, John. Now, thank God, it will not be
+the same any more. I can think henceforward of Aggie without
+sorrow." She tripped, absolutely tripped, across the hall. "What
+ideas these Jews have of arranging furniture!" She spied me
+behind a big Cloisonnee vase. "I've seen the window," she said
+remotely. "You took a great risk in advising me to undertake such
+a journey. However, as it turns out ... I forgive you, and I pray
+you may never know what mental anguish means! Bessie! Look at
+this peculiar piano! Do you suppose, Doctor, these people would
+offer one tea? I miss mine."
+
+"I will go and see," I said, and explored M'Leod's new-built
+servants' wing. It was in the servants' hall that I unearthed the
+M'Leod family, bursting with anxiety.
+
+"Tea for three, quick," I said. "If you ask me any questions now,
+I shall have a fit!" So Mrs. M'Leod got it, and I was butler,
+amid murmured apologies from Baxter, still smiling and
+self-absorbed, and the cold disapproval of Miss Mary, who thought
+the pattern of the china vulgar. However, she ate well, and even
+asked me whether I would not like a cup of tea for myself.
+
+They went away in the twilight--the twilight that I had once
+feared. They were going to an hotel in London to rest after the
+fatigues of the day, and as their fly turned down the drive, I
+capered on the door step, with the all-darkened house behind me.
+
+Then I heard the uncertain feet of the M'Leods and bade them not
+to turn on the lights, but to feel--to feel what I had done; for
+the Shadow was gone, with the dumb desire in the air. They drew
+short, but afterwards deeper, breaths, like bathers entering
+chill water, separated one from the other, moved about the hall,
+tiptoed upstairs, raced down, and then Miss M'Leod, and I believe
+her mother, though she denies this, embraced me. I know M'Leod
+did.
+
+It was a disgraceful evening. To say we rioted through the house
+is to put it mildly. We played a sort of Blind Man's Buff along
+the darkest passages, in the unlighted drawing-room, and little
+dining-room, calling cheerily to each other after each
+exploration that here, and here, and here, the trouble-had
+removed itself. We came up to the bedroom--mine for the night
+again--and sat, the women on the bed, and we men on chairs,
+drinking in blessed draughts of peace and comfort and cleanliness
+of soul, while I told them my tale in full, and received fresh
+praise, thanks, and blessings.
+
+When the servants, returned from their day's outing, gave us a
+supper of cold fried fish, M'Leod had sense enough to open no
+wine. We had been practically drunk since nightfall, and grew
+incoherent on water and milk.
+
+"I like that Baxter," said M'Leod. "He's a sharp man. The death
+wasn't in the house, but he ran it pretty close, ain't it?"
+
+"And the joke of it is that he supposes I want to buy the place
+from you," I said. "Are you selling?"
+
+"Not for twice what I paid for it--now," said M'Leod. "I'll keep
+you in furs all your life, but not our Holmescroft."
+
+"No--never our Holmescroft," said Miss M'Leod. "We'll ask him
+here on Tuesday, mamma." They squeezed each other's hands.
+
+"Now tell me," said Mrs. M'Leod--"that tall one, I saw out of the
+scullery window--did she tell you she was always here in the
+spirit? I hate her. She made all this trouble. It was not her
+house after she had sold it. What do you think?"
+
+"I suppose," I answered, "she brooded over what she believed was
+her sister's suicide night and day--she confessed she did--and
+her thoughts being concentrated on this place, they felt like
+a--like a burning glass."
+
+"Burning glass is good," said M'Leod.
+
+"I said it was like a light of blackness turned on us," cried the
+girl, twiddling her ring. "That must have been when the tall one
+thought worst about her sister and the house."
+
+"Ah, the poor Aggie!" said Mrs. M'Leod. "The poor Aggie, trying
+to tell every one it was not so! No wonder we felt Something
+wished to say Something. Thea, Max, do you remember that night "
+
+"We need not remember any more," M'Leod interrupted. "It is not
+our trouble. They have told each other now."
+
+"Do you think, then," said Miss M'Leod, "that those two, the
+living ones, were actually told something--upstairs--in your in
+the room?"
+
+"I can't say. At any rate they were made happy, and they ate a
+big tea afterwards. As your father says, it is not our trouble
+any longer--thank God!"
+
+"Amen!" said M'Leod. "Now, Thea, let us have some music after all
+these months. 'With mirth, thou pretty bird,' ain't it? You ought
+to hear that."
+
+And in the half-lighted hall, Thea sang an old English song that
+I had never heard before.
+
+         With mirth, thou pretty bird, rejoice
+         Thy Maker's praise enhanced;
+         Lift up thy shrill and pleasant voice,
+         Thy God is high advanced!
+         Thy food before He did provide,
+         And gives it in a fitting side,
+         Wherewith be thou sufficed!
+         Why shouldst thou now unpleasant be,
+         Thy wrath against God venting,
+         That He a little bird made thee,
+         Thy silly head tormenting,
+         Because He made thee not a man?
+         Oh, Peace! He hath well thought thereon,
+         Therewith be thou sufficed!
+
+
+
+              THE RABBI'S SONG
+
+         IF THOUGHT can reach to Heaven,
+           On Heaven let it dwell,
+         For fear that Thought be given
+           Like power to reach to Hell.
+         For fear the desolation
+           And darkness of thy mind,
+         Perplex an habitation
+           Which thou hast left behind.
+
+         Let nothing linger after--
+           No whispering ghost remain,
+         In wall, or beam, or rafter,
+           Of any hate or pain:
+         Cleanse and call home thy spirit,
+           Deny her leave to cast,
+         On aught thy heirs inherit,
+           The shadow of her past.
+
+         For think, in all thy sadness,
+           What road our griefs may take;
+         Whose brain reflect our madness,
+           Or whom our terrors shake.
+         For think, lest any languish
+           By cause of thy distress
+         The arrows of our anguish
+           Fly farther than we guess.
+
+          Our lives, our tears, as water,
+           Are spilled upon the ground;
+         God giveth no man quarter,
+           Yet God a means hath found;
+         Though faith and hope have vanished,
+           And even love grows dim;
+         A means whereby His banished
+           Be not expelled from Him!
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Etext of Actions and Reactions by
+Rudyard Kipling.
+
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