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diff --git a/2525-h/2525-h.htm b/2525-h/2525-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7da0ad2 --- /dev/null +++ b/2525-h/2525-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3507 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of John Ingerfield and Other Stories, by Jerome K. 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Jerome</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world 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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: John Ingerfield and Other Stories</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Jerome K. Jerome</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: February, 2001 [eBook #2525]<br /> +[Most recently updated: April 14, 2023]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: David Price</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOHN INGERFIELD AND OTHER STORIES ***</div> + +<h1>JOHN INGERFIELD<br/> +AND OTHER STORIES</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Jerome K. Jerome</h2> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">To the Gentle Reader</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">In Remembrance of John Ingerfield and of Anne, his Wife</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">The Woman of the Sæter</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">Variety Patter</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">Silhouettes</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">The Lease of the “Cross Keys”</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>TO THE GENTLE READER;<br/> +also<br/> +TO THE GENTLE CRITIC.</h2> + +<p> +Once upon a time, I wrote a little story of a woman who was crushed to death by +a python. A day or two after its publication, a friend stopped me in the +street. “Charming little story of yours,” he said, “that about the woman and +the snake; but it’s not as funny as some of your things!” The next week, a +newspaper, referring to the tale, remarked, “We have heard the incident related +before with infinitely greater humour.” +</p> + +<p> +With this—and many similar experiences—in mind, I wish distinctly to state that +“John Ingerfield,” “The Woman of the Sæter,” and “Silhouettes,” are not +intended to be amusing. The two other items—“Variety Patter,” and “The Lease of +the Cross Keys”—I give over to the critics of the new humour to rend as they +will; but “John Ingerfield,” “The Woman of the Sæter,” and “Silhouettes,” I +repeat, I should be glad if they would judge from some other standpoint than +that of humour, new or old. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>IN REMEMBRANCE OF JOHN INGERFIELD, AND OF ANNE, HIS WIFE<br/> +A STORY OF OLD LONDON, IN TWO CHAPTERS</h2> + +<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3> + +<p> +If you take the Underground Railway to Whitechapel Road (the East station), and +from there take one of the yellow tramcars that start from that point, and go +down the Commercial Road, past the George, in front of which stands—or used to +stand—a high flagstaff, at the base of which sits—or used to sit—an elderly +female purveyor of pigs’ trotters at three-ha’pence apiece, until you come to +where a railway arch crosses the road obliquely, and there get down and turn to +the right up a narrow, noisy street leading to the river, and then to the right +again up a still narrower street, which you may know by its having a +public-house at one corner (as is in the nature of things) and a marine +store-dealer’s at the other, outside which strangely stiff and unaccommodating +garments of gigantic size flutter ghost-like in the wind, you will come to a +dingy railed-in churchyard, surrounded on all sides by cheerless, many-peopled +houses. Sad-looking little old houses they are, in spite of the tumult of life +about their ever open doors. They and the ancient church in their midst seem +weary of the ceaseless jangle around them. Perhaps, standing there for so many +years, listening to the long silence of the dead, the fretful voices of the +living sound foolish in their ears. +</p> + +<p> +Peering through the railings on the side nearest the river, you will see +beneath the shadow of the soot-grimed church’s soot-grimed porch—that is, if +the sun happen, by rare chance, to be strong enough to cast any shadow at all +in that region of grey light—a curiously high and narrow headstone that once +was white and straight, not tottering and bent with age as it is now. There is +upon this stone a carving in bas-relief, as you will see for yourself if you +will make your way to it through the gateway on the opposite side of the +square. It represents, so far as can be made out, for it is much worn by time +and dirt, a figure lying on the ground with another figure bending over it, +while at a little distance stands a third object. But this last is so +indistinct that it might be almost anything, from an angel to a post. +</p> + +<p> +And below the carving are the words (already half obliterated) that I have used +for the title of this story. +</p> + +<p> +Should you ever wander of a Sunday morning within sound of the cracked bell +that calls a few habit-bound, old-fashioned folk to worship within those +damp-stained walls, and drop into talk with the old men who on such days +sometimes sit, each in his brass-buttoned long brown coat, upon the low stone +coping underneath those broken railings, you might hear this tale from them, as +I did, more years ago than I care to recollect. +</p> + +<p> +But lest you do not choose to go to all this trouble, or lest the old men who +could tell it you have grown tired of all talk, and are not to be roused ever +again into the telling of tales, and you yet wish for the story, I will here +set it down for you. +</p> + +<p> +But I cannot recount it to you as they told it to me, for to me it was only a +tale that I heard and remembered, thinking to tell it again for profit, while +to them it was a thing that had been, and the threads of it were interwoven +with the woof of their own life. As they talked, faces that I did not see +passed by among the crowd and turned and looked at them, and voices that I did +not hear spoke to them below the clamour of the street, so that through their +thin piping voices there quivered the deep music of life and death, and my tale +must be to theirs but as a gossip’s chatter to the story of him whose breast +has felt the press of battle. +</p> + +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +John Ingerfield, oil and tallow refiner, of Lavender Wharf, Limehouse, comes of +a hard-headed, hard-fisted stock. The first of the race that the eye of Record, +piercing the deepening mists upon the centuries behind her, is able to discern +with any clearness is a long-haired, sea-bronzed personage, whom men call +variously Inge or Unger. Out of the wild North Sea he has come. Record observes +him, one of a small, fierce group, standing on the sands of desolate +Northumbria, staring landward, his worldly wealth upon his back. This consists +of a two-handed battle-axe, value perhaps some forty stycas in the currency of +the time. A careful man, with business capabilities, may, however, manipulate a +small capital to great advantage. In what would appear, to those accustomed to +our slow modern methods, an incredibly short space of time, Inge’s two-handed +battle-axe has developed into wide lands and many head of cattle; which latter +continue to multiply with a rapidity beyond the dreams of present-day breeders. +Inge’s descendants would seem to have inherited the genius of their ancestor, +for they prosper and their worldly goods increase. They are a money-making +race. In all times, out of all things, by all means, they make money. They +fight for money, marry for money, live for money, are ready to die for money. +</p> + +<p> +In the days when the most saleable and the highest priced article in the +markets of Europe was a strong arm and a cool head, then each Ingerfield (as +“Inge,” long rooted in Yorkshire soil, had grown or been corrupted to) was a +soldier of fortune, and offered his strong arm and his cool head to the highest +bidder. They fought for their price, and they took good care that they obtained +their price; but, the price settled, they fought well, for they were staunch +men and true, according to their lights, though these lights may have been +placed somewhat low down, near the earth. +</p> + +<p> +Then followed the days when the chief riches of the world lay tossed for daring +hands to grasp upon the bosom of the sea, and the sleeping spirit of the old +Norse Rover stirred in their veins, and the lilt of a wild sea-song they had +never heard kept ringing in their ears; and they built them ships and sailed +for the Spanish Main, and won much wealth, as was their wont. +</p> + +<p> +Later on, when Civilisation began to lay down and enforce sterner rules for the +game of life, and peaceful methods promised to prove more profitable than +violent, the Ingerfields became traders and merchants of grave mien and sober +life; for their ambition from generation to generation remains ever the same, +their various callings being but means to an end. +</p> + +<p> +A hard, stern race of men they would seem to have been, but just—so far as they +understood justice. They have the reputation of having been good husbands, +fathers, and masters; but one cannot help thinking of them as more respected +than loved. +</p> + +<p> +They were men to exact the uttermost farthing due to them, yet not without a +sense of the thing due from them, their own duty and responsibility—nay, not +altogether without their moments of heroism, which is the duty of great men. +History relates how a certain Captain Ingerfield, returning with much treasure +from the West Indies—how acquired it were, perhaps, best not to inquire too +closely—is overhauled upon the high seas by King’s frigate. Captain of King’s +frigate sends polite message to Captain Ingerfield requesting him to be so kind +as to promptly hand over a certain member of his ship’s company, who, by some +means or another, has made himself objectionable to King’s friends, in order +that he (the said objectionable person) may be forthwith hanged from the +yard-arm. +</p> + +<p> +Captain Ingerfield returns polite answer to Captain of King’s frigate that he +(Captain Ingerfield) will, with much pleasure, hang any member of his ship’s +company that needs hanging, but that neither the King of England nor any one +else on God Almighty’s sea is going to do it for him. Captain of King’s frigate +sends back word that if objectionable person be not at once given up he shall +be compelled with much regret to send Ingerfield and his ship to the bottom of +the Atlantic. Replies Captain Ingerfield, “That is just what he will have to do +before I give up one of my people,” and fights the big frigate—fights it so +fiercely that after three hours Captain of King’s frigate thinks it will be +good to try argument again, and sends therefore a further message, courteously +acknowledging Captain Ingerfield’s courage and skill, and suggesting that, he +having done sufficient to vindicate his honour and renown, it would be politic +to now hand over the unimportant cause of contention, and so escape with his +treasure. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell your Captain,” shouts back this Ingerfield, who has discovered there are +sweeter things to fight for than even money, “that the <i>Wild Goose</i> has +flown the seas with her belly full of treasure before now, and will, if it be +God’s pleasure, so do again, but that master and man in her sail together, +fight together, and die together.” +</p> + +<p> +Whereupon King’s frigate pounds away more vigorously than ever, and succeeds +eventually in carrying out her threat. Down goes the <i>Wild Goose</i>, her +last chase ended—down she goes with a plunge, spit foremost with her colours +flying; and down with her goes every man left standing on her decks; and at the +bottom of the Atlantic they lie to this day, master and man side by side, +keeping guard upon their treasure. +</p> + +<p> +Which incident, and it is well authenticated, goes far to prove that the +Ingerfields, hard men and grasping men though they be—men caring more for the +getting of money than for the getting of love—loving more the cold grip of gold +than the grip of kith or kin, yet bear buried in their hearts the seeds of a +nobler manhood, for which, however, the barren soil of their ambition affords +scant nourishment. +</p> + +<p> +The John Ingerfield of this story is a man very typical of his race. He has +discovered that the oil and tallow refining business, though not a pleasant +one, is an exceedingly lucrative one. These are the good days when George the +Third is king, and London is rapidly becoming a city of bright night. Tallow +and oil and all materials akin thereto are in ever-growing request, and young +John Ingerfield builds himself a large refining house and warehouse in the +growing suburb of Limehouse, which lies between the teeming river and the quiet +fields, gathers many people round about him, puts his strong heart into his +work, and prospers. +</p> + +<p> +All the days of his youth he labours and garners, and lays out and garners yet +again. In early middle age he finds himself a wealthy man. The chief business +of life, the getting of money, is practically done; his enterprise is firmly +established, and will continue to grow with ever less need of husbandry. It is +time for him to think about the secondary business of life, the getting +together of a wife and home, for the Ingerfields have ever been good citizens, +worthy heads of families, openhanded hosts, making a brave show among friends +and neighbours. +</p> + +<p> +John Ingerfield, sitting in his stiff, high-backed chair, in his stiffly, but +solidly, furnished dining-room, above his counting-house, sipping slowly his +one glass of port, takes counsel with himself. +</p> + +<p> +What shall she be? +</p> + +<p> +He is rich, and can afford a good article. She must be young and handsome, fit +to grace the fine house he will take for her in fashionable Bloomsbury, far +from the odour and touch of oil and tallow. She must be well bred, with a +gracious, noble manner, that will charm his guests and reflect honour and +credit upon himself; she must, above all, be of good family, with a +genealogical tree sufficiently umbrageous to hide Lavender Wharf from the eyes +of Society. +</p> + +<p> +What else she may or may not be he does not very much care. She will, of +course, be virtuous and moderately pious, as it is fit and proper that women +should be. It will also be well that her disposition be gentle and yielding, +but that is of minor importance, at all events so far as he is concerned: the +Ingerfield husbands are not the class of men upon whom wives vent their +tempers. +</p> + +<p> +Having decided in his mind <i>what</i> she shall be, he proceeds to discuss +with himself <i>who</i> she shall be. His social circle is small. Methodically, +in thought, he makes the entire round of it, mentally scrutinising every maiden +that he knows. Some are charming, some are fair, some are rich; but no one of +them approaches near to his carefully considered ideal. +</p> + +<p> +He keeps the subject in his mind, and muses on it in the intervals of business. +At odd moments he jots down names as they occur to him upon a slip of paper, +which he pins for the purpose on the inside of the cover of his desk. He +arranges them alphabetically, and when it is as complete as his memory can make +it, he goes critically down the list, making a few notes against each. As a +result, it becomes clear to him that he must seek among strangers for his wife. +</p> + +<p> +He has a friend, or rather an acquaintance, an old school-fellow, who has +developed into one of those curious social flies that in all ages are to be met +with buzzing contentedly within the most exclusive circles, and concerning +whom, seeing that they are neither rare nor rich, nor extraordinarily clever +nor well born, one wonders “how the devil they got there!” Meeting this man by +chance one afternoon, he links his arm in his and invites him home to dinner. +</p> + +<p> +So soon as they are left alone, with the walnuts and wine between them, John +Ingerfield says, thoughtfully cracking a hard nut between his fingers— +</p> + +<p> +“Will, I’m going to get married.” +</p> + +<p> +“Excellent idea—delighted to hear it, I’m sure,” replies Will, somewhat less +interested in the information than in the delicately flavoured Madeira he is +lovingly sipping. “Who’s the lady?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know, yet,” is John Ingerfield’s answer. +</p> + +<p> +His friend glances slyly at him over his glass, not sure whether he is expected +to be amused or sympathetically helpful. +</p> + +<p> +“I want you to find one for me.” +</p> + +<p> +Will Cathcart puts down his glass and stares at his host across the table. +</p> + +<p> +“Should be delighted to help you, Jack,” he stammers, in an alarmed tone—“’pon +my soul I should; but really don’t know a damned woman I could recommend—’pon +my soul I don’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must see a good many: I wish you’d look out for one that you <i>could</i> +recommend.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly I will, my dear Jack!” answers the other, in a relieved voice. +“Never thought about ’em in that way before. Daresay I shall come across the +very girl to suit you. I’ll keep my eyes open and let you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall be obliged to you if you will,” replies John Ingerfield, quietly; “and +it’s your turn, I think, to oblige me, Will. I have obliged you, if you +recollect.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall never forget it, my dear Jack,” murmurs Will, a little uneasily. “It was +uncommonly good of you. You saved me from ruin, Jack: shall think about it to +my dying day—’pon my soul I shall.” +</p> + +<p> +“No need to let it worry you for so long a period as that,” returns John, with +the faintest suspicion of a smile playing round his firm mouth. “The bill falls +due at the end of next month. You can discharge the debt then, and the matter +will be off your mind.” +</p> + +<p> +Will finds his chair growing uncomfortable under him, while the Madeira somehow +loses its flavour. He gives a short, nervous laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“By Jove,” he says: “so soon as that? The date had quite slipped my memory.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fortunate that I reminded you,” says John, the smile round his lips deepening. +</p> + +<p> +Will fidgets on his seat. “I’m afraid, my dear Jack,” he says, “I shall have to +get you to renew it, just for a month or two,—deuced awkward thing, but I’m +remarkably short of money this year. Truth is, I can’t get what’s owing to +myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s very awkward, certainly,” replies his friend, “because I am not at all +sure that I shall be able to renew it.” +</p> + +<p> +Will stares at him in some alarm. “But what am I to do if I hav’n’t the money?” +</p> + +<p> +John Ingerfield shrugs his shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t mean, my dear Jack, that you would put me in prison?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not? Other people have to go there who can’t pay their debts.” +</p> + +<p> +Will Cathcart’s alarm grows to serious proportions. “But our friendship,” he +cries, “our—” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear Will,” interrupts the other, “there are few friends I would lend three +hundred pounds to and make no effort to get it back. You, certainly, are not +one of them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let us make a bargain,” he continues. “Find me a wife, and on the day of my +marriage I will send you back that bill with, perhaps, a couple of hundred +added. If by the end of next month you have not introduced me to a lady fit to +be, and willing to be, Mrs. John Ingerfield, I shall decline to renew it.” +</p> + +<p> +John Ingerfield refills his own glass and hospitably pushes the bottle towards +his guest—who, however, contrary to his custom, takes no notice of it, but +stares hard at his shoe-buckles. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you serious?” he says at length. +</p> + +<p> +“Quite serious,” is the answer. “I want to marry. My wife must be a lady by +birth and education. She must be of good family—of family sufficiently good, +indeed, to compensate for the refinery. She must be young and beautiful and +charming. I am purely a business man. I want a woman capable of conducting the +social department of my life. I know of no such lady myself. I appeal to you, +because you, I know, are intimate with the class among whom she must be +sought.” +</p> + +<p> +“There may be some difficulty in persuading a lady of the required +qualifications to accept the situation,” says Cathcart, with a touch of malice. +</p> + +<p> +“I want you to find one who will,” says John Ingerfield. +</p> + +<p> +Early in the evening Will Cathcart takes leave of his host, and departs +thoughtful and anxious; and John Ingerfield strolls contemplatively up and down +his wharf, for the smell of oil and tallow has grown to be very sweet to him, +and it is pleasant to watch the moonbeams shining on the piled-up casks. +</p> + +<p> +Six weeks go by. On the first day of the seventh John takes Will Cathcart’s +acceptance from its place in the large safe, and lays it in the smaller box +beside his desk, devoted to more pressing and immediate business. Two days +later Cathcart picks his way across the slimy yard, passes through the +counting-house, and enters his friend’s inner sanctum, closing the door behind +him. +</p> + +<p> +He wears a jubilant air, and slaps the grave John on the back. “I’ve got her, +Jack,” he cries. “It’s been hard work, I can tell you: sounding suspicious old +dowagers, bribing confidential servants, fishing for information among friends +of the family. By Jove, I shall be able to join the Duke’s staff as +spy-in-chief to His Majesty’s entire forces after this!” +</p> + +<p> +“What is she like?” asks John, without stopping his writing. +</p> + +<p> +“Like! My dear Jack, you’ll fall over head and ears in love with her the moment +you see her. A little cold, perhaps, but that will just suit you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good family?” asks John, signing and folding the letter he has finished. +</p> + +<p> +“So good that I was afraid at first it would be useless thinking of her. But +she’s a sensible girl, no confounded nonsense about her, and the family are +poor as church mice. In fact—well, to tell the truth, we have become most +excellent friends, and she told me herself frankly that she meant to marry a +rich man, and didn’t much care whom.” +</p> + +<p> +“That sounds hopeful,” remarks the would-be bridegroom, with his peculiar dry +smile: “when shall I have the pleasure of seeing her?” +</p> + +<p> +“I want you to come with me to-night to the Garden,” replies the other; “she +will be in Lady Heatherington’s box, and I will introduce you.” +</p> + +<p> +So that evening John Ingerfield goes to Covent Garden Theatre, with the blood +running a trifle quicker in his veins, but not much, than would be the case +were he going to the docks to purchase tallow—examines, covertly, the proposed +article from the opposite side of the house, and approves her—is introduced to +her, and, on closer inspection, approves her still more—receives an invitation +to visit—visits frequently, and each time is more satisfied of the rarity, +serviceableness, and quality of the article. +</p> + +<p> +If all John Ingerfield requires for a wife is a beautiful social machine, +surely here he has found his ideal. Anne Singleton, only daughter of that +persistently unfortunate but most charming of baronets, Sir Harry Singleton +(more charming, it is rumoured, outside his family circle than within it), is a +stately, graceful, high-bred woman. Her portrait, by Reynolds, still to be seen +above the carved wainscoting of one of the old City halls, shows a wonderfully +handsome and clever face, but at the same time a wonderfully cold and heartless +one. It is the face of a woman half weary of, half sneering at the world. One +reads in old family letters, whereof the ink is now very faded and the paper +very yellow, long criticisms of this portrait. The writers complain that if the +picture is at all like her she must have greatly changed since her girlhood, +for they remember her then as having a laughing and winsome expression. +</p> + +<p> +They say—they who knew her in after-life—that this earlier face came back to +her in the end, so that the many who remembered opening their eyes and seeing +her bending down over them could never recognise the portrait of the beautiful +sneering lady, even when they were told whom it represented. +</p> + +<p> +But at the time of John Ingerfield’s strange wooing she was the Anne Singleton +of Sir Joshua’s portrait, and John Ingerfield liked her the better that she +was. +</p> + +<p> +He had no feeling of sentiment in the matter himself, and it simplified the +case that she had none either. He offered her a plain bargain, and she accepted +it. For all he knew or cared, her attitude towards this subject of marriage was +the usual one assumed by women. Very young girls had their heads full of +romantic ideas. It was better for her and for him that she had got rid of them. +</p> + +<p> +“Ours will be a union founded on good sense,” said John Ingerfield. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us hope the experiment will succeed,” said Anne Singleton. +</p> + +<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3> + +<p> +But the experiment does not succeed. The laws of God decree that man shall +purchase woman, that woman shall give herself to man, for other coin than that +of good sense. Good sense is not a legal tender in the marriage mart. Men and +women who enter therein with only sense in their purse have no right to +complain if, on reaching home, they find they have concluded an unsatisfactory +bargain. +</p> + +<p> +John Ingerfield, when he asked Anne Singleton to be his wife, felt no more love +for her than he felt for any of the other sumptuous household appointments he +was purchasing about the same time, and made no pretence of doing so. Nor, had +he done so, would she have believed him; for Anne Singleton has learned much in +her twenty-two summers and winters, and knows that love is only a meteor in +life’s sky, and that the true lodestar of this world is gold. Anne Singleton +has had her romance and buried it deep down in her deep nature and over its +grave, to keep its ghost from rising, has piled the stones of indifference and +contempt, as many a woman has done before and since. Once upon a time Anne +Singleton sat dreaming out a story. It was a story old as the hills—older than +some of them—but to her, then, it was quite new and very wonderful. It +contained all the usual stock material common to such stories: the lad and the +lass, the plighted troth, the richer suitors, the angry parents, the love that +was worth braving all the world for. One day into this dream there fell from +the land of the waking a letter, a poor, pitiful letter: “You know I love you +and only you,” it ran; “my heart will always be yours till I die. But my father +threatens to stop my allowance, and, as you know, I have nothing of my own +except debts. Some would call her handsome, but how can I think of her beside +you? Oh, why was money ever let to come into the world to curse us?” with many +other puzzling questions of a like character, and much severe condemnation of +Fate and Heaven and other parties generally, and much self-commiseration. +</p> + +<p> +Anne Singleton took long to read the letter. When she had finished it, and had +read it through again, she rose, and, crushing it her hand, flung it in the +fire with a laugh, and as the flame burnt up and died away felt that her life +had died with it, not knowing that bruised hearts can heal. +</p> + +<p> +So when John Ingerfield comes wooing, and speaks to her no word of love but +only of money, she feels that here at last is a genuine voice that she can +trust. Love of the lesser side of life is still left to her. It will be +pleasant to be the wealthy mistress of a fine house, to give great receptions, +to exchange the secret poverty of home for display and luxury. These things are +offered to her on the very terms she would have suggested herself. Accompanied +by love she would have refused them, knowing she could give none in return. +</p> + +<p> +But a woman finds it one thing not to desire affection and another thing not to +possess it. Day by day the atmosphere of the fine house in Bloomsbury grows +cold and colder about her heart. Guests warm it at times for a few hours, then +depart, leaving it chillier than before. +</p> + +<p> +For her husband she attempts to feel indifference, but living creatures joined +together cannot feel indifference for each other. Even two dogs in a leash are +compelled to think of one another. A man and wife must love or hate, like or +dislike, in degree as the bond connecting them is drawn tight or allowed to +hang slack. By mutual desire their chains of wedlock have been fastened as +loosely as respect for security will permit, with the happy consequence that +her aversion to him does not obtrude itself beyond the limits of politeness. +</p> + +<p> +Her part of the contract she faithfully fulfils, for the Singletons also have +their code of honour. Her beauty, her tact, her charm, her influence, are +devoted to his service—to the advancement of his position, the furtherance of +his ambition. Doors that would otherwise remain closed she opens to him. +Society, that would otherwise pass by with a sneer, sits round his table. His +wishes and pleasures are hers. In all things she yields him wifely duty, seeks +to render herself agreeable to him, suffers in silence his occasional caresses. +Whatever was implied in the bargain, that she will perform to the letter. +</p> + +<p> +He, on his side, likewise performs his part with businesslike +conscientiousness—nay, seeing that the pleasing of her brings no personal +gratification to himself—not without generosity. He is ever thoughtful of and +deferential to her, awarding her at all times an unvarying courteousness that +is none the less sincere for being studied. Her every expressed want is +gratified, her every known distaste respected. Conscious of his presence being +an oppression to her, he is even careful not to intrude it upon her oftener +than is necessary. +</p> + +<p> +At times he asks himself, somewhat pertinently, what he has gained by +marriage—wonders whether this social race was quite the most interesting game +he could have elected to occupy his leisure—wonders whether, after all, he +would not have been happier over his counting-house than in these sumptuous, +glittering rooms, where he always seems, and feels himself to be, the uninvited +guest. +</p> + +<p> +The only feeling that a closer intimacy has created in him for his wife is that +of indulgent contempt. As there is no equality between man and woman, so there +can be no respect. She is a different being. He must either look up to her as +superior to himself, or down upon her as inferior. When a man does the former +he is more or less in love, and love to John Ingerfield is an unknown emotion. +Her beauty, her charm, her social tact—even while he makes use of them for his +own purposes, he despises as the weapons of a weak nature. +</p> + +<p> +So in their big, cold mansion John Ingerfield and Anne, his wife, sit far +apart, strangers to one another, neither desiring to know the other nearer. +</p> + +<p> +About his business he never speaks to her, and she never questions him. To +compensate for the slight shrinkage of time he is able to devote to it, he +becomes more strict and exacting; grows a harsher master to his people, a +sterner creditor, a greedier dealer, squeezing the uttermost out of every one, +feverish to grow richer, so that he may spend more upon the game that day by +day he finds more tiresome and uninteresting. +</p> + +<p> +And the piled-up casks upon his wharves increase and multiply; and on the dirty +river his ships and barges lie in ever-lengthening lines; and round his greasy +cauldrons sweating, witch-like creatures swarm in ever-denser numbers, stirring +oil and tallow into gold. +</p> + +<p> +Until one summer, from its nest in the far East, there flutters westward a foul +thing. Hovering over Limehouse suburb, seeing it crowded and unclean, liking +its fetid smell, it settles down upon it. +</p> + +<p> +Typhus is the creature’s name. At first it lurks there unnoticed, battening +upon the rich, rank food it finds around it, until, grown too big to hide +longer, it boldly shows its hideous head, and the white face of Terror runs +swiftly through alley and street, crying as it runs, forces itself into John +Ingerfield’s counting-house, and tells its tale. John Ingerfield sits for a +while thinking. Then he mounts his horse and rides home at as hard a pace as +the condition of the streets will allow. In the hall he meets Anne going out, +and stops her. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t come too near me,” he says quietly. “Typhus fever has broken out at +Limehouse, and they say one can communicate it, even without having it oneself. +You had better leave London for a few weeks. Go down to your father’s: I will +come and fetch you when it is all over.” +</p> + +<p> +He passes her, giving her a wide berth, and goes upstairs, where he remains for +some minutes in conversation with his valet. Then, coming down, he remounts and +rides off again. +</p> + +<p> +After a little while Anne goes up into his room. His man is kneeling in the +middle of the floor, packing a valise. +</p> + +<p> +“Where are you to take it?” she asks. +</p> + +<p> +“Down to the wharf, ma’am,” answers the man: “Mr. Ingerfield is going to be +there for a day or two.” +</p> + +<p> +Then Anne sits in the great empty drawing-room, and takes <i>her</i> turn at +thinking. +</p> + +<p> +John Ingerfield finds, on his return to Limehouse, that the evil has greatly +increased during the short time he has been away. Fanned by fear and ignorance, +fed by poverty and dirt, the scourge is spreading through the district like a +fire. Long smouldering in secret, it has now burst forth at fifty different +points at once. Not a street, not a court but has its “case.” Over a dozen of +John’s hands are down with it already. Two more have sunk prostrate beside +their work within the last hour. The panic grows grotesque. Men and women tear +their clothes off, looking to see if they have anywhere upon them a rash or a +patch of mottled skin, find that they have, or imagine that they have, and +rush, screaming, half-undressed, into the street. Two men, meeting in a narrow +passage, both rush back, too frightened to pass each other. A boy stoops down +and scratches his leg—not an action that under ordinary circumstances would +excite much surprise in that neighbourhood. In an instant there is a wild +stampede from the room, the strong trampling on the weak in their eagerness to +escape. +</p> + +<p> +These are not the days of organised defence against disease. There are kind +hearts and willing hands in London town, but they are not yet closely enough +banded together to meet a swift foe such as this. There are hospitals and +charities galore, but these are mostly in the City, maintained by the City +Fathers for the exclusive benefit of poor citizens and members of the guilds. +The few free hospitals are already over-crowded and ill-prepared. Squalid, +outlying Limehouse, belonging to nowhere, cared for by nobody, must fight for +itself. +</p> + +<p> +John Ingerfield calls the older men together, and with their help attempts to +instil some sense and reason into his terrified people. Standing on the step of +his counting-house, and addressing as many of them as are not too scared to +listen, he tells them of the danger of fear and of the necessity for calmness +and courage. +</p> + +<p> +“We must face and fight this thing like men,” he cries, in that deep, +din-conquering voice that has served the Ingerfields in good stead on many a +steel-swept field, on many a storm-struck sea; “there must be no cowardly +selfishness, no faint-hearted despair. If we’ve got to die we’ll die; but +please God we’ll live. Anyhow, we will stick together, and help each other. I +mean to stop here with you, and do what I can for you. None of my people shall +want.” +</p> + +<p> +John Ingerfield ceases, and as the vibrations of his strong tones roll away a +sweet voice from beside him rises clear and firm:— +</p> + +<p> +“I have come down to be with you also, and to help my husband. I shall take +charge of the nursing and tending of your sick, and I hope I shall be of some +real use to you. My husband and I are so sorry for you in your trouble. I know +you will be brave and patient. We will all do our best, and be hopeful.” +</p> + +<p> +He turns, half expecting to see only the empty air and to wonder at the +delirium in his brain. She puts her hand in his, and their eyes meet; and in +that moment, for the first time in their lives, these two see one another. +</p> + +<p> +They speak no word. There is no opportunity for words. There is work to be +done, and done quickly, and Anne grasps it with the greed of a woman long +hungry for the joy of doing. As John watches her moving swiftly and quietly +through the bewildered throng, questioning, comforting, gently compelling, the +thought comes to him, Ought he to allow her to be here, risking her life for +his people? followed by the thought, How is he going to prevent it? For in this +hour the knowledge is born within him that Anne is not his property; that he +and she are fellow hands taking their orders from the same Master; that though +it be well for them to work together and help each other, they must not hinder +one another. +</p> + +<p> +As yet John does not understand all this. The idea is new and strange to him. +He feels as the child in a fairy story on suddenly discovering that the trees +and flowers he has passed by carelessly a thousand times can think and talk. +Once he whispers to her of the labour and the danger, but she answers simply, +“They are my people too, John: it is my work”; and he lets her have her way. +</p> + +<p> +Anne has a true woman’s instinct for nursing, and her strong sense stands her +in stead of experience. A glance into one or two of the squalid dens where +these people live tells her that if her patients are to be saved they must be +nursed away from their own homes; and she determines to convert the large +counting-house—a long, lofty room at the opposite end of the wharf to the +refinery—into a temporary hospital. Selecting some seven or eight of the most +reliable women to assist her, she proceeds to prepare it for its purpose. +Ledgers might be volumes of poetry, bills of lading mere street ballads, for +all the respect that is shown to them. The older clerks stand staring aghast, +feeling that the end of all things is surely at hand, and that the universe is +rushing down into space, until, their idleness being detected, they are +themselves promptly impressed for the sacrilegious work, and made to assist in +the demolition of their own temple. +</p> + +<p> +Anne’s commands are spoken very sweetly, and are accompanied by the sweetest of +smiles; but they are nevertheless commands, and somehow it does not occur to +any one to disobey them. John—stern, masterful, authoritative John, who has +never been approached with anything more dictatorial than a timid request since +he left Merchant Taylors’ School nineteen years ago, who would have thought +that something had suddenly gone wrong with the laws of Nature if he had +been—finds himself hurrying along the street on his way to a druggist’s shop, +slackens his pace an instant to ask himself why and wherefore he is doing so, +recollects that he was told to do so and to make haste back, marvels who could +have dared to tell him to do anything and to make haste back, remembers that it +was Anne, is not quite sure what to think about it, but hurries on. He “makes +haste back,” is praised for having been so quick, and feels pleased with +himself; is sent off again in another direction, with instructions what to say +when he gets there. He starts off (he is becoming used to being ordered about +now). Halfway there great alarm seizes him, for on attempting to say over the +message to himself, to be sure that he has it quite right, he discovers he has +forgotten it. He pauses, nervous and excited; cogitates as to whether it will +be safe for him to concoct a message of his own, weighs anxiously the +chances—supposing that he does so—of being found out. Suddenly, to his intense +surprise and relief, every word of what he was told to say comes back to him; +and he hastens on, repeating it over and over to himself as he walks, lest it +should escape him again. +</p> + +<p> +And then a few hundred yards farther on there occurs one of the most +extraordinary events that has ever happened in that street before or since: +John Ingerfield laughs. +</p> + +<p> +John Ingerfield, of Lavender Wharf, after walking two-thirds of Creek Lane, +muttering to himself with his eyes on the ground, stops in the middle of the +road and laughs; and one small boy, who tells the story to his dying day, sees +him and hears him, and runs home at the top of his speed with the wonderful +news, and is conscientiously slapped by his mother for telling lies. +</p> + +<p> +All that day Anne works like a heroine, John helping her, and occasionally +getting in the way. By night she has her little hospital prepared and three +beds already up and occupied; and, all now done that can be done, she and John +go upstairs to his old rooms above the counting-house. +</p> + +<p> +John ushers her into them with some misgiving, for by contrast with the house +at Bloomsbury they are poor and shabby. He places her in the arm-chair near the +fire, begging her to rest quiet, and then assists his old housekeeper, whose +wits, never of the strongest, have been scared by the day’s proceeding, to lay +the meal. +</p> + +<p> +Anne’s eyes follow him as he moves about the room. Perhaps here, where all the +real part of his life has been passed, he is more his true self than amid the +unfamiliar surroundings of fashion; perhaps this simpler frame shows him to +greater advantage; but Anne wonders how it is she has never noticed before that +he is a well-set, handsome man. Nor, indeed, is he so very old-looking. Is it a +trick of the dim light, or what? He looks almost young. But why should he not +look young, seeing he is only thirty-six, and at thirty-six a man is in his +prime? Anne wonders why she has always thought of him as an elderly person. +</p> + +<p> +A portrait of one of John’s ancestors hangs over the great mantelpiece—of that +sturdy Captain Ingerfield who fought the King’s frigate rather than give up one +of his people. Anne glances from the dead face to the living and notes the +strong likeness between them. Through her half-closed eyes she sees the grim +old captain hurling back his message of defiance, and his face is the face she +saw a few hours ago, saying, “I mean to stop here with you and do what I can +for you. None of my people shall want.” +</p> + +<p> +John is placing a chair for her at the table, and the light from the candles +falls upon him. She steals another glance at his face—a strong, stern, handsome +face, capable of becoming a noble face. Anne wonders if it has ever looked down +tenderly at anyone; feels a sudden fierce pain at the thought; dismisses the +thought as impossible; wonders, nevertheless, how tenderness would suit it; +thinks she would like to see a look of tenderness upon it, simply out of +curiosity; wonders if she ever will. +</p> + +<p> +She rouses herself from her reverie as John, with a smile, tells her supper is +ready, and they seat themselves opposite each other, an odd air of +embarrassment pervading. +</p> + +<p> +Day by day their work grows harder; day by day the foe grows stronger, fiercer, +more all-conquering; and day by day, fighting side by side against it, John +Ingerfield and Anne, his wife, draw closer to each other. On the battle-field +of life we learn the worth of strength. Anne feels it good, when growing weary, +to glance up and find him near her; feels it good, amid the troubled babel +round her, to hear the deep, strong music of his voice. +</p> + +<p> +And John, watching Anne’s fair figure moving to and fro among the stricken and +the mourning; watching her fair, fluttering hands, busy with their holy work, +her deep, soul-haunting eyes, changeful with the light and shade of tenderness; +listening to her sweet, clear voice, laughing with the joyous, comforting the +comfortless, gently commanding, softly pleading, finds creeping into his brain +strange new thoughts concerning women—concerning this one woman in particular. +</p> + +<p> +One day, rummaging over an old chest, he comes across a coloured picture-book +of Bible stories. He turns the torn pages fondly, remembering the Sunday +afternoons of long ago. At one picture, wherein are represented many angels, he +pauses; for in one of the younger angels of the group—one not quite so severe +of feature as her sisters—he fancies he can trace resemblance to Anne. He +lingers long over it. Suddenly there rushes through his brain the thought, How +good to stoop and kiss the sweet feet of such a woman! and, thinking it, he +blushes like a boy. +</p> + +<p> +So from the soil of human suffering spring the flowers of human love and joy, +and from the flowers there fall the seeds of infinite pity for human pain, God +shaping all things to His ends. +</p> + +<p> +Thinking of Anne, John’s face grows gentler, his hand kinder; dreaming of him, +her heart grows stronger, deeper, fuller. Every available room in the warehouse +has been turned into a ward, and the little hospital is open free to all, for +John and Anne feel that the whole world are their people. The piled-up casks +are gone—shipped to Woolwich and Gravesend, bundled anywhere out of the way, as +though oil and tallow and the gold they can be stirred into were matters of +small moment in this world, not to be thought of beside such a thing as the +helping of a human brother in sore strait. +</p> + +<p> +All the labour of the day seems light to them, looking forward to the hour when +they sit together in John’s old shabby dining-room above the counting-house. +Yet a looker-on might imagine such times dull to them; for they are strangely +shy of one another, strangely sparing of words—fearful of opening the +flood-gates of speech, feeling the pressure of the pent-up thought. +</p> + +<p> +One evening, John, throwing out words, not as a sop to the necessity for talk, +but as a bait to catch Anne’s voice, mentions girdle-cakes, remembers that his +old housekeeper used to be famous for the making of them, and wonders if she +has forgotten the art. +</p> + +<p> +Anne, answering tremulously, as though girdle-cakes were a somewhat delicate +topic, claims to be a successful amateur of them herself. John, having been +given always to understand that the talent for them was exceedingly rare, and +one usually hereditary, respectfully doubts Anne’s capabilities, deferentially +suggesting that she is thinking of scones. Anne indignantly repudiates the +insinuation, knows quite well the difference between girdle-cakes and scones, +offers to prove her powers by descending into the kitchen and making some then +and there, if John will accompany her and find the things for her. +</p> + +<p> +John accepts the challenge, and, guiding Anne with one shy, awkward hand, while +holding aloft a candle in the other, leads the way. It is past ten o’clock, and +the old housekeeper is in bed. At each creaking stair they pause, to listen if +the noise has awakened her; then, finding all silent, creep forward again, with +suppressed laughter, wondering with alarm, half feigned, half real, what the +prim, methodical dame would say were she to come down and catch them. +</p> + +<p> +They reach the kitchen, thanks more to the suggestions of a friendly cat than +to John’s acquaintanceship with the geography of his own house; and Anne rakes +together the fire and clears the table for her work. What possible use John is +to her—what need there was for her stipulating that he should accompany her, +Anne might find it difficult, if examined, to explain satisfactorily. As for +his “finding the things” for her, he has not the faintest notion where they +are, and possesses no natural aptitude for discovery. Told to find flour, he +industriously searches for it in the dresser drawers; sent for the +rolling-pin—the nature and characteristics of rolling-pins being described to +him for his guidance—he returns, after a prolonged absence, with the copper +stick. Anne laughs at him; but really it would seem as though she herself were +almost as stupid, for not until her hands are covered with flour does it occur +to her that she has not taken that preliminary step in all cooking operations +of rolling up her sleeves. +</p> + +<p> +She holds out her arms to John, first one and then the other, asking him +sweetly if he minds doing it for her. John is very slow and clumsy, but Anne +stands very patient. Inch by inch he peels the black sleeve from the white +round arm. Hundreds of times must he have seen those fair arms, bare to the +shoulder, sparkling with jewels; but never before has he seen their wondrous +beauty. He longs to clasp them round his neck, yet is fearful lest his +trembling fingers touching them as he performs his tantalising task may offend +her. Anne thanks him, and apologises for having given him so much trouble, and +he murmurs some meaningless reply, and stands foolishly silent, watching her. +</p> + +<p> +Anne seems to find one hand sufficient for her cake-making, for the other rests +idly on the table—very near to one of John’s, as she would see were not her +eyes so intent upon her work. How the impulse came to him, where he—grave, +sober, business-man John—learnt such story-book ways can never be known; but in +one instant he is down on both knees, smothering the floury hand with kisses, +and the next moment Anne’s arms are round his neck and her lips against his, +and the barrier between them is swept away, and the deep waters of their love +rush together. +</p> + +<p> +With that kiss they enter a new life whereinto one may not follow them. One +thinks it must have been a life made strangely beautiful by self-forgetfulness, +strangely sweet by mutual devotion—a life too ideal, perhaps, to have remained +for long undimmed by the mists of earth. +</p> + +<p> +They who remember them at that time speak of them in hushed tones, as one +speaks of visions. It would almost seem as though from their faces in those +days there shone a radiance, as though in their voices dwelt a tenderness +beyond the tenderness of man. +</p> + +<p> +They seem never to rest, never to weary. Day and night, through that little +stricken world, they come and go, bearing healing and peace, till at last the +plague, like some gorged beast of prey, slinks slowly back towards its lair, +and men raise their heads and breathe. +</p> + +<p> +One afternoon, returning from a somewhat longer round than usual, John feels a +weariness creeping into his limbs, and quickens his step, eager to reach home +and rest. Anne, who has been up all the previous night, is asleep, and not +wishing to disturb her, he goes into the dining-room and sits down in the easy +chair before the fire. The room strikes cold. He stirs the logs, but they give +out no greater heat. He draws his chair right in front of them, and sits +leaning over them with his feet on the hearth and his hands outstretched +towards the blaze; yet he still shivers. +</p> + +<p> +Twilight fills the room and deepens into dusk. He wonders listlessly how it is +that Time seems to be moving with such swift strides. After a while he hears a +voice close to him, speaking in a slow, monotonous tone—a voice curiously +familiar to him, though he cannot tell to whom it belongs. He does not turn his +head, but sits listening to it drowsily. It is talking about tallow: one +hundred and ninety-four casks of tallow, and they must all stand one inside the +other. It cannot be done, the voice complains pathetically. They will not go +inside each other. It is no good pushing them. See! they only roll out again. +</p> + +<p> +The voice grows wearily fretful. Oh! why do they persist when they see it is +impossible? What fools they all are! +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly he recollects the voice, and starts up and stares wildly about him, +trying to remember where he is. With a fierce straining of his will he grips +the brain that is slipping away from him, and holds it. As soon as he feels +sure of himself he steals out of the room and down the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +In the hall he stands listening; the house is very silent. He goes to the head +of the stairs leading to the kitchen and calls softly to the old housekeeper, +and she comes up to him, panting and grunting as she climbs each step. Keeping +some distance from her, he asks in a whisper where Anne is. The woman answers +that she is in the hospital. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell her I have been called away suddenly on business,” he says, speaking in +quick, low tones: “I shall be away for some days. Tell her to leave here and +return home immediately. They can do without her here now. Tell her to go back +home at once. I will join her there.” +</p> + +<p> +He moves toward the door but stops and faces round again. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell her I beg and entreat her not to stop in this place an hour longer. There +is nothing to keep her now. It is all over: there is nothing that cannot be +done by any one. Tell her she must go home—this very night. Tell her if she +loves me to leave this place at once.” +</p> + +<p> +The woman, a little bewildered by his vehemence, promises, and disappears down +the stairs. He takes his hat and cloak from the chair on which he had thrown +them, and turns once more to cross the hall. As he does so, the door opens and +Anne enters. +</p> + +<p> +He darts back into the shadow, squeezing himself against the wall. Anne calls +to him laughingly, then, as he does not answer, with a frightened accent: +</p> + +<p> +“John,—John, dear. Was not that you? Are not you there?” +</p> + +<p> +He holds his breath, and crouches still closer into the dark corner; and Anne, +thinking she must have been mistaken in the dim light, passes him and goes +upstairs. +</p> + +<p> +Then he creeps stealthily to the door, lets himself out and closes it softly +behind him. +</p> + +<p> +After the lapse of a few minutes the old housekeeper plods upstairs and +delivers John’s message. Anne, finding it altogether incomprehensible, subjects +the poor dame to severe examination, but fails to elicit anything further. What +is the meaning of it? What “business” can have compelled John, who for ten +weeks has never let the word escape his lips, to leave her like this—without a +word! without a kiss! Then suddenly she remembers the incident of a few moments +ago, when she had called to him, thinking she saw him, and he did not answer; +and the whole truth strikes her full in the heart. +</p> + +<p> +She refastens the bonnet-strings she has been slowly untying, and goes down and +out into the wet street. +</p> + +<p> +She makes her way rapidly to the house of the only doctor resident in the +neighbourhood—a big, brusque-mannered man, who throughout these terrible two +months has been their chief stay and help. He meets her on her entrance with an +embarrassed air that tells its own tale, and at once renders futile his clumsy +attempts at acting:— +</p> + +<p> +How should he know where John is? Who told her John had the fever—a great, +strong, hulking fellow like that? She has been working too hard, and has got +fever on the brain. She must go straight back home, or she will be having it +herself. She is more likely to take it than John. +</p> + +<p> +Anne, waiting till he has finished jerking out sentences while stamping up and +down the room, says gently, taking no notice of his denials,—“If you will not +tell me I must find out from some one else—that is all.” Then, her quick eyes +noting his momentary hesitation, she lays her little hand on his rough paw, +and, with the shamelessness of a woman who loves deeply, wheedles everything +out of him that he has promised to keep secret. +</p> + +<p> +He stops her, however, as she is leaving the room. “Don’t go in to him now,” he +says; “he will worry about you. Wait till to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +So, while John lies counting endless casks of tallow, Anne sits by his side, +tending her last “case.” +</p> + +<p> +Often in his delirium he calls her name, and she takes his fevered hand in hers +and holds it, and he falls asleep. +</p> + +<p> +Each morning the doctor comes and looks at him, asks a few questions and gives +a few commonplace directions, but makes no comment. It would be idle his +attempting to deceive her. +</p> + +<p> +The days move slowly through the darkened room. Anne watches his thin hands +grow thinner, his sunken eyes grow bigger; yet remains strangely calm, almost +contented. +</p> + +<p> +Very near the end there comes an hour when John wakes as from a dream, and +remembers all things clearly. +</p> + +<p> +He looks at her half gratefully, half reproachfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Anne, why are you here?” he asks, in a low, laboured voice. “Did they not give +you my message?” +</p> + +<p> +For answer she turns her deep eyes upon him. +</p> + +<p> +“Would you have gone away and left me here to die?” she questions him, with a +faint smile. +</p> + +<p> +She bends her head down nearer to him, so that her soft hair falls about his +face. +</p> + +<p> +“Our lives were one, dear,” she whispers to him. “I could not have lived +without you; God knew that. We shall be together always.” +</p> + +<p> +She kisses him, and laying his head upon her breast, softly strokes it as she +might a child’s; and he puts his weak arms around her. +</p> + +<p> +Later on she feels them growing cold about her, and lays him gently back upon +the bed, looks for the last time into his eyes, then draws the lids down over +them. +</p> + +<p> +His people ask that they may bury him in the churchyard hard by, so that he may +always be among them; and, Anne consenting, they do all things needful with +their own hands, wishful that no unloving labour may be mingled with their +work. They lay him close to the porch, where, going in and out the church, +their feet will pass near to him; and one among them who is cunning with the +graver’s chisel shapes the stone. +</p> + +<p> +At the head he carves in bas-relief the figure of the good Samaritan tending +the brother fallen by the way, and underneath the letters, “In Remembrance of +John Ingerfield.” +</p> + +<p> +He thinks to put a verse of Scripture immediately after; but the gruff doctor +says, “Better leave a space, in case you want to add another name.” +</p> + +<p> +So the stone remains a little while unfinished; till the same hand carves +thereon, a few weeks later, “And of Anne, his Wife.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>THE WOMAN OF THE SÆTER.</h2> + +<p> +Wild-reindeer stalking is hardly so exciting a sport as the evening’s verandah +talk in Norroway hotels would lead the trustful traveller to suppose. Under the +charge of your guide, a very young man with the dreamy, wistful eyes of those +who live in valleys, you leave the farmstead early in the forenoon, arriving +towards twilight at the desolate hut which, for so long as you remain upon the +uplands, will be your somewhat cheerless headquarters. +</p> + +<p> +Next morning, in the chill, mist-laden dawn, you rise; and, after a breakfast +of coffee and dried fish, shoulder your Remington, and step forth silently into +the raw, damp air; the guide locking the door behind you, the key grating +harshly in the rusty lock. +</p> + +<p> +For hour after hour you toil over the steep, stony ground, or wind through the +pines, speaking in whispers, lest your voice reach the quick ears of your prey, +that keeps its head ever pressed against the wind. Here and there, in the +hollows of the hills lie wide fields of snow, over which you pick your steps +thoughtfully, listening to the smothered thunder of the torrent, tunnelling its +way beneath your feet, and wondering whether the frozen arch above it be at all +points as firm as is desirable. Now and again, as in single file you walk +cautiously along some jagged ridge, you catch glimpses of the green world, +three thousand feet below you; though you gaze not long upon the view, for your +attention is chiefly directed to watching the footprints of the guide, lest by +deviating to the right or left you find yourself at one stride back in the +valley—or, to be more correct, are found there. +</p> + +<p> +These things you do, and as exercise they are healthful and invigorating. But a +reindeer you never see, and unless, overcoming the prejudices of your +British-bred conscience, you care to take an occasional pop at a fox, you had +better have left your rifle at the hut, and, instead, have brought a stick +which would have been helpful. Notwithstanding which the guide continues +sanguine, and in broken English, helped out by stirring gesture, tells of the +terrible slaughter generally done by sportsmen under his superintendence, and +of the vast herds that generally infest these fields; and when you grow +sceptical upon the subject of Reins he whispers alluringly of Bears. +</p> + +<p> +Once in a way you will come across a track, and will follow it breathlessly for +hours, and it will lead to a sheer precipice. Whether the explanation is +suicide, or a reprehensible tendency on the part of the animal towards +practical joking, you are left to decide for yourself. Then, with many rough +miles between you and your rest, you abandon the chase. +</p> + +<p> +But I speak from personal experience merely. +</p> + +<p> +All day long we had tramped through the pitiless rain, stopping only for an +hour at noon to eat some dried venison and smoke a pipe beneath the shelter of +an overhanging cliff. Soon afterwards Michael knocked over a ryper (a bird that +will hardly take the trouble to hop out of your way) with his gun-barrel, which +incident cheered us a little; and, later on, our flagging spirits were still +further revived by the discovery of apparently very recent deer-tracks. These +we followed, forgetful, in our eagerness, of the lengthening distance back to +the hut, of the fading daylight, of the gathering mist. The track led us higher +and higher, farther and farther into the mountains, until on the shores of a +desolate rock-bound vand it abruptly ended, and we stood staring at one +another, and the snow began to fall. +</p> + +<p> +Unless in the next half-hour we could chance upon a sæter, this meant passing +the night upon the mountain. Michael and I looked at the guide; but though, +with characteristic Norwegian sturdiness, he put a bold face upon it, we could +see that in that deepening darkness he knew no more than we did. Wasting no +time on words, we made straight for the nearest point of descent, knowing that +any human habitation must be far below us. +</p> + +<p> +Down we scrambled, heedless of torn clothes and bleeding hands, the darkness +pressing closer round us. Then suddenly it became black—black as pitch—and we +could only hear each other. Another step might mean death. We stretched out our +hands, and felt each other. Why we spoke in whispers, I do not know, but we +seemed afraid of our own voices. We agreed there was nothing for it but to stop +where we were till morning, clinging to the short grass; so we lay there side +by side, for what may have been five minutes or may have been an hour. Then, +attempting to turn, I lost my grip and rolled. I made convulsive efforts to +clutch the ground, but the incline was too steep. How far I fell I could not +say, but at last something stopped me. I felt it cautiously with my foot: it +did not yield, so I twisted myself round and touched it with my hand. It seemed +planted firmly in the earth. I passed my arm along to the right, then to the +left. I shouted with joy. It was a fence. +</p> + +<p> +Rising and groping about me, I found an opening, and passed through, and crept +forward with palms outstretched until I touched the logs of a hut; then, +feeling my way round, discovered the door, and knocked. There came no response, +so I knocked louder; then pushed, and the heavy woodwork yielded, groaning. But +the darkness within was even darker than the darkness without. The others had +contrived to crawl down and join me. Michael struck a wax vesta and held it up, +and slowly the room came out of the darkness and stood round us. +</p> + +<p> +Then something rather startling happened. Giving one swift glance about him, +our guide uttered a cry, and rushed out into the night. We followed to the +door, and called after him, but only a voice came to us out of the blackness, +and the only words that we could catch, shrieked back in terror, were: +“<i>Sætervronen</i>! <i>Sætervronen</i>!” (“The woman of the sæter”). +</p> + +<p> +“Some foolish superstition about the place, I suppose,” said Michael. “In these +mountain solitudes men breed ghosts for company. Let us make a fire. Perhaps, +when he sees the light, his desire for food and shelter may get the better of +his fears.” +</p> + +<p> +We felt about in the small enclosure round the house, and gathered juniper and +birch-twigs, and kindled a fire upon the open stove built in the corner of the +room. Fortunately, we had some dried reindeer and bread in our bag, and on that +and the ryper and the contents of our flasks we supped. Afterwards, to while +away the time, we made an inspection of the strange eyrie we had lighted on. +</p> + +<p> +It was an old log-built sæter. Some of these mountain farmsteads are as old as +the stone ruins of other countries. Carvings of strange beasts and demons were +upon its blackened rafters, and on the lintel, in runic letters, ran this +legend: “Hund builded me in the days of Haarfager.” The house consisted of two +large apartments. Originally, no doubt, these had been separate dwellings +standing beside one another, but they were now connected by a long, low +gallery. Most of the scanty furniture was almost as ancient as the walls +themselves, but many articles of a comparatively recent date had been added. +All was now, however, rotting and falling into decay. +</p> + +<p> +The place appeared to have been deserted suddenly by its last occupants. +Household utensils lay as they were left, rust and dirt encrusted on them. An +open book, limp and mildewed, lay face downwards on the table, while many +others were scattered about both rooms, together with much paper, scored with +faded ink. The curtains hung in shreds about the windows; a woman’s cloak, of +an antiquated fashion, drooped from a nail behind the door. In an oak chest we +found a tumbled heap of yellow letters. They were of various dates, extending +over a period of four months; and with them, apparently intended to receive +them, lay a large envelope, inscribed with an address in London that has since +disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +Strong curiosity overcoming faint scruples, we read them by the dull glow of +the burning juniper twigs, and, as we laid aside the last of them, there rose +from the depths below us a wailing cry, and all night long it rose and died +away, and rose again, and died away again; whether born of our brain or of some +human thing, God knows. +</p> + +<p> +And these, a little altered and shortened, are the letters:— +</p> + +<p> +<i>Extract from first letter</i>: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“I cannot tell you, my dear Joyce, what a haven of peace this place is to me +after the racket and fret of town. I am almost quite recovered already, and am +growing stronger every day; and, joy of joys, my brain has come back to me, +fresher and more vigorous, I think, for its holiday. In this silence and +solitude my thoughts flow freely, and the difficulties of my task are +disappearing as if by magic. We are perched upon a tiny plateau halfway up the +mountain. On one side the rock rises almost perpendicularly, piercing the sky; +while on the other, two thousand feet below us, the torrent hurls itself into +the black waters of the fiord. The house consists of two rooms—or, rather, it +is two cabins connected by a passage. The larger one we use as a living room, +and the other is our sleeping apartment. We have no servant, but do everything +for ourselves. I fear sometimes Muriel must find it lonely. The nearest human +habitation is eight miles away, across the mountain, and not a soul comes near +us. I spend as much time as I can with her, however, during the day, and make +up for it by working at night after she has gone to sleep; and when I question +her, she only laughs, and answers that she loves to have me all to herself. +(Here you will smile cynically, I know, and say, ‘Humph, I wonder will she say +the same when they have been married six years instead of six months.’) At the +rate I am working now I shall have finished my first volume by the spring, and +then, my dear fellow, you must try and come over, and we will walk and talk +together ‘amid these storm-reared temples of the gods.’ I have felt a new man +since I arrived here. Instead of having to ‘cudgel my brains,’ as we say, +thoughts crowd upon me. This work will make my name.” +</p> + +<p> +<i>Part of the third letter</i>, <i>the second being mere talk about the +book</i> (<i>a history apparently</i>) <i>that the man was writing</i>: +</p> + +<div class="letter"> +<p> +“M<small>Y DEAR</small> J<small>OYCE</small>,—I have written you two +letters—this will make the third—but have been unable to post them. Every day I +have been expecting a visit from some farmer or villager, for the Norwegians +are kindly people towards strangers—to say nothing of the inducements of trade. +A fortnight having passed, however, and the commissariat question having become +serious, I yesterday set out before dawn, and made my way down to the valley; +and this gives me something to tell you. Nearing the village, I met a peasant +woman. To my intense surprise, instead of returning my salutation, she stared +at me, as if I were some wild animal, and shrank away from me as far as the +width of the road would permit. In the village the same experience awaited me. +The children ran from me, the people avoided me. At last a grey-haired old man +appeared to take pity on me, and from him I learnt the explanation of the +mystery. It seems there is a strange superstition attaching to this house in +which we are living. My things were brought up here by the two men who +accompanied me from Drontheim, but the natives are afraid to go near the place, +and prefer to keep as far as possible from any one connected with it. +</p> + +<p> +“The story is that the house was built by one Hund, ‘a maker of runes’ (one of +the old saga writers, no doubt), who lived here with his young wife. All went +peacefully until, unfortunately for him, a certain maiden stationed at a +neighbouring sæter grew to love him. +</p> + +<p> +“Forgive me if I am telling you what you know, but a ‘sæter’ is the name given +to the upland pastures to which, during the summer, are sent the cattle, +generally under the charge of one or more of the maids. Here for three months +these girls will live in their lonely huts, entirely shut off from the world. +Customs change little in this land. Two or three such stations are within +climbing distance of this house, at this day, looked after by the farmers’ +daughters, as in the days of Hund, ‘maker of runes.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Every night, by devious mountain paths, the woman would come and tap lightly +at Hund’s door. Hund had built himself two cabins, one behind the other (these +are now, as I think I have explained to you, connected by a passage); the +smaller one was the homestead; in the other he carved and wrote, so that while +the young wife slept the ‘maker of runes’ and the sæter woman sat whispering. +</p> + +<p> +“One night, however, the wife learnt all things, but said no word. Then, as +now, the ravine in front of the enclosure was crossed by a slight bridge of +planks, and over this bridge the woman of the sæter passed and repassed each +night. On a day when Hund had gone down to fish in the fiord, the wife took an +axe, and hacked and hewed at the bridge, yet it still looked firm and solid; +and that night, as Hund sat waiting in his workshop, there struck upon his ears +a piercing cry, and a crashing of logs and rolling rock, and then again the +dull roaring of the torrent far below. +</p> + +<p> +“But the woman did not die unavenged; for that winter a man, skating far down +the fiord, noticed a curious object embedded in the ice; and when, stooping, he +looked closer, he saw two corpses, one gripping the other by the throat, and +the bodies were the bodies of Hund and his young wife. +</p> + +<p> +“Since then, they say, the woman of the sæter haunts Hund’s house, and if she +sees a light within she taps upon the door, and no man may keep her out. Many, +at different times, have tried to occupy the house, but strange tales are told +of them. ‘Men do not live at Hund’s sæter,’ said my old grey-haired friend, +concluding his tale,—‘they die there.’ +</p> + +<p> +“I have persuaded some of the braver of the villagers to bring what provisions +and other necessaries we require up to a plateau about a mile from the house +and leave them there. That is the most I have been able to do. It comes +somewhat as a shock to one to find men and women—fairly educated and +intelligent as many of them are—slaves to fears that one would expect a child +to laugh at. But there is no reasoning with superstition.” +</p> +</div> + +<p> +<i>Extract from the same letter</i>, <i>but from a part seemingly written a day +or two later</i>: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“At home I should have forgotten such a tale an hour after I had heard it, but +these mountain fastnesses seem strangely fit to be the last stronghold of the +supernatural. The woman haunts me already. At night instead of working, I find +myself listening for her tapping at the door; and yesterday an incident +occurred that makes me fear for my own common sense. I had gone out for a long +walk alone, and the twilight was thickening into darkness as I neared home. +Suddenly looking up from my reverie, I saw, standing on a knoll the other side +of the ravine, the figure of a woman. She held a cloak about her head, and I +could not see her face. I took off my cap, and called out a good-night to her, +but she never moved or spoke. Then—God knows why, for my brain was full of +other thoughts at the time—a clammy chill crept over me, and my tongue grew dry +and parched. I stood rooted to the spot, staring at her across the yawning +gorge that divided us; and slowly she moved away, and passed into the gloom, +and I continued my way. I have said nothing to Muriel, and shall not. The +effect the story has had upon myself warns me not to do so.” +</p> + +<p> +<i>From a letter dated eleven days later</i>: +</p> + +<div class="letter"> +<p> +“She has come. I have known she would, since that evening I saw her on the +mountain; and last night she came, and we have sat and looked into each other’s +eyes. You will say, of course, that I am mad—that I have not recovered from my +fever—that I have been working too hard—that I have heard a foolish tale, and +that it has filled my overstrung brain with foolish fancies: I have told myself +all that. But the thing came, nevertheless—a creature of flesh and blood? a +creature of air? a creature of my own imagination?—what matter? it was real to +me. +</p> + +<p> +“It came last night, as I sat working, alone. Each night I have waited for it, +listened for it—longed for it, I know now. I heard the passing of its feet upon +the bridge, the tapping of its hand upon the door, three times—tap, tap, tap. I +felt my loins grow cold, and a pricking pain about my head; and I gripped my +chair with both hands, and waited, and again there came the tapping—tap, tap, +tap. I rose and slipped the bolt of the door leading to the other room, and +again I waited, and again there came the tapping—tap, tap, tap. Then I opened +the heavy outer door, and the wind rushed past me, scattering my papers, and +the woman entered in, and I closed the door behind her. She threw her hood back +from her head, and unwound a kerchief from about her neck, and laid it on the +table. Then she crossed and sat before the fire, and I noticed her bare feet +were damp with the night dew. +</p> + +<p> +“I stood over against her and gazed at her, and she smiled at me—a strange, +wicked smile, but I could have laid my soul at her feet. She never spoke or +moved, and neither did I feel the need of spoken words, for I understood the +meaning of those upon the Mount when they said, ‘Let us make here tabernacles: +it is good for us to be here.’ +</p> + +<p> +“How long a time passed thus I do not know, but suddenly the woman held her +hand up, listening, and there came a faint sound from the other room. Then +swiftly she drew her hood about her face and passed out, closing the door +softly behind her; and I drew back the bolt of the inner door and waited, and +hearing nothing more, sat down, and must have fallen asleep in my chair. +</p> + +<p> +“I awoke, and instantly there flashed through my mind the thought of the +kerchief the woman had left behind her, and I started from my chair to hide it. +But the table was already laid for breakfast, and my wife sat with her elbows +on the table and her head between her hands, watching me with a look in her +eyes that was new to me. +</p> + +<p> +“She kissed me, though her lips were cold; and I argued to myself that the +whole thing must have been a dream. But later in the day, passing the open door +when her back was towards me, I saw her take the kerchief from a locked chest +and look at it. +</p> + +<p> +“I have told myself it must have been a kerchief of her own, and that all the +rest has been my imagination; that, if not, then my strange visitant was no +spirit, but a woman; and that, if human thing knows human thing, it was no +creature of flesh and blood that sat beside me last night. Besides, what woman +would she be? The nearest sæter is a three-hours’ climb to a strong man, and +the paths are dangerous even in daylight: what woman would have found them in +the night? What woman would have chilled the air around her, and have made the +blood flow cold through all my veins? Yet if she come again I will speak to +her. I will stretch out my hand and see whether she be mortal thing or only +air.” +</p> +</div> + +<p> +<i>The fifth letter</i>: +</p> + +<div class="letter"> +<p> +“M<small>Y DEAR</small> J<small>OYCE</small>,—Whether your eyes will ever see +these letters is doubtful. From this place I shall never send them. They would +read to you as the ravings of a madman. If ever I return to England I may one +day show them to you, but when I do it will be when I, with you, can laugh over +them. At present I write them merely to hide away,—putting the words down on +paper saves my screaming them aloud. +</p> + +<p> +“She comes each night now, taking the same seat beside the embers, and fixing +upon me those eyes, with the hell-light in them, that burn into my brain; and +at rare times she smiles, and all my being passes out of me, and is hers. I +make no attempt to work. I sit listening for her footsteps on the creaking +bridge, for the rustling of her feet upon the grass, for the tapping of her +hand upon the door. No word is uttered between us. Each day I say: ‘When she +comes to-night I will speak to her. I will stretch out my hand and touch her.’ +Yet when she enters, all thought and will goes out from me. +</p> + +<p> +“Last night, as I stood gazing at her, my soul filled with her wondrous beauty +as a lake with moonlight, her lips parted, and she started from her chair; and, +turning, I thought I saw a white face pressed against the window, but as I +looked it vanished. Then she drew her cloak about her, and passed out. I slid +back the bolt I always draw now, and stole into the other room, and, taking +down the lantern, held it above the bed. But Muriel’s eyes were closed as if in +sleep.” +</p> +</div> + +<p> +<i>Extract from the sixth letter</i>: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“It is not the night I fear, but the day. I hate the sight of this woman with +whom I live, whom I call ‘wife.’ I shrink from the blow of her cold lips, the +curse of her stony eyes. She has seen, she has learnt; I feel it, I know it. +Yet she winds her arms around my neck, and calls me sweetheart, and smoothes my +hair with her soft, false hands. We speak mocking words of love to one another, +but I know her cruel eyes are ever following me. She is plotting her revenge, +and I hate her, I hate her, I hate her!” +</p> + +<p> +<i>Part of the seventh letter</i>: +</p> + +<div class="letter"> +<p> +“This morning I went down to the fiord. I told her I should not be back until +the evening. She stood by the door watching me until we were mere specks to one +another, and a promontory of the mountain shut me from view. Then, turning +aside from the track, I made my way, running and stumbling over the jagged +ground, round to the other side of the mountain, and began to climb again. It +was slow, weary work. Often I had to go miles out of my road to avoid a ravine, +and twice I reached a high point only to have to descend again. But at length I +crossed the ridge, and crept down to a spot from where, concealed, I could spy +upon my own house. She—my wife—stood by the flimsy bridge. A short hatchet, +such as butchers use, was in her hand. She leant against a pine trunk, with her +arm behind her, as one stands whose back aches with long stooping in some +cramped position; and even at that distance I could see the cruel smile about +her lips. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I recrossed the ridge, and crawled down again, and, waiting until +evening, walked slowly up the path. As I came in view of the house she saw me, +and waved her handkerchief to me, and in answer I waved my hat, and shouted +curses at her that the wind whirled away into the torrent. She met me with a +kiss, and I breathed no hint to her that I had seen. Let her devil’s work +remain undisturbed. Let it prove to me what manner of thing this is that haunts +me. If it be a spirit, then the bridge wilt bear it safely; if it be woman— +</p> + +<p> +“But I dismiss the thought. If it be human thing, why does it sit gazing at me, +never speaking? why does my tongue refuse to question it? why does all power +forsake me in its presence, so that I stand as in a dream? Yet if it be spirit, +why do I hear the passing of her feet? and why does the night-rain glisten on +her hair? +</p> + +<p> +“I force myself back into my chair. It is far into the night, and I am alone, +waiting, listening. If it be spirit, she will come to me; and if it be woman, I +shall hear her cry above the storm—unless it be a demon mocking me. +</p> + +<p> +“I have heard the cry. It rose, piercing and shrill, above the storm, above the +riving and rending of the bridge, above the downward crashing of the logs and +loosened stones. I hear it as I listen now. It is cleaving its way upward from +the depths below. It is wailing through the room as I sit writing. +</p> + +<p> +“I have crawled upon my belly to the utmost edge of the still standing pier, +until I could feel with my hand the jagged splinters left by the fallen planks, +and have looked down. But the chasm was full to the brim with darkness. I +shouted, but the wind shook my voice into mocking laughter. I sit here, feebly +striking at the madness that is creeping nearer and nearer to me. I tell myself +the whole thing is but the fever in my brain. The bridge was rotten. The storm +was strong. The cry is but a single one among the many voices of the mountain. +Yet still I listen; and it rises, clear and shrill, above the moaning of the +pines, above the sobbing of the waters. It beats like blows upon my skull, and +I know that she will never come again.” +</p> +</div> + +<p> +<i>Extract from the last letter</i>: +</p> + +<div class="letter"> +<p> +“I shall address an envelope to you, and leave it among these letters. Then, +should I never come back, some chance wanderer may one day find and post them +to you, and you will know. +</p> + +<p> +“My books and writings remain untouched. We sit together of a night—this woman +I call ‘wife’ and I—she holding in her hands some knitted thing that never +grows longer by a single stitch, and I with a volume before me that is ever +open at the same page. And day and night we watch each other stealthily, moving +to and fro about the silent house; and at times, looking round swiftly, I catch +the smile upon her lips before she has time to smooth it away. +</p> + +<p> +“We speak like strangers about this and that, making talk to hide our thoughts. +We make a pretence of busying ourselves about whatever will help us to keep +apart from one another. +</p> + +<p> +“At night, sitting here between the shadows and the dull glow of the +smouldering twigs, I sometimes think I hear the tapping I have learnt to listen +for, and I start from my seat, and softly open the door and look out. But only +the Night stands there. Then I close-to the latch, and she—the living +woman—asks me in her purring voice what sound I heard, hiding a smile as she +stoops low over her work; and I answer lightly, and, moving towards her, put my +arm about her, feeling her softness and her suppleness, and wondering, +supposing I held her close to me with one arm while pressing her from me with +the other, how long before I should hear the cracking of her bones. +</p> + +<p> +“For here, amid these savage solitudes, I also am grown savage. The old +primeval passions of love and hate stir within me, and they are fierce and +cruel and strong, beyond what you men of the later ages could understand. The +culture of the centuries has fallen from me as a flimsy garment whirled away by +the mountain wind; the old savage instincts of the race lie bare. One day I +shall twine my fingers about her full white throat, and her eyes will slowly +come towards me, and her lips will part, and the red tongue creep out; and +backwards, step by step, I shall push her before me, gazing the while upon her +bloodless face, and it will be my turn to smile. Backwards through the open +door, backwards along the garden path between the juniper bushes, backwards +till her heels are overhanging the ravine, and she grips life with nothing but +her little toes, I shall force her, step by step, before me. Then I shall lean +forward, closer, closer, till I kiss her purpling lips, and down, down, down, +past the startled sea-birds, past the white spray of the foss, past the +downward peeping pines, down, down, down, we will go together, till we find the +thing that lies sleeping beneath the waters of the fiord.” +</p> +</div> + +<p> +With these words ended the last letter, unsigned. At the first streak of dawn +we left the house, and, after much wandering, found our way back to the valley. +But of our guide we heard no news. Whether he remained still upon the mountain, +or whether by some false step he had perished upon that night, we never learnt. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>VARIETY PATTER.</h2> + +<p> +My first appearance at a Music Hall was in the year one thousand eight hundred +and s---. Well, I would rather not mention the exact date. I was fourteen at +the time. It was during the Christmas holidays, and my aunt had given me five +shillings to go and see Phelps—I think it was Phelps—in <i>Coriolanus</i>—I +think it was <i>Coriolanus</i>. Anyhow, it was to see a high-class and +improving entertainment, I know. +</p> + +<p> +I suggested that I should induce young Skegson, who lived in our road, to go +with me. Skegson is a barrister now, and could not tell you the difference +between a knave of clubs and a club of knaves. A few years hence he will, if he +works hard, be innocent enough for a judge. But at the period of which I speak +he was a red-haired boy of worldly tastes, notwithstanding which I loved him as +a brother. My dear mother wished to see him before consenting to the +arrangement, so as to be able to form her own opinion as to whether he was a +fit and proper companion for me; and, accordingly, he was invited to tea. He +came, and made a most favourable impression upon both my mother and my aunt. He +had a way of talking about the advantages of application to study in early +life, and the duties of youth towards those placed in authority over it, that +won for him much esteem in grown-up circles. The spirit of the Bar had +descended upon Skegson at a very early period of his career. +</p> + +<p> +My aunt, indeed, was so much pleased with him that she gave him two shillings +towards his own expenses (“sprung half a dollar” was how he explained the +transaction when we were outside), and commended me to his especial care. +</p> + +<p> +Skegson was very silent during the journey. An idea was evidently maturing in +his mind. At the Angel he stopped and said: “Look here, I’ll tell you what +we’ll do. Don’t let’s go and see that rot. Let’s go to a Music Hall.” +</p> + +<p> +I gasped for breath. I had heard of Music Halls. A stout lady had denounced +them across our dinner table on one occasion—fixing the while a steely eye upon +her husband, who sat opposite and seemed uncomfortable—as low, horrid places, +where people smoked and drank, and wore short skirts, and had added an opinion +that they ought to be put down by the police—whether the skirts or the halls +she did not explain. I also recollected that our charwoman, whose son had +lately left London for a protracted stay in Devonshire, had, in conversation +with my mother, dated his downfall from the day when he first visited one of +these places; and likewise that Mrs. Philcox’s nursemaid, upon her confessing +that she had spent an evening at one with her young man, had been called a +shameless hussy, and summarily dismissed as being no longer a fit associate for +the baby. +</p> + +<p> +But the spirit of lawlessness was strong within me in those days, so that I +hearkened to the voice of Skegson, the tempter, and he lured my feet from the +paths that led to virtue and Sadler’s Wells, and we wandered into the broad and +crowded ways that branch off from the Angel towards Merry Islington. +</p> + +<p> +Skegson insisted that we should do the thing in style, so we stopped at a shop +near the Agricultural Hall and purchased some big cigars. A huge card in the +window claimed for these that they were “the most satisfactory twopenny smokes +in London.” I smoked two of them during the evening, and never felt more +satisfied—using the word in its true sense, as implying that a person has had +enough of a thing, and does not desire any more of it, just then—in all my +life. Where we went, and what we saw, my memory is not very clear upon. We sat +at a little marble table. I know it was marble because it was so hard, and cool +to the head. From out of the smoky mist a ponderous creature of strange, +undefined shape floated heavily towards us, and deposited a squat tumbler in +front of me containing a pale yellowish liquor, which subsequent investigation +has led me to believe must have been Scotch whisky. It seemed to me then the +most nauseous stuff I had ever swallowed. It is curious to look back and notice +how one’s tastes change. +</p> + +<p> +I reached home very late and very sick. That was my first dissipation, and, as +a lesson, it has been of more practical use to me than all the good books and +sermons in the world could have been. I can remember to this day standing in +the middle of the room in my night-shirt, trying to catch my bed as it came +round. +</p> + +<p> +Next morning I confessed everything to my mother, and, for several months +afterwards, was a reformed character. Indeed, the pendulum of my conscience +swung too far the other way, and I grew exaggeratedly remorseful and +unhealthily moral. +</p> + +<p> +There was published in those days, for the edification of young people, a +singularly pessimistic periodical, entitled <i>The Children’s Band of Hope +Review</i>. It was a magazine much in favour among grown-up people, and a bound +copy of Vol. IX. had lately been won by my sister as a prize for punctuality (I +fancy she must have exhausted all the virtue she ever possessed, in that +direction, upon the winning of that prize. At all events, I have noticed no +ostentatious display of the quality in her later life.) I had formerly +expressed contempt for this book, but now, in my regenerate state, I took a +morbid pleasure in poring over its denunciations of sin and sinners. There was +one picture in it that appeared peculiarly applicable to myself. It represented +a gaudily costumed young man, standing on the topmost of three steep steps, +smoking a large cigar. Behind him was a very small church, and below, a bright +and not altogether uninviting looking hell. The picture was headed “The Three +Steps to Ruin,” and the three stairs were labelled respectively “Smoking,” +“Drinking,” “Gambling.” I had already travelled two-thirds of the road! Was I +going all the way, or should I be able to retrace those steps? I used to lie +awake at night and think about it till I grew half crazy. Alas! since then I +have completed the descent, so where my future will be spent I do not care to +think. +</p> + +<p> +Another picture in the book that troubled me was the frontispiece. This was a +highly-coloured print, illustrating the broad and narrow ways. The narrow way +led upward past a Sunday-school and a lion to a city in the clouds. This city +was referred to in the accompanying letterpress as a place of “Rest and Peace,” +but inasmuch as the town was represented in the illustration as surrounded by a +perfect mob of angels, each one blowing a trumpet twice his own size, and +obviously blowing it for all he was worth, a certain confusion of ideas would +seem to have crept into the allegory. +</p> + +<p> +The other path—the “broad way”—which ended in what at first glance appeared to +be a highly successful display of fireworks, started from the door of a tavern, +and led past a Music Hall, on the steps of which stood a gentleman smoking a +cigar. All the wicked people in this book smoked cigars—all except one young +man who had killed his mother and died raving mad. He had gone astray on short +pipes. +</p> + +<p> +This made it uncomfortably clear to me which direction I had chosen, and I was +greatly alarmed, until, on examining the picture more closely, I noticed, with +much satisfaction, that about midway the two paths were connected by a handy +little bridge, by the use of which it seemed feasible, starting on the one path +and ending up on the other, to combine the practical advantages of both roads. +From subsequent observation I have come to the conclusion that a good many +people have made a note of that little bridge. +</p> + +<p> +My own belief in the possibility of such convenient compromise must, I fear, +have led to an ethical relapse, for there recurs to my mind a somewhat painful +scene of a few months’ later date, in which I am seeking to convince a +singularly unresponsive landed proprietor that my presence in his orchard is +solely and entirely due to my having unfortunately lost my way. +</p> + +<p> +It was not until I was nearly seventeen that the idea occurred to me to visit a +Music Hall again. Then, having regard to my double capacity of “Man About Town” +and journalist (for I had written a letter to <i>The Era</i>, complaining of +the way pit doors were made to open, and it had been inserted), I felt I had no +longer any right to neglect acquaintanceship with so important a feature in the +life of the people. Accordingly, one Saturday night, I wended my way to the +“Pav.”; and there the first person that I ran against was my uncle. He laid a +heavy hand upon my shoulder, and asked me, in severe tones, what I was doing +there. I felt this to be an awkward question, for it would have been useless +trying to make him understand my real motives (one’s own relations are never +sympathetic), and I was somewhat nonplussed for an answer, until the reflection +occurred to me: What was <i>he</i> doing there? This riddle I, in my turn, +propounded to him, with the result that we entered into treaty, by the terms of +which it was agreed that no future reference should be made to the meeting by +either of us—especially not in the presence of my aunt—and the compact was +ratified according to the usual custom, my uncle paying the necessary expenses. +</p> + +<p> +In those days, we sat, some four or six of us, round a little table, on which +were placed our drinks. Now we have to balance them upon a narrow ledge; and +ladies, as they pass, dip the ends of their cloaks into them, and gentlemen +stir them up for us with the ferrules of their umbrellas, or else sweep them +off into our laps with their coat tails, saying as they do so, “Oh, I beg your +pardon.” +</p> + +<p> +Also, in those days, there were “chairmen”—affable gentlemen, who would drink +anything at anybody’s expense, and drink any quantity of it, and never seem to +get any fuller. I was introduced to a Music Hall chairman once, and when I said +to him, “What is your drink?” he took up the “list of beverages” that lay +before him, and, opening it, waved his hand lightly across its entire contents, +from clarets, past champagnes and spirits, down to liqueurs. “That’s my drink, +my boy,” said he. There was nothing narrow-minded or exclusive about his +tastes. +</p> + +<p> +It was the chairman’s duty to introduce the artists. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he +would shout, in a voice that united the musical characteristics of a foghorn +and a steam saw, “Miss ’Enerietta Montressor, the popular serio-comic, will now +happear.” These announcements were invariably received with great applause by +the chairman himself, and generally with chilling indifference by the rest of +the audience. +</p> + +<p> +It was also the privilege of the chairman to maintain order, and reprimand +evil-doers. This he usually did very effectively, employing for the purpose +language both fit and forcible. One chairman that I remember seemed, however, +to be curiously deficient in the necessary qualities for this part of his duty. +He was a mild and sleepy little man, and, unfortunately, he had to preside over +an exceptionally rowdy audience at a small hall in the South-East district. On +the night that I was present, there occurred a great disturbance. “Joss Jessop, +the Monarch of Mirth,” a gentleman evidently high in local request was, for +some reason or other, not forthcoming, and in his place the management proposed +to offer a female performer on the zithern, one Signorina Ballatino. +</p> + +<p> +The little chairman made the announcement in a nervous, deprecatory tone, as if +he were rather ashamed of it himself. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began,—the +poor are staunch sticklers for etiquette: I overheard a small child explaining +to her mother one night in Three Colts Street, Limehouse, that she could not +get into the house because there was a “lady” on the doorstep, +drunk,—“Signorina Ballatino, the world-renowned—” +</p> + +<p> +Here a voice from the gallery requested to know what had become of “Old Joss,” +and was greeted by loud cries of “’Ear, ’ear.” +</p> + +<p> +The chairman, ignoring the interruption, continued: +</p> + +<p> +“—the world-renowned performer on the zither—” +</p> + +<p> +“On the whoter?” came in tones of plaintive inquiry from the back of the hall. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Hon</i> the zither,” retorted the chairman, waxing mildly indignant; he +meant zithern, but he called it a zither. “A hinstrument well-known to anybody +as ’as ’ad any learning.” +</p> + +<p> +This sally was received with much favour, and a gentleman who claimed to be +acquainted with the family history of the interrupter begged the chairman to +excuse that ill-bred person on the ground that his mother used to get drunk +with the twopence a week and never sent him to school. +</p> + +<p> +Cheered by this breath of popularity, our little president endeavoured to +complete his introduction of the Signorina. He again repeated that she was the +world-renowned performer on the zithern; and, undeterred by the audible remark +of a lady in the pit to the effect that she’d “never ’eard on ’er,” added: +</p> + +<p> +“She will now, ladies and gentlemen, with your kind permission, give you +examples of the—” +</p> + +<p> +“Blow yer zither!” here cried out the gentleman who had started the agitation; +“we want Joss Jessop.” +</p> + +<p> +This was the signal for much cheering and shrill whistling, in the midst of +which a wag with a piping voice suggested as a reason for the favourite’s +non-appearance that he had not been paid his last week’s salary. +</p> + +<p> +A temporary lull occurred at this point; and the chairman, seizing the +opportunity to complete his oft-impeded speech, suddenly remarked, “songs of +the Sunny South”; and immediately sat down and began hammering upon the table. +</p> + +<p> +Then Signora Ballatino, clothed in the costume of the Sunny South, where +clothes are less essential than in these colder climes, skipped airily forward, +and was most ungallantly greeted with a storm of groans and hisses. Her beloved +instrument was unfeelingly alluded to as a pie-dish, and she was advised to +take it back and get the penny on it. The chairman, addressed by his Christian +name of “Jimmee,” was told to lie down and let her sing him to sleep. Every +time she attempted to start playing, shouts were raised for Joss. +</p> + +<p> +At length the chairman, overcoming his evident disinclination to take any sort +of hand whatever in the game, rose and gently hinted at the desirability of +silence. The suggestion not meeting with any support, he proceeded to adopt +sterner measures. He addressed himself personally to the ringleader of the +rioters, the man who had first championed the cause of the absent Joss. This +person was a brawny individual, who, judging from appearances, followed in his +business hours the calling of a coalheaver. “Yes, sir,” said the chairman, +pointing a finger towards him, where he sat in the front row of the gallery; +“you, sir, in the flannel shirt. I can see you. Will you allow this lady to +give her entertainment?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” answered he of the coalheaving profession, in stentorian tones. +</p> + +<p> +“Then, sir,” said the little chairman, working himself up into a state +suggestive of Jove about to launch a thunderbolt—“then, sir, all I can say is +that you are no gentleman.” +</p> + +<p> +This was a little too much, or rather a good deal too little, for the Signora +Ballatino. She had hitherto been standing in a meek attitude of pathetic +appeal, wearing a fixed smile of ineffable sweetness but she evidently felt +that she could go a bit farther than that herself, even if she was a lady. +Calling the chairman “an old messer,” and telling him for Gawd’s sake to shut +up if that was all he could do for his living, she came down to the front, and +took the case into her own hands. +</p> + +<p> +She did not waste time on the rest of the audience. She went direct for that +coalheaver, and thereupon ensued a slanging match the memory of which sends a +thrill of admiration through me even to this day. It was a battle worthy of the +gods. He was a heaver of coals, quick and ready beyond his kind. During many +years sojourn East and South, in the course of many wanderings from +Billingsgate to Limehouse Hole, from Petticoat Lane to Whitechapel Road; out of +eel-pie shop and penny gaff; out of tavern and street, and court and +doss-house, he had gathered together slang words and terms and phrases, and +they came back to him now, and he stood up against her manfully. +</p> + +<p> +But as well might the lamb stand up against the eagle, when the shadow of its +wings falls across the green pastures, and the wind flies before its dark +oncoming. At the end of two minutes he lay gasping, dazed, and speechless. +</p> + +<p> +Then she began. +</p> + +<p> +She announced her intention of “wiping down the bloomin’ ’all” with him, and +making it respectable; and, metaphorically speaking, that is what she did. Her +tongue hit him between the eyes, and knocked him down and trampled on him. It +curled round and round him like a whip, and then it uncurled and wound the +other way. It seized him by the scruff of his neck, and tossed him up into the +air, and caught him as he descended, and flung him to the ground, and rolled +him on it. It played around him like forked lightning, and blinded him. It +danced and shrieked about him like a host of whirling fiends, and he tried to +remember a prayer, and could not. It touched him lightly on the sole of his +foot and the crown of his head, and his hair stood up straight, and his limbs +grew stiff. The people sitting near him drew away, not feeling it safe to be +near, and left him alone, surrounded by space, and language. +</p> + +<p> +It was the most artistic piece of work of its kind that I have ever heard. +Every phrase she flung at him seemed to have been woven on purpose to entangle +him and to embrace in its choking folds his people and his gods, to strangle +with its threads his every hope, ambition, and belief. Each term she put upon +him clung to him like a garment, and fitted him without a crease. The last name +that she called him one felt to be, until one heard the next, the one name that +he ought to have been christened by. +</p> + +<p> +For five and three-quarter minutes by the clock she spoke, and never for one +instant did she pause or falter; and in the whole of that onslaught there was +only one weak spot. +</p> + +<p> +That was when she offered to make a better man than he was out of a Guy Fawkes +and a lump of coal. You felt that one lump of coal would not have been +sufficient. +</p> + +<p> +At the end, she gathered herself together for one supreme effort, and hurled at +him an insult so bitter with scorn, so sharp with insight into his career and +character, so heavy with prophetic curse, that strong men drew and held their +breath while it passed over them, and women hid their faces and shivered. +</p> + +<p> +Then she folded her arms, and stood silent; and the house, from floor to +ceiling, rose and cheered her until there was no more breath left in its lungs. +</p> + +<p> +In that one night she stepped from oblivion into success. She is now a famous +“artiste.” +</p> + +<p> +But she does not call herself Signora Ballatino, and she does not play upon the +zithern. Her name has a homelier sound, and her speciality is the delineation +of coster character. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>SILHOUETTES.</h2> + +<p> +I fear I must be of a somewhat gruesome turn of mind. My sympathies are always +with the melancholy side of life and nature. I love the chill October days, +when the brown leaves lie thick and sodden underneath your feet, and a low +sound as of stifled sobbing is heard in the damp woods—the evenings in late +autumn time, when the white mist creeps across the fields, making it seem as +though old Earth, feeling the night air cold to its poor bones, were drawing +ghostly bedclothes round its withered limbs. I like the twilight of the long +grey street, sad with the wailing cry of the distant muffin man. One thinks of +him, as, strangely mitred, he glides by through the gloom, jangling his harsh +bell, as the High Priest of the pale spirit of Indigestion, summoning the +devout to come forth and worship. I find a sweetness in the aching dreariness +of Sabbath afternoons in genteel suburbs—in the evil-laden desolateness of +waste places by the river, when the yellow fog is stealing inland across the +ooze and mud, and the black tide gurgles softly round worm-eaten piles. +</p> + +<p> +I love the bleak moor, when the thin long line of the winding road lies white +on the darkening heath, while overhead some belated bird, vexed with itself for +being out so late, scurries across the dusky sky, screaming angrily. I love the +lonely, sullen lake, hidden away in mountain solitudes. I suppose it was my +childhood’s surroundings that instilled in me this affection for sombre hues. +One of my earliest recollections is of a dreary marshland by the sea. By day, +the water stood there in wide, shallow pools. But when one looked in the +evening they were pools of blood that lay there. +</p> + +<p> +It was a wild, dismal stretch of coast. One day, I found myself there all +alone—I forget how it came about—and, oh, how small I felt amid the sky and the +sea and the sandhills! I ran, and ran, and ran, but I never seemed to move; and +then I cried, and screamed, louder and louder, and the circling seagulls +screamed back mockingly at me. It was an “unken” spot, as they say up North. +</p> + +<p> +In the far back days of the building of the world, a long, high ridge of stones +had been reared up by the sea, dividing the swampy grassland from the sand. +Some of these stones—“pebbles,” so they called them round about—were as big as +a man, and many as big as a fair-sized house; and when the sea was angry—and +very prone he was to anger by that lonely shore, and very quick to wrath; often +have I known him sink to sleep with a peaceful smile on his rippling waves, to +wake in fierce fury before the night was spent—he would snatch up giant +handfuls of these pebbles and fling and toss them here and there, till the +noise of their rolling and crashing could be heard by the watchers in the +village afar off. +</p> + +<p> +“Old Nick’s playing at marbles to-night,” they would say to one another, +pausing to listen. And then the women would close tight their doors, and try +not to hear the sound. +</p> + +<p> +Far out to sea, by where the muddy mouth of the river yawned wide, there rose +ever a thin white line of surf, and underneath those crested waves there dwelt +a very fearsome thing, called the Bar. I grew to hate and be afraid of this +mysterious Bar, for I heard it spoken of always with bated breath, and I knew +that it was very cruel to fisher folk, and hurt them so sometimes that they +would cry whole days and nights together with the pain, or would sit with white +scared faces, rocking themselves to and fro. +</p> + +<p> +Once when I was playing among the sandhills, there came by a tall, grey woman, +bending beneath a load of driftwood. She paused when nearly opposite to me, +and, facing seaward, fixed her eyes upon the breaking surf above the Bar. “Ah, +how I hate the sight of your white teeth!” she muttered; then turned and passed +on. +</p> + +<p> +Another morning, walking through the village, I heard a low wailing come from +one of the cottages, while a little farther on a group of women were gathered +in the roadway, talking. “Ay,” said one of them, “I thought the Bar was looking +hungry last night.” +</p> + +<p> +So, putting one and the other together, I concluded that the “Bar” must be an +ogre, such as a body reads of in books, who lived in a coral castle deep below +the river’s mouth, and fed upon the fishermen as he caught them going down to +the sea or coming home. +</p> + +<p> +From my bedroom window, on moonlight nights, I could watch the silvery foam, +marking the spot beneath where he lay hid; and I would stand on tip-toe, +peering out, until at length I would come to fancy I could see his hideous form +floating below the waters. Then, as the little white-sailed boats stole by him, +tremblingly, I used to tremble too, lest he should suddenly open his grim jaws +and gulp them down; and when they had all safely reached the dark, soft sea +beyond, I would steal back to the bedside, and pray to God to make the Bar +good, so that he would give up eating the poor fishermen. +</p> + +<p> +Another incident connected with that coast lives in my mind. It was the morning +after a great storm—great even for that stormy coast—and the passion-worn +waters were still heaving with the memory of a fury that was dead. Old Nick had +scattered his marbles far and wide, and there were rents and fissures in the +pebbly wall such as the oldest fisherman had never known before. Some of the +hugest stones lay tossed a hundred yards away, and the waters had dug pits here +and there along the ridge so deep that a tall man might stand in some of them, +and yet his head not reach the level of the sand. +</p> + +<p> +Round one of these holes a small crowd was pressing eagerly, while one man, +standing in the hollow, was lifting the few remaining stones off something that +lay there at the bottom. I pushed my way between the straggling legs of a big +fisher lad, and peered over with the rest. A ray of sunlight streamed down into +the pit, and the thing at the bottom gleamed white. Sprawling there among the +black pebbles it looked like a huge spider. One by one the last stones were +lifted away, and the thing was left bare, and then the crowd looked at one +another and shivered. +</p> + +<p> +“Wonder how he got there,” said a woman at length; “somebody must ha’ helped +him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Some foreign chap, no doubt,” said the man who had lifted off the stones; +“washed ashore and buried here by the sea.” +</p> + +<p> +“What, six foot below the water-mark, wi’ all they stones atop of him?” said +another. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s no foreign chap,” cried a grizzled old woman, pressing forward. “What’s +that that’s aside him?” +</p> + +<p> +Some one jumped down and took it from the stone where it lay glistening, and +handed it up to her, and she clutched it in her skinny hand. It was a gold +earring, such as fishermen sometimes wear. But this was a somewhat large one, +and of rather unusual shape. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s young Abram Parsons, I tell ’ee, as lies down there,” cried the old +creature, wildly. “I ought to know. I gave him the pair o’ these forty year +ago.” +</p> + +<p> +It may be only an idea of mine, born of after brooding upon the scene. I am +inclined to think it must be so, for I was only a child at the time, and would +hardly have noticed such a thing. But it seems to my remembrance that as the +old crone ceased, another woman in the crowd raised her eyes slowly, and fixed +them on a withered, ancient man, who leant upon a stick, and that for a moment, +unnoticed by the rest, these two stood looking strangely at each other. +</p> + +<p> +From these sea-scented scenes, my memory travels to a weary land where dead +ashes lie, and there is blackness—blackness everywhere. Black rivers flow +between black banks; black, stunted trees grow in black fields; black withered +flowers by black wayside. Black roads lead from blackness past blackness to +blackness; and along them trudge black, savage-looking men and women; and by +them black, old-looking children play grim, unchildish games. +</p> + +<p> +When the sun shines on this black land, it glitters black and hard; and when +the rain falls a black mist rises towards heaven, like the hopeless prayer of a +hopeless soul. +</p> + +<p> +By night it is less dreary, for then the sky gleams with a lurid light, and out +of the darkness the red flames leap, and high up in the air they gambol and +writhe—the demon spawn of that evil land, they seem. +</p> + +<p> +Visitors who came to our house would tell strange tales of this black land, and +some of the stories I am inclined to think were true. One man said he saw a +young bull-dog fly at a boy and pin him by the throat. The lad jumped about +with much sprightliness, and tried to knock the dog away. Whereupon the boy’s +father rushed out of the house, hard by, and caught his son and heir roughly by +the shoulder. “Keep still, thee young ---, can’t ’ee!” shouted the man angrily; +“let ’un taste blood.” +</p> + +<p> +Another time, I heard a lady tell how she had visited a cottage during a +strike, to find the baby, together with the other children, almost dying for +want of food. “Dear, dear me!” she cried, taking the wee wizened mite from the +mother’s arms, “but I sent you down a quart of milk, yesterday. Hasn’t the +child had it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Theer weer a little coom, thank ’ee kindly, ma’am,” the father took upon +himself to answer; “but thee see it weer only just enow for the poops.” +</p> + +<p> +We lived in a big lonely house on the edge of a wide common. One night, I +remember, just as I was reluctantly preparing to climb into bed, there came a +wild ringing at the gate, followed by a hoarse, shrieking cry, and then a +frenzied shaking of the iron bars. +</p> + +<p> +Then hurrying footsteps sounded through the house, and the swift opening and +closing of doors; and I slipped back hastily into my knickerbockers and ran +out. The women folk were gathered on the stairs, while my father stood in the +hall, calling to them to be quiet. And still the wild ringing of the bell +continued, and, above it, the hoarse, shrieking cry. +</p> + +<p> +My father opened the door and went out, and we could hear him striding down the +gravel path, and we clung to one another and waited. +</p> + +<p> +After what seemed an endless time, we heard the heavy gate unbarred, and +quickly clanged to, and footsteps returning on the gravel. Then the door opened +again, and my father entered, and behind him a crouching figure that felt its +way with its hands as it crept along, as a blind man might. The figure stood up +when it reached the middle of the hall, and mopped its eyes with a dirty rag +that it carried in its hand; after which it held the rag over the +umbrella-stand and wrung it out, as washerwomen wring out clothes, and the dark +drippings fell into the tray with a dull, heavy splut. +</p> + +<p> +My father whispered something to my mother, and she went out towards the back; +and, in a little while, we heard the stamping of hoofs—the angry plunge of a +spur-startled horse—the rhythmic throb of the long, straight gallop, dying away +into the distance. +</p> + +<p> +My mother returned and spoke some reassuring words to the servants. My father, +having made fast the door and extinguished all but one or two of the lights, +had gone into a small room on the right of the hall; the crouching figure, +still mopping that moisture from its eyes, following him. We could hear them +talking there in low tones, my father questioning, the other voice thick and +interspersed with short panting grunts. +</p> + +<p> +We on the stairs huddled closer together, and, in the darkness, I felt my +mother’s arm steal round me and encompass me, so that I was not afraid. Then we +waited, while the silence round our frightened whispers thickened and grew +heavy till the weight of it seemed to hurt us. +</p> + +<p> +At length, out of its depths, there crept to our ears a faint murmur. It +gathered strength like the sound of the oncoming of a wave upon a stony shore, +until it broke in a Babel of vehement voices just outside. After a few moments, +the hubbub ceased, and there came a furious ringing—then angry shouts demanding +admittance. +</p> + +<p> +Some of the women began to cry. My father came out into the hall, closing the +room door behind him, and ordered them to be quiet, so sternly that they were +stunned into silence. The furious ringing was repeated; and, this time, threats +mingled among the hoarse shouts. My mother’s arm tightened around me, and I +could hear the beating of her heart. +</p> + +<p> +The voices outside the gate sank into a low confused mumbling. Soon they died +away altogether, and the silence flowed back. +</p> + +<p> +My father turned up the hall lamp, and stood listening. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly, from the back of the house, rose the noise of a great crashing, +followed by oaths and savage laughter. +</p> + +<p> +My father rushed forward, but was borne back; and, in an instant, the hall was +full of grim, ferocious faces. My father, trembling a little (or else it was +the shadow cast by the flickering lamp), and with lips tight pressed, stood +confronting them; while we women and children, too scared to even cry, shrank +back up the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +What followed during the next few moments is, in my memory, only a confused +tumult, above which my father’s high, clear tones rise every now and again, +entreating, arguing, commanding. I see nothing distinctly until one of the +grimmest of the faces thrusts itself before the others, and a voice which, like +Aaron’s rod, swallows up all its fellows, says in deep, determined bass, “Coom, +we’ve had enow chatter, master. Thee mun give ’un up, or thee mun get out o’ +th’ way an’ we’ll search th’ house for oursel’.” +</p> + +<p> +Then a light flashed into my father’s eyes that kindled something inside me, so +that the fear went out of me, and I struggled to free myself from my mother’s +arm, for the desire stirred me to fling myself down upon the grimy faces below, +and beat and stamp upon them with my fists. Springing across the hall, he +snatched from the wall where it hung an ancient club, part of a trophy of old +armour, and planting his back against the door through which they would have to +pass, he shouted, “Then be damned to you all, he’s in this room! Come and fetch +him out.” +</p> + +<p> +(I recollect that speech well. I puzzled over it, even at that time, excited +though I was. I had always been told that only low, wicked people ever used the +word “damn,” and I tried to reconcile things, and failed.) +</p> + +<p> +The men drew back and muttered among themselves. It was an ugly-looking weapon, +studded with iron spikes. My father held it secured to his hand by a chain, and +there was an ugly look about him also, now, that gave his face a strange +likeness to the dark faces round him. +</p> + +<p> +But my mother grew very white and cold, and underneath her breath she kept +crying, “Oh, will they never come—will they never come?” and a cricket +somewhere about the house began to chirp. +</p> + +<p> +Then all at once, without a word, my mother flew down the stairs, and passed +like a flash of light through the crowd of dusky figures. How she did it I +could never understand, for the two heavy bolts had both been drawn, but the +next moment the door stood wide open; and a hum of voices, cheery with the +anticipation of a period of perfect bliss, was borne in upon the cool night +air. +</p> + +<p> +My mother was always very quick of hearing. +</p> + +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +Again, I see a wild crowd of grim faces, and my father’s, very pale, amongst +them. But this time the faces are very many, and they come and go like faces in +a dream. The ground beneath my feet is wet and sloppy, and a black rain is +falling. There are women’s faces in the crowd, wild and haggard, and long +skinny arms stretch out threateningly towards my father, and shrill, frenzied +voices call out curses on him. Boys’ faces also pass me in the grey light, and +on some of them there is an impish grin. +</p> + +<p> +I seem to be in everybody’s way; and to get out of it, I crawl into a dark, +draughty corner and crouch there among cinders. Around me, great engines +fiercely strain and pant like living things fighting beyond their strength. +Their gaunt arms whirl madly above me, and the ground rocks with their +throbbing. Dark figures flit to and fro, pausing from time to time to wipe the +black sweat from their faces. +</p> + +<p> +The pale light fades, and the flame-lit night lies red upon the land. The +flitting figures take strange shapes. I hear the hissing of wheels, the furious +clanking of iron chains, the hoarse shouting of many voices, the hurrying tread +of many feet; and, through all, the wailing and weeping and cursing that never +seem to cease. I drop into a restless sleep, and dream that I have broken a +chapel window, stone-throwing, and have died and gone to hell. +</p> + +<p> +At length, a cold hand is laid upon my shoulder, and I awake. The wild faces +have vanished and all is silent now, and I wonder if the whole thing has been a +dream. My father lifts me into the dog-cart, and we drive home through the +chill dawn. +</p> + +<p> +My mother opens the door softly as we alight. She does not speak, only looks +her question. “It’s all over, Maggie,” answers my father very quietly, as he +takes off his coat and lays it across a chair; “we’ve got to begin the world +afresh.” +</p> + +<p> +My mother’s arms steal up about his neck; and I, feeling heavy with a trouble I +do not understand, creep off to bed. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>THE LEASE OF THE “CROSS KEYS.”</h2> + +<p> +This story is about a shop: many stories are. One Sunday evening this Bishop +had to preach a sermon at St. Paul’s Cathedral. The occasion was a very special +and important one, and every God-fearing newspaper in the kingdom sent its own +special representative to report the proceedings. +</p> + +<p> +Now, of the three reporters thus commissioned, one was a man of appearance so +eminently respectable that no one would have thought of taking him for a +journalist. People used to put him down for a County Councillor or an +Archdeacon at the very least. As a matter of fact, however, he was a sinful +man, with a passion for gin. He lived at Bow, and, on the Sabbath in question, +he left his home at five o’clock in the afternoon, and started to walk to the +scene of his labours. The road from Bow to the City on a wet and chilly Sunday +evening is a cheerless one; who can blame him if on his way he stopped once or +twice to comfort himself with “two” of his favourite beverage? On reaching St. +Paul’s he found he had twenty minutes to spare—just time enough for one final +“nip.” Half way down a narrow court leading out of the Churchyard he found a +quiet little hostelry, and, entering the private bar, whispered insinuatingly +across the counter: +</p> + +<p> +“Two of gin hot, if you please, my dear.” +</p> + +<p> +His voice had the self-satisfied meekness of the successful ecclesiastic, his +bearing suggested rectitude tempered by desire to avoid observation. The +barmaid, impressed by his manner and appearance, drew the attention of the +landlord to him. The landlord covertly took stock of so much of him as could be +seen between his buttoned-up coat and his drawn-down hat, and wondered how so +bland and innocent-looking a gentleman came to know of gin. +</p> + +<p> +A landlord’s duty, however, is not to wonder, but to serve. The gin was given +to the man, and the man drank it. He liked it. It was good gin: he was a +connoisseur, and he knew. Indeed, so good did it seem to him that he felt it +would be a waste of opportunity not to have another twopen’orth. Therefore he +had a second “go”; maybe a third. Then he returned to the Cathedral, and sat +himself down with his notebook on his knee and waited. +</p> + +<p> +As the service proceeded there stole over him that spirit of indifference to +all earthly surroundings that religion and drink are alone able to bestow. He +heard the good Bishop’s text and wrote it down. Then he heard the Bishop’s +“sixthly and lastly,” and took that down, and looked at his notebook and +wondered in a peaceful way what had become of the “firstly” to “fifthly” +inclusive. He sat there wondering until the people round him began to get up +and move away, whereupon it struck him swiftly and suddenly that be had been +asleep, and had thereby escaped the main body of the discourse. +</p> + +<p> +What on earth was he to do? He was representing one of the leading religious +papers. A full report of the sermon was wanted that very night. Seizing the +robe of a passing wandsman, he tremulously inquired if the Bishop had yet left +the Cathedral. The wandsman answered that he had not, but that he was just on +the point of doing so. +</p> + +<p> +“I must see him before he goes!” exclaimed the reporter, excitedly. +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t,” replied the wandsman. The journalist grew frantic. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell him,” he cried, “a penitent sinner desires to speak with him about the +sermon he has just delivered. To-morrow it will be too late.” +</p> + +<p> +The wandsman was touched; so was the Bishop. He said he would see the poor +fellow. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as the door was shut the man, with tears in his eyes, told the Bishop +the truth—leaving out the gin. He said that he was a poor man, and not in good +health, that he had been up half the night before, and had walked all the way +from Bow that evening. He dwelt on the disastrous results to himself and his +family should he fail to obtain a report of the sermon. The Bishop felt sorry +for the man. Also, he was anxious that his sermon should be reported. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I trust it will be a warning to you against going to sleep in church,” +he said, with an indulgent smile. “Luckily, I have brought my notes with me, +and if you will promise to be very careful of them, and to bring them back to +me the first thing in the morning, I will lend them to you.” +</p> + +<p> +With this, the Bishop opened and handed to the man a neat little black leather +bag, inside which lay a neat little roll of manuscript. +</p> + +<p> +“Better take the bag to keep it in,” added the Bishop. “Be sure and let me have +them both back early to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +The reporter, when he examined the contents of the bag under a lamp in the +Cathedral vestibule, could hardly believe his good fortune. The careful +Bishop’s notes were so full and clear that for all practical purposes they were +equal to a report. His work was already done. He felt so pleased with himself +that he determined to treat himself to another “two” of gin, and, with this +intent, made his way across to the little “public” before-mentioned. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s really excellent gin you sell here,” he said to the barmaid when he had +finished; “I think, my dear, I’ll have just one more.” +</p> + +<p> +At eleven the landlord gently but firmly insisted on his leaving, and he went, +assisted, as far as the end of the court, by the potboy. After he was gone, the +landlord noticed a neat little black bag on the seat where he had been lying. +Examining it closely, he discovered a brass plate between the handles, and upon +the brass plate were engraved the owner’s name and title. Opening the bag, the +landlord saw a neat little roll of manuscript, and across a corner of the +manuscript was written the Bishop’s name and address. +</p> + +<p> +The landlord blew a long, low whistle, and stood with his round eyes wide open +gazing down at the open bag. Then he put on his hat and coat, and taking the +bag, went out down the court, chuckling hugely as he walked. He went straight +to the house of the Resident Canon and rang the bell. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell Mr. ---,” he said to the servant, “that I must see him to-night. I +wouldn’t disturb him at this late hour if it wasn’t something very important.” +</p> + +<p> +The landlord was ushered up. Closing the door softly behind him, he coughed +deferentially. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Mr. Peters” (I will call him “Peters”), said the Canon, “what is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, sir,” said Mr. Peters, slowly and deliberately, “it’s about that there +lease o’ mine. I do hope you gentlemen will see your way to makin’ it +twenty-one year instead o’ fourteen.” +</p> + +<p> +“God bless the man!” cried the Canon, jumping up indignantly, “you don’t mean +to say you’ve come to me at eleven o’clock on a Sunday night to talk about your +lease?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, not entirely, sir,” answered Peters, unabashed; “there’s another little +thing I wished to speak to you about, and that’s this”—saying which, he laid +the Bishop’s bag before the Canon and told his story. +</p> + +<p> +The Canon looked at Mr. Peters, and Mr. Peters looked at the Canon. +</p> + +<p> +“There must be some mistake,” said the Canon. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s no mistake,” said the landlord. “I had my suspicions when I first +clapped eyes on him. I seed he wasn’t our usual sort, and I seed how he tried +to hide his face. If he weren’t the Bishop, then I don’t know a Bishop when I +sees one, that’s all. Besides, there’s his bag, and there’s his sermon.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Peters folded his arms and waited. The Canon pondered. Such things had been +known to happen before in Church history. Why not again? +</p> + +<p> +“Does any one know of this besides yourself?” asked the Canon. +</p> + +<p> +“Not a livin’ soul,” replied Mr. Peters, “as yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think—I think, Mr. Peters,” said the Canon, “that we may be able to extend +your lease to twenty-one years.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you kindly, sir,” said the landlord, and departed. Next morning the +Canon waited on the Bishop and laid the bag before him. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said the Bishop cheerfully, “he’s sent it back by you, has he?” +</p> + +<p> +“He has, sir,” replied the Canon; “and thankful I am that it was to me he +brought it. It is right,” continued the Canon, “that I should inform your +lordship that I am aware of the circumstances under which it left your hands.” +</p> + +<p> +The Canon’s eye was severe, and the Bishop laughed uneasily. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose it wasn’t quite the thing for me to do,” he answered apologetically; +“but there, all’s well that ends well,” and the Bishop laughed. +</p> + +<p> +This stung the Canon. “Oh, sir,” he exclaimed, with a burst of fervour, “in +Heaven’s name—for the sake of our Church, let me entreat—let me pray you never +to let such a thing occur again.” +</p> + +<p> +The Bishop turned upon him angrily. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, what a fuss you make about a little thing!” he cried; then, seeing the +look of agony upon the other’s face, he paused. +</p> + +<p> +“How did you get that bag?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“The landlord of the Cross Keys brought it me,” answered the Canon; “you left +it there last night.” +</p> + +<p> +The Bishop gave a gasp, and sat down heavily. When he recovered his breath, he +told the Canon the real history of the case; and the Canon is still trying to +believe it. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOHN INGERFIELD AND OTHER STORIES ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. 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