ENGLISH 
 
THE 
 
 GREAT MODERN 
 ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 AN ANTHOLOGY 
 
 COMPILED AND EDITED 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD J. O'BRIEN 
 
 NEW YORK 
 BONI AND LIVERIGHT 
 

 
 Copyright, 1919, 
 By Boni & Liveright, Inc. 
 
 Printed in the U. S. A. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGB 
 
 INTRODUCTION Edward J. O'Brien v 
 
 THE THREE STRANGERS Thomas Hardy i 
 
 A LODGiNjGLEOR THE NIGHT .... Robert Louis Stevenson ^ 26 
 
 THE STAR-CHILD Oscar Wilde 47 
 
 THE DYING OF FRANCIS DONNE. .. .Ernest Dowson 64 
 
 To NANCY Sir Frederick Wedmore 75 
 
 AN EMPTY FRAME George Egerton 88 
 
 THE THREE MUSKETEERS Rudyard Kipling / 93 **- 
 
 WEE WILLIE WINKIE Rudyard Kipling ^ 99 
 
 How GAVIN BIRSE PUT IT TO MAG LOWNIE. 
 
 Sir J. M. Barrie in - - 
 
 THE FISHER OF MEN Fiona Macleod 117 
 
 QUATTROCENTISTERIA Maurice Hewlett 126 
 
 THE STOLEN BACILLUS H. G. Wells 144 
 
 OLD AESON Sir Arthur T. Quitter-Couch 152 
 
 THE FIRE OF PROMETHEUS Henry W. Nevimon 157 
 
 THE MAN WHO PLAYED UPON THE LEAF 
 
 Algernon Blackwood 176 
 
 AN OJ.D THORN W. H. Hudson 196 
 
 THE FOURTH MAGUS R. B. Cunninghame Graham 214 
 
 THE GHOST SHIP Richard Middleton . 225 
 
 BUSINESS is BUSINESS John Trevena 236 
 
 THE, CHINK AND THE CHILD.-. Thomas Burke 250 
 
 MONSIEUR FELICITE Hugh Walpole 263 
 
 RED AND WHITE Roland Pertwee 278 
 
 MAN AND BRUTE E. L. Grant Watson 296 
 
 " Tr ^ LOST SUBURB /. D. Beresford 309 
 
 THE EIRTH OF AN ARTIST. .. .Hugh de Selincourt 322 
 
 A SICK COLLIER Z>. H. Lawrence 332 
 
 / GREATER THAN LOVE Caradoc Evans 340^: 
 
 BIRTH Gilbert Cannan 346 
 
 BIOGRAPHIES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 355 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 While it is true that the short story as a literary form is 
 almost the youngest child of the writing art, it is interesting 
 to realise that the germ of the modern short story may be 
 found in the earliest literatures, and that the human craving 
 for an interesting short tale is as old as the history of the 
 race. The short story, as we know it to-day, is a highly 
 developed and most sophisticated form, but its tradition 
 extends backward through many literatures to old Eastern 
 tales. Even in English literature, it is hardly stretching a 
 point to claim that Chaucer was the first great English short 
 story writer, and if we examine the English literary heritage, 
 going backward from century to century, we shall see that 
 the tradition of tale telling is, on the whole, continuous, 
 though for the most part the tale is told for its own sake, 
 and not for the sake of characterisation or the dramatic 
 presentation of forces in conflict. 
 
 But the modern short story in its more rudimentary form 
 does not extend much further back in English literature than 
 Defoe, and as such it is more or less the contemporary of 
 the English novel. Defoe's narrative of the Strange Appa- 
 rition to Mrs. Veal is probably the first conscious effort to 
 write a modern short story in English. And for some time 
 to come it was the last. There were brief narratives and 
 allegories to be sure, such as Addison's Vision of Mirzah, 
 which approaches the short story form more nearly than 
 that of the essay, and there were occasional episodes in 
 novels, which had a narrative unity and could be detached 
 without injury from their setting, such as The Tale of the 
 Old Man of the Hill in Fielding's Tom Jones. But these 
 were only short stories by accident, and it does not seem to 
 have occurred to English writers of fiction that the short 
 
vi INTRODUCTION 
 
 story was a literary form susceptible of elaborate develop- 
 ment until nearly a century had passed. 
 
 Its discovery as a popular literary form probably dates 
 from the beginnings of the Scottish literary circle. We 
 find the short story already shaping itself into absorbing 
 narrative with Scott, Hogg, and many of the writers for 
 Blackwood's Magazine, and the tradition these men inaugu- 
 rated lingered on well into the nineteenth' century as an 
 important aspect of Scottish letters, notably in such a 
 masterpiece as Rab and His Friends by Dr. John Brown. 
 Scott was mindful of Fielding, and his best short story, 
 Wandering Willie's Tale, as most readers will recall, was 
 introduced as an episode into a long novel, as a resting 
 point for the reader's attention. 
 
 Thackeray also introduced a short story which satisfies 
 all the essential requirements of the literary form in 
 Barry Lyndon, while Dickens, whose incessant and de- 
 lighted curiosity about the human race created countless 
 characters, found that many of them could, be presented 
 most directly and happily in short narratives, which be- 
 came more and more like the modern short story that we 
 know. 
 
 There was an intermediate period of competent work by 
 many lesser men, but not much can be said for its perma- 
 nent literary quality. The development of the short story 
 had passed into the hands of craftsmen in other countries. 
 Poe and de Maupassant in America and France had fixed its 
 form, and they were the true pioneers who eventually shaped 
 the main outlines of the English and American short stor> 
 as we find it to-day. But their influence was not sharph 
 felt at first in England, and the decay of the English shor; 
 story was comparable in kind, if not in degree, with the 
 decay of the English drama during the same period. 
 
 Three Englishmen may fairly claim to have rescued i;: 
 from its parlous state. All three were novelists first, an., 
 short story writers only in a secondary sense from their 
 point of view, but each contributed something dynamic to 
 the art, and it is with the period which they represented :o 
 adequately, that I have thought it best to begin this r * 
 
INTRODUCTION vii 
 
 lection of stories. The earlier stories can readily be found 
 in many collections, and are for the most part extremely 
 well known. My object here is to present an adequate 
 cross-section of the best work that has been done since 
 George Meredith, Thomas Hardy, and Robert Louis Steven- 
 son inaugurated the present era in the English short story. 
 
 George Meredith's five short stories are each as long as the 
 average novelette, and accordingly he is not represented in 
 this collection, but they have the unity of the true short 
 story, and in them there is a keen preoccupation with the 
 subtleties of characterisation which was hitherto uncommon 
 in the English, as opposed to the American, short story. 
 I suppose his masterpiece in this genre is The Tale of Ckloe, 
 a delicately woven study of place, idyllic in its portraiture, 
 whose outward frailty conceals vigorous delineation and a 
 poignancy deftly rendered by suggestion. 
 
 Thomas Hardy brought to the short story a tragic irony 
 in sharp contrast to the comic irony of Meredith. His 
 method is relentless, and by economy of background, with 
 spare strokes and broad outlines, he conveys a pressing 
 sense of destiny brooding over man and his works and 
 guiding them into inevitable courses. The best of his 
 short stories are to be found in Wessex Tales and A Group 
 of Noble Dames, and I have chosen as typically representa- 
 tive of his excellences The Three Strangers, the story which 
 in my opinion is destined to live longest by reason of its 
 classical structure, vivid contrasts, complete realisation of 
 background, and sharp dramatic portraiture. 
 
 Robert Louis Stevenson brought romance back to the 
 short story, and reminded English writers that a good story 
 was worth telling purely for its own sake. He gave the 
 English short story buoyancy and glad directness, seeking 
 and finding the essential magic of words and pictures. 
 These qualities are well illustrated in A Lodging for the 
 Night, in which the essence of a period is captured and 
 rendered in fine nervous rhythms. He was not preoccupied 
 with theses, and was content to stand or fall as a story- 
 teller, but his preoccupation with style was unceasing, and 
 he cared enough about style to adjust his medium unfalter- 
 
viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 ingly to the substance which it was to shadow, while always 
 avoiding preciosity. 
 
 Meredith, Hardy, and Stevenson, therefore, revived the 
 literary tradition of the short story, and at the same time 
 they humanised it. It is true, of course, that many of the 
 men who followed them used it as a tapestry on which to 
 embroider stiff patterns, and the English fin de siecle move- 
 ment offers many examples of what they accomplished in 
 this way with careful craftsmanship and discreet elimination 
 of all human elements. But we are scarcely concerned with 
 these men here. They are interesting to the student of 
 literature and of literary forms, but they did not affect per- 
 manently the course of the short story art. 
 
 Three men who were notably representative of their age 
 have left more or less enduring short stories behind them, 
 and they are represented in this collection. Oscar Wilde in 
 the bst of his fairy tales attained a conscious simplicity 
 which is based upon very subtle and sophisticated conven- 
 tions. I have chosen The Star-Child as an adequate exam- 
 ple of this patterned and exquisite prose. Swinburne and 
 Morris, among others, had written stories in the same tra- 
 dition, but I consider Wilde the more representative, inas- 
 much as in his stories two periods meet faultlessly in a mo- 
 ment of perfect transition. Ernest Dowson and Frederick 
 Wedmore are less known as story-tellers, but quite as 
 significant, not only because of their influence, but on 
 account of the very individual quality of their work. While 
 it is true that these men are typical embodiments of the 
 spirit of their time, each had a personal vision, each devel- 
 oped an individual style, and each handed on a tradition 
 of form which has not been lost upon later men. Dowson's 
 mood was one of meticulous introspection, and life as he 
 sees it is reflected through the lens of an individual tem- 
 perament with much aloofness and natural aesthetic fas- 
 tidiousness. In reading The Dying of Francis Donne, which 
 I have chosen because it focuses better than his other stories 
 his special vision of life, you will observe that it is essen- 
 tially the work of a bookish man who loved old English 
 prose, but whose craving for sensations engendered a unique 
 
INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 hypersesthesia. This story is a remarkable contribution to 
 the literature of sensibility, and pulses with a rhythm which 
 follows with great precision the slightest nervous channel of 
 his thought. 
 
 Wedmore also was careful to find the mot juste, but his 
 fabric is most often less pliable than that of Dowson, and 
 perhaps the one story from his pen which will live in Eng- 
 lish literature is his delicate idyl To Nancy, which I have 
 reprinted for its studied simplicity. Few stories have ren- 
 dered more poignantly a common emotion, while preserving 
 such reticence. The form which Wedmore adopts is one of 
 the most difficult short story forms to handle, yet there is 
 an ease and clarity about his portrait which is genuinely 
 memorable. There were other men and women at this time 
 whose work was notable, though less representative. Such 
 were Hubert Crackanthorpe, whose untimely end put a sud- 
 den termination to a most promising talent, and George 
 Egerton, represented here with some adequacy by An 
 Empty Frame. I believe that a new edition of Hubert 
 Crackanthorpe would be a fine public service, but his par- 
 ticular medium sets him apart somewhat from the scope of 
 the present collection. 
 
 So far the English short story was a vehicle for literary 
 craftsmen whose chief medium was the novel or poetry, but 
 not quite thirty years ago a young man came out of India 
 who was destined not only to revolutionize the form of the 
 short story, but to make it one of the most popular forms 
 of literary expression. Rudyard Kipling had been contrib- 
 uting short sketches of Indian life to obscure Indian news- 
 papers for some years before his work appeared in England, 
 and many of these sketches had been gathered into small 
 volumes published locally. When they were first reprinted 
 in England, Mr. Kipling found himself famous over night. 
 Since the days of Byron, no English writer had achieved 
 such instantaneous success. It was immediately recognised 
 that a great new force had appeared in English letters. 
 Work such as this followed no tradition, but its sheer vitality 
 and brutal strength imposed itself upon the public, and 
 these Indian stories will always stand as the finest achieve- 
 
x INTRODUCTION 
 
 ment of English short story-telling. They brought back to 
 England a sense of alien strangeness, of great unknown 
 forces pulsating with a life of their own. They had colour, 
 terseness, and an acid portraiture hitherto unknown, yet 
 they were warm with familiar human qualities, and they 
 were the voice of a people in whom Mr. Kipling's readers 
 found their own tradition portrayed. In the years which 
 have followed these first English collections of his stories, 
 an extraordinary change has taken place in the quality of 
 the man's work. Year by year his technique conquered new 
 territories and led his audiences with him, until at present 
 no student of the short story can find a better model, but 
 with this technical development the old vitality slowly di- 
 minished. Form has supplanted substance, and in this 
 struggle of forces the artist has conquered the human genius 
 of the man. 
 
 The short story had now come to stay, and a countless 
 number of more or less capably endowed writers followed 
 Mr. Kipling's literary example, with varying degrees of 
 success. This period of expansion was coincident in devel- 
 opment with the founding of many new magazines, and 
 these magazines tended more and more to devote themselves 
 to fiction. The American magazine, as we know it to-day, 
 has also developed during the same period, and it was more 
 and more from American audiences that the short story 
 writer gained recognition and encouragement. At this point 
 the number of competent short story writers becomes so 
 great that little more can be attempted here than an indi- 
 cation of the main channels of expression into which the 
 new movement flowed, and the factors which influenced its 
 development into the literary form as it is practised to-day. 
 
 Coincident with the rise of Kipling was the growth of a 
 school of sentiment led by J. M. Barrie, whose Window in 
 Thrums and Auld Licht Idylls, to mention no other books, 
 won wide recognition for their delicate fancy and poignant 
 fidelity to experience. Reading them to-day, they show 
 traces of impermanence. The page is a little faded, but the 
 human emotion still rings true for the most part, and Bar- 
 rie's sureness of touch kept pace with his own development. 
 
INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 In contrast to his idealisation we also had the grey realism 
 of Gissing, who was primarily a novelist, but whose shorter 
 studies are faithful pictures of the life he knew, though seen 
 through the lens of an unhappy temperament; and the 
 sharply etched little pictures of Arthur Morrison, whose 
 Tales of Mean Streets is one of the minor classics of the 
 English short story. 
 
 In sharp contrast to the work of Kipling and that of the 
 young realists was the poetic vision of the sea and its 
 sailors brought home to England by a young Pole who had 
 sailed on many seas in English ships, and found himself the 
 adopted son of an alien country whose welcome made Eng- 
 land home. For the best part of a generation, Joseph 
 Conrad has woven his wonderful tapestry of mystery and 
 smouldering flame in many novels and short stories, prov- 
 ing his right to a place in the great English line by sympa- 
 thetic inheritance. His work has that quality of strange- 
 ness in beauty found in the finest poetry, and his projection 
 of the human mind and heart into distant outlands isolates 
 what is significant in man's soul from the temporary and 
 shifting patterns of cities and settled civilisations. His 
 imagination is essentially a lonely one, though his sympathy 
 with the human pageant is none the less keen and beautiful. 
 Such men as Conrad and Synge who drift across the modern 
 civilisations with eyes looking inward and contemplating 
 spiritual embers have been the best interpreters of their 
 time, and though Conrad was late in dining at life's banquet, 
 the experience which he has to share with us is the richer 
 on that account. 
 
 The literary artificers were meanwhile maintaining their 
 own short story tradition. I do not think that the reader 
 will soon forget the faultless art of Maurice Hewlett in his 
 best short stories, in which he recreates with studied fas- 
 tidiousness vanished periods of romance, or pictures with 
 sympathy the Italy which he loves. Such stories as Quat- 
 trocentisteria and The Madonna of the Peach-tree are mas- 
 terpieces of their kind. But Mr. Hewlett's range is a nar- 
 row one and has not founded a tradition of its own. 
 
 Almost contemporary with Conrad and Hewlett are the 
 
Xll 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 very different talents of John Galsworthy and H. G. Wells. 
 The quality which makes Mr. Galsworthy's stories note- 
 worthy is their mellow flavour of an assimilated past. They 
 are quintessential England with all the refinements of slow 
 centuries of growth and decay, its richness of inheritance 
 and studied art of existence, its feeling for tradition and 
 love of familiar things and homely human ways. It is an 
 aristocratic art, and depends on many subtle little valua- 
 tions, recognising the value of choice and careful decisions 
 in daily life, and the embodiment of a very definite ideal 
 But linked to this is Mr. Galsworthy's passion for social 
 justice, and a feeling of identification with the humble akin 
 to Dostoievsky. He is the most charitable of English story 
 
 H G Wells also has a passion for social justice, but it is 
 an intellectual passion indulged for its own sake, and essen- 
 tially a passion for ideas. You will find it reflected in most 
 of the novels in his later manner, but as a short story writer 
 he reflects a quite different aspect of his mind, 
 of his stories are wild intuitive flights into the unknown, 
 often anticipating science by the daring candour of their reso- 
 lution and pervaded with a freakish and quite infectious 
 humour. Often they represent excursions into other planets 
 or conditions of existence, but their verisimilitude is in- 
 variably perfect, and the worlds of fancy which Mr. Wells 
 has created impress the reader as very liveable places. Mr 
 Wells is usually more preoccupied with dynamic forces than 
 with subtle personalities, but there is a wistful poetry of 
 human realisation about certain of his stories, which makes 
 us regret that his preoccupation with other themes has di- 
 verted him from imaginative as distinguished from *anc 
 or critical work. 
 
 Of the craftsmen who continued in the last years of 
 nineteenth century and the early years of the present cen- 
 tury the tradition of story telling inaugurated by Robert 
 Louis Stevenson, Sir Arthur T. Quiller-Couch (' Q ) has 
 achieved the most distinguished work. Cornwall is his na- 
 tive heath, but any adventure will find him ready as a 
 boon companion, and the long series of tales and short 
 
INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 stories which he has given us during the past quarter of a 
 century always have a keen tang of life about them. 
 
 A younger tradition, but one which bids fair to become 
 one of the most vital, is to be found in the poetic animism 
 of Henry W. Nevinson, Algernon Blackwood, and W. H. 
 Hudson. No one of these men is primarily a short story 
 writer. Mr. Nevinson's stories are interludes in the life of 
 a busy publicist and war correspondent, and are not widely 
 known. But I believe that they will eventually find their 
 public. They have a quality of romantic nostalgia, in their 
 return to the old lost Greek life of the spirit, to which the 
 modern mind tends more and more to respond, and I think 
 that they recapture much of the forgotten fragrance of the 
 Hellenic feeling for nature with its essential severity of 
 classical form. 
 
 Algernon Blackwood also reflects the nostalgic regret for 
 the gods that have passed, but with a more presently vivid 
 realisation of their continued existence in the hearts of their 
 few remaining worshippers, and phrases it more perfectly 
 than any other contemporary, save possibly the fine poet 
 who contents herself with the signature of "H. D." Black- 
 wood's love for the vanished earth-life and the Mighty 
 Mother has been expressed in many books with unflagging 
 art, and his reading of earth always rings true. Few men 
 have endowed nature with a more human personality, or 
 been able to project their dreams and desires so successfully 
 into channels of self-expression as this serene Pagan bereft 
 of literary followers. 
 
 W. H. Hudson has been equally responsive to the great 
 earth life, and his classic style with its rare colouring and 
 flexibility probably ensures him a final permanence in his 
 best work which is denied to Nevinson and Blackwood. 
 His short stories are few in number, but unforgettable. The 
 moral pointed by the work of these three fine artists is the 
 possibility of fulfilment offered by complete surrender to 
 the priesthood of beauty, and their preoccupation with the 
 vision they have seen has produced a fine literary flowering. 
 
 It is difficult to classify the work of R. B. Cunninghame 
 Graham. He has been a soldier of fortune in many fields 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 and many lands, and has assimilated many rich impressions 
 of men and places. His imagination is essentially pictorial, 
 and his selective art, though its range is narrow, has por- 
 trayed many of the pictures he has seen with finished ease. 
 The short sketches which he has gathered into many volumes, 
 still very little known in America, are often essays and pen 
 portraits rather than short stories, but there is a single qual- 
 ity of vision in them all which reflects the art of a short 
 story artist. He is the master of a fine morhlated prose, 
 rather severely patterned, which harks back rhythmically to 
 the older traditions of English speech, but his outlook is 
 essentially modern. 
 
 Of the late Richard Middleton, we may say that his spe- 
 cial short story talent has little affinity to any of his con- 
 temporaries, but there is a quality of style in his prose which 
 often suggests that of Cunninghame Graham, and accord- 
 ingly I group them together. He has a wistful irony, how- 
 ever, which is all his own, and I think Stevenson would have 
 enjoyed immensely the special quality of his humour. He 
 has an impish way^ of bringing beautiful dreamlands into 
 a remarkably close and paradoxical foreground, while main- 
 taining their subdued light and mystery. 
 
 When we come to the younger short story writers of 
 England, who are in the full flower of their talent, criticism 
 seems invidious, and selection more so. But I have endeav- 
 oured to have my selection reflect something more than a 
 personal preference, and the writers represented in this an- 
 thology include, I think, a fair cross section of the best 
 that is now being done. The fine regional stories of John 
 Trevena, redolent of the soil and its folk, the work of a 
 minor English master, who achieved one great book in Furze 
 the Cruel, and who is most undeservedly overshadowed by 
 the inferior work of that other Dartmoor storyteller of 
 talent, Mr. Eden Phillpotls; the colourful poetry of Thomas 
 Burke's studies of Limehouse nights in London, with their 
 plangent Chinese rhythms; the all too rare imaginative fan- 
 tasies of Hugh Walpole; the delicate studies in adolescence 
 of Roland Pertwee, which have something of Meredith's 
 poetic quality; the naked struggle of primitive forces in 
 
INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 Grant Watson's Australian stories; the subconscious dream- 
 quality of J. D. Beresford's studies in place; Hugh de Selin- 
 court's background of clean winds and golden airs in that 
 remarkable book, Nine Tales; D. H. Lawrence's sophisti- 
 cated pageantry of heat and colour and stripped passion; 
 Qilbert Cannan's stark renderings of provincial life with 
 his eye on the object; and the work of many another artist 
 come to mind. But I think that the short story writer of 
 most promise among them all, repellent as his themes for 
 the most part are, is Caradoc Evans, whose Biblical studies 
 of life among the peasantry of West Wales have an authority 
 of personal life and inevitable rhythmic style which is alto- 
 gether memorable. 
 
 It would be a rash critic who would indulge in prophecy. 
 This is the Elizabethan age of the English and American 
 short story, and as you will see, I have left the Irish short 
 story entirely out of account. To these young writers, one 
 and all, life is eager with its sense of discovery. They are 
 pressing forward into new uncharted continents every day, 
 and the future is still an undiscovered country. It is a land 
 where a wise critic will fear to tread, and so I draw aside 
 the curtain and pass out, my prologue spoken, leaving you 
 to criticise the play. 
 
 EDWARD J. O'BRIEN. 
 
 London, 
 
 January 31, 1919. 
 
THE GREAT MODERN 
 ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 THE THREE STRANGERS l 
 
 BY THOMAS HARDY 
 
 AMONG the few features of agricultural England 
 which retain an appearance but little modified by 
 the lapse of centuries, may be reckoned the high, 
 grassy, and furzy downs, coombs, or ewe-leases, as they 
 are indifferently called, that fill a large area of certain coun- 
 ties in the south and south-west. If any mark of human 
 occupation is met with hereon it usually takes the form 
 of the solitary cottage of some shepherd. 
 
 Fifty years ago such a lonely cottage stood on such a 
 down, and may possibly be standing there now. In spite 
 of its loneliness, however, the spot, by actual measurement, 
 was not more than five miles from a county town. Yet, 
 what of that? Five miles of irregular upland, during the 
 long inimical seasons, with their sleets, snows, rains, and 
 mists, afford withdrawing space enough to isolate a Timon 
 or a Nebuchadnezzar; much less, in fair weather, to please 
 that less repellent tribe, the poets, philosophers, artists, 
 and others who "conceive and meditate of pleasant things." 
 
 Some old earthen camp or barrow, some clump of trees, 
 at least some starved fragment of ancient hedge, is usu- 
 ally taken advantage of in the erection of these forlorn 
 dwellings. But, in the present case, such a kind of shelter 
 
 1 From "Wessex Tales." By permission of Harper and Broth- 
 ers. 
 
 I 
 
tHZ GREAT MODERN EN GUSH STORIES 
 
 been disregarded. Higher Crowstairs, as the house was " 
 called, stood ' quite detached and undefended. The only 
 reason for its precise situation seemed to be the crossing 
 of two footpaths at right angles hard by, which may have 
 crossed there and thus for a good five hundred years. The 
 house was thus exposed to the elements on all sides. But, 
 though the wind up here blew unmistakably when it did 
 blow, and the rain hit hard whenever it fell, the various 
 weathers of the winter season were not quite so formidable 
 on the coomb as they were imagined to be by dwellers on 
 low ground. The raw rimes were not so pernicious as in 
 the hollows, and the frosts were scarcely so severe. When 
 the shepherd and his family who tenanted the house were 
 pitied for their sufferings from the exposure, they said that 
 upon the whole they were less inconvenienced by "wuzzes 
 and flames" (hoarses and phlegms) than when they had 
 lived by the stream of a snug neighbouring valley. 
 
 The night of March 28, 182-, was precisely one of the 
 nights that were wont to call forth these expressions of 
 commiseration. The level rainstorm smote walls, slopes, 
 and hedges like the clothyard shafts of Senlac and Crecy. 
 Such sheep and outdoor animals as had no shelter stood 
 with their buttocks to the wind; while the tails of little 
 birds trying to roost on some scraggy thorn were blown 
 inside-out like umbrellas. The gable-end of the cottage 
 was stained with wet, and the eaves-droppings flapped 
 against the wall. Yet never was commiseration for the 
 shepherd more misplaced. For that cheerful rustic was 
 entertaining a large party in glorification of the christen- 
 ing of his second girl. 
 
 The guests had arrived before the rain began to fall, 
 and they were all now assembled in the chief or living- 
 room of the dwelling. A glance into the apartment at 
 eight o'clock on this eventful evening would have resulted 
 in the opinion that it was as cosy and comfortable a nook 
 as could be wished for in boisterous weather. The call- 
 ing of its inhabitant was proclaimed by a number of 
 highly-polished sheep-crooks without stems that were hung 
 ornamentally over the fireplace, the curl of each shining 
 
THE THREE STRANGERS 3 
 
 crook varying from the antiquated type engraved in the 
 patriarchal pictures of old family Bibles to the most ap- 
 proved fashion of the last local sheep-fair. The room 
 was lighted by half-a-dozen candles, having wicks only a 
 trifle smaller than the grease which enveloped them, in 
 candlesticks that were never used but at high-days, holy- 
 days, and family feasts. The lights were scattered about 
 the room, two of them standing on the chimney-piece. This 
 position of candles was in itself significant. Candles on 
 the chimney-piece always meant a party. 
 
 On the hearth, in front of a back-brand, to give sub- 
 stance, blazed a fire of thorns, that crackled "like the laugh- 
 ter of the fool." 
 
 Nineteen persons were gathered here. Of these, five 
 women, wearing gowns of various bright hues, sat in chairs 
 along the vail; girls shy and not shy filled the window- 
 bench; four men, including Charley Jake, the hedge- 
 carpenter, Elijah New, the parish-clerk, and John Pitcher, 
 a neighbouring dairyman, the shepherd's father-in-law, 
 lolled in the settle; a young man and maid, who were 
 blushing over tentative pourparlers on a life-companion- 
 ship, sat beneath the corner-cupboard; and an elderly en- 
 gaged man of fifty or upward moved restlessly about from 
 spots where his betrothed was not to the spot where she 
 was. Enjoyment was pretty general, and so much the 
 more prevailed in being unhampered by conventional re- 
 strictions. Absolute confidence in each other's good 
 opinion begat perfect ease, while the finishing stroke of 
 manner, amounting to a truly princely serenity, was lent 
 to the majority by the absence of any expression or trait 
 denoting that they wished to get on in the world, enlarge 
 their minds, or do any eclipsing thing whatever which 
 nowadays so generally nips the bloom and bonhomie of all 
 except the two extremes of the social scale. 
 
 Shepherd Fennel had married well, his wife being 
 a dairyman's daughter from the valley below, who brought 
 fifty guineas in her pocket and kept them there, till they 
 should be required for ministering to the needs of a com- 
 ing family. This frugal woman had been somewhat exer- 
 
4 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 cised as to the character that should be given to the gath- 
 ering. A sit-still party had its advantages; but an undis- 
 turbed position of ease in chairs and settles was apt to 
 lead on the men to such an unconscionable deal of toping 
 that they would sometimes fairly drink the house dry. A 
 dancing-party was the alternative; but this, while avoid- 
 ing the foregoing objection on the score of good drink, 
 had a counterbalancing disadvantage in the matter of 
 good victuals, the ravenous appetites engendered by the 
 exercise causing immense havoc in the buttery. Shep- 
 herdess Fennel fell back upon the intermediate plan of 
 mingling short dances with short periods of talk and sing- 
 ing, so as to hinder any ungovernable rage in either. But 
 this scheme was entirely confined to her own gentle mind: 
 the shepherd himself was in the mood to exhibit the most 
 reckless phases of hospitality. 
 
 The fiddler was a boy of those parts, about twelve years 
 of age, who had a wonderful dexterity in jigs and reels, 
 though his fingers were so small and short as to necessitate 
 a constant shifting for the high notes, from which he scram- 
 bled back to the first position with sounds not of unmixed 
 purity of tone. At seven the shrill tweedle-dee of this 
 youngster had begun, accompanied by a booming ground- 
 bass from Elijah New, the parish-clerk, who had thought- 
 fully brought with him his favourite musical instrument, 
 the serpent. Dancing was instantaneous, Mrs. Fennel pri- 
 vately enjoining the players on no account to let the dance 
 exceed the length of a quarter of an hour. 
 
 But Elijah and the boy, in the excitement of their po- 
 sition, quite forgot the injunction. Moreover, Oliver Giles, 
 a man of seventeen, one of the dancers, who was enamoured 
 of his partner, a fair girl of thirty-three rolling years, 
 had recklessly handed a new crown-piece to the musicians, 
 as a bribe to keep going as long as they had muscle and 
 wind. Mrs. Fennel, seeing the steam begin to generate 
 on the countenances of her guests, crossed over and touched 
 the fiddler's elbow and put her hand on the serpent's mouth. 
 But they took no notice, and fearing she might lose her 
 character of genial hostess if she were to interfere too mark- 
 
THE THREE STRANGERS 5 
 
 edly, she retired and sat down, helpless. And so the dance 
 whizzed on with cumulative fury, the performers moving 
 in their planet-like courses, direct and retrograde, from 
 apogee to perigee, till the hand of the well-kicked clock at 
 the bottom of the room had travelled over the circum- 
 ference of an hour. 
 
 While these cheerful events were in course of enactment 
 within Fennel's pastoral dwelling, an incident having con- 
 siderable bearing on the party had occurred in the gloomy 
 night without. Mrs. Fennel's concern about the grow- 
 ing fierceness of the dance corresponded in point of time 
 with the ascent of a human figure to the solitary hill of 
 Higher Crowstairs from the direction of the distant town. 
 This personage strode on through the rain without a 
 pause, following the little-worn path which, further on in 
 its course, skirted the shepherd's cottage. 
 
 It was nearly the time of full moon, and on this account, 
 though the sky was lined with a uniform sheet of drip- 
 ping cloud, ordinary objects out of doors were readily 
 visible. The sad wan light revealed the lonely pedestrian 
 to be a man of supple frame; his gait suggested that he 
 had somewhat passed the period of perfect and instinctive 
 agility, though not so far as to be otherwise than rapid 
 of motion when occasion required. In point of fact, he 
 might have been about forty years of age. He appeared 
 tall, but a recruiting sergeant, or other person accustomed 
 to the judging of men's heights by the eye, would have 
 discerned that this was chiefly owing to his gauntness, and 
 that he was not more than five feet eight or nine. 
 
 Notwithstanding the regularity of his tread, there was 
 caution in it, as in that of one who mentally feels his 
 way; and despite the fact that it was not a black coat nor 
 a dark garment of any sort that he wore, there was some- 
 thing about him which suggested that he naturally belonged 
 to the black-coated tribes of men. His clothes were of 
 fustian, and his boots hobnailed, yet in his progress he 
 showed not the mud-accustomed bearing of hobnailed and 
 fustianed peasantry. 
 
 By the time that he had arrived abreast of the shep- 
 
6 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 herd's premises the rain came down, or rather came along, 
 with yet more determined violence. The outskirts of the 
 little homestead partially broke the force of wind and 
 rain, and this induced him to stand still. The most salient 
 of the shepherd's domestic erections was an empty sty 
 at the forward corner of his hedgeless garden, for in these 
 latitudes the principle of masking the homelier features of 
 your establishment by a conventional frontage was unknown. 
 The traveller's eye was attracted to this small building 
 by the pallid shine of the wet slates that covered it. He 
 turned aside, and, finding it empty, stood under the pent- 
 roof for shelter. 
 
 While he stood, the boom of the serpent within, and 
 the lesser strains of the fiddler, reached the spot as an 
 accompaniment to the surging hiss of the flying rain on 
 the sod, its louder beating on the cabbage-leaves of the 
 garden, on the eight or ten bee-hives just discernible by 
 the path, and its dripping from the eaves into a row of 
 buckets and pans that had been placed under the walls of 
 the cottage. For at Higher Crowstairs, as at all such ele- 
 vated domiciles, the grand difficulty of housekeeping was 
 an insufficiency of water; and a casual rainfall was utilised 
 by turning out, as catchers, every utensil that the house 
 contained. Some queer stories might be told of the con- 
 trivances for economy in suds and dish-waters that are 
 absolutely necessitated in upland habitations during the 
 droughts of summer. But at this season there were no 
 euch exigencies: a mere acceptance of what the skies be- 
 stowed was sufficient for an abundant store. 
 
 At last the notes of the serpent ceased and the house was 
 silent. This cessation of activity aroused the solitary pedes- 
 trian from the reverie into which he had lapsed, and, emerg- 
 ing from the shed, with an apparently new intention, he 
 walked up the path to the house-door. Arrived here, his 
 first act was to kneel down on a large stone beside the 
 row of vessels, and to drink a copious draught from one 
 of them. Having quenched his thirst, he rose and lifted 
 his hand to knock, but paused with his eye upon the panel. 
 Since the dark surface of the wood revealed absolutely 
 
THE THREE STRANGERS fr 
 
 nothing, it was evident that he must be mentally looking 
 through the door, as if he wished to measure thereby all 
 the possibilities that a house of this sort might include, 
 and how they might bear upon the question of his entry. 
 
 In his indecision he turned and surveyed the scene 
 around. Not a soul was anywhere visible. The garden- 
 path stretched downward from his feet, gleaming like the 
 track of a snail; the roof of the little well (mostly dry), 
 the well cover, the top rail of the garden-gate, were var- 
 nished with the same dull liquid glaze; while, far away in 
 the vale, a faint whiteness of more than usual extent showed 
 that the rivers were high in the meads. Beyond all this 
 winked a few bleared lamplights through the beating drops, 
 lights that denoted the situation of the country-town from 
 which he had appeared to come. The absence of all notes 
 of life in that direction seemed to clinch his intentions, 
 and he knocked at the door. 
 
 Within, a desultory chat had taken the place of move- 
 ment and musical sound. The hedge-carpenter was suggest- 
 ing a song to the company, which nobody just then was 
 inclined to undertake, so that the knock afforded a not 
 unwelcome diversion. 
 
 "Walk in!" said the shepherd promptly. 
 
 The latch clicked upward, and out of the night our pedes- 
 trian appeared upon the door-mat. The shepherd arose, 
 snuffed two of the nearest candles, and turned to look at 
 him. 
 
 Their light disclosed that the stranger was dark in com- 
 plexion, and not unprepossessing as to feature. His hat, 
 which for a moment he did not remove, hung low over his 
 eyes, without concealing that they were large, open, and 
 determined, moving with a flash rather than a glance round 
 the room. He seemed pleased with the survey, and, bar- 
 ing his shaggy head, said, in a rich deep voice, "The rain 
 is so heavy, friends, that I ask leave to come in and rest 
 awhile." 
 
 "To be sure, stranger/' said the shepherd. "And faith, 
 you've been lucky in choosing your time, for we are hav- 
 ing a bit of a fling for a glad cause though to be sure 
 
8 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 a man could hardly wish that glad cause to happen more 
 than once a year." 
 
 "Nor less," spoke up a woman. "For 'tis best to get your 
 family over and done with, as soon as you can, so as 
 to be all the earlier out of the fag o't." 
 
 "And what may be this glad cause?" asked the stranger. 
 
 "A birth and christening," said the shepherd. 
 
 The stranger hoped his host might not be made unhappy 
 either by too many or too few of such episodes, and be- 
 ing invited by a gesture to a pull at the mug, he readily 
 acquiesced. His manner, which before entering had been 
 so dubious, was now altogether that of a careless and 
 candid man. 
 
 "Late to be traipsing athwart this coomb hey?" said 
 the engaged man of fifty. 
 
 "Late it is, master, as you say. I'll take a seat in the 
 chimney-corner, if you have nothing to urge against it, 
 ma'am; for I am a little moist on the side that was next 
 the rain." 
 
 Mrs. Shepherd Fennel assented, and made room for the 
 self-invited comer, who, having got completely inside the 
 chimney-corner, stretched out his legs and his arms with 
 the expansiveness of a person quite at home. 
 
 "Yes, I am rather thin in the vamp/' he said freely, see- 
 ing that the eyes of the shepherd's wife fell upon his boots, 
 "and I am not well fitted, either. I have had some rough 
 times lately, and have been forced to pick up what I can 
 get in the way of wearing, but I must find a suit better 
 fit for working-days when I reach home." 
 
 "One of hereabouts?" she enquired. 
 
 "Not quite that further up the country." 
 
 "I thought so. And so am I; and by your tongue, you 
 come from my neighbourhood." 
 
 "But you would hardly have heard of me," he said 
 quickly. "My time would be long before yours, ma'am, you 
 see." 
 
 This testimony to the youthfulness of his hostess had the 
 effect of stopping her cross-examination. 
 
 "There is only one thing more wanted to make me 
 
THE THREE STRANGERS g 
 
 happy," continued the newcomer. "And that is a little 
 baccy, which I am sorry to say I am out of." 
 
 "I'll fill your pipe," said the shepherd. 
 
 "I must ask you to lend me a pipe likewise." 
 
 "A smoker, and no pipe about ye?" 
 
 "I have dropped it somewhere on the road." 
 
 The shepherd filled and handed him a new clay pipe, 
 saying, as he did so, "Hand me your baccy-box. I'll fill 
 that too, now I am about it." 
 
 The man went through the movement of searching his 
 pockets. 
 
 "Lost that too?" said his entertainer, with some sur- 
 prise. 
 
 "I am afraid so," said the man with some confusion. 
 "Give it to me in a screw of paper." Lighting his pipe at 
 the candle with a suction that drew the whole flame into 
 the bowl, he resettled himself in the corner and bent his 
 looks upon the faint steam from his damp legs, as if he 
 wished to say no more. 
 
 Meanwhile the general body of guests had been taking 
 little notice of this visitor by reason of an absorbing dis- 
 cussion in which they were engaged with the band about 
 a tune for the next dance. The matter being settled, they 
 were about to stand up, when an interruption c^me in the 
 shape of another knock at the door. 
 
 At sound of the same the man in the chimney-corner 
 took up the poker and began stirring the fire as if doing 
 it thoroughly were the one aim of his existence; and a 
 second time the shepherd said, "Walk in!" In a moment 
 another man stood upon the straw-woven door-mat. He 
 too was a stranger. 
 
 This individual was one of a type radically different 
 from the first. There was more of the commonplace in 
 his manner, and a certain jovial cosmopolitanism sat upon 
 his features. He was several years older than the first 
 arrival, his hair being slightly frosted, his eyebrows bristly, 
 and his whiskers cut back from his cheeks. His face was 
 rather full and flabby, and yet it was not altogether a face 
 without power. A few grog-blossoms marked the neigh- 
 
10 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 bourhood of his nose. He flung back his long drab great- 
 coat, revealing that beneath it he wore a suit of cinder- 
 grey shade throughout, large heavy seals, of some metal 
 or other that would take a polish, dangling from his fob 
 as his only personal ornament. Shaking the water-drops 
 from his low-crowned glazed hat, he said, "I must ask for 
 a few minutes' shelter, comrades, or I shall be wetted to 
 my skin before I get to Casterb ridge." 
 
 "Make yerself at home, master," said the shepherd, per- 
 haps a trifle less heartily than on the first occasion. Not 
 that Fennel had the least tinge of niggardliness in his com- 
 position; but the room was far from large, spare chairs 
 were not numerous, and damp companions were not alto- 
 gether comfortable at close quarters for the women and 
 girls in their bright-coloured gowns. 
 
 However, the second comer, after taking off his great- 
 coat, and hanging his hat on a nail in one of the ceiling- 
 beams as if he had been specially invited to put it there, 
 advanced and sat down at the table. This had been pushed 
 so closely into the chimney-corner, to give all available 
 room to the dancers, that its inner edge grazed the elbow 
 of the man who had ensconced himself by the fire; and 
 thus the two strangers were brought into close compan- 
 ionship. They nodded to each other by way of breaking 
 the ice of unacquaintance, and the first stranger handed 
 his neighbour the large mug a huge vessel of bro\vn ware, 
 having its upper edge worn away like a threshold by the 
 rub of whole genealogies of thirsty lips that had gone the 
 way of all flesh, and bearing the following inscription burnt 
 upon its rotund side in yellow letters: 
 
 "THERE is No FUN 
 UNTILL i CUM." 
 
 The other man, nothing loth, raised the mug to his lips, and 
 drank on, and on, and on till a curious blueness over- 
 spead the countenance of the shepherd's wife, who had re- 
 garded with no little surprise the first stranger's free offer 
 to the second of what did not belong to him to dispense. 
 
THE THREE STRANGERS n 
 
 "I knew it!" said the toper to the shepherd with much 
 satisfaction. "When I walked up your garden afore com- 
 ing in, and saw the hives all of a row, I said to myself, 
 'Where there's bees there's honey, and where there's honey 
 there's mead.' But mead of such a truly comfortable sort 
 as this I really didn't expect to meet in my older days." 
 He took yet another pull at the mug, till it assumed an 
 ominous horizontality. 
 
 "Glad you enjoy it!" said the shepherd warmly. 
 
 "It is goodish mead," assented Mrs. Fennel with an 
 absence of enthusiasm, which seemed to say that it was 
 possible to buy praise for one's cellar at too heavy a price. 
 "It is trouble enough to make and really I hardly think 
 we shall make any more. For honey sells well, arid we 
 can make shift with a drop o' small mead and metheglin 
 for common use from the comb-washings." 
 
 "Oh, but you'll never have the heart!" reproachfully 
 cried the stranger in cinder-grey, after taking up the mug 
 a third time and setting it down empty. "I love mead, when 
 'tis old like this, as I love to go to church o' Sundays, or 
 to relieve the needy any day of the week." 
 
 "Ha, ha, ha!" said the man in the chimney-corner, who, 
 in spite of the tactiturnity induced by the pipe of tobacco, 
 could not or would not refrain from this slight testimony 
 to his comrade's humour. 
 
 Now, the old mead of those days, brewed of the purest 
 first-year, or maiden honey, four pounds to the gallon 
 with its due complement of whites of eggs, cinnamon, ginger, 
 cloves, mace, rosemary, yeast and processes of working, 
 bottling, and cellaring tasted remarkably strong; but it 
 did not taste so strong as it actually was. Hence, pres- 
 ently, the stranger in cinder-grey at the table, moved by 
 its creeping influence, unbuttoned his waistcoat, threw him- 
 self back in his chair, spread his legs, and made his pres- 
 ence felt in various ways. 
 
 "Well, well, as I say," he resumed, "I am going to Cas- 
 terbridge, and to Casterbridge I must go. I should have 
 been almost there by this time; but the storm drove me 
 into ye; and I'm not sorry for it." 
 
12 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 "You don't live in Casterbridge?" said the shepherd. 
 
 "Not as yet; though I shortly mean to move there." 
 
 "Going to set up in trade, perhaps?" 
 
 "No, no," said the shepherd's wife. "It is easy to see 
 that the gentleman is rich, and don't want to work at any- 
 thing." 
 
 The cinder-grey stranger paused, as if to consider whether 
 he would accept that definition of himself. He presently 
 rejected it by answering, "Rich is not quite the word for 
 me, dame. I do work, and I must work. And even if I 
 only get to Casterbridge by midnight I must begin work 
 there at eight to-morrow morning. Yes, het or wet, blow 
 or snow, famine or sword, my day's work to-morrow must 
 be done." 
 
 "Poor man! Then, in spite o' seeming, you be worse 
 off than we?" replied the shepherd's wife. 
 
 " 'Tis the nature of my trade, men and maidens. 'Tis 
 the nature of my trade more than my poverty. . . . But 
 really and truly I must up and off, or I shan't get a lodging 
 in the town." However, the speaker did not move, and 
 directly added, "There's time for one more draught of 
 friendship before I go; and I'd perform it at once if the 
 mug were not dry." 
 
 "Here's a mug o' small," said Mrs. Fennel. "Small, we 
 call it, though to be sure 'tis only the first wash o' the 
 combs." 
 
 "No," said the stranger disdainfully. "I won't spoil your 
 first kindness by partaking o' your second." 
 
 "Certainly not," broke in Fennel. "We don't increase 
 and multiply every day, and I'll fill the mug again." He 
 went away to the dark place under the stairs where the 
 barrel stood. The shepherdess followed him. 
 
 "Why should you do this?" she said reproachfully, as 
 soon as they were alone. "He's emptied it once, though it 
 held enough for ten people; and now he's not contented 
 wi' the small, but must needs call for more o' the strong! 
 And a stranger unbeknown to any of us. For my part, I 
 don't like the look o' the man at all." 
 
 "But he's in the house, my honey, and 'tis a wet night, 
 
THE THREE STRANGERS 13 
 
 and a christening. Daze it, what's a cup of mead more or 
 less? there'll be plenty more next bee-burning." 
 
 "Very well this time, then," she answered, looking wist- 
 fully at the barrel. "But what is the man's calling, and 
 where is he one of, that he should come in and join us like 
 this?" 
 
 "I don't know. I'll ask him again." 
 
 The catastrophe of having the mug drained dry at one 
 pull by the stranger in cinder-grey was effectually guarded 
 against this time by Mcs. Fennel. She poured out his al- 
 lowance in a small cup, keeping the large one at a discreet 
 distance from him. When he had tossed off his portion the 
 shepherd renewed his inquiry about the stranger's occu- 
 pation. 
 
 The latter did not immediately reply, and the man in 
 the chimney-corner, with sudden demonstrativeness, said, 
 "Anybody may know my trade I'm a wheelwright." 
 
 "A very good trade for these parts," said the shepherd. 
 
 "And anybody may know mine if they've the sense to 
 find it out," said the stranger in cinder-grey. 
 
 "You may generally tell what a man is by his claws," 
 observed the hedge-carpenter, looking at his hands. "My 
 fingers be as full of thorns as an old pincushion is of 
 pins." 
 
 The hands of the man in the chimney-corner instinctively 
 sought the shade, and he gazed into the fire as he resumed 
 his pipe. The man at the table took up the hedge-carpen- 
 ter's remark, and added smartly, "True; but the oddity of 
 my trade is that, instead of setting a mark upon me, it sets 
 a mark upon my customers." 
 
 No observation being offered by anybody in elucidation 
 of this enigma, the shepherd's wife once more called for 
 a song. The same obstacles presented themselves as at 
 the former time one had no voice, another had forgotten 
 the first verse. The stranger at the table, whose soul had 
 now risen to a good working temperature, relieved the dif- 
 ficulty by exclaiming that, to start the company, he would 
 sing himself. Thrusting one thumb into the arm-hole of 
 his waistcoat, he waved the other hand in the air, and, 
 
14 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 with an extemporising gaze at the shining sheep-crooks 
 above the mantelpiece, began: 
 
 Oh my trade it is the rarest one, 
 
 Simple shepherds all 
 My trade is a sight to see; 
 
 For my customers I tie, and take them up on high, 
 And waft 'em to a far countree. 
 
 The room was silent when he had finished the verse with 
 one exception, that of the man in the chimney-corner, who, 
 at the singer's word, "Chorus!" joined him in a deep bass 
 voice of musical relish 
 
 And waft 'em to a far countree. 
 
 Oliver Giles, John Pitcher the dairyman, the parish-clerk, 
 the engaged man of fifty, the row of young women against 
 the wall, seemed lost in thought not of the gayest kind. 
 The shepherd looked meditatively on the ground, the shep- 
 herdess gazed keenly at the singer, and with some suspi- 
 cion; she was doubting whether this stranger were merely 
 singing an old song from recollection, or was composing 
 one there and then for the occasion. All were as per- 
 plexed at the obscure revelation as the guests at Belshaz- 
 zar's Feast, except the man in the chimney-corner, who 
 quietly said, "Second verse, stranger," and smoked on. 
 
 The singer thoroughly moistened himself from his lips 
 inwards, and went on with the next stanza as requested: 
 
 My tools are but common ones, 
 
 Simple shepherds all, 
 My tools are no sight to see: 
 A little hempen string, and a post whereon to swing, 
 Are implements enough for me. 
 
 Shepherd Fennel glanced round. There was no longer any 
 doubt that the stranger was answering his question rhyth- 
 mically. The guests one and all started back with sup- 
 pressed exclamations. The young woman engaged to the 
 man of fifty fainted half-way, and would have proceeded, 
 
THE THREE STRANGERS 15 
 
 but finding him waiting in alacrity for catching her she 
 sat down trembling. 
 
 "Oh, he's the 1" whispered the people in the back- 
 ground, mentioning the name of an ominous public officer. 
 "He's come to do it. Tis to be at Casterbridge gaol to- 
 morrow the man for sheep-stealing the poor clock-maker 
 we heard of, who used to live away at Anglebury and had 
 no work to do Timothy Sommers, whose family were 
 a-starving, and so he went out of Anglebury by the high- 
 road, and took a sheep in open daylight, defying the farm- 
 er and the farmer's wife and the farmer's man, and 
 every man jack among 'em. He" (and they nodded to- 
 wards the stranger of the terrible trade) "is come from 
 up the country to do it because there's not enough to do 
 in his own county-town, and he's got the place here now 
 our own county man's dead; he's going to live in the same 
 cottage under the prison wall." 
 
 The stranger in cinder-grey took no notice of this whis- 
 pered string of observations, but again wetted his lips. 
 Seeing that his friend in the chimney-corner was the only 
 one who reciprocated his joviality in any way, he held out 
 his cup towards that appreciative comrade, who also held 
 out his own. They clinked together, the eyes of the rest 
 of the room hanging upon the singer's actions. He parted 
 his lips for the third verse; but at that moment another 
 knock was audible upon the door. This time the knock 
 was faint and hesitating. 
 
 The company seemed scared; the shepherd looked with 
 consternation towards the entrance, and it was with some 
 effort that he resisted fr's alarmed wife's denrecatorv glance, 
 and uttered for the third time the welcoming words "Walk 
 in!" 
 
 The door was gently onened, and another man stood 
 upon the mat. He, like those who had preceded him, was 
 a stranger. This time it was a short, small personage, of 
 fair complexion, and dressed in a decent suit of dark 
 clothes. 
 
 "Can you tell me the way to ?" he began; when, 
 
 gazing around the room to observe the nature of the com- 
 
1 6 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 pany amongst whom he had fallen, his eyes lighted on the 
 stranger in cinder-grey. It was just at the instant when 
 the latter, who had thrown his mind into his song with 
 such a will that he scarcely heeded the interruption, si- 
 lenced all whispers and inquiries by bursting into his third 
 verse: 
 
 To-morrow is my working day, 
 
 Simple shepherds all- 
 To-morrow is a working day for me: 
 
 For the farmer's sheep is slain, and the lad who did it ta'en, 
 And on his soul may God ha' merc-y! 
 
 The stranger in the chimney-corner, waving cups with the 
 singer so heartily that his mead splashed over on the hearth, 
 repeated in his bass voice as before: 
 
 And on his soul may God ha' merc-y! 
 
 All this time the third stranger had been standing in the 
 doorway. Finding now that he did not come forward or 
 go on speaking, the guests particularly regarded him. They 
 noticed to their surprise that he stood before them the 
 picture of abject terror his knees trembling, his hand 
 shaking so violently that the door-latch by which he sup- 
 ported himself rattled audibly; his white lips were parted, 
 and his eyes fixed on the merry officer of justice in the 
 middle of the room. A moment more and he had turned, 
 closed the door, and fled. 
 
 "What a man can it be?" said the shepherd. 
 
 The rest, between the awfulness of their late discovery 
 and the odd conduct of this third visitor, looked as if 
 they knew not what to think, and said nothing. In- 
 stinctively they withdrew further and further from the 
 grim gentleman in their midst, whom some of them seemed 
 to take for the Prince of Darkness himself, till they formed 
 a remote circle, an empty space of floor being left between 
 them and him 
 
 cfocnlus, cujus centrum didbolus. 
 
THE THREE STRANGERS 17 
 
 The room was so silent though there were more than 
 twenty people in it that nothing could be heard but the 
 patter of the rain against the window-shutters, accompanied 
 by the occasional hiss of a stray drop that fell down the 
 chimney into the fire, and the steady puffing of the man 
 in the corner, who had now resumed his pipe of long clay. 
 
 The stillness was unexpectedly broken. The distant 
 sound of a gun reverberated through the air apparently 
 from the direction of the county- town. 
 
 "Be jiggered!" cried the stranger who had sung the song, 
 jumping up. 
 
 "What does that mean?" asked several. 
 
 "A prisoner escaped from the gaol that's what it means." 
 
 All listened. The sound was repeated, and none of them 
 spoke but the man in the chimney-corner, who said quietly, 
 "I've often 'been told that in this county they fire a gun at 
 such times; but I never heard it till now." 
 
 "I wonder if it is my man?" murmured the personage 
 in cinder-grey. 
 
 "Surely it is!" said the shepherd involuntarily. "And 
 surely we've seen him! That little man who looked in at 
 the door by now, and quivered like a leaf when he seed ye 
 and heard your song ! " 
 
 "His teeth chattered, and the breath went out of his 
 body," said the dairyman. 
 
 "And his heart seemed to sink within him like a stone," 
 said Oliver Giles. 
 
 "And he bolted as if he'd been shot at," said the hedge- 
 carpenter. 
 
 "True his teeth chattered, and his heart seemed to 
 sink ; and he bolted as if he'd been shot at," slowly summed 
 up the man in the chimney-corner. 
 
 "I didn't notice it," remarked the grim songster. 
 
 "We were all a-wondering what made him run off in 
 such a fright," faltered one of the women against the wall, 
 "and now 'tis explained." 
 
 The firing of the alarm-gun went on at intervals, low and 
 sullenly, and their suspicions became a certainty. The 
 sinister gentleman in cinder-grey roused himself. "Is there 
 
18 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 a constable here?" he asked in thick tones. "If so, let 
 him step forward." 
 
 The engaged man of fifty stepped quavering out of the 
 corner, his betrothed beginning to sob on the back of the 
 chair. 
 
 "You are a sworn constable?" 
 
 "I be, sir." 
 
 "Then pursue the criminal at once, with assistance, and 
 bring him back here. He can't have gone far." 
 
 "I will, sir, I will when I've got my staff. I'll go home 
 and get it, and come sharp here, and start in a body." 
 
 "Staff! never mind your staff; the man'll be gone!" 
 
 "But I can't do nothing without my staff can I, Wil- 
 liam, and John, and Charles Jake? No; for there's the 
 king's royal crown a painted on en in yaller and gold, and 
 the lion and the unicorn, so as when I raise en up and hit 
 my prisoner, 'tis made a lawful blow thereby. I wouldn't 
 'tempt to take up a man without my staff no, not I. If 
 I hadn't the law to gie me courage, why, instead o' my 
 taking up him he might take up me!" 
 
 "Now, I'm a king's man myself, and can give you au- 
 thority enough for this," said the formidable person in 
 cinder-grey. "Now, then, all of ye, be ready. Have ye 
 any lanterns?" 
 
 "Yes have ye any lanterns? I demand it," said the 
 constable. 
 
 "And the rest of you able-bodied 
 
 "Able-bodied men yes the rest of ye," said the con- 
 stable. 
 
 "Have you some good stout staves and pitchforks " 
 
 "Staves and pitchforks in the name o' the law. And 
 take 'em in yer hands and go in quest, and do as we in 
 authority tell ye." 
 
 Thus aroused, the men prepared to give chase. The 
 evidence was, indeed, though circumstantial, so convinc- 
 ing, that but little argument was needed to show the shep- 
 herd's guests that after what they had seen it would look 
 very much like connivance if they did not instantly pursue 
 the unhappy third stranger, who could not as yet have 
 
THE THREE STRANGERS 19 
 
 gone more than a few hundred yards over such uneven 
 country. 
 
 A shepherd is always well provided with lanterns; and, 
 lighting these hastily, and with hurdle-staves in their hands, 
 they poured out of the door, taking a direction along the 
 crest of the hill, away from the town, the rain having for- 
 tunately a little abated. 
 
 Disturbed by the noise, or possibly by unoleasant dreams 
 of her baptism, the child who had been christened began 
 to cry heartbrokenly in the room overhead. These notes 
 of grief came down through the chinks of the floor to the 
 ears of the women below, who jumped up one by one, 
 and seemed glad of the excuse to ascend and comfort the 
 baby, for the incidents of the last half hour greatly op- 
 pressed them. Thus in the space of two or three minutes 
 the room on the ground floor was deserted quite. 
 
 But it was not for long. Hardly had the sound of foot- 
 steps died away when a man returned round the corner of 
 the house from the direction the pursuers had taken. Peep- 
 ing in at the door, and seeing nobody there, he entered 
 leisurely. It was the stranger of the chimney-corner, who 
 had gone out with the rest. The motive of his return was 
 shown by his helping himself to a cut piece of skimmer- 
 cake that lay on a ledge beside where he had sat, and 
 which he had apoarently forgotten to take witfc him. He 
 also poured out half a cup more mead from the quantity 
 that remained, ravenously eating and drinking these as he 
 stood. He had not finished when another figure came in 
 just as quietly the stranger in cinder-grey. 
 
 "Oh you here?" said the latter smiling. " I thought 
 you had pone to heln in the capture." And tlrs sneaker 
 also revealed the object of his return by looking solicit- 
 ously round for the fascinating mug of old mead. 
 
 "And I thought you had gone," said the other, continu- 
 ing his skimmer-cake with some effort. 
 
 "Well, on second thoughts, I felt there were enough 
 without me," said the first confidentially, "and such a 
 night as it is, too. Besides, 'tis the business o' the Gov- 
 ernment to take care of its criminals not mine." 
 
20 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 "True; so it is. And I felt as you did, that there were 
 enough without me." 
 
 "I aon't want to break my limbs running over the humps 
 and hollows of this wild country." 
 
 "Nor I neither, between you and me." 
 
 "These shepherd-people are used to it simple-minded 
 souls, you know, stirred up to anything in a moment. 
 They'll have him ready for me before the morning, and no 
 trouble to me at all." 
 
 "They'll have him, and we shall have saved ourselves 
 all labour in the matter." 
 
 "True, true. Well, my way is to Casterbridge; and 'tis 
 as much as my legs will do to take me that far. Going 
 the same way?" 
 
 "No, I am sorry to say. I have to get home over there" 
 (he nodded indefinitely to the right), "and I feel as you 
 do, that it is quite enough for my legs to do before bed- 
 time." 
 
 The other had by this time finished the mead in the 
 mug, after which, shaking hands at the door, and wishing 
 each other well, they went their several ways. 
 
 In the meantime the company of pursuers had reached 
 the end of the hog's-back elevation which dominated this 
 part of the coomb. They had decided on no particular 
 plan of action; and, finding that the man of the baleful 
 trade was no longer in their company, they seemed quite 
 unable to form any such plan now. They descended in all 
 directions down the hill, and straightway several of the 
 party fell into the snare set by Nature for all misguided 
 midnight ramblers over the lower cretaceous formation. 
 The "lynchets," or flint slopes, which belted the escarp- 
 ments at intervals of a dozen yards, took the less cautious 
 ones unawares, and losing their footing on the rubbly steep 
 they slid sharply downwards, the lanterns rolling from their 
 hands to the bottom, and there lying on their sides till the 
 horn was scorched through. 
 
 When they had again gathered themselves together, the 
 shepherd, as the man who knew the country best, took 
 the lead, and guided them round these treacherous inclines. 
 
THE THREE STRANGERS 21 
 
 The lanterns, which seemed rather to dazzle their eyes and 
 warn the fugitive than to assist them in the exploration, 
 were extinguished, due silence was observed; and in this 
 more rational order they plunged into the vale. It was 
 a grassy, briary, moist channel, affording some shelter to 
 any person who had sought it; but the party perambulated 
 it in vain, and ascended on the other side. Here they wan- 
 dered apart, and after an interval closed together again to 
 report progress. At the second time of closing in they 
 found themselves near a lonely oak, the single tree on this 
 part of the upland, probably sown there by a passing bird 
 some hundred years before. And there, standing a little 
 to one side of the trunk, as motionless as the trunk itself, 
 appeared the man they were in quest of, his outline being 
 well defined against the sky beyond. The band noiselessly 
 drew up and faced him. 
 
 "Your money or your life!" said the constable sternly to 
 the still figure. 
 
 "No, no," whispered John Pitcher. " 'Tisn't our side 
 ought to say that. That's the doctrine of vagabonds like 
 him, and we be on the side of the law." 
 
 "Well, well," replied the constable impatiently; "I must 
 say something, mustn't I? And if you had all o' the weight 
 o' this undertaking upon your mind, perhaps you'd say 
 the wrong thing, too. Prisoner at the bar, surrender, in 
 the name of the Fath the Crown I mane!" 
 
 The man under the tree seemed now to notice them for 
 the first time, and, giving them no opportunity whatever 
 for exhibiting their courage, he strolled slowly towards 
 them. He was, indeed, the little man, the third stranger; 
 but his trepidation had in a great measure gone. 
 
 "Well, travellers," he said, "did I hear ye speak to me?" 
 
 "You did: you've got to come and be our prisoner at 
 once," said the constable. "We arrest ye on the charge 
 of not biding in Casterbridge gaol in a decent proper man- 
 ner to be hung to-morrow morning. Neighbours, do your 
 duty, and seize the culpet!" 
 
 On hearing the charge, the man seemed enlightened, and, 
 saying not another word, resigned himself with preternat- 
 
22 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 ural civility to the search-party, who, with their staves in 
 their hands, surrounded him on all sides, and marched 
 him back towards the shepherd's cottage. 
 
 It was eleven o'clock by the time they arrived. The 
 light shining from the open door, a sound of men's voices 
 within, proclaimed to them as they approached the house 
 that some new events had arisen in their absence. On en^ 
 tering they disscovered the shepherd's living-room to be 
 invaded by two officers from Casterbridge gaol, and a 
 well-known magistrate who lived at the nearest country 
 seat, intelligence of the escape having become generally 
 circulated. 
 
 "Gentlemen," said the constable, "I have brought back 
 your man not without risk and danger; but every one 
 must do his duty. He is inside this circle of able-bodied 
 persons, who have lent me useful aid considering their ig- 
 norance of Crown work. Men, bring forward your pris- 
 oner." And the third stranger was led to the light. 
 
 "Who is this?" said one of the officials. 
 
 "The man," said the constable. 
 
 "Certainly not," said the other turnkey; and the first 
 corroborated his statement. 
 
 "But how can it be otherwise?" asked the constable. "Or 
 why was he so terrified at sight o' the singing instrument 
 of the law?" Here he related the strange behaviour of 
 the third stranger on entering the house. 
 
 "Can't understand it," said the officer coolly. "All I 
 know is that it is not the condemned man. He's quite a 
 different character from this one; a gauntish fellow, with 
 dark hair and eyes, rather good-looking, and with a mu- 
 sical bass voice that if you heard it once you'd never mis- 
 take as long as you lived." 
 
 "Why, souls 'twas the man in the chimney-corner!" 
 
 "Hey what?" said the magistrate, coming forward af- 
 ter inquiring particulars from the shepherd in the back- 
 ground. "Haven't you got the man after all?" 
 
 "Well, sir," said the constable, "he's the man we were 
 in search of, that's true; and yet he's not the man we were 
 in search of. For the man we were in search of was not 
 
THE THREE STRANGERS 33 
 
 the man we wanted, sir, if you understand my everyday 
 way; for 'twas the man in the chimney-corner." 
 
 "A pretty kettle of fish altogether!" said the magistrate. 
 "You had better start for the other man at once." 
 
 The prisoner now spoke for the first time. The men- 
 tion of the man in the chimney-corner seemed to have 
 moved him as nothing else could do. "Sir," he said, step- 
 ping forward to the magistrate, "take no more trouble about 
 me. The time is come when I may as well speak. I have 
 done nothing; my crime is that the condemned man is 
 my brother. Early this afternoon I left home at Angle- 
 bury to tramp it all the way to Casterbridge gaol to bid 
 him farewell. I was benighted, and called here to rest and 
 ask the way. When I opened the door I saw before me 
 the very man, my brother, that I thought to see in the con- 
 demned cell at Casterbridge. He was in this chimney-cor- 
 ner; and jammed close to him, so that he could not have got 
 out if he had tried, was the executioner who'd come to 
 take his life, singing a song about it and not knowing that 
 it was the victim who was close by, joining in to save ap- 
 pearances. My brother looked a glance of agony at me, 
 and I knew he meant, 'Don't reveal what you see; my life 
 depends on it.' I was so terror-struck that I could hardly 
 stand, and, not knowing what I did, I turned and hurried 
 away." 
 
 The narrator's manner and tone had the stamp of truth, 
 and his story made a great impression on all around. 
 "And do you know where your brother is at the present 
 time?" asked the magistrate. 
 
 "I do not. I have never seen him since I closed this 
 door." 
 
 "I can testify to that, for we've been between ye ever 
 since," said the constable. 
 
 "Where does he think to fly to? what is his occupa- 
 tion?" 
 
 "He's a watch-and-clock-maker, sir." 
 
 <0 A said 'a was a wheelwright a wicked rogue," said 
 the constable. 
 
 "The wheels o' clocks and watches he meant, no doubt," 
 
24 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 said Shepherd Fennel. "I thought his hands were palish 
 for's trade." 
 
 "Well, it appears to me that nothing can be gained by 
 retaining this poor man in custody," said the magistrate: 
 "your business lies with the other, unquestionably." 
 
 And so the little man was released off-hand ; but he looked 
 nothing the less sad on that account, it being beyond 
 the power of magistrate or constable to raze out the writ- 
 ten troubles in his brain, for they concerned another whom 
 he regarded with more solicitude than himself. When this 
 was done, and the man had gone his way, the night was 
 found to be so far advanced that it was deemed useless 
 to renew the search before the next morning. 
 
 Next day, accordingly, the quest for the clever sheep- 
 stealer became general and keen, to all appearance at 
 least. But the intended punishment was cruelly dispro- 
 portioned to the transgression, and the sympathy of a 
 great many country folk in that district was strongly on 
 the side of the fugitive. Moreover, his marvellous coolness 
 and daring under the unprecedented circumstances of the 
 shepherd's party won their admiration. So that it may be 
 questioned if all those who ostensibly made themselves so 
 busy in exploring woods and fields and lanes were quite so 
 thorough when it came to the private examination of their 
 own lofts and outhouses. Stories were afloat of a myste- 
 rious figure being occasionally seen in some old overgrown 
 trackway or other, remote from turnpike roads; but when 
 a search was instituted in any of these suspected quarters 
 nobody was found. Thus the days and weeks passed with- 
 out tidings. 
 
 In brief, the bass-voiced man of the chimney-corner was 
 never recaptured. Some said that he went across the 
 sea; others that he did not, but buried himself in the 
 depths of a populous city. At any rate, the gentleman in 
 cinder-grey never did his morning's work at Casterbridge, 
 nor met anywhere at all, for business purposes, the com- 
 rade with whom he had passed an hour of relaxation in the 
 lonely house on the coomb. 
 
 The grass has long been green on the graves of Shep- 
 
THE THREE STRANGERS 25 
 
 herd Fennel and his frugal wife; the guests who made up 
 the christening party have mainly followed their enter- 
 tainers to the tomb ; the baby in whose honour they all had 
 met is a matron in the sere and yellow leaf. But the ar- 
 rival of the three strangers at the shepherd's that night, 
 and the details connected therewith, is a story as well 
 known as ever in the country about Higher Crowstairs. 
 
A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 
 
 BY ROBERT Louis STEVENSON 
 
 IT was late in November, 1456. The snow fell over 
 Paris with rigorous, relentless persistence; sometimes 
 the wind made a sally and scattered it in flying vor- 
 tices; sometimes there was a lull, and flake after flake de- 
 scended out of the black night air, silent, circuitous, in- 
 terminable. To poor people, looking up under moist eye 
 brows, it seemed a wonder where it all came from. Master 
 Francis Villon had propounded an alternative that after- 
 noon, at a tavern window: was it only Pagan Jupiter pluck- 
 ing geese upon Olympus? or were the holy angels moulting? 
 He was only a poor Master of Arts, he went on; and as 
 the question somewhat touched upon divinity, he durst not 
 venture to conclude. A silly old priest from Montargis, 
 who was among the company, treated the young rascal to 
 a bottle of wine in honour of the jest and grimaces with 
 which it was accompanied, and swore on his own white 
 beard that he had been just such another irreverent dog 
 when he was Villon's age. 
 
 The air was raw and pointed, but not far be^ow freez- 
 ing; and the flakes were large, damp, and adhesive. The 
 whole city was sheeted up. An army might have marched 
 from end to end and not a footfall given the alarm. If 
 there were any belated birds in heaven, they saw the island 
 like a large white patch, and the bridges like slim white spars, 
 on the black ground of the river. High up overhead the 
 snow settled among the tracery of the cathedral towers. 
 Many a niche was drifted full; many a statue wore a long 
 white bonnet on its grotesque or sainted head. The gar- 
 goyles had been transformed into great false noses, droop- 
 ing towards the point. The crockets were like upright pil- 
 
 26 
 
V 
 
 A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 27 
 
 lows swollen on one side. In the intervals of the wind, 
 there was a dull sound of dripping about the precincts of 
 the church. 
 
 The cemetery of St. John had taken its own share of 
 the snow. All the graves were decently covered; tall 
 white housetops stood around in grave array; worthy 
 burghers were long ago in bed, be-nightcapped like their 
 domiciles; there was no light in all the neighbourhood but 
 a little peep from a lamp that hung swinging in the church 
 choir, and tossed the shadows to and fro in time to its 
 oscillations. The clock was hard on ten when the patrol 
 went by with halberds and a lantern, beating their hands; 
 and they saw nothing suspicious about the cemetery of 
 St. John. 
 
 Yet there was a small house, backed up against the 
 cemetery wall, which was still awake, and awake to evil 
 purpose, in that snoring district. There was not much to 
 betray it from without; only a stream of warm vapour 
 from the chimney-top, a patch where the snow melted on 
 the roof, and a few half-obliterated footprints at the door. 
 But within, behind the shuttered windows, Master Francis 
 Villon the poet, and some of the thievish crew with whom 
 he consorted, were keeping the night alive and passing 
 round the bottle. 
 
 A great pile of living embers diffused a strong and ruddy 
 glow from the arched chimney. Before this straddled Dom 
 Nicolas, the Picardy monk, with his skirts picked up and 
 his fat legs bared to the comfortable warmth. His dilated 
 shadow cut the room in half; and the firelight only es- 
 caped on either side of his broad person, and in a little 
 pool between his outspread feet. His face had the beery, 
 bruised appearance of the continual drinker's; it was cov- 
 ered with a network of congested veins, purple in ordi- 
 nary circumstances, but now pale violet, for even with his 
 back to the fire the cold pinched him on the other side. 
 His cowl had half fallen back, and made a strange ex- 
 crescence on either side of his bull neck. So he straddled, 
 grumbling, and cut the room in half with the shadow of 
 his portly frame. 
 
28 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 On the right, Villon and Guy Tabary were huddled to- 
 gether over a scrap of parchment; Villon making a ballade 
 which he was to call the "Ballade of Roast Fish," and 
 Tabary spluttering admiration at his shoulder. The poet 
 was a rag of a man, dark, little, and lean, with hollow 
 cheeks and thin black locks. He carried his four-and-twen- 
 ty years with feverish animation. Greed had made folds 
 about his eyes, evil smiles had puckered his mouth. The 
 wolf and pig struggled together in his face. It was an elo- 
 quent, sharp, ugly, earthly countenance. His hands were 
 small and prehensile, with fingers knotted like a cord; 
 and they were continually flickering in front of him in 
 violent and expressive pantomime. As for Tabary, a broad, 
 complacent, admiring imbecility breathed from his squash 
 nose and slobbering lips: he had become a thief, just as he 
 might have become the most decent of burgesses, by the 
 imperious chance that rules the lives of human geese and 
 human donkeys. 
 
 At the monk's other hand, Montigny and Thevenin 
 Pensete played a game of chance. About the first there 
 clung some flavour of good birth and training, as about a 
 fallen angel; something long, lithe, and courtly in the per- 
 son; something aquiline and darkling in the face. Theven- 
 in, poor soul, was in great feather: he had done a good 
 stroke of knavery that afternoon in the Faubourg St. 
 Jacques, and all night he had been gaining from Montigny. 
 A flat smile illuminated his face; his bald head shone rosily 
 in a garland of red curls; his little protuberant stomach 
 shook with silent chucklings as he swept in his gains. 
 
 "Doubles or quits?" said Thevenin. 
 
 Montigny nodded grimly. 
 
 "Some may prefer to dine in state'' wrote Villon, "On 
 bread and cheese on silver plate. Or, or help me out, 
 Guido!" 
 
 Tabary giggled. 
 
 "Or parsley on a golden dish" scribbled the poet. 
 
 The wind was freshening without; it drove the snow 
 before it, and sometimes raised its voice in a victorious 
 whoop, and made sepulchral grumblings in the chimney. 
 
A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 29 
 
 The cold was growing sharper as the night went on. Villon, 
 protruding his lips, imitated the gust with something be- 
 tween a whistle and a groan. It was an eerie, uncomfort- 
 able talent of the poet's, much detested by the Picardy 
 monk. 
 
 "Can't you hear it rattle in the gibbet?" said Villon. 
 "They are all dancing the devil's jig on- nothing, up there. 
 You may dance, my gallants, you'll be none the warmer! 
 Whew! what a gust! Down went somebody just now! A 
 medlar the fewer on the three-legged medlar-tree! I say, 
 Dom Nicolas, it'll be cold to-night on the St. Denis Road?" 
 he asked. 
 
 Dom Nicolas winked both his big eyes, and seemed to 
 choke upon his Adam's apple. Montfaucon, the great 
 grisly Paris gibbet, stood hard by the St. Denis Road, and 
 the pleasantry touched him on the raw. As for Tabary, he 
 laughed immoderately over the medlars; he had never 
 heard anything more light-hearted; and he held his 
 sides and crowed. Villon fetched him a fillip on the nose, 
 which turned his mirth into an attack of coughing. 
 
 "Oh, stop that row," said Villon, "and think of rhymes 
 to 'fish/ " 
 
 "Doubles or quits," said Montigny doggedly. 
 
 "With all my heart," quoth Thevenin. 
 
 "Is there any more in that bottle?" asked the monk. 
 
 "Open another," said Villon. "How do you ever hope to 
 fill that big hogshead, your body, with little things like 
 bottles? And how do you expect to get to heaven? How 
 many angels, do you fancy, can be spared to carry up a 
 single monk from Picardy? Or do you think yourself an- 
 other Elias and they'll send the coach for you?" 
 
 "Hominibus impossibiie" replied the monk as he filled 
 his glass. 
 
 Tabary was in ecstasies. 
 
 Villon filliped his nose again, 
 
 "Laugh at my jokes, if you like," he said. 
 
 "It was very good," objected Tabary. 
 
 Villon made a face at him. "Think of rhymes to 'fish/ " 
 he said. "What have you to do with Latin? You'll wish 
 
30 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 you knew none of it at the great assizes, when the devil 
 calls for Guido Tabary, clericus the devil with the hump- 
 back and red-hot finger-nails. Talking of the devil," he 
 added in a whisper, "look at Montignyl" 
 All three peered covertly at the gamester. He did not 
 seem to be enjoying his luck. His mouth was a little to a 
 side; one nostril nearly shut, and the other much inflated. 
 The black dog was on his back, as people say, in terrifying 
 nursery metaphor; and he breathed hard under the grue- 
 some burden. 
 
 "He looks as if he could knife him," whispered Tabary, 
 with round eyes. 
 
 The monk shuddered, and turned his face and spread his 
 open hands to the red embers. It was he cold that thus 
 affected Dom Nicolas, and not any excess of moral sensi- 
 bility. 
 
 "Come 1 now," said Villon "about this ballade. How 
 does it run so far?" And beating time with his hand, he 
 read it aloud to Tabary. 
 
 They were interrupted at the fourth rhyme by a brief 
 and fatal movement among the gamesters. The round was 
 completed, and Thevenin was just opening his mouth to 
 claim another victory, when Montigny leaped up, swift as 
 an adder, and stabbed him to the heart. The blow took 
 effect before he had time to utter a cry, before he had time 
 to move. A tremor or two convulsed his frame; his hands 
 opened and shut, his heels rattled on the floor; then his 
 head rolled backward over one shoulder with the eyes wide 
 open, and Thevenin Pensete's spirit had returned to Him 
 who made it. 
 
 Everyone sprang to his feet; but the business was over 
 in two twos. The four living fellows looked at each other 
 in rather a ghastly fashion; the dead man contemplating 
 a corner of the roof with a singular and ugly leer. 
 
 "My God!" said Tabary; and he began to pray in 
 Latin. 
 
 Villon broke out into hysterical laughter. He came a 
 step forward and ducked a ridiculous bow at Thevenin, and 
 laughed still louder. Then he sat down suddenly, all of a 
 
A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 31 
 
 heap, upon a stool, and continued laughing bitterly as 
 though he would shake himself to pieces. 
 
 Montigny recovered his composure first. 
 
 "Let's see what he has about him," he remarked, and 
 he picked the dead man's pockets with a practised hand, 
 and divided the money into four equal portions on the 
 table. "There's for you," he said. 
 
 The monk received his share with a deep sigh, and a 
 single stealthy glance at the dead Thevenin, who was be- 
 ginning to sink into himself and topple sideways off the 
 chair. 
 
 "We're all in for it," cried Villon, swallowing his mirth. 
 "It's a hanging job for every man jack of us that's here 
 not to speak of those who aren't." He made a shocking ges- 
 ture in the air with his raised right hand, and put out his 
 tongue and threw his head on one side, so as to counter- 
 feit the appearance of one who has been hanged. Then 
 he pocketed his share of the spoil, and executed a shuffle 
 with his feet as if to restore the circulation. 
 
 Tabary was the last to help himself; he made a dash at 
 the money, and retired to the other end of the apartment. 
 
 Montigny stuck Thevenin upright in the chair, and drew 
 out the dagger, which was followed by a jet of blood. 
 
 "You fellows had better be moving," he said, as he wiped 
 the blade on his victim's doublet. 
 
 "I think we had," returned Villon, with a gulp. "Damn 
 his fat head!" he broke out. "It sticks in my throat like 
 phlegm. What right has a man to have red hair when he 
 is dead?" And he fell all of a heap again upon the stool, 
 and fairly covered his face with his hands. 
 
 Montigny and Dom Nicolas laughed aloud, even Tabary 
 feebly chiming in. 
 
 "Cry baby," said the monk. 
 
 "I always said he was a woman," added Montigny, with 
 a sneer. "Sit up, can't you?" he went on, giving another 
 shake to the murdered body. "Tread out that fire, Nick!" 
 
 But Nick was better employed; he was quietly taking 
 Villon's purse, as the poet sat, limp and trembling, on the 
 stool where he had been making a ballade not three min- 
 
32 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 utes before. Montigny and Tabary dumbly demanded a 
 share of the booty, which the monk silently promised as 
 he passed the little bag into the bosom of his gown. In 
 many ways an artistic nature unfits a man for practical 
 existence. 
 
 No sooner had the theft been accomplished than Villon 
 shook himself, jumped to his feet, and began helping to 
 scatter and extinguish the embers. Meanwhile Montigny 
 opened the door and cautiously peered into the street. The 
 coast was clear; there was no meddlesome patrol in sight. 
 Still it was judged wiser to slip out severally; and as Villon 
 was himself in a hurry to escape from the neighbourhood 
 of the dead Thevenin, and the rest were in a still greater 
 hurry to get rid of him before he should discover the loss 
 of his money, he was the first by general consent to issue 
 forth into the street. 
 
 The wind had triumphed and swept all the clouds from 
 heaven. Only a few vapours, as thin as moonlight, fleeted 
 rapidly across the stars. It was bitter cold; and by a com- 
 mon optical effect, things seemed almost more definite than 
 in the broadest daylight. The sleeping city was absolutely 
 still; a company of white hoods, a field full of little alps, 
 below the twinkling stars. Villon cursed his fortune. 
 Would it were still snowing! Now, wherever he went, he 
 left an indelible trail behind him on the glittering streets; 
 wherever he went he was still tethered to the house by the 
 cemetery of St. John; wherever he went he must weave, 
 with his own plodding feet, the rope that bound him to 
 the crime and would bind him to the gallows. The leer 
 of the dead man came back to him with a new significance. 
 He snapped his fingers as if to pluck up his own spirits, 
 and choosing a street at random, stepped boldly forward in 
 the snow. 
 
 Two things preoccupied him as he went: the aspect of 
 the gallows at Montfaucon in this bright, windy phase of 
 the night's existence, for one; and for another, the look of 
 the dead man with his bald head and garland of red curls. 
 Both struck cold upon his heart, and he kept quickening 
 his pace as if he could escape from unpleasant thoughts by 
 
A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 33 
 
 mere fleetness of foot. Sometimes he looked back over his 
 shoulder with a sudden nervous jerk; but he was the only 
 moving thing in the white streets, except when the wind 
 swooped round a corner and threw up the snow, which was 
 beginning to freeze, in spouts of glittering dust. 
 
 Suddenly he saw, a long way before him, a black clump 
 and a couple of lanterns. The clump was in motion, and 
 the lanterns swung as though carried by men walking. It 
 was a patrol. And though it was merely crossing his line 
 of march he judged it wiser to get out of eyeshot as speedily 
 as he could. He was not in the humour to be challenged, 
 and he was conscious of making a very conspicuous mark 
 upon the snow. Just on his left hand there stood a great 
 hotel, with some turrets and a large porch before the door; 
 it was half-ruinous, he remembered, and had long stood 
 empty; and so he made three steps of it, and jumped into 
 the shelter of the porch. It was pretty dark inside, after 
 the glimmer of the snowy streets, and he was groping for- 
 ward with outspread hands, when he stumbled over some 
 substance which offered an indescribable mixture of re- 
 sistances, hard and soft, firm and loose. His heart gave 
 a leap, and he sprang two steps back and stared dreadfully 
 at the obstacle. Then he gave a little laugh of relief. It 
 was only a woman, and she dead. He knelt beside her to 
 make sure upon this latter point. She was freezing cold, 
 and rigid like a stick. A little ragged finery fluttered in 
 the wind about her hair, and her cheeks had been heavily 
 rouged that same afternoon. Her pockets were quite 
 empty; but in her stocking, underneath the garter, Villon 
 found two of the small coins that went by the name of 
 whites. It was little enough; but it was always something; 
 and the poet was moved with a deep sense of pathos that 
 she should have died before she had spent her money. 
 That seemed to him a dark and pitiable mystery; and he 
 looked from the coins in his hand to the dead woman, and 
 back again to the coins, shaking his head over the riddle of 
 man's life. Henry V. of England, dying at Vincennes just 
 after he had conquered France, and this poor jade cut off 
 by a cold draught in a great man's doorway, before she 
 
34 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 had time to spend her couple of whites it seemed a cruel 
 way to carry on the world. Two whites would have taken 
 such a little while to squander; and yet it would have been 
 one more good taste in the mouth, one more smack of the 
 lips, before the devil got the soul, and the body was left 
 to birds and vermin. He would like to use all his tallow 
 before the light was blown out and the lantern broken. 
 
 While these thoughts were passing through his mind, he 
 was feeling, half mechanically, for his purse. Suddenly his 
 heart stopped beating; a feeling of cold scales passed up 
 the back of his legs, and a cold blow seemed to fall upon 
 his scalp. He stood petrified for a moment; then he felt 
 again with one feverish movement; and then his loss burst 
 upon him, and he was covered at once with perspiration. 
 To spendthrifts money is so living and actual it is such 
 a thin veil between them and their pleasures! There is 
 only one limit to their fortune that of time; and a spend- 
 thrift with only a few crowns is the Emperor of Rome 
 until they are spent. For such a person to lose his money 
 is to suffer the most shocking reverse, and fall from heaven 
 to hell, from all to nothing, in a breath. And all the more 
 if he has put his head in the halter for it; if he may be 
 hanged to-morrow for that same purse, so dearly earned, so 
 foolishly departed! Villon stood and cursed; he threw 
 the two whites into the street; he shook his fist at heaven; 
 he stamped, and was not horrified to find himself trampling 
 the poor corpse. Then he began rapidly to retrace his steps 
 towards the house beside the cemetery. He had forgotten 
 all fear of the natrol, which was long gone by at any rate, 
 and had no idea but that of his lost purse. It was in 
 vain that he looked right and left upon the snow: nothing 
 was to be seen. He had not dropped it in the streets. Had 
 it fallen in the house? He would have liked dearly to go 
 in and see; but the idea of the grisly occupant unmanned 
 him. And he saw besides, as he drew near, that their 
 efforts to put out the fire had been unsuccessful; on the 
 contrary, it had broken into a blaze, and a changeful light 
 played in the chinks of door and window, and revived his 
 terror for the authorities and Paris gibbet. 
 
A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 35 
 
 He returned to the hotel with the porch, and groped 
 about upon the snow for the money he had thrown away 
 in his childish passion. But he could only find one white; 
 the other had probably struck sideways and sunk deeply 
 in. With a single white in his pocket, all his projects for 
 a rousing night in some wild tavern vanished utterly away. 
 And it was not only pleasure that fled laughing from his 
 grasp; positive discomfort, positive pain, attacked him as 
 he stood ruefully before the porch. His perspiration had 
 dried upon him; and although the wind had now fallen, a 
 binding frost was setting in stronger with every hour, and 
 he felt benumbed and sick at heart. What was to be done? 
 Late as was the hour, improbable as was success, he would 
 try the house of his adopted father, the chaplain of St. 
 Benoit. 
 
 He ran there all the way, and knocked timidly. There 
 was no answer. He knocked again and again, taking heart 
 with every stroke; and at last steps were heard approaching 
 from within. A barred wicket fell open in the iron-studded 
 door, and emitted a gush of yellow light. 
 
 "Hold up your face to the wicket," said the chaplain from 
 within. 
 
 "It's only me," whimpered Villon. 
 
 "Oh, it's only you, is it?" returned the chaplain; and he 
 cursed him with foul unpriestly oaths for disturbing him at 
 such an hour, and bade him be off to hell, where he came 
 from. 
 
 "My hands are blue to the wrist," pleaded Villon; "my 
 feet are dead and full of twinges; my nose aches with the 
 sharp air; the cold lies at my heart. I may be dead before 
 morning. Only this once, father, and before God, I will 
 never ask again!" 
 
 "You should have come earlier," said the ecclesiastic 
 coolly. "Young men require a lesson now and then." He 
 shut the wicket and retired deliberately into the interior 
 of the house. 
 
 Villon was beside himself; he beat upon the door with 
 his hands and feet, and shouted hoarsely after the chaplain. 
 
 "Wormy old fox!" he cried. "If I had my hand under 
 
36 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 your twist, I would send you flying headlong into the bot- 
 tomless pit." 
 
 A door shut in the interior, faintly audible to the poet 
 down long passages. He passed his hand over his mouth 
 with an oath. And then the humour of the situation struck 
 him, and he laughed and looked lightly up to heaven, where 
 the stars seemed to be winking over his discomfiture. 
 
 What was to be done? It looked very like a night in the 
 frosty streets. The idea of the dead woman popped into 
 his imagination, and gave him a hearty fright; what had 
 happened to her in the early night might very well happen 
 to him before morning. And he so young! and with such 
 immense possibilities of disorderly amusement before him! 
 He felt quite pathetic over the notion of his own fate, as 
 if it had been some one else's, and made a little imaginative 
 vignette of the scene in the morning when they should find 
 his body. 
 
 He passed all his chances under review, turning the 
 white between his thumb and forefinger. Unfortunately he 
 was on bad terms with some old friends who would once 
 have taken pity on him in such a plight. He had lam- 
 pooned them in verses; he had beaten and cheated them; 
 and yet now, when he was in so close a pinch, he thought 
 there was at least one who might perhaps relent. It was 
 chance. It was worth trying at least, and he would go 
 and see. 
 
 On the way, two little accidents happened to him which 
 coloured his musings in a very different manner. For, first, 
 he fell in with the track of a patrol, and walked in it for 
 some hundred yards, although it lay out of his direction. 
 And this spirited him up; at least he had confused his 
 trail; for he was still possessed with the idea of Deople 
 tracking him all about Paris over the snow, and collaring 
 him next morning before he was awake. The other matter 
 affected him quite differently. He passed a street corner, 
 where, not so long before, a woman and her child had been 
 devoured by wolves. This was just the kind of weather, 
 he reflected, when wolves might take it into their heads 
 to enter Paris again; and a lone man in these deserted 
 
A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 37 
 
 streets would run the chance of something worse than a 
 mere scare. He stopped and looked upon the place with 
 an unpleasant interest it was a centre where several lanes 
 intersected each other; ano^he looked down them all, one 
 after another, and held his breath to listen, lest he should 
 detect some galloping black things on the snow or hear 
 the sound of howling between him and the river. He 
 remembered his mother telling him the story and pointing 
 out the spot, while he was yet a child. His mother! If he 
 only knew where she lived, he might make sure at least 
 of shelter. He determined he would inquire upon the mor- 
 row; nay, he would go and see her too, poor old girll So 
 thinking, he arrived at his destination his last hope for 
 the night. 
 
 The house was quite dark, like its neighbours; and yet 
 after a few taps, he heard a movement overhead, a door 
 opening, and a cautious voice asking who was there. The 
 poet named himself in a loud whisper, and waited, not with- 
 out some trepidation, the result. Nor had he to wait long. 
 A window was suddenly opened, and a pailful of slops 
 splashed down upon the doorstep. Villon had not been 
 unprepared for something of the sort, and had put himself 
 as much in shelter as the nature of the porch admitted ; but 
 for all that, he was deplorably drenched below the waist. 
 His hose began to freeze almost at once. Death from cold 
 and exposure stared him in the face; he remembered he 
 was of phthisical tendency, and began coughing tentatively. 
 But the gravity of the danger steadied his nerves. He 
 stopped a few hundred yards from the door where he had 
 been so rudely used, and reflected with his finger to his 
 nose. He could only see one way of getting a lodging, and 
 that was to take it. He had noticed a house not far away, 
 which looked as if it might be easily broken into, and 
 thither he betook himself promptly, entertaining himself on 
 the way with the idea of a room still hot, with a table 
 still loaded with the remains of supper, where he might 
 pass the rest of the black hours and whence he should 
 issue, on the morrow, with an armful of valuable plate. 
 He even considered on what viands and what wines he 
 
38 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 should prefer; and as he was calling the roll of his favourite 
 dainties, roast fish presented itself to his mind with an odd 
 mixture of amusement and horror. 
 
 "I shall never finish that ballade," he thought to himself; 
 and then, with another shudder at the recollection, "Oh, 
 damn his fat head!" he repeated fervently, and spat upon 
 the snow. 
 
 The house in question looked dark at first sight; but as 
 Villon made a preliminary inspection in search of the handi- 
 est point of attack, a little twinkle of light caught his 
 eye from behind a curtained window. 
 
 "The devil!" he thought. "People awake! Some stu- 
 dent or some saint, confound the crew! Can't they get 
 drunk and lie in bed snoring like their neighbours! What's 
 the good of curfew, and poor devils of bell-ringers jump- 
 ing at a rope's end in bell-towers? What's the use of day, 
 if people sit up all night? The gripes to them!" He 
 grinned as he saw where his logic was leading him. "Every 
 man to his business, after all," added he, "and if they're 
 awake, by the Lord, I may come by a supper honestly for 
 once, and cheat the devil." 
 
 He went boldly to the door and knocked with an assured 
 hand. On both previous occasions, he had knocked timidly 
 and with some dread of attracting notice; but now when 
 he had just discarded the thought of a burglarious entry, 
 knocking at a door seemed a mighty simple and innocent 
 proceeding. The sound of his blows echoed through the 
 house with thin, phantasmal reverberations, as though it 
 were quite empty; but these had scarcely died away be- 
 fore a measured tread drew near, a couple of bolts were 
 withdrawn, and one wing was opened broadly, as though 
 no guile or fear of guile were known to those within. A 
 tall figure of a man, muscular and spare, but a little bent, 
 confronted Villon. The head was massive in bulk, but 
 finely sculptured; the nose blunt at the bottom, but refining 
 upward to where it joined a pair of strong and honest eye- 
 brows; the mouth and eyes surrounded with delicate mark- 
 ings, and the whole face based upon a thick white beard, 
 boldly and squarely trimmed. Seen as it was by the light 
 
A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 39 
 
 of a flickering hand-lamp, it looked perhaps nobler than it 
 had a right to do; but it was a fine face, honourable rather 
 than intelligent, strong, simple, and righteous. 
 
 "You knock late, sir," said the old man in resonant, 
 courteous tones. 
 
 Villon cringed, and brought up many servile words of 
 apology; at a crisis of this sort, the beggar was uppermost 
 in him, and the man of genius hid his head with confusion. 
 
 "You are cold," repeated the old man, "and hungry? 
 Well, step in." And he ordered him into the house with a 
 noble enough gesture. 
 
 "Some great seigneur," thought Villon, as h ! s host, setting 
 down the lamp on the flagged pavement of the entry, shot 
 the bolts once more into their places. 
 
 "You will pardon me if I go in front," he said, when this 
 was done; and he preceded the poet upstairs into a large 
 apartment, warmed with a pan of charcoal and lit by a 
 great lamp hanging from the roof. It was very bare of 
 furniture. Only some gold plate on a sideboard; some folios; 
 and a stand of armour between the windows. Some smart 
 tapestry hung upon the walls, representing the crucifixion 
 of our Lord in one piece, and in another a scene of shep- 
 herds and shepherdesses by a running stream. Over the 
 chimney was a shield of arms. 
 
 "Will you seat yourself," said the old man, "and for- 
 give me if I leave you? I am alone in my house to-night, 
 and if you are to eat I must forage for you myself." 
 
 No sooner was his host gone than Villon leaped from 
 the chair on which he had just seated himself, and began 
 examining the room, with the stealth and passion of a cat. 
 He weighed the gold flagons in his hand, opened all the 
 folios, and investigated the arms upon the shield, and the 
 stuff with which the seats were lined. He raised the 
 window curtains, and saw that the windows were set with 
 rich stained glass in figures, so far as he could see, of 
 martial import. Then he stood in the middle of the room, 
 drew a long breath, and retaining it with puffed cheeks, 
 looked round and round him, turning on his heels, as if 
 to impress every feature of the apartment on his memory. 
 
40 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 "Seven pieces of plate," he said. "If there had been 
 ten, I would have risked it. A fine house, and a fine old 
 master, so help me all the saints!" 
 
 And just then, hearing the old man's tread returning 
 along the corridor, he stole back to his chair, and began 
 humbly toasting his wet legs before the charcoal pan. 
 
 His entertainer had a plate of meat in one hand, and a 
 jug of wine in the other. He sat down the plate upon the 
 table, motioning Villon to draw in his chair, and going to 
 the sideboard, brought back two goblets, which he filled. 
 
 "I drink your better fortune," he said, gravely touching 
 Villon's cup with his own. 
 
 "To our better acquaintance," said the poet, growing bold, 
 A mere man of the people would have been awed by the 
 courtesy of the old seigneur, but Villon was hardened in 
 that matter; he had made mirth for great lords before now, 
 and found them as black rascals as himself. And so he 
 devoted himself to the viands v/ith a ravenous gusto, while 
 the old man, leaning backward, watched him with steady, 
 curious eyes. 
 
 "You have blood on your shoulder, my man," he said. 
 
 Montigny must have laid his wet right hand upon him 
 as he left the house. He cursed Montigny in his heart. 
 
 "It was none of my shedding," he stammered. 
 
 "I had not supposed so," returned his host quietly. "A 
 brawl?" 
 
 "Well, something of that sort," Villon admitted with a 
 quaver. 
 
 "Perhaps a fellow murdered?" 
 
 "Oh no, not murdered," said the poet, more and more 
 confused. "It was all fair play murdered by accident. 
 I had no hand in it, God strike me dead!" he added fer- 
 vently. 
 
 "One rogue the fewer, I dare say," observed the master 
 of the house. 
 
 "You may dare to say that," agreed Villon, infinitely 
 relieved. "As big a rogue as there is between here and 
 Jerusalem. He turned up his toes like a lamb. But it was 
 a nasty thing to look at. I dare say you've seen dead men 
 
A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 41 
 
 in your time, my lord?" he added, glancing at the armour. 
 
 "Many," said the old man. "I have followed the wars, 
 as you imagine." 
 
 Villon laid down his knife and fork, which he had just 
 taken up again. 
 
 "Were any of them bald?" he asked. 
 
 "Oh yes, and with hair as white as mine." 
 
 "I don't think I should mind the white so much," said 
 Villon. "His was red." And he had a return of his shud- 
 dering and tendency to laughter,* which he drowned with 
 a great draught of wine. "I'm a little put out when I 
 think of it," he went on. "I knew him damn him! And 
 then the ccld gives a man fancies or the fancies give a 
 man cold, I don't know which." 
 
 "Have you any money?" asked the old man. 
 
 "I have one white," returned the poet, laughing. "I got 
 it out of a dead jade's stocking in a porch. She was as 
 dead as Ccesar, poor wench, and as cold as a church, with 
 bits of ribbon sticking in her hair. This is a hard world 
 in winter for wolves and wenches and poor rogues like me." 
 
 "I," said the old man, "am Enguerrand de la Feuillee, 
 seigneur de Brisetout, 'bailly du Patatrac. Who and what 
 may you be?" 
 
 Villon rose and made 'a suitable reverence. "I am called 
 Francis Villon," he said, "a poor Master of Arts of this 
 university. I know some Latin, and a deal of vice. I can 
 make chansons, ballades, lais, virelais, and roundels, and 
 I am very fond of wine. I was born in a garret, and I shall 
 not improbably die upon the gallows. I may add, my lord, 
 that from this night forward I am your lordship's very 
 obsequious servant to command." 
 
 "No servant of mine," said the knight; "my guest for 
 this evening, and no more." 
 
 "A very grateful guest," said Villon, politely, and he 
 drank in dumb show to his entertainer. 
 
 "You are shrewd," began the old man, tapping his fore- 
 head, "very shrewd; you have learning; you are a clerk; 
 and yet you take a small piece of money off a dead woman 
 in the street. Is it not a kind of theft?" 
 
42 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 "It is a kind of theft much practised in the wars, my 
 lord." 
 
 "The wars are the field of honour," returned the old 
 man proudly. "There a man plays his life upon the cast; 
 he fights in the name of his lord the king, his Lord God, 
 and all their lordships the holy saints and angels." 
 
 "Put it," said Villon, "that I were really a thief, should 
 I not play my life also, and against heavier odds?" 
 
 "For gain but not for honour." 
 
 "Gain?" repeated Villon with a shrug. "Gain! The 
 poor fellow wants supper, and takes it. So does the soldier 
 in a campaign. Why, what are all these requisitions we 
 hear so much about? If they are not gain to those who 
 take them, they are loss enough to the others. The men- 
 at-arms drink by a good fire, while the burgher bites his 
 nails to buy them wine and wood. I have seen a good 
 many ploughmen swinging on trees about the country; ay, 
 I have seen thirty on one elm, and a very poor figure they 
 made; and when I asked someone how all these came to 
 be hanged, I was told it was because they could not scrape 
 together enough crowns to satisfy the men-at-arms." 
 
 "These things are a necessity of war, which the low- 
 born must endure with constancy. It is true that some 
 captains drive overhard; there are spirits in every rank 
 not easily moved by pity; and indeed many follow arms 
 who are no better than brigands." 
 
 "You see," said the poet, "you cannot separate the 
 soldier from the brigand; and what is a thief but an isolated 
 brigand with circumspect manners? I steal a couple of 
 mutton chops, without so much as disturbing neoplc's sleep; 
 the farmer grumbles a bit, but sups none the less whole- 
 somely on what remains. You come up blowing gloriously 
 on a trumpet, take away the whole sheep, and beat the 
 farmer pitifully into the bargain. I have no trumpet; I 
 am only Tom, Dick, or Harry; I am a rogue and a dog, 
 and' hanging's too good for me with all my heart; but just 
 ask the farmer which of us he prefers, just find out which 
 of us he lies awake to curse on cold nights." 
 
 "Look at us two," said his lordship. "I am old, strong, 
 
A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 43 
 
 and honoured. If I were turned from my house to-morrow, 
 hundreds would be proud to shelter me. Poor people would 
 go out and pass the nights in the streets with their children, 
 if I merely hinted that I wished to be alone. And I find 
 you up, wandering homeless, and picking farthings off dead 
 women by the wayside! I fear no man and nothing; I 
 have seen you tremble and lose countenance at a word. I 
 wait God's summons contentedly in my own house, or, if it 
 please the king to call me again, upon the field of battle. 
 You look for the gallows; a rough, swift death, without 
 hope or honour. Is there no difference between these two?" 
 
 "As far as to the moon," Villon acquiesced. "But if I 
 had been born lord of Brisetout, and you had been the poor 
 scholar Francis, would the difference have been any the 
 less? Should not I have been warming my knees at this 
 charcoal pan, and would not you have been groping for 
 farthings in the snow? Should not I have been the soldier, 
 and you the thief?" 
 
 "A thief?" cried the old man. "I a thief! If you 
 understood your words, you would repent them." 
 
 Villon turned out his hands with a gesture of inimitable 
 impudence. "If your lordship had done me the honour 
 to follow my argument!" he said. 
 
 "I do you too much honour in submitting to your pres- 
 ence," said the knight. "Learn to curb your tongue when 
 you speak with old and honourable men, or some one 
 hastier than I may reprove you in a sharper fashion." 
 And he rose and paced the lower end of the apartment, 
 struggling with anger and antipathy. Villon surreptitiously 
 refilled his cup, and settled himself more comfortably in 
 the chair, crossing his knees and leaning his head upon one 
 hand and the elbow against the back of the chair. He 
 was now replete and warm ; and he was in nowise frightened 
 for his host, having gauged him as justly as was possible 
 between two such different characters. The night was far 
 spent, and in a very comfortable fashion after all; and he 
 felt morally certain of a safe departure on the morrow. 
 
 "Tell me one thing," said the old man, pausing in his 
 walk. "Are you really a thief?" 
 
44 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 "I claim the sacred rights of hospitality," returned the 
 poet. "My lord, I am." 
 
 "You are very young," the knight continued. 
 
 "I should never have been so old," replied Villon, show- 
 ing his fingers, "if I had not helped myself with these ten 
 talents. They have been my nursing mothers and my 
 nursing fathers." 
 
 "You may still repent and change." 
 
 "I repent daily," said the poet. "There are few people 
 more given to repentance than poor Francis. As for 
 change, let somebody change my circumstances. A man 
 must continue to eat, if it were only that he may continue 
 to repent." 
 
 "The change must begin in the heart," returned the 
 old man solemnly. 
 
 "My dear lord," answered Villon, "do you really fancy 
 that I steal for pleasure? I hate stealing, like any other 
 piece of work or of danger. My teeth chatter when I see 
 a gallows. But I must eat, I must drink, I must mix in 
 society of some sort. What the devil! Man is not a soli- 
 tary animal cut Deus jceminam tradit. Make me king's 
 pantler make me abbot of St. Denis; make me bailly of 
 the Patatrac; and then I shall be changed indeed. But 
 as long as you leave me the poor scholar Francis Villon, 
 without a farthing, why, of course, I remain the same 
 
 "The grace of God is all-powerful." 
 
 "I should be a heretic to question it," said Francis, 
 has made you lord of Brisetout and bailly of the Patatrac; 
 it has given me nothing but the quick wits under my 
 hat and these ten toes upon my hands. May I help my- 
 self to wine? I thank you respectfully. By God's grace, 
 you have a very superior vintage." 
 
 The lord of Brisetout walked to and fro with his hands 
 behind his back. Perhaps he was not yet quite settled in 
 his mind about the parallel between thieves and soldiers; 
 perhaps Villon had interested him by some cross-thread of 
 sympathy; perhaps his wits were simply muddled by so 
 much unfamiliar reasoning; but whatever the cause, he 
 somehow yearned to convert the young man to a better 
 
 u. X>UL 
 ; Villon, 
 ic." 
 
 :is. "It 
 
A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 45 
 
 way of thinking, and could not make up his mind to drive 
 him forth again into the street. 
 
 "There is something more than I can understand in this," 
 he said at length. "Your mouth is full of subtleties, and 
 the devil has led you very far astray; but the devil is only 
 a very weak spirit before God's truth, and all his subtleties 
 vanish at a word of true honour, like darkness at morning. 
 Listen to me once more. I learned long ago that a gentle- 
 man should live chivalrously and lovingly to God, and the 
 king, and his lady; and though I have seen many strange 
 things done, I have still striven to command my ways upon 
 that rule. It is not only written in all noble histories, but 
 in every man's heart, if he will take care to read. You 
 speak of food and wine, and I know very well that hunger 
 is a difficult trial to endure; but you do not speak of other 
 wants; you say nothing of honour, of faith to God and 
 other men, of courtesy, of love without reproach. It may 
 be that I am not very wise and yet I think I am but 
 you seem to me like one who has lost his way and made 
 a great error in life. You are attending to the little wants, 
 and you have totally forgotten the great and only real ones, 
 like a man who should be doctoring toothache on the Judg- 
 ment Day. For such things as honour and love and faith 
 are not only nobler than food and drink, but indeed I think 
 we desire them more, and suffer more sharply for their 
 absence. I speak to you as I think you will most easily 
 understand me. Are you not, while careful to fill your 
 belly, disregarding another appetite in your heart, which 
 spoils your pleasure and keeps you continually wretched?" 
 
 Villon was sensibly nettled under all this sermonising. 
 "You think I have no sense of honour!" he cried. "I'm 
 poor enough, God knows! It's hard to see rich people with 
 their gloves, and you blowing in your hands. An empty 
 belly is a bitter thing, although you speak so lightly of it. 
 If you had had as many as I, perhaps you would change 
 your tune. Any way I'm a thief make the most of that 
 but I'm not a devil from hell, God strike me dead. I would 
 have you to know I've an honour of my own, as good as 
 yours, though I don't prate about it all day long, as if it 
 
46 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH ' IES 
 
 was a God's miracle to have any. It seems qui e natural 
 to me; I keep it in its box till it's wanted. Why now, 
 look you here, how long have I been in this room with you? 
 Did you not tell me you were alone in the hou;:e? Look at 
 your gold plate! You're strong, if you like, but you're old 
 and unarmed, and I have my knife. What did I want but 
 a jerk of the elbow and here would have been you with the 
 cold steel in your bowels, and there wouM have been me, 
 linking in the streets, with an armful of golden cups! Did 
 you suppose I hadn't wit enough to see that? And I 
 scorned the action. There are your damned goblets, as 
 safe as in a church; there are you, with your heart ticking 
 as good as new; and here am I, ready to go out again as 
 poor as I came in, with my one white that you threw in 
 my teeth! And you think I have no sense of honour God 
 strike me dead!" 
 
 The old man stretched out his right arm. "I will tell 
 you what you are," he said. "You are a rogue, my man, 
 an impudent and black-hearted rogue and vagabond. I 
 have passed an hour with you. Oh ! believe me, I feel my- 
 self disgraced! And you have eaten and drunk at my 
 table. But now I am sick at your presence; the day has 
 come, and the night-bird should be off to his roost. Will 
 you go before, or after?" 
 
 "Which you please," returned the poet, rising. "I be- 
 lieve you to be strictly honourable." He thoughtfully 
 emptied his cup. "I wish I could add you were intelligent," 
 he went on, knocking on his head with his knuckles. "Age! 
 age! the brains stiff and rheumatic." 
 
 The old. man preceded him from a point of self-respect; 
 Villon followed, whistling, with his thumbs in his girdle. 
 
 "God pity you," said the lord of Brisetout at the door. 
 
 "Good-bye, papa," returned Villon with a yawn. "Many 
 thanks for the cold mutton." 
 
 The door closed behind him. The dawn was breaking over 
 the white roofs. A chill, uncomfortable morning ushered 
 in the day. Villon stood and heartily stretched himself. 
 
 "A very dull old gentleman," he thought. "I wonder 
 what his goblets may be worth." 
 
THE STAR-CHILD 
 
 BY OSCAR WILDE 
 To Miss Margot Tennant 
 
 ONCE upon a time two poor Woodcutters were mak- 
 ing their way home through a great pine-forest. Ifc 
 was winter, and a night of bitter cold. The snow 
 lay thick upon the ground, and upon the branches of the 
 trees; the frost kept snapping the little twigs on either side 
 of them, as they passed; and when they came to the 
 Mountain-Torrent she was hanging motionless in air, for 
 the Ice-King had kissed her. 
 
 So cold was it that even the animals and the birds did 
 not know what to make of it. 
 
 "Ugh!" snarled the Wolf, as he limped through the 
 brushwood with his tail between his legs, "this is perfectly 
 monstrous weather. Why doesn't the Government look 
 to it?" 
 
 "Weet! weet! weet!" twittered the green Linnets, "the 
 old Earth is dead, and they have laid her out in her white 
 shroud." 
 
 "The Earth is going to be married, and this is her bridal 
 dress," whispered the Turtle-doves to each other. Their 
 little pink feet were quite frost-bitten, but they felt that 
 it was their duty to take a romantic view of the situation. 
 
 "Nonsense!" growled the Wolf. "I tell you that it is 
 all the fault of the Government, and if you don't believe 
 me I shall eat you." The Wolf had a thoroughly practical 
 mind, and was never at a loss for a good argument. 
 
 "Well, for my own part," said the Woodpecker who was a 
 born philosopher, "I don't care an atomic theory for ex- 
 planations. If a thing is so, it is so, and at present it fc 
 terribly cold." 
 
 47 
 
48 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 Terribly cold It certainly was. The little Squirrels, who 
 lived inside the tall fir-tree, kept rubbing each other's noses 
 to keep themselves warm, and the Rabbits curled them- 
 selves up in their holes, and did not venture even to look 
 out of doors. The only people who seemed to enjoy it were 
 the great horned Owls. Their feathers were quite stiff 
 with rime, but they did not mind, and they rolled their 
 large yellow eyes, and called out to each other across thje 
 forest, "Tu-whit! Tu-whoo! Tu-whit! Tu-whoo! what 
 delightful weather we are having!" 
 
 On and on went the two Woodcutters, blowing lustily 
 upon their fingers, and stamping with their huge iron-shod 
 boots upon the caked snow. Once they sank into a deep 
 drift, and came out as white as millers are, when the 
 stones are grinding; and once they slipped on the hard 
 smooth ice where the marshwater was frozen, and their 
 faggots fell out of their bundles, and they had to pick them 
 up and bind them together again; and once they thought 
 that they had lost their way, and a great terror seized on 
 them, for they knew that the Snow is cruel to those who 
 sleep in her arms. But they put their trust in the good 
 Saint Martin, who watches over all travellers, and retraced 
 their steps, and went warily, and at last they reached the 
 outskirts of the forest, and saw, far down in the valley 
 beneath them, the lights of the village in which they dwelt. 
 
 So overjoyed were they at their deliverance that they 
 laughed aloud, and the Earth seemed to them like a flower 
 of silver, and the Moon like a flower of gold. 
 
 Yet, after that they had laughed they became sad, for 
 they remembered their poverty, and one of them said to 
 the other, "Why did we make merry, seeing that life is 
 for the rich, and not for such as we are? Better that we 
 had died of cold in the forest, or that some wild beast 
 had fallen upon us and slain us." 
 
 "Truly," answered his companion, "much is given to 
 some, and little is given to others. Injustice has parcelled 
 out the world, nor is there equal division of aught save 
 of sorrow." 
 
 But as they were bewailing their misery to each other this 
 
THE STAR-CHILD 49 
 
 strange thing happened. There fell from heaven a very 
 bright and beautiful star. It slipped down the side of 
 the sky, passing by the other stars in its course, and, as 
 they watched it, wondering, it seemed to them to sink 
 behind a clump of willow-trees that stood hard by a little 
 sheepfold no more than a stone's-throw away. 
 
 "Why! there is a crock of gold for whoever finds it," 
 they cried, and they set to and ran, so eager were they for 
 the gold. 
 
 And one of them ran faster than his mate, and out- 
 stripped him, and forced his way through the willows, and 
 came out on the other side, and lol there was indeed a thing 
 of gold lying on the white snow. So he hastened towards 
 it, and stooping down placed his hands upon it, and it was 
 a cloak of golden tissue, curiously wrought with stars, and 
 wrapped in many folds. And he cried out to his comrade 
 that he had found the treasure that had fallen from the 
 sky, and when his comrade had come up, they sat them 
 down in the snow, and loosened the folds of the cloak that 
 they might divide the pieces of gold. But alas! no gold 
 was in it, nor silver, nor, indeed, treasure of any kind, but 
 only a little child who was asleep. 
 
 And one of them said to the other, "This is a bitter end- 
 ing to our hope, nor have we any good fortune, for what 
 doth a child profit to a man? Let us leave it here, and go 
 our way, seeing that we are poor men, and have children 
 of our own whose bread we may not give to another." 
 
 But his companion answered him, "Nay, but it were an 
 evil thing to leave the child to perish here in the snow, 
 and though I am as poor as thou art, and have many mouths 
 to feed, and but little in the pot, yet will I bring it home 
 with me, and my wife shall have care of it." 
 
 So very tenderly he took up the child, and wrapped the 
 cloak around it to shield it from the harsh cold, and made 
 his way down the hill to the village, his comrade marvelling 
 much at his foolishness and softness of heart. 
 
 And when they came to the village, his comrade said to 
 him, "Thou hast the child, therefore give me the cloak, lor 
 it is meet that we should share." 
 
50 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 But he answered him, "Nay, for the cloak is neither 
 mine nor thine, but the child's only," and he bade him 
 God-speed, and went to his own house and knocked. 
 
 And when his wife opened the door and saw that her 
 husband had returned safe to her, she put her arms around 
 his neck and kissed him, and took from his back the bundle 
 of faggots, and brushed the snow off his boots, and bade 
 him come in. 
 
 But he said to her, "I have found something in the forest, 
 and I have brought it to thee to have care of it," and he 
 stirred not from the threshold. 
 
 "What is it?" she cried. "Show it to me, for the house 
 is bare, and we have need of many things." And he drew 
 the cloak back, and showed her the sleeping child. 
 
 "Alack, goodman!" she murmured, "Have we not chil- 
 dren of our own, that thou must needs bring a changeling 
 to sit by the hearth? And who knows if it will not bring 
 us bad fortune? And how shall we tend it?" And she 
 was wroth against him. 
 
 "Nay, but it is a Star-Child," he answered; and he told 
 her the strange manner of the finding of it. 
 
 But she would not be appeased, but mocked at Iiim, and 
 spoke angrily, and cried, "Our children lack bread, and 
 shall we feed the child of another? Who is there who 
 careth for us? And who giveth us food?" 
 
 "Nay, but God careth for the sparrows even, and feedeth 
 them," he answered. 
 
 "Do not the sparrows die of hunger in the winter?" she 
 asked. "And is it not winter now?" And the man an- 
 swered nothing, but stirred not from the threshold. 
 
 And a bitter wind from the forest came in through the 
 open door, and made her tremble, and she shivered, and 
 said to him, "Wilt thou not close the door? There cometh 
 a bitter wind into the house, and I am cold." 
 
 "Into a house where a heart is hard cometh there not 
 always a bitter wind?" he asked. And the woman answered 
 him nothing, but crept closer to the fire. 
 
 And after a time she turned round and looked at him, 
 and her eyes were full of tears. And he came in swiftly, 
 
THE STAR-CHILD 51 
 
 and placed the child in her arms, and she kissed it, and 
 laid it in a little bed where the youngest of their own chil- 
 dren was lying. And on the morrow the Woodcutter took 
 the curious cloak of gold and place.: it in a great chest, and 
 a chain of amber that was round the child's neck his wife 
 took and set it in the chest also. 
 
 So the Star-Child was brought up with the children of 
 the Woodcutter, and sat at the same board with them, and 
 was their playmate. And every year he became more 
 beautiful to look at, so that all those who dwelt in the 
 village were filled with wonder, for, while they were swarthy 
 and black-haired, he was white and delicate as sawn ivory, 
 and his curls were like the rings of the daffodil. His lips, 
 also, were like the petals of a red flower, and his eyes were 
 like violets by a river of pure water, and his body like the 
 narcissus of a field where the mower comes not. 
 
 Yet did his beauty work him evil. For he grew proud, 
 and cruel, and selfish. The children of the Woodcutter, 
 and the other children of the village, he despised, saying 
 that they were of mean parentage, while he was noble, 
 being sprung from a Star, and he made himself master 
 over them, and called them his servants. No pity had he 
 for the poor, or for those who were blind or maimed or 
 in any way afflicted, but would cast stones at them and 
 drive them forth on to the highway, and bid them beg 
 their bread elsewhere, so that none save the outlaws came 
 twice to that village to ask for alms. Indeed, he was aa 
 one enamoured of beauty, and would mock at the weakly 
 and ill-favoured, and make jest of them; and himself he 
 loved, and in summer, when the winds were still, he would 
 lie by the well in the priest's orchard and look down at tha 
 marvel of his own face, and laugh for the pleasure he had 
 in his fairness. 
 
 Often did the Woodcutter and his wife chide him, and 
 say, "We did not deal with thee as thou dealest with 
 those who are left desolate, and have none to succour them. 
 Wherefore art thou so cruel to all who need pity?" 
 
 Often did the old priest send for him, and seek to teach 
 
52 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 him the love of living things, saying to him, "The fly is 
 thy brother. Do it no harm. The wild birds that roam 
 through the forest have their freedom. Snare them not 
 for thy pleasure. God made the blind-worm and the mole, 
 and each has its place. Who art thou to bring pain into 
 God's world? Even the cattle of the field praise Him." 
 But the Star-Child heeded not their words, but would 
 frown and flout, and go back to his companions, and lead 
 them. And his companions followed him, for he was fair, 
 and fleet of foot, and could dance, and pipe, and make 
 music. And wherever the Star-Child led them they fol- 
 lowed, and whatever the Star-Child bade them do, that 
 did they. And when he pierced with a sharp reed the dim 
 eyes of the mole, they laughed, and when he cast stones 
 at the leper they laughed also. And in all things he ruled 
 them, and they became hard of heart even as he was. 
 
 Now there passed one day through the village a poor 
 beggar-woman. Her garments were torn and ragged, and 
 her feet were bleeding from the rough road on which she 
 had travelled, and she was in very evil plight. And being 
 weary she sat her down under a chestnut-tree to rest. 
 
 But when the Star-Child saw her he said to his com- 
 panions, "See! There sitteth a foul beggar-woman under 
 that fair and green-leaved tree. Come, let us drive her 
 hence, for she is ugly and ill-favoured." 
 
 So he came near and threw stones at her, and mocked 
 her, and she looked at him with terror in her eyes, nor 
 did she move her gaze from him. And when the Wood- 
 cutter, who was cleaving logs in a haggard hard by, saw 
 what the Star-Child was doing, he ran up and rebuked him, 
 and said to him, "Surely thou art hard of heart and know- 
 est not mercy, for what evil has this poor woman done to 
 thee that thou shouldst treat her in this wise?" 
 
 And the Star-Child grew red with anger, and stamped 
 his foot upon the ground, and said, "Who art thou to ques- 
 tion me what I do? I am no son of thine to do thy bid- 
 ding." 
 
 "Thou speakest truly," answered the Woodcutter, "yet 
 
THE STAR-CHILD 53 
 
 did I show thee pity when I found thee in the forest/* 
 
 And when the woman heard these words she gave a loud 
 cry, and fell into a swoon. And the Woodcutter carried 
 her to his own house, and his wife had care of her, and 
 when she rose up from the swoon into which she had 
 fallen, they set meat and drink before her, and bade her 
 have comfort. 
 
 But she would neither eat nor drink, but said to the 
 Woodcutter, "Didst thou not say that the child was found 
 in the forest? And was it not ten years from this day?" 
 
 And the Woodcutter answered, "Yea, it was in the forest 
 that I found him, and it is ten years from this day.' 7 
 
 "And what signs dist thou find with him?" she cried. 
 "Bare he not upon his neck a chain of amber? Was not 
 round him a cloak of gold tissue broidered with stars?" 
 
 "Truly," answered the Woodcutter, "it was even as 
 thou sayest." And he took the cloak and the amber chain 
 from the chest where they lay, and showed them to her. 
 
 And when she saw them she wept for joy, and said, "He 
 is my little son whom I lost in the forest. I pray thee 
 send for him quickly, for in search of him have I wandered 
 over the whole world." 
 
 So the Woodcutter and his wife went out and called to 
 the Star-Child, and said to him, "Go into the house, and 
 there shalt thou find thy mother, who is waiting for thee." 
 
 So he ran in, filled with wonder and great gladness. But 
 when he saw her who was waiting there, he laughed scorn- 
 fully and said, "Why where is my mother? For I see none 
 here but this vile beggar-woman." 
 
 And the woman answered him, "I am thy mother." 
 
 "Thou art mad to say so," cried the Star-Child angrily. 
 "I am no son of thine, for thou art a beggar, and ugly, 
 and in rags. Therefore get thee hence, and let me see 
 thy foul face no more." 
 
 "Nay, but thou art indeed my little son, whom I bare 
 in the forest," she cried, and she fell on her knees, and 
 held out her arms to him. "The robbers stole thee from 
 me, and left thee to die," she murmured, "but I recog- 
 nised thee when I saw thee, and the signs also have I rec- 
 
54 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 ctgnised, the cloak of golden tissue and the amber chain. 1 
 Therefore I pray thee come with me, for over the whole 
 world have I wandered in search of thee. Come with me, 
 my son, for I have need of thy love." 
 
 But the Star-Child stirred not from his place, but shut 
 the doors of his heart against her, nor was there any 
 sound heard save the sound of the woman weeping for 
 pain. 
 
 And at last he spoke to her, and his voice was hard 
 and bitter. "If in very truth thou art my mother," he" 
 said, "it had been better hadst thou stayed away, and not 
 come here to bring me to shame, seeing that I thought I 
 was the child of some Star, and not a beggar's child, as thou 
 tellest me that I am. Therefore get thee hence, and let 
 me see thee no more." 
 
 "Alas! my son," she cried, "wilt thou not kiss me before 
 I go? For I have suffered much to find thee." 
 
 "Nay," said the Star-Child, "but thou art too foul to 
 look at, and rather would I kiss the adder or the toad than 
 thee." 
 
 So the woman rose up and went away into the forest 
 weeping bitterly, and when the Star-Child saw that she had 
 gone, he was glad, and ran back to his playmates that he 
 might play with them. 
 
 But when they beheld him coming, they mocked him and 
 said, "Why, thou art as foul as the toad, and as loathsome 
 as the adder. Get thee hence, for we will not suffer thee 
 to play with us," and they drove him out of the garden. 
 
 And the Star-Child frowned and said to himself, "What is 
 this that they say to me? I will go to the well of 
 water and look into it, and it shall tell me of my beauty." 
 
 So he went to the well of water and looked into it, and 
 lol his face was as the face of a toad, and his body was 
 scaled like an adder. And he flung himself down on the 
 grass and wept, and said to himself, "Surely this has come 
 upon me by reason of my sin. For I have denied my 
 mother, and driven her away, and been proud and cruel 
 to her. Wherefore I will go and seek her through the 
 whole world, nor will I rest till I have found her." 
 
THE STAR-CHILD 55 
 
 And there came to him the little daughter of the Wood-* 
 cutter, and she put her hand upon his shoulder and said, 
 "What doth it matter if thou hast lost thy comeliness? 
 Stay with us, and I will not mock at thee." 
 
 And he said to her, "Nay, but I have been cruel to my 
 mother, and as a punishment has this evil been sent to 
 me. "Wherefore I must go hence, and wander through 
 the world till I find her, and she give me her forgive- 
 ness." 
 
 So he ran away into the forest and called out to his 
 mother to come to him, but there Was no answer. All day 
 long he called to her, and when the sun set he lay down 
 to sleep on a bed of leaves and the birds and the animals 
 fled from him, for they remembered his cruelty, and he 
 was alone save for the toad that watched him, and the 
 slow adder that crawled past. 
 
 And in the morning he rose up, and plucked some bitter 
 berries from the trees and ate them, and took his way 
 through the great wood, weeping sorely. And of every- 
 thing that he met he made inquiry if perchance they had 
 seen his mother. 
 
 He said to the Mole, "Thou canst go beneath the earth. 
 Tell me, is my mother there?'* 
 
 And the Mole answered, "Thou hast blinded mine eyes. 
 How should I know?" 
 
 He said to the Linnet, "Thou canst fly over the tops of 
 the tall trees, and canst see the whole world. Tell me, 
 canst thou see my mother?" 
 
 And the Linnet answered, "Thou hast dipt my wings 
 for thy pleasure. How should I fly? 
 
 And to the little Squirrel who lived in the fir-tree, and 
 was lonely, he said, "Where is my mother?" 
 
 And the Squirrel answered, "Thou hast slain mine. Dost 
 thou seek to slay thine also?" 
 
 And the Star- Child wept and bowed his head, and prayed 
 forgiveness of God's things, and went on through the forest 
 seeking for the beggar-woman. And on the third day he 
 came to the other side of the forest and went down into the 
 plain. 
 
56 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 And when he passed through the villages the children 
 mocked him, and threw stones at him, and the carlots 
 would not suffer him even to sleep in the byres lest he 
 might bring mildew on the stored corn, so foul was he 
 to look at, and their hired men drove him away, and there 
 was none who had pity on him. Nor could he hear any- 
 where of the beggar-woman who was his mother, though 
 for the space of three years he wandered over the world, 
 and often seemed to see her on the road in front of him, 
 and would call to her, and run after her till the sharp 
 flints made his feet to bleed. But overtake her he could 
 not, and those who dwelt by the way did ever deny that 
 they had seen her, or any like to her, and they made sport 
 of his sorrow. 
 
 For the space of three years he wandered over the world, 
 and in the world there was neither love nor loving-kindness 
 nor charity for him, but it was even such a world as he 
 had made for himself in the days of his great pride. 
 
 And one evening he came to the gate of a strong-walled 
 city that stood by a river, and, weary and footsore though 
 he was, he made to enter in. But the soldiers who stood 
 on guard dropped their halberds across the entrance, and 
 said roughly to him, "What is thy business in the city?" 
 
 "I am seeking for my mother," he answered, "and I 
 pray ye to suffer me to pass, for it may be that she is in 
 this city." 
 
 But they mocked at him, and one of them wagged a black 
 beard, and set down his shield and cried, "Of a truth, thy 
 mother will not be merry when she sees thee, for thou art 
 more ill-favoured than the toad of the marsh, or the adder 
 that crawls in the fen. Get thee gone. Thy mother 
 dwells not in this city." 
 
 And another, who held a yellow banner in his hand, said 
 to him, "Who is thy mother, and wherefore art thou seek- 
 ing for her?" 
 
 And he answered, "My mother is a beggar even as I am, 
 and I have treated her evilly, and I pray ye to suffer me 
 to pass that she may give me her forgiveness, if it be 
 
THE STAR-CHILD 57 
 
 that she tarrieth in this city." But they would not, and 
 pricked him with their spears. 
 
 And, as he turned away weeping, one whose armour was 
 inlaid with gilt flowers, and on whose helmet crouched a 
 lion that had wings, came up and made inquiry of the 
 soldiers who it was who had sought entrance. And they said 
 to him, "It is a beggar and the child of a beggar, and we 
 have driven him away." 
 
 "Nay," he cried, laughing, "but we will sell the foul 
 thing for a slave, and his price shall be the price of a 
 bowl of sweet wine." 
 
 And an old and evil-visaged man who was passing by 
 called out, and said, "I will buy him for that price," and, 
 when he had paid the price, he took the Star-Child by the 
 hand and led him into the city. 
 
 And after they had gone through many streets they 
 came to a little door that was set in a wall that was covered 
 with a pomegranate tree. And the old man touched the 
 door with a ring of graved jasper and it opened, and they 
 went down five steps of brass into a garden filled with 
 black poppies and green jars of burnt clay. And the old 
 man took then from his turban a scarf of figured silk, and 
 bound with it the eyes of the Star-Child, and drove him in 
 front of him. And when the scarf was taken off his eyes, 
 the Star-Child found himself in a dungeon, that was lit 
 by a lantern of horn. 
 
 And the old man set before him some mouldy bread on 
 a trencher and said, "Eat," and some brackish water in a 
 cup and said "Drink," and when he had eaten and drunk, 
 the old man went out, locking the door behind him and 
 fastening it with an iron chain. 
 
 And on the morrow the old man, who was indeed the 
 subtlest of the magicians of Libya and had learned his 
 art from one who dwelt in the tombs of the Nile, came in 
 to him and frowned at him, and said, "In a wood that is 
 nigh to the gate of this city of Giaours there are three 
 pieces of gold. One is of white gold, and another is of yel- 
 low gold, and the gold of the third one is red. To-day 
 
58 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 thou shalt bring me the piece of white gold, and if thou 
 bringest it not back, I will beat thee with a hundred stripes. 
 Get thee away quickly, and at sunset I will be waiting 
 for thee at the door of the garden. See that thou bringest 
 the white gold, or it shall go ill with thee, for thou art my 
 slave, and I have bought thee for the price of a bowl of 
 sweet wine." And he bound the eyes of the Star-Child 
 with the scarf of figured silk, and led him through the 
 house, and through the garden of poppies, and up the five 
 steps of brass. And having opened the little door with 
 his ring he set him in the street. 
 
 And the Star-Child went out of the gate of the city, and 
 came to the wood of which the Magician had spoken to 
 him. 
 
 Now this wood was very fair to look at from without, 
 and seemed full of singing birds and of sweet-scented flow- 
 ers, and the Star-Child entered it gladly. Yet did its 
 beauty profit him little, for wherever he went harsh briars 
 and thorns shot up from the ground and encompassed him, 
 and evil nettles stung him, and the thistle pierced him with 
 her daggers, so that he was in sore distress. Nor could 
 he find anywhere the piece of white gold of which the 
 Magician had spoken, though he sought for it from morn 
 to noon, and from noon to sunset. And at sunset he set 
 his face towards home, weeping bitterly, for he knew what 
 fate was in store for him. 
 
 But when he had reached the outskirts of the wood, he 
 heard from a thicket a cry as of some one in pain. And 
 forgetting his own sorrow he ran back to the place, and 
 saw there a little Hare caught in a trap that some hunter 
 had set for it. 
 
 And the Star-Child had pity on it, and released it, and 
 said to it, "I am myself but a slave, yet may I give thee 
 thy freedom." 
 
 And the Hare answered him, and said, "Surely thou hast 
 given me freedom, and what shall I give thee in return?" 
 
 And the Star- Child said to it, "I am seeking for a piece 
 of white gold, nor can I anywhere find it, and if I bring 
 it not to my master he will beat me." 
 
THE STAR-CHILD 59 
 
 "Come thou with me," said the Hare, "and I will lead 
 thee to it, for I know where it is hidden, and for what 
 purpose." 
 
 So the Star-Child went with the Hare, and lo! in the 
 cleft of a great oak-tree he saw the piece of white gold that 
 he was seeking. And he was filled with joy, and seized it, 
 and said to the Hare, "The service that I did to thee thou 
 hast rendered back again many times over, and the kind- 
 ness that I showed thee thou hast repaid a hundred-fold." 
 
 "Nay," answered the Hare, "but as thou dealt with me, 
 so I did deal with thee," and it ran away swiftly, and the 
 Star-Child went towards the city. 
 
 Now at the gate of the city there was seated one who 
 was a leper. Over his face hung a cowl of grey linen, and 
 through the eyelets his eyes gleamed like red coals. And 
 when he saw the Star-Child coming, he struck upon a 
 wooden bowl, and clattered his bell, and called out to him, 
 and said, "Give me a piece of money, or I must die of 
 hunger. For they have thrust me out of the city, and 
 there is no one who has pity on me." 
 
 "Alas!" cried the Star-Child, "I have but one piece of 
 money in my wallet, and if I bring it not to my master he 
 will beat me, for I am his slave." 
 
 But the leper entreated him, and prayed of him, till the 
 Star-Child had pity, and gave him the piece of white gold. 
 
 And when he came to the Magician's house, the Magician 
 opened to him, and brought him in, and said to him, 
 "Hast thou the piece of white gold?" And the Star-Child 
 answered, "I have it not." So the Magician fell upon 
 him, and beat him, and set before him an empty trencher, 
 and said "Eat," and an empty cup, and said "Drink," and 
 flung him again into the dungeon. 
 
 And on the morrow the Magician came to him, and said, 
 "If to-day thou bringest me not the piece of yellow gold, 
 I will surely keep thee as my slave, and give thee three 
 hundred stripes." 
 
 So the Star-Child went to the wood, and all day long 
 he searched for the piece of yellow gold, but nowhere could 
 he find it. And at sunset he sat him down and began to 
 
60 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 weep, and as he was v/eeping there came to him the little 
 Hare that he had rescued from the trap. 
 
 And the Hare said to him, "'Why art them weeping? 
 And what dost thou seek in the wood?" 
 
 And the Star-Child answered, "I am seeking for a piece 
 of yellow gold that is hidden here, and if I find it not my 
 master will beat me, and keep me as a slave." 
 
 "Follow me," cried the Hare, and it ran through the wood 
 till it came to a pool of water. And at the bottom of the 
 pool the piece of yellow gold was lying. 
 
 "How shall I thank thee?" said the Star-Child, "for lo! 
 this is the second time that you have succoured me." 
 
 "Nay, but thou hadst pity on me first," said the Hare, 
 and it ran away swiftly. 
 
 And the Star-Child took the piece of yellow gold, and 
 put it in his %vallet, and hurried to the city. But the leper 
 saw him coming, and ran to meet him, and knelt down and 
 cried, "Give me a piece of money or I shall die of hunger." 
 
 And the Star-Child said to him, "I have in my wallet 
 but one piece of yellow gold, and if I bring it not to my 
 master he will beat me and keep me as his slave." 
 
 But the leper entreated him sore, so that the Star-Child 
 had pity on him, and gave him the piece of yellow gold. 
 
 And when he came to the Magician's house, the Magician 
 opened to him, and brought him in, and said to him, "Hast 
 thou the piece of yellow gold?" And the Star-Child said to 
 him, "I have it not." So the Magician fell upon him, and 
 beat him, and loaded him with chains, and cast him again 
 into the dungeon. 
 
 And on the morrow the Magician came to him, and said, 
 "If to-day thou bringest me the piece of red gold I will set 
 thee free, but if thou bringest it not I will surely slay 
 thee." 
 
 So the Star-Child went to the wood, and all day long 
 he searched for the piece of red gold, but nowhere could 
 he find it. And at evening he sat him down and wept, 
 and as he was weeping there came to him the little Hare. 
 
 And the Hare said to him, "The piece of red gold that 
 
THE STAR-CHILD 61 
 
 thou seekest is in the cavern that is behind thee. There- 
 fore weep no more, but be glad." 
 
 "How shall I reward thee?" cried the Star-Child, "for 
 lol this is the third time thou hast succoured me." 
 
 "Nay, but thou hadst pity on me first," said the Hare, 
 and it ran away swiftly. 
 
 And the Star-Child entered the cavern, and in its farthest 
 corner he found the piece of red gold. So he put it in 
 his wallet, and hurried to the city. And the leper seeing 
 him coming, stood in the centre of the road and cried out, 
 and said to him, "Give me the piece of red money, or I 
 must die," and the Star-Child had pity on him again, and 
 gave him the piece of red gold, saying, "Thy need is greater 
 than mine." Yet was his heart heavy, for he knew what 
 evil fate awaited him. 
 
 I 
 
 But lo! as he passed through the gate of the city, the 
 guards bowed down and made obeisance to him, saying, 
 "How beautiful is our lord!" and a crowd of citizens fol- 
 lowed him, and cried out, "Surely there is none so beautiful 
 in the whole world!" so that the Star-Child wept, and said 
 to himself, "They are mocking me, and making light of 
 my misery." And so large was the concourse of the people, 
 that he lost the threads of his way, and found himself at 
 last in a great square, in which there was a palace of a King. 
 
 And the gate of the palace opened, and the priests and 
 the high officers of the city ran forth to meet him, and they 
 abased themselves before him, and said, "Thou art our 
 lord for whom we have been waiting, and the son of our 
 King." 
 
 And the Star-Child answered them and said, "I am no 
 king's son, but the child of a poor beggar-woman. And 
 how say ye that I am beautiful, for I know that I am evil 
 to look at?" 
 
 Then he whose armour was inlaid with gilt flowers, and 
 on whose helmet crouched a lion that had wings, held up 
 a shield, and cried, "How saith my lord that he is not 
 beautiful?" 
 
 And the Star-Child looked, and lo! his face was even 
 
62 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 as it had been, and his comeliness had come back to him, 
 and he saw that in his eyes which he had not seen there 
 before. 
 
 And the priests and the high officers knelt down and said 
 to him, "It was prophesied of old that on this day should 
 come he who was to rule over us. Therefore, let our lord 
 take this crown and this sceptre, and be in his justice and 
 mercy our King over us." 
 
 But he said to them, "I am not worthy, for I have denied 
 the mother who bare me, nor may I rest till I have found 
 her, and known her forgiveness. Therefore, let me go, for 
 I must wander again over the world, and may not tarry 
 here, though ye bring me the crown and the sceptre." And 
 as he spake he turned his face from them towards the street 
 that led to the gate of the city, and lo! amongst the crowd 
 that pressed round the soldiers, he saw the beggar-woman 
 who was his mother, and at her side stood the leper who 
 had sat by the road. 
 
 And a cry of joy broke from his lips, and he ran over, 
 and kneeling down he kissed the wounds on his mother's 
 feet, and wet them with his tears. He bowed his head in 
 the dust, and sobbing, as one whose heart might break, 
 he said to her, "Mother, I denied thee in the hour of my 
 pride. Accept me in the hour of my humility. Mother, I 
 gave thee hatred. Do thou give me love. Mother, I re- 
 jected thee. Receive thy child now." But the beggar- 
 woman answered him not a word. 
 
 And he reached out his hands and clasped the white feet 
 of the leper, and said to him, "Thrice did I give thee of 
 my mercy. Bid my mother speak to me once." But the 
 leper answered him not a word. 
 
 And he sobbed again and said, "Mother, my suffering 
 is greater than I can bear. Give me thy forgiveness, and 
 let me go back to the forest." And the beggar-woman put 
 her hand on his head, and said to him, "Rise," and the 
 leper put his hand on his head, and said to him, "Rise," 
 also. 
 
 And he rose up from his feet, and looked at them, and 
 lo! they were a King and a Queen. 
 
THE STAR-CHILD 63 
 
 And the Queen said to him, "This is thy father whom 
 thou hast succoured." 
 
 And the King said, "This is thy mother whose feet thou 
 hast washed with thy tears." 
 
 And they fell on his neck and kissed him, and brought 
 him into the palace and clothed him in fair raiment, and 
 set the crown upon his head, and the sceptre in his hand, 
 and over the city that stood by the river he ruled, and was 
 its lord. Much justice and mercy did he show to all, and 
 the evil Magician he banished, and to the Woodcutter and 
 his wife he sent many rich gifts, and to their children he 
 gave high honour. Nor would he suffer any to be cruel to 
 bird or beast, but taught love and loving-kindness and 
 charity, and to the poor he gave bread, and to the naked 
 he gave raiment, and there was peace and plenty in the 
 land. 
 
 Yet ruled he not long, so great had been his suffering, 
 and so bitter the fire of his testing, for after the space of 
 three years he died. And he who came after him ruled 
 evilly. 
 
THE DYING OF FRANCIS DONNE 
 
 A Study 
 
 BY ERNEST DOWSON 
 'Memento homo, quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris." 
 
 HE had lived so long in the meditation of death, visited 
 it so often in others, studied it with such persistency, 
 with a sentiment in which horror and fascination 
 mingled; but it had always been, as it were, an objective, 
 alien fact, remote from himself and his own life. So that 
 it was in a sudden flash, quite too stupefying to admit in 
 the first instance of terror, that knowledge of his mortality 
 dawned on him. There was absurdity in the idea too. 
 
 "I, Francis Donne, thirty-five and some months old, am 
 going to die,' 7 he said to himself; and fantastically he 
 looked at his image in the glass, and sought, but quite 
 vainly, to find some change in it which should account for 
 this incongruity, just as, searching in his analytical habit 
 into the recesses of his own mind, he could find no such 
 alteration of his inner consciousness as would explain or 
 justify his plain conviction. And quickly, with reason and 
 casuistry, he sought to rebut that conviction. 
 
 The quickness of his mind it had never seemed to him 
 so nimble, so exquisite a mechanism of syllogism and de- 
 duction was contraposed against his blind instinct of the 
 would-be self-deceiver, in a conflict to which the latter 
 brought something of desperation, the fierce, agonized des- 
 peration of a hunted animal at bay. But piece by piece 
 the chain of evidence was strengthened. That subtile and 
 agile mind of his, with its special knowledge, cut clean 
 through the shrinking protests of instinct, removing them 
 
 64 
 
THE DYING OF FRANCIS DONNE 65 
 
 as surely and as remorselessly, he reflected in the image 
 most natural to him, as the keen blade of his surgical knives 
 had removed malignant ulcers. 
 
 "I, Francis Donrie, am going to die," he repeated, and, 
 presently, "/ am going to die soon; in a few months, in six 
 perhaps, certainly in a year." 
 
 Once more, curiously, but this time with a sense of neu- 
 trality, as he had often diagnosed a patient, he turned to 
 the mirror. Was it his fancy, or, perhaps, only for the 
 vague light that he seemed to discover a strange grey tone 
 about his face? 
 
 But he had always been a man of a very sallow com- 
 plexion. 
 
 There were a great many little lines, like pen-scratches, 
 scarring the parchment-like skin beneath the keen eyes: 
 doubtless, of late, these had multiplied, become more notice- 
 able, even when his face was in repose. 
 
 But, of late, what with his growing practice, his lectures, 
 his writing; all the unceasing labour, which his ambitions 
 entailed, might well have afled him somewhat. That dull, 
 immutable pain, which had first directed his attention from 
 his studies, his investigatons, his profession, to his corporal 
 self, the actual Francis Donne, that pain which he would 
 so gladly have called inexplicable, but could explain so 
 precisely, had ceased for the moment. Nerves, fancies! 
 How long it was since he had taken any rest ! He had often 
 intended to give himself holiday, but something had always 
 intervened. But he would do so now, yes, almost imme- 
 diately; a long, long holiday he would grudge nothing 
 somewhere quite out of the way, somewhere, where there 
 was fishing; in Wales, or perhaps in Brittany; that would 
 surely set him right. 
 
 And even while he promised himself this necessary relaxa- 
 tion in the immediate future, as he started on his after- 
 noon round, in the background of his mind there lurked 
 the knowledge of its futility; rest, relaxation, all that, at 
 this date was, as it were, some tardy sacrifice, almost hypo- 
 critical, which he offered to powers who might not be pro- 
 pitiated. 
 
66 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 Once in his neat brougham, the dull pain began again; 
 but by an effort of will he put it away from him. In the 
 brief interval from house to house he had some dozen 
 visits to make he occupied himself with a medical paper, 
 glanced at the notes of a lecture he was giving that evening 
 at a certain Institute on the "Limitations of Medicine." 
 
 He was late, very late for dinner, and his man, Brom- 
 grove, greeted him with a certain reproachfulness, in which 
 he traced, or seemed to trace, a half-patronizing sense of 
 pity. He reminded himself that on more than one occa- 
 sion, of late, Bromgrove's manner had perplexed him. He 
 was glad to rebuke the man irritably on some pretext, to 
 dismiss him from the room, and he hurried, without appe- 
 tite, through the cold or overdone food which was the 
 reward of his tardiness. 
 
 His lecture over, he drove out to South Kensington, to 
 attend a reception at the house of a great man great not 
 only in the scientific world, but also in the world of letters. 
 There was some of the excitement of success in his eyes as 
 he made his way, with smiles and bows, in acknowledgment 
 of many compliments, through the crowded rooms. For 
 Francis Donne's lectures those of them which were not 
 entirely for the initiated had grown into the importance 
 of a social function. They had almost succeeded in mak- 
 ing science fashionable, clothing its dry bones in a garment 
 of so elegantly literary a pattern. But even in the ranks of 
 the profession it was only the envious, the unsuccessful, 
 who ventured to say that Donne had sacrificed doctrine to 
 popularity, that his science was, in their contemptuous 
 parlance, "mere literature." 
 
 Yes, he had been very successful, as the world counts 
 success, and his consciousness of this fact, and the influence 
 of the lights, the crowd, the voices, was like absinthe on 
 his tired spirit. He had forgotten, or thought he had for- 
 gotten, the phantom of the last few days, the phantom 
 which was surely waiting for him at home. 
 
 But he was reminded by a certain piece of news which 
 late in the evening fluttered the now diminished assembly: 
 the quite sudden death of an eminent surgeon, expected 
 
THE DYING OF FRANCIS DONNE 67 
 
 there that night, an acquaintance of his own, and more or 
 less of each one of the little, intimate group which tarried 
 to discuss it. With sympathy, with a certain awe, they 
 spoke of him, Donne and the others; and both the awe and 
 the sympathy were genuine. 
 
 But as he drove home, leaning back in his carriage, in a 
 discouragement, in a lethargy, which was only partly due 
 to physical reaction, he saw visibly underneath their regret 
 theirs and his own the triumphant assertion of life, the 
 egoism of instinct. They were sorry, but oh, they were 
 glad! royally glad, that it was another, and not they them- 
 selves whom something mysterious had of a sudden 
 snatched away from his busy career, his interests, perhaps 
 from all intelligence; at least, from all the pleasant sensu- 
 ousness of life, the joy of the visible world, into darkness. 
 And he knew the sentiment, and honestly dared not blame 
 it. How many times had not he, Francis Donne himself, 
 experienced it, that egoistic assertion of life in the presence 
 of the dead the poor, irremediable dead?. . . And now, 
 he was only good to give it to others. 
 
 Latterly, he had been in the habit of subduing sleep- 
 lessness with injections of morphia, indeed in infinitesimal 
 quantities. But to-night, although he was more than usu- 
 ally restless and awake, by a strong effort of reasonableness 
 he resisted his impulse to take out the little syringe. The 
 pain was at hin) again with the same dull and stupid in- 
 sistence; in its monotony, losing some of the nature of 
 pain and becoming a mere nervous irritation. But he was 
 aware that it would not continue like that. Daily, almost 
 hourly, it would gather strength and cruelty; the moments 
 of respite from it would become rarer, would cease. From 
 a dull pain it would become an acute pain, and then a tor- 
 ture, and then an agony, and then a madness. And in 
 those last days, what peace might be his would be the 
 >eace of morphia, so that it was essential that, for the 
 noment, he should not abuse the drug. 
 
 And as he knew that sleep was far away from him, he 
 propped himself up with two pillows, and by the light of a 
 strong reading-lamp settled himself to read. He had se- 
 
68 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 lected the work of a distinguished German savant upon the 
 cardial functions, and a short treatise of his own, which 
 was covered with recent annotations, in his crabbed hand- 
 writing, upon "Aneurism of the Heart." He read avidly, 
 and against his own deductions, once more his instinct 
 raised a vain protest. At last he threw the volumes aside, 
 and lay, with his eyes shut, without, however, extinguishing 
 the light. A terrible sense of helplessness overwhelmed 
 him; he was seized with an immense and heart-breaking 
 pity for poor humanity as personified in himself; and, for 
 the first time since he had ceased to be a child, he shed 
 puerile tears. 
 
 II 
 
 The faces of his acquaintance, the faces of the students 
 at his lectures, the faces of Francis Donne's colleagues at 
 the hospital, were altered ; were, at least, sensibly altered to 
 his morbid self-consciousness. In every one whom he en- 
 countered, he detected, or fancied that he detected, an atti- 
 tude of evasion, a hypocritical air of ignoring a iact that 
 was obvious and unpleasant. Was it so obvious, then, the 
 hidden horror which he carried incessantly about with him? 
 Was his secret, which he would still guard so jealously, be- 
 come a byword and an anecdote in his little world? And 
 a great rage consumed him against the inexorable and in- 
 scrutable forces which had made him to destroy him; 
 against himself, because of his proper impotence; and, 
 above all, against the living, the millions who would re- 
 main when he was no longer, the living, of whom many 
 would regret him (some of them his personality, and more, 
 his skill), because he could see under all the unconscious 
 hypocrisy of their sorrow, the exultant self-satisfaction of 
 their survival. 
 
 And with his burning sense of helplessness, of a certain 
 bitter injustice in things, a sense of shame mingled; all the 
 merely physical dishonour of death shaping itself to his sick 
 and morbid fancy into a violent symbol of what was, as it 
 were, an actually moral or intellectual dishonour. Was not 
 
THE DYING OF FRANCIS DONNE 60 
 
 death, too, inevitable and natural an operation as it 
 essentially a process to undergo apart and hide jealously, as 
 much as other natural and ignoble processes of the body? 
 
 And the animal, who steals away to an uttermost place 
 hi the forest, who gives up his breath in a solitude and 
 hides his dying like a shameful thing, might he not offer 
 an example that it would be well for the dignity of poor 
 humanity to follow? 
 
 Since Death is coming to me, said Francis Donne to 
 himself, let me meet it, a stranger in a strange land, with 
 only strange faces round me and the kind indifference of 
 strangers, instead of the intolerable pity of friends. 
 
 Ill 
 
 On the bleak and wave-tormented coast of Finistere, 
 somewhere between Quiberon and Fouesnant, he reminded 
 himself of a little fishing-village: a few scattered houses 
 (one of them being an auberge at which ten years ago he 
 had spent a night), collected round a poor little grey 
 church. Thither Francis Donne went, without leave-tak- 
 ings or explanation, almost secretly, giving but the vaguest 
 indications of the length or direction of his absence. And 
 there for many days he dwelt, in the cottage which he 
 had hired, with one old Breton woman for his sole atten- 
 dant, in a state of mind which, after all the years of energy, 
 of ambitious labour, was almost peace. 
 
 Bleak and grey it had been, when he had visited it of 
 old, in the late autumn; but now the character, the whole 
 colour of the country was changed. It was brilliant with 
 the promise of summer, and the blue Atlantic, which in 
 winter churned with its long crested waves so boisterously 
 below the little white light-house, which warned mariners 
 (alas! so vainly), against the shark-like cruelty of the rocks, 
 now danced anH glittered in the sunshine, rippled with 
 feline caresses round the hulls of the fishing-boats whose 
 brown sails floated so idly in the faint air. 
 
 Above the village, on a grassy slope, whose green was 
 almost lurid, Francis Donne lay, for many silent hours, look- 
 
70 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 ing out at the placid sea, which could yet be so ferocious, 
 at the low violet line of the Island of Groix, which alone 
 interrupted the monotony of sky and ocean. 
 
 He had brought many books with him but he read in 
 them rarely; and when physical pain gave him a respite for 
 thought, he thought almost of nothing. His thought was 
 for a long time a lethargy and a blank. 
 
 Now and again he spoke with some of the inhabitants. 
 They were a poor and hardy, but a kindly race: fishers and 
 the wives of fishers, whose children would grow up and 
 become fishermen and the wives of fishermen in their turn. 
 Most of them had wrestled with death; it was always so 
 near to them that hardly one of them feared^ it ; they were 
 fatalists, with the grim and resigned fatalism of the poor, 
 of the poor who live with the treachery of the sea. 
 
 Francis Donne visited the little cemetery, and counted 
 the innumerable crosses which testified to the havoc which 
 the sea had wrought. Some of the graves were nameless; 
 holding the bodies of strange seamen which the waves had 
 tossed ashore. 
 
 "And in a little time I shall lie here," he said to him- 
 self; "and here as well as elsewhere," he added with a 
 shrug, assuming, and, for once, almost sincerely, the stoi- 
 cism of his surroundings, "and as lief to-day as to-morrow." 
 
 On the whole, the days were placid ; there were even mo- 
 ments when, as though he had actually drunk in renewed 
 vigour from that salt sea air, the creative force of the sun, 
 he was tempted to doubt his grievous knowledge, to make 
 fresh plans of life. But these were fleeting moments, and 
 the reaction from them was terrible. Each day his hold 
 on life was visibly more slender, and the people of the 
 village saw, and with a rough sympathy, which did not 
 offend him, allowed him to perceive that they saw, the 
 rapid growth and the inevitableness of his end. 
 
 IV 
 
 But if the days were not without their pleasantness, the 
 nights were always horrible a torture of the body and an 
 
THE DYING OF FRANCIS DONNE 71 
 
 agony of the spirit. Sleep was far away, and the brain, 
 which had been lulled till the evening, would awake, would 
 grow electric with life and take strange and abominable 
 flights into the darkness of the pit, into the black night of 
 the unknowable and the unknown. 
 
 And interminably, during those nights which seemed 
 eternity, Francis Donne questioned and examined into the 
 nature of that Thing, which stood, a hooded figure besidfc 
 his bed, with a menacing hand raised to beckon him so 
 peremptorily from all that lay within his consciousness. 
 
 He had been all his life absorbed in science; he had dis- 
 sected, how many bodies? and in what anatomy had he ever 
 found a soul? Yet if his avocations, his absorbing interest 
 in physical phenomena had made him somewhat a mate- 
 rialist, it had been almost without his consciousness. The 
 sensible, visible world of matter had loomed so large to 
 him, that merely to know that had seemed to him suffi- 
 cient. All that might conceivably lie outside it, he had, 
 without negation, been content to regard as outside his 
 province. 
 
 And now, in his weakness, in the imminence of approach- 
 ing dissolution, his purely physical knowledge seemed but 
 a vain possession, and he turned with a passionate interest 
 to what had been said and believed from time immemorial 
 by those who had concentrated their intelligence on that 
 strange essence, which might after all be the essence of 
 one's personality, which might be that sublimated con- 
 sciousness the Soul actually surviving the infamy of the 
 grave? 
 
 Animula, vagula, blandula! 
 
 Hospes comesque corporis, 
 
 Quse nunc abibis in loca? 
 
 Pallidula, rigida, nudula. 
 
 Ah, the question! It was an harmony, perhaps (as, who 
 had maintained? whom the Platonic Socrates in the 
 "Phaedo" had not too successfully refuted), an harmony of 
 life, which was dissolved when life was over? Or, perhaps, 
 as how many metaphysicians had held both before and 
 after a sudden great hope, perhaps too generous to be true, 
 
72 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 had changed and illuminated, to countless millions, the in- 
 exorable figure of Death a principle, indeed, immortal, 
 which came and went, passing through many corporal con- 
 ditions until it was ultimately resolved into the great mind, 
 pervading all things? Perhaps? . . . But what scanty 
 consolation, in all such theories, to the poor body, racked 
 with pain and craving peace, to the tortured spirit of self- 
 consciousness so achingly anxious not to be lost. 
 
 And he turned from these speculations to what was, after 
 all, a possibility like the others; the faith of the simple, of 
 these fishers with whom he lived, which was also the faith 
 of his own childhood, which, indeed, he had never repudi- 
 ated, whose practices he had simply discarded, as one dis- 
 cards puerile garments when one comes to man's estate. 
 And he remembered, with the vividness with which, in 
 moments of great anguish, one remembers things long ago 
 familiar, forgotten though they may have been for years, 
 the triumphant declarations of the Church: 
 
 "Omnes quidem resurgemus, sed non omnes immuta- 
 bimur. In moment o, in ictu oculi, in novissima tuba: canet 
 enim tuba: et mortui resurgent incorrupti, et nos immuta- 
 bimur. Oportet enim corruptibUe hoc induere immortali- 
 tatem. Cum autem mortale hoc induerit immortalitatem 
 tune fiet sermo qui scriptus est: Absorpta est mors in vic- 
 toria. Ubi est, mors, victoria tua? Ubi est, mors, stimulus 
 tuus?" 
 
 Ah, for the certitude of that! of that victorious confuta- 
 tion of the apparent destruction of sense and spirit in a 
 common ruin. . . . But it was a possibility like the rest; 
 and had it not more need than the rest to be more than 
 a possibility, if it would be a consolation, in that it prom- 
 ised more? And he gave it up, turning his face to the 
 wall, lay very still, imagining himself already stark and 
 cold, his eyes closed, his jaw closely tied (lest the ignoble 
 changes which had come to him should be too ignoble), 
 while he waited until the narrow boards, within which he 
 should lie, had been nailed together, and the bearers were 
 ready to convey him into the corruption which was to be 
 his part. 
 
THE DYING OF FRANCIS DONNE 73 
 
 And as the window-pane grew light with morning, he 
 sank into a drugged, unrestful sleep, from which he would 
 awake some hours later with eyes more sunken and more 
 haggard cheeks. And that was the pattern of many nights. 
 
 One day he seemed to wake from a night longer and more 
 troubled than usual, a night which had, perhaps, been many 
 nights and days, perhaps even weeks; a night of an ever- 
 increasing agony, in which he was only dimly conscious at 
 rare intervals of what was happening, or of the figures com- 
 ing and going around his bed: the doctor from a neighbour- 
 ing town, who had stayed by him unceasingly, easing his 
 paroxysms with the little merciful syringe; the soft, prac- 
 tised hands of a sister of charity about his pillow; even the 
 face of Bromgrove, for whom doubtless he had sent, when 
 he had foreseen the utter helplessness which was at hand. 
 
 He opened his eyes, and seemed to discern a few blurred 
 figures against the darkness of the closed shutters through 
 which one broad ray filtered in; but he could not distin- 
 guish their faces, and he closed his eyes once more. An 
 immense and ineffable tiredness had come over him, but the 
 pain oh, miracle! had ceased. . . . And it suddenly 
 flashed over him that this this was Death; this was the 
 thing against which he had cried and revolted; the horror 
 from which he would have escaped; this utter luxury of 
 physical exhaustion, this calm, this release. 
 
 The corporal capacity of smiling had passed from him, 
 but he would fain have smiled. 
 
 And for a few minutes of singular mental lucidity, all 
 his life flashed before him in a new relief; his childhood, 
 his adolescence, the people whom he had known; his 
 mother, who had died when he was a boy, of a malady from 
 which, perhaps, a few years later, his skill had saved her; 
 the friend of his youth who had shot himself for so little 
 reason; the girl whom he had loved, but who had not loved 
 him. . . . All that was distorted in life was adjusted and 
 justified in the light of his sudden knowledge. Beati mor- 
 
74 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 tui . . . and then the great tiredness swept over him once 
 more, and a fainter consciousness, in which he could yet just 
 dimly hear, as in a dream, the sound of Latin prayers, and 
 feel the application of the oils upon all the issues and ap- 
 proaches of his wearied sense; then utter unconsciousness, 
 while pulse and heart gradually grew fainter until both 
 ceased. And that was all. 
 
TO NANCY 1 
 
 BY SIR FREDERICK WEDMORE 
 
 WEYMOUTH, sgth September. 
 
 IT happens that I have seen much of you, Nancy, at an 
 eventful moment eventful for yourself I mean, in 
 your life and your career and here, because I like you, 
 and like to think of and reflect on you, there is written 
 down, straight and full, the record of my impression: con- 
 cealing nothing, though written to yourself: a letter abso- 
 lutely frank, looking all facts in the face; for, young though 
 you are, you are intelligent enough to bear them. My letter 
 you may find tedious, perhaps, but at all events unusual; 
 for letters, even when detailed, generally omit much, hide 
 some part of a thought put the thing in a way that pleases 
 the writer, or is intended to please the receiver. Here am 
 I at the end of my first page, Nancy, and all preface! 
 Well, I shall recall, to begin with, how it was that I met 
 you. 
 
 Acquit me, please, of any general love of your over- 
 praised Music Hall. Neither it nor the Theatre counts for 
 much in my life. I like you personally: I imagine a Future 
 for you; but I am not anxious for "the status of the Pro- 
 fession." Life, it is just possible, has other goals than that 
 of being received in smart drawing-rooms whatever Art 
 you practise, its practice is your reward. Society, my dear, 
 has bestowed of late upon the stage "lover" an attention 
 that is misplaced. We are getting near the end of it: and, 
 at afternoon teas, the cabotm, in a frock coat, no longer 
 dominates the situation. Youths from the play-house have 
 in the Past, over the luncheon-table, imparted to me, with 
 
 1 A letter from Mr. Clement Ashton, the distinguished Painter, 
 to Miss Nancy Nanson, of the Variety Theatres. 
 
 75 
 
76 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 patronage, their views about Painting: to me, Nancy, to 
 your old friend, who has painted for thirty years a full 
 Academician one year since, with but few honours (as men 
 call them) left to gain: few years, alas! in which to live to 
 gain them. Child as you are, your common sense that 
 neatly-balanced little mind of yours so unusually clear 
 that neatly-balanced mind assures you that it is not the 
 profession you follow, but what you have been able to do 
 in it, and what you really are, that give you I mean of 
 course, gives any one legitimate claim to be in privileged 
 places, to be motioned to the velvet of the social sward. 
 "Artist," indeed! As well expect to be received with wel- 
 come for having had sufficient capital to buy a camp stool 
 and a few feet of German moulding with which to frame a 
 canvas sent to the Dudley Gallery, as to be suffered to dic- 
 tate and to dogmatise in virtue of a well-worn coat and an 
 appearance at a London theatre! 
 
 You have read so far, and yet I have not reminded you 
 how it was that you and I came to know each other. It 
 was just two years ago, in this Weymouth from which 
 I write to you. I saw a photograph that struck me, at the 
 door of your place of entertainment at the door of the 
 "People's Delight." The face was young but I have 
 known youth. Pretty, it was but a fashionable portrait- 
 painter lives with prettiness. It was so monstrously re- 
 fined. 
 
 At three o'clock, they said, there would be an entertain- 
 ment Miss Nancy Nanson would certainly be seen. And 
 in I went, with a companion old Sir James Purchas, of 
 Came Manor my host more than once in these parts. Sir 
 James, you know, is not a prey to the exactions of conven- 
 tionality, and there was no reason why the humble enter- 
 tainment your lounge and shelter offered to the tripper 
 should not afford us half an hour's amusement. 
 
 The blazing September afternoon you recollect Sep- 
 tember with the glare of the dog days. The "people," it 
 seemed, were not profiting that day by the "People's De- 
 light," for the place was all but empty everyone out of 
 doors and we wandered, not aimlessly indeed, but not sue- 
 
TO NANCY 77 
 
 cessfully, among those cavernous, half-darkened regions, 
 among the stalls for fruits and sweets and cheap jewelry, in 
 search of a Show. A turn, and we came suddenly on rows 
 of empty chairs placed in front of a small stage, with drawn 
 curtains; and, at a money-taker's box (for reserved seats, 
 as I supposed) leaning over the money- taker's counter, in 
 talk with someone who came, it may be, from a selling- 
 stall there was a child, a little girl. Sir James touched 
 my arm, directing my attention to her, and I took the 
 initiative said to the little girl: "We came to see Miss 
 Nancy Nanson. You can tell us, perhaps, when is the 
 Show going to begin?" "There won't be any entertainment 
 this afternoon," the girl answered; "because, you see, there 
 isn't any audience. I am Miss Nancy Nanson." The 
 dignity of the child! 
 
 The fact was, you remember, that photograph at the 
 entrance gave the impression of a girl of seventeen; and I 
 did not at all connect it with the figure of the silver-voiced, 
 well-spoken, elegant child, who proved to be yourself 
 since then my model and my youthful friend. But the 
 moment you spoke, and when my eyes, still not quite used 
 to the obscurity, took in your real face and those refined 
 expressions, the identity was established, though the photo- 
 graph, with its dexterous concealment, showed more the 
 Nancy Nanson you were going to be, than the Nancy 
 Nanson that you were. I was pleased, nevertheless; and 
 we talked about yourself for a few minutes; and when you 
 said (because I asked you) that there would be an enter- 
 tainment next day, I told you we would come to see it, 
 certainly. And Sir James was indulgent. And I am a 
 man of my word. 
 
 And now there is a bit we can afford to hurry over; for 
 the next stage of our acquaintance does not advance, appre- 
 ciably, the action of your story. We came; we saw your 
 entertainment: your three "turns"; singing, dancing: and 
 pretty enough it was but yet, so-so. You were such a 
 pleasant child, of course we applauded you so refined, yet 
 singing, tolerably, such nonsense. Even then, it was your 
 charming little personality, you know it was not your 
 
78 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 performance that had in it attractiveness. Next day, I 
 left the neighbourhood. 
 
 For two years after that, I never saw Miss Nancy 
 Nanson, "vocalist and dancer;" only once heard of and 
 read of you only once, perhaps, thought of you. The once 
 was last Christmas your name, I saw, was advertised hi a 
 pantomime in London played by "juveniles." I might, it 
 is just possible, have gone to see it. But the average "juve- 
 nile I" think! and then, the influenza and the weather I 
 
 Well! this present glowing September, Nancy glowing 
 and golden as it was two years ago brought me again, and 
 very differently into touch with you. The Past is over. 
 Now I fix your attention for you are still patient with 
 me I fix your attention on the Present, and I point out 
 to you, in detail I realise to myself how the time is 
 critical, eventful; how you stand, Nancy, upon a certain 
 brink. I am not going to prophesy what you may be; but 
 I tell you what you are. The real You, you know: some- 
 thing better and deeper than that which those seven Pastels, 
 any or all of them together, show you my delighted notes 
 of your external beauty; touched, I think, with some charm 
 of grace that answers well to your own; and mimicking, 
 not badly, the colours and contours of your stage pres- 
 ence. Nothing more. Chance gleams an artist's "snap- 
 shots" at Miss Nancy Nanson, vocalist and dancer, at six- 
 teen. (Sixteen yesterday). But you No! 
 
 This present September a fortnight since I came again 
 to Weymouth; this time alone; putting up at the old 
 "Gloucester" (it was George the Third's house) from which 
 I write to you; and not at Came Manor, in the neigh* 
 bourhood. In the Weymouth of to-day one is obliged, in 
 nearly every walk, to pass the "People's Delight" your 
 cheap vulgarity, my dear, that the great Georgian time 
 would have resented. I passed it soon, and the two names 
 biggest upon the bills were, "Achilles, the Strong Man" 
 there are things in which even a decayed watering place 
 cannot afford to be behind the fashion, and the "strong 
 man" is in fashion to-day "Achilles, the Strong Man," 
 then, and "Miss Nancy Nanson." Again did I go in; took 
 
TO NANCY 79 
 
 the seat, exactly, that I had taken two years since, in the 
 third row of chairs; and while a band of three made cas- 
 ual, lifeless, introductory music, I waited for the Show. 
 
 The curtain rose presently on a great, living, breathing, 
 over-energetic statue a late Renaissance bronze, by John 
 of Bologna, he seemed that muscular piece of colour and 
 firm form, that nigger, posed effectively, and of prodigious 
 force. "John of Bologna" but you never heard of him! 
 Then he began his operations Achilles, the Strong Man 
 holding, and only by his teeth, enormous weights; and 
 rushing round with one, two, hundredweight, as if it were 
 a feather; lifting, with that jaw of his, masses of iron; 
 crashing them on the stage again, and standing afterwards 
 with quivering muscles, heaving chest. Applause I joined 
 in it myself, in common courtesy and then the curtain 
 fell. 
 
 A wait. The band struck up again it was your first 
 "turn." A slim and dainty figure, so very slight, so very- 
 young, in a lad's evening dress, advanced with swiftness 
 towards the footlights, and bowed in a wide sweep that 
 embraced everyone. Then you began to sing and not 
 too well, you know a song of pretty-enough sentiment; 
 the song of a stripling whose sweetheart was his mother. 
 His mother, she sufficed for him. It suited your young 
 years. A tender touch or two, and with a boy's manliness. 
 Applause! You vanished. 
 
 You vanished to return. In a girl's dress this time, 
 with movements now more swift and now more graceful. 
 Another song, and, this time, dancing with it. It was danc- 
 ing you were born for. "She has grown another being 
 and yet with the old pleasantness in these two years," I 
 thought. "A child no longer." In colour and agility you 
 were a brilliant show. I have told you since, in talking, 
 what I thought of you. You were not a Sylvia Grey, my 
 dear; still less that other Sylvia Voltaire praised con- 
 trasting her with the Camargo. The Graces danced 
 like Sylvia, Voltaire said like the Camargo, the wild 
 Nymphs. No! you were not Voltaire's Sylvia, any more 
 than you were Sylvia Grey. Sylvia Grey's dance is per- 
 
8o THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 feet, from the waist upwards as an observant actress 
 pointed out to me, with whom I saw it. Swan-like in the 
 holding, and slow movement, of the head and neck; ex- 
 quisite in the undulations of the torso. Where Sylvia 
 Grey ends I mean where her remarkableness ends (for 
 she has legs like another, I take it) you, my dear, begin. 
 Your modelling wants an Ingres to do it justice. The 
 slimness of the girl, and what a fineness, as of race; and 
 then, the agility of infinite practice, and sixteen young 
 years! 
 
 A third "turn" then it was that you were agile most 
 of all. The flying feet went skyward. Black shoes rushed, 
 rocket-like, so far above your head, and clattered on the 
 floor again; whilst against the sober crimson of the back- 
 ground curtain a dull, thin stuff, stretched straight 
 gleamed the white of moving skirts, and blazed the boss of 
 brightest scarlet that nestled somewhere in the brown gold 
 of your head. Then, flushed and panting, it was over. 
 
 Next day, in a gaunt ante-room, or extra chamber, its 
 wooden floor quite bare, and the place furnished only with 
 a couple of benches and a half-voiceless semi-grand piano 
 the wreck of an Erard that was great once in that big, 
 bare room, Nancy, where my Pastels since have caught 
 your pose, in lilac, rose and orange, but never your grave 
 character, I came upon, and closely noted, and, for a 
 quarter of an hour, talked to, a sedate young girl in black 
 a lady who, in all her bearing, ways, gesture, silver 
 voice, was as refined as any, young or old, that I have 
 been in contact with, in my long life and I have lived 
 abundantly amongst great ladies, from stately, restful 
 Quakeress to the descendant of the "hundred Earls." No 
 one is more refined than you. This thing may not last 
 with you. Whether it lasts, depends, in great measure, 
 upon the life you lead, in the strange world opening to 
 you. Your little craft, Nancy, your slender skiff, will have 
 some day to labour over voluminous seas. 
 
 You remember what you told me, in the great ante- 
 room, standing by the wreck of the Erard, that your fingers 
 touched. All your life to that time. You were frankness, 
 
TO NANCY 8r 
 
 absolutely; standing there in your dull, black frock, that 
 became you to perfection; standing with hat of broad, 
 black straw the clear-cut nose, the faultless mouth, the 
 bright-brown hair curled short about your head, and the 
 limpid look of your serene eyes, steadily grey. It was 
 interesting, and amusing too, your story. I told you, you 
 remember, how much you had got on, how changed you 
 were, what progress I had noticed. And you said a pretty 
 "Thank you." It was clear that you meant it. We were 
 friends. I asked who taught you so far as anything can 
 be taught, in this world, where, at bottom, one's work, 
 one's progress, is one's own. You said, your mother. And 
 I told you I'd seen your name in some London Christmas 
 play-bill. "I had a big success," you said. What a the- 
 atrical moment! the one occasion, in all my little dealings 
 with you, in which I found the traditions of "the Profes- 
 sion" stronger with you than your own personal character. 
 Now, your own personal instinct is to be modest and nat- 
 ural; the traditions of "the Profession" are to boast. You 
 did boast, Nancy! You had a big success, had you? Per- 
 haps, for yourself; I do not say you failed. But the 
 piece my dea"r, you know it was a frost. Did it run three 
 weeks? Come now! And someone, out of jealousy, paid 
 four guineas she or her friends did to get you a bad 
 notice somewhere in backstairs journalism. And they got 
 it, and then repented of it. You were friends with them 
 afterwards. But what a world, Nancy! a world in which, 
 for four guineas, a scoundrel contributes his part towards 
 damning your career! 
 
 You remember, before I asked if I might make some 
 sketches of you, you were turning over a song that had 
 been sent you by a "gentleman at Birmingham." He 
 had had it "ruled" for you, and wanted you to buy it for 
 three pounds. It was "rather a silly song," you thought, 
 I settled myself quietly to master the sense, or, as was 
 more probable, the nonsense, of it. My dear, it was blank 
 rubbish! But you were not going to have it, you said. 
 "Mamma would never buy a song I didn't like and take 
 to." That was well, I thought. And then you slowly 
 
82 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 closed the ruined Erard, and were going away. But on 
 the road down-stairs, remember, I persuaded you to ask 
 your mother that you might give me sittings. I told you 
 who I was. And in the gaunt ante-room, lit well from 
 above, I had a sitting next day. It was the first of sev- 
 eral. And your mother trusted me, and trusted you, as you 
 deserve to be trusted. And we worked hard together, 
 didn't we? you posing, and I drawing. And there are 
 seven Pastels which record tant bien que mat, my dear 
 the delightful outside of you, the side the public might 
 itself see, if it had eyes to really see the flash of you in 
 the dance, snow-white or carmine; and I got all that with 
 alacrity "swift means" I took, to "radiant ends" the 
 poise of the slim figure, the white frock slashed with gold, 
 the lifted foot, and that gleam of vivid scarlet in your hair, 
 against the background of most sober crimson. 
 
 This tranquil Sunday I devote to writing to you, is the 
 da/ after your last appearance at the "People's Delight." 
 YOu and your mother, very soon, you tell me, leave Wey- 
 mouth and your old associations it is your home, you 
 know and you leave it for ever. The country, you ad- 
 mit, is beautiful, but you are tired of the place. I don't 
 much wonder. And you leave it the great Bay, the noble 
 chalk Downs, the peace of Dorset and its gleaming quiet 
 you leave it for lodgings in the Waterloo Road. For 
 you must be amongst the agents for the Halls. Though 
 you have been upon the Stage since you were very little, 
 you have but lately, so you say, "put your heart into it." 
 Well! it is not unnatural. But no more Sunday drives 
 into the lovely country, recollect, with your brother, who 
 is twenty-one and has his trade; and your uncle, who is 
 in a good way of business here, you said your uncle, the 
 plumber. 
 
 And so, last night being your last night, Nancy, it was 
 almost like a Benefit. As for your dancing, you meant, I 
 knew, to give us the cup filled yes, filled and running 
 over. I had noticed that, on some earlier evening, when 
 Little Lily Somebody a dumpling child, light of foot, but 
 with not one delightful "line" in all her meaningless, fat 
 
TO NANCY 83 
 
 form when Lily Somebody had capered her infantile fool- 
 ishness, to the satisfaction of those who rejoice in mere 
 babyhood, someone presented her with a bouquet. And 
 you danced excellently, just after her you, height and 
 grace, slimness and soul and someone, with much effusion, 
 handed you up a box of chocolates. And you smiled pleas- 
 antly. I saw there was a little conflict in your mind, how- 
 ever, between the gracious recognition of what was well- 
 enough meant, and the resentment well, the resentment 
 we can hardly call it: the regret, at all events at being 
 treated so very visibly as a child and yesterday you were 
 to be sixteen! So I myself who, if this small indignity 
 had not been offered you, might conceivably have given you, 
 in private, at all events, a basket of fine fruit I meant 
 to offer you flowers. It might have been fruit, I say, if 
 smuggled into the ante-room where I had done my Pastels; 
 for I had seen you once there, crunching, quite happily, 
 imperfect apples between perfect teeth your perfect teeth, 
 almost the only perfect things, Nancy, in an imperfect 
 world. 
 
 But it had to be flowers. So I sent round to the dress- 
 ing-room, just as you were getting ready, two "button- 
 holes" merely wired "button-holes" of striped carna- 
 tions, red or wine-coloured. They were not worn in your 
 first turn. They were not worn in your second. In your 
 third turn, I espied them at your neck's side, in the fury 
 of your dance. Already there are people, I suppose, who 
 would have thought those striped carnations happy tossed, 
 tossed to pieces, in the warmth of your throat. 
 
 Your second turn, last night, you know, was in flowing 
 white, slashed with gold old-gold velvet with pale stock- 
 ings. The third when the flowers died happy in your 
 riot in pure white alone, with stockings black. You 
 remember the foot held in your hand, as you swing round 
 upon the other toe and one uplifted leg seen horizontal, 
 in its straight and modelled slimness. 
 
 My dear what were my little flowers? Who could 
 have known when you had finished the great things still 
 to come? When the applause seemed over, and the en- 
 
84 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 thusiasm of some subaltern from Dorchester was, as I take 
 it, abated or suppressed when the applause was over, a 
 certain elocutionist (Mr. Paris Brown, wasn't it?) 
 brought you again upon the stage, and saying it was 
 your last appearance, made you some presentation: a 
 brooch from himself, "of no intrinsic value" he informed 
 us I willingly believed him a bracelet from I don't know 
 who that had an "intrinsic value," I surmise and a 
 bouquet exquisite! It was "From an admirer," Mr. 
 Paris Brown, the elocutionist, read out, from an accom- 
 panying card. Then he congratulated you upon your Past; 
 prophesied as to your Future; and, in regard to the pres- 
 ents to you, he said, in words that were quite happily 
 chosen because, Nancy, they were reticent while they 
 were expressive "She is but a girl; and she has done 
 her duty by the Management. Long may she be a credit 
 to her father and mother!" Your mother I was well 
 aware of your mother I respect; and you, you love her. 
 But your father he was invented, I think, for the occa- 
 sion, as an additional protection, should the designs upon 
 you of tha admirer from Dorchester prove to be not alto- 
 gether such as they ought to be. The precaution was un- 
 necessary; it was taking Time by the forelock. Our young 
 friend looked ingenuous, and smitten grievously you seem 
 so big upon the stage, Nancy so grown up, I mean. I 
 could, I think, have toned down his emotions, had I told 
 him you were a bare sixteen. 
 
 Nancy, there is for me a certain pathos in this pas- 
 sage of yours from childhood into ripening girlhood ; a book 
 closed, as it were; a phase completed; and ending of the 
 way. "What chapter is to open? Nancy Nanson what 
 phase or facet of her life," I ask myself, "is now so soon 
 to be presented? What other way, what unfamiliar one is 
 to follow her blameless and dutiful childhood?" I had a 
 restless night, Nancy. Thinking of this, one saw ridicu- 
 lously perhaps a presage in the first bouquet, a threat in 
 the first bracelet in the admirer's card. Would she be 
 like the rest? at least, so many of them. Besmirched, 
 too? 
 
TO NANCY 85 
 
 Remember, Nancy, I am no Puritan at all. I recog- 
 nise Humanity's instincts. There is little I do not tolerate. 
 I recognise the gulf that separates the accidentally impolitic 
 from the essentially wrong. But we owe things to other 
 people to the World's laws. We have responsibilities. 
 Noblesse oblige; and all superiority is Noblesse. "She must 
 not be like the rest," I said, last night, in broken dreams; 
 "dining, winking, leering even, since sold at last and made 
 common." In broken dreams, last night or in wakeful 
 hours your feet tossed higher: your gay blood passed into 
 the place electrical, overpowering. You can be so grave 
 and sweet, you know; and you can be so mad. 
 
 Have you ever lain awake, in the great, long darkness, 
 and watched in the darkness a procession the people of 
 your Past and all your ^Future? But you have no Past. 
 For myself, I have watched them. My mother, who is 
 long gone; those who were good to me, and whom I slighted; 
 the relations who failed me'; the friend I lost. And the 
 uncertain figures of the Future! But the line of the Fu- 
 ture is short enough for me for you, it is all yours. Last 
 night, it seemed to me, the dark was peopled with your 
 enemies; with your false friends, who were coming al- 
 ways coming the unavoidable crowd of the egotistic de- 
 stroyers of youth. Their dark hearts, I thought, look upon 
 her as a prey: some of them cruel, some of them cynical, 
 yet some of them only careless. And I wished that last 
 night had not come your sixteenth birthday with the 
 applause, and gifts, and menacing triumph. 
 
 There are women, perhaps, men cannot wrong since they 
 have wronged themselves too much. "This is a good girl," 
 I said; and my over-anxious mind in real affection for 
 her cries out to all the horrid forces of the world : "Leave 
 Nancy!" 
 
 Nancy, when you read this, you smile and naturally 
 at your most sombre friend. You think, of course, with 
 all the reckless trust, courageous confidence, of girlhood, 
 "So unnecessary!" 
 
 Go the straight way! . . . Whatever way you go, I shall 
 always be your friend. CLEMENT ASHTON. 
 
86 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 Post-script. But I can't end like this. For when you 
 want to be reproached the least, some of my sentences 
 sound hard. Be hopeful! For, as it seems to me the 
 more I think of you whatever happened, the quite irre- 
 parable has not happened. And/ if it had! Surely, sure- 
 ly, you can forget, for ever, one mad hour! And, from 
 whatever point, you can begin "the journey homeward" 
 to yourself. You can be the real You again; the real 
 Nancy your very characteristic, the perfection of the con- 
 trast between the wildness of the theatre and your happy 
 quietude. 
 
 You were a little fool the other day, were you not? And 
 you were on deep waters. But I believe that you did not go 
 under. 
 
 And so, dear Nancy and in any case it's at home I 
 must think of you. With that golden wig, that adds 
 piquantly perhaps, and yet abominably to your years, the 
 maddening dancer is put off. The brown-haired child, in 
 the plain dress, is in her place the short brown hair, 
 the quiet eyes, the tender, sensitive mouth. Your lodg- 
 ing-house parlour is ornamented with a play-bill, and 
 photographs are stuck about the mantelpiece Miss 
 Marie Dainton, is it? and your uncle, the plumber; 
 and, again, a celebrity of the Halls; and somebody 
 else, who was nice to you, a year ago, at Weymouth; 
 some comrade you were fond of: "She's a dear girl," you 
 said. In the lodging-house parlour, your mother sits be- 
 side the fireplace, combing out the golden wig, after its 
 last night's service. The kettle, in preparation for tea- 
 time, not far off, is at the side of the fire. It begins to 
 sing. You, Nancy, sit beyond the table, on a cane-bot- 
 tomed chair; with your knees crossed as I saw you, that 
 first time I called on you in London. Your hands, so 
 young, so nervous, and so highly bred, smooth out upon 
 your lap a bit of wool-work, that you whose instinct is 
 to please and to be pleasant are doing for your landlady. 
 And, in the glow of the fender, lies curled up, warm and 
 sleeping, that grey kitten rescued from misery, four days 
 before, by yon: won to you by your magnetism, or your 
 
TO NANCY 87 
 
 kindness they are both the same. In the morning, when 
 your mother leaves your bed leaves the tired child, worn 
 out by the theatre, to an hour's extra resting the soft grey 
 thing, that you bewitched and cared for, creeps to your 
 side is happy. 
 
 Did they ever teach you, at your school, I wonder, verses 
 of Wordsworth on the stock-dove? What did the stock- 
 dove sing? 
 
 He sang of love with quiet blending, 
 Slow' to begin, and never ending ; 
 Of serious faith, and inward glee. 
 That was the song the song for me! 
 
 Nancy! the spirit of the stock-dove's song lies in the 
 deepest heart of Nancy Nanson. 
 
 C. A- 
 
AN EMPTY FRAME 1 
 
 BY GEORGE EGERTON 
 
 IT was a simple, pretty little frame, such as you may 
 buy at any sale cheaply; its ribbed wood, aspinalled 
 white, with an inner frame of pale-blue plush; its one 
 noticeable feature that it was empty. And yet it stood 
 on the middle of the bedroom mantelboard. 
 
 It was not a luxurious room; none of the furniture 
 matched. It was a typical boarding-house bedroom. 
 
 Any one preserving the child habit of endowing inani- 
 mate objects with human attributes might fancy that the 
 flickering flames of the fire took a pleasure in bringing 
 into relief the bright bits in its dinginess; for they played 
 over the silver-backed brushes and the cut-glass perfume 
 bottles on the dressing-table, flicked the bright beads on 
 the toes of coquettish small shoes and the steel clasps of 
 a travelling bag in the corner, imparting a casual air of 
 comfort such as the touch of certain dainty women lends 
 to a common room. 
 
 A woman enters, a woman wondrously soft and swift 
 in all her movements. She seems to reach a place without 
 your seeing how; no motion of elbow or knee betrays her. 
 Her fingers glide swiftly down the buttons of her gown; 
 in a second she has freed herself from its enshea thing; 
 garment after garment falls from her, until she stands al- 
 most free. She gets into nightdress and loose woolen dress- 
 ing-gown, and slips her naked feet into fur-lined slippers, 
 with a movement that is somehow the expression of an 
 intense nervous relief from a thrall. Everything she does 
 
 1 From "Keynotes." Copyright, 1893, by Roberts Brothers. By 
 permission of Little, Brown & Co. 
 
 88 
 
AN EMPTY FRAME 89 
 
 is done so swiftly that you see the result rather than the 
 working out of each action. 
 
 She sinks into a chair before the fire, and clasping her 
 hands behind her head, peers into the glowing embers. The 
 firelight, lower than her face, touches it cruelly; picks out 
 and accentuates as remorselessly as a rival woman the 
 autographs past emotions have traced on its surface; deep- 
 ens the hollows of her delicate thoughtful temples and the 
 double furrow between her clever irregular eyebrows. Her 
 face is more characteristic than beautiful. Nine men would 
 pass it, the tenth sell his immortal soul for it. The chin is 
 strong, the curve of jaw determined; there is a little full 
 place under the chin's sharp point. The eyes tell you little; 
 they are keen and inquiring, and probe others' thoughts 
 rather than reveal their own. The whole face is one of 
 peculiar strength and self-reliance. The mouth is its con- 
 tradiction; the passionate curve of the upper lip with its 
 mobile corners, and the tender little under lip that shelters 
 timidly under it, are encouraging promises against its 
 strength. 
 
 The paleness of some strong feeling tinges her face; a 
 slight trembling runs through her frame. Her inner soul- 
 struggle is acting as a strong developing fluid upon a 
 highly sensitized plate; anger, scorn, pity, contempt chase 
 one another like shadows across her face. Her eyes rest 
 upon the empty frame, and the plain white space becomes 
 alive to her. Her mind's eye fills it with a picture it once 
 held in its dainty embrace, a rare head among the rarest 
 heads of men, with its crest of hair tossed back from the 
 great brow, its proud poise and the impress of grand, con- 
 fident, compelling genius that reveals itself, one scarce knows 
 how; with the brute possibility of an untamed, natural 
 man lurking about the mouth and powerful throat. She 
 feels the subduing smile of eyes that never failed to make 
 her weak as a child under their gaze, and tame as a hungry 
 bird. She stretches out her hands with a pitiful little move- 
 ment, and then, remembering, lets them drop, and locks 
 them until the knuckles stand out whitely. She shuts her 
 eyes, and one tear after the other starts from beneath her 
 
90 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 lids, trickles down her cheeks, and drops with a splash into 
 her lap. She does not sob, only cries quietly ; and she sees, 
 as if she held the letter in her hand, the words that de- 
 cided her fate: 
 
 "You love me ; I know it, you other half of ne. You want me 
 to complete your life, as I you, you good, sweet woman; you 
 slight, weak thing, with your strong will and your grand, great 
 heart ; you witch, with a soul of clean white fire. I kiss your 
 hands, such little hands! I never saw the like; slim child- 
 hands, with a touch as cool and as soft as a snow-flake! You 
 dear one, come to me; I want you, now, always. Be with me, 
 work with me, share with me, live with me, my equal as a 
 creature ; above me, as my queen of women ! I love you, I 
 worship you ; but you know my views. I cannot, I will not bind 
 myself to you by any legal or religious tie. I must be free and 
 unfettered to follow that which, I believe right for me. If you 
 come to me in all trust, I can and will give myself to you in all 
 good faith, yours as much as you will, forever! I will kneel 
 to you; why should I always desire to kneel to you? Is it not 
 that I stand in awe of you, or that I ever feel a need to kneel 
 at all; but always to you, and to you alone. Cornel I will 
 crouch at your feet and swear myself to you !" 
 
 And she had replied "No!" and in her loneliness of 
 spirit married him who seemed to need her most out of 
 those who admired her. 
 
 The door opens, and he comes in. He looks inquiringly 
 at her, touches her hair half hesitatingly, and then stands 
 with his hands thrust in his pockets and gnaws his mus- 
 tache. 
 
 "Are you angry, little woman?" 
 
 "No," very quietly; "why should I be?" 
 
 She closes her eyes again, and after five minutes' silence 
 he begins to undress. He does it very slowly, looking per- 
 plexedly at her. When he has finished, he stands with his 
 back to the fire, an unlovely object in sleeping suit. 
 
 "Would you like to read her letter?" 
 
 She shakes her head. 
 
 "I suppose I ought to have sent her back her letters 
 before, you know. She hadn't heard I was married." 
 
 "Yes," she interjects, "it would have been better to 
 start with a clean bill; but why talk about it?" 
 
AN EMPTY FRAME 91 
 
 He looks at her awhile, then gets into bed and watches 
 her from behind the pages of the "Field." It seems un- 
 usually quiet. His watch that he has left in his waistcoat 
 pocket, thrown across the back of a chair, seems to fill the 
 whole room with a nervous tick. 
 
 He tosses the paper on to the floor. She looks up as it 
 falls, rises, turns off the gas-jet, sinks back into her old 
 position, and stares into the fire. He gets up, goes over, 
 and kneels down next her. 
 
 "I am awfully sorry you are put out, old girl. I saw 
 you were when I answered you like that; but I couldn't 
 help feeling a bit cut up, you know. She wrote such an 
 awfully nice letter, you know, wished " 
 
 "You all sorts of happiness," with a snap, "and hopes 
 you'll meet in a better world?" 
 
 He rises to his feet and stares at her in dumb amazement. 
 How could she know? She smiles with a touch of mali- 
 cious satisfaction, as she sees the effect of her chance shot. 
 
 "It's a pity, isn't it, that you both have to wait so long?" 
 
 He imagines he sees light, and blunders ahead like an 
 honest man. 
 
 "I wouldn't have sent those things back now if I had 
 thought you cared. By Jove, it never entered my head 
 that you'd be jealous!" 
 
 "Jealous?" She is on her feet like a red white flash. 
 "I, jealous of her?" Each word is emphasized. "I couldn't 
 be jealous of her, Nitr die Dummen sind bescheiden! Why, 
 the girl isn't fit to tie my shoe-strings!" 
 
 This is too much; he feels he must protest. 
 
 "You don't know her," feebly. "She is an awfully nice 
 girl!" 
 
 " 'Nice girl! * I don't doubt it; and she will be an awfully 
 nice woman, and under each and every circumstance of 
 life she will behave like an awfully nice person. Jealous! 
 Do you think I cried because I was jealous? Good God, 
 no! I cried because I was sorry, fearfully sorry, for my- 
 self. She" with a fine thin contempt "would have 
 suited you better than I. Jealous! no, only sorry. Sorry 
 because any nice average girl of her type, who would model 
 
92 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 her frocks out of the 'Lady's Pictorial,' gush over that dear 
 Mr. Irving, paint milking-stools, try poker-work, or any 
 other fashionable fad, would have done you just as well. 
 And I" with a catch of voice "with a great man might 
 have made a great woman; and now those who know and 
 understand me [bitterly] think of me as a great failure." 
 
 She finishes wearily; the fire dies out of eyes and voice. 
 She adds half aloud, as if to herself, 
 
 "I don't think I quite realised this until I saw how you 
 took that letter. I was watching your face as you read it; and 
 the fact that you could put her on the same level, that if 
 it had not been for a mistake she would have suited you 
 as well, made me realise, don't you see? that I would have 
 done someone else better!" 
 
 He is looking at her in utter bewilderment, and she smiles 
 as she notes his expression; she touches his cheek gently, 
 and leans her head against his arm. 
 
 "There, it's all right, boy! Don't mind me. I have a 
 bit of a complex nature ; you couldn't understand me if you 
 tried to, and better not try!" 
 
 She has slipped, while speaking, her warm bare foot out 
 of her slipper, and is rubbing it gently over his chilled 
 ones. 
 
 "You are cold, better go back to bed; I shall go too!" 
 
 She stands a moment quietly as he turns to obey, and 
 then takes the frame, and kneeling down puts it gently 
 into the hollowed red heart of the fire. It crackles crisply, 
 and little tongues of flame shoot up; and she gets into bed 
 by their light. 
 
 When the fire has burnt out, and he is sleeping like a 
 child with his curly head on her breast, she falls asleep too, 
 and dreams that she is sitting on a fiery globe rolling away 
 into space; that her head is wedged in a huge frame, the 
 top of her head touches its top, the sides its sides, and it 
 keeps growing larger and larger, and her head with it, until 
 she seems to be sitting inside her own head, and the inside 
 is one vast hollow. 
 
THE THREE MUSKETEERS 
 
 BY RUDYARD KIPLING 
 
 An' when the war began, we chased the bold Afghan, 
 An' we made the bloomin' Ghazi for to flee, boys O ! 
 An' we marched into Kabul, an' we tuk the Balar 'Issar 
 An' we taught 'em to respec' the British Soldier. 
 
 Barrack Room Ballad. 
 
 MULVANEY, Ortheris and Learoyd are Privates in 
 B Company of a Line Regiment, and personal 
 friends of mine. Collectively I think, but am not 
 certain, they are the worst men in the regiment so far as 
 genial blackguardism goes. 
 
 They told me this tory in the Umballa Refreshment 
 Room while we were waiting for an up-train. I supplied 
 the beer. The tale was cheap at a gallon and a half. 
 
 All men know Lord Benira Trig. He is a Duke, or 
 an Earl, or something unofficial; also a Peer; also a Globe- 
 trotter. On all three counts, as Ortheris says, "'e didn't 
 deserve consideration." He was out in India for three 
 months collecting materials for a book on a Our Eastern 
 Impedimenta," and quartering himself upon everybody, 
 like a Cossack in evening-dress. 
 
 His particular vice because he was a Radical, men said 
 was having garrisons turned out for his inspection. He 
 would then dine with the Officer Commanding, and insult 
 him, across the Mess table, about the appearance of the 
 troops. That was Benira 's way. 
 
 He turned out troops once too often. He came to 
 Helanthami Cantonment on a Tuesday. He wished to 
 go shopping in the bazars on Wednesday, and he "de- 
 sired" the troops to be turned out on a Thursday. On 
 a Thursday. The Officer Commanding could not well 
 
 93 
 
94 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 refuse; for Benira was a Lord. There was an indignation 
 meeting of subalterns in the Mess Room, to call the Colo- 
 nel pet names. 
 
 "But the rale dimonstrashin," said Mulvaney, "was in 
 B comp'ny barrick; we three headin' it." 
 
 Mulvaney climbed on to the refreshment-bar, settled 
 himself comfortably by the beer, and went on, "Whin 
 the row was at ut's foinest an' B Comp'ny was fur goin' out 
 to murther this man Thrigg on the p'rade-groun', Lea- 
 royd here takes up his helmet an' sez fwhat was ut ye 
 said?" 
 
 "Ah said," said Learoyd, "gie us t' brass. Tak oop a 
 subscripshun, lads, for to put off t' p'rade, an' if t' p'rade's 
 not put off, ah'll gie t' brass back again. Thot's wot ah 
 said. All B Comp'ny knawed me. Ah took oop a big 
 subscripshun fower rupees eight annas 'twas an' ah went 
 oot to turn t' job over. Mulvaney an' Orth'ris coom with 
 me." 
 
 "We three raises the Divil in couples gin'rally," ex- 
 plained Mulvaney. 
 
 Here Ortheris interrupted. "'Ave you read the papers?" 
 said he. 
 
 "Sometimes." I said. 
 
 "We 'ad read the papers, an' we put hup a faked decoity, 
 a a sedukshun." 
 
 "^Mukshin, ye cockney," said Mulvaney. 
 
 ",4dukshun or jedukshun no great odds. Any'ow, we 
 arranged to taik an' put Mister Benhira out o' the way 
 till Thursday was hover, or 'e too busy to nix 'isself about 
 p'raids. Hi was the man wot said, We'll make a few 
 rupees off o' the business.' >! 
 
 "We hild a Council av War," continued Mulvaney, 
 "walkin' roun' by the Artill'ry Lines. I was Prisidint, 
 Learoyd was Minister av France, an' little Orth'ris here 
 was" 
 
 "A bloomin' Bismarck! Hi made the 'ole show pay." 
 
 "This interferin' bit av a Benira man," said Mulvaney, 
 "did the thrick for us himself; for, on me sowl, we hadn't 
 a notion av what was to come afther the next minut. He 
 
THE THREE MUSKETEERS 95 
 
 was shoppin' in the bazar on fut. 'Twas dhrawin' dusk 
 thin, an' we stud watchin' the little man hoppin' in an' 
 out av the shops, thryin' to injuce the naygurs to medium 
 his bat. Prisintly, he sthrols up, his arrums full av thruck, 
 an' he sez in a consiquinshal way, shticking out his little 
 belly, 'Me good men,' sez he, 'have ye seen the Kernel's 
 b'roosh?' 'B'rcosh?' says Learoyd. 'There's no b'roosh 
 here nobbut a hekka! 'Fwhat's that?' sez Thrigg. 
 Learoyd shows him wan down the sthreet, an' he sez, 'How 
 thruly Orientil! I will ride on a hekka! I saw thin that 
 our Rigimintal Saint was for givin' Thrigg over to us neck 
 an' brisket. I purshued a hekka, an' I sez to the dhriver- 
 divil, I sez, 'Ye black limb, there's a Sahib comin' for this 
 hekka. He wants to go jMi to the Padsahi JhiF 'twas 
 about tu moiles awa}' 'to shoot snipe chirria. You 
 dhrive Jehannum ke marfik, mallum like Hell? 'Tis no 
 manner av use bukkin' to the Sahib, bekaze he doesn't 
 samjao your talk. Av he bolos anything, just you choop 
 and chel. Dekker? Go arsty for the first ardrr-mile from 
 cantonmints. Thin, chel, Shaitan ke marfik, an' the chooper 
 you choops, an' the jildier you chels the better kooshy will 
 that Sahib be; an' here's a rupee for ye.' 
 
 "The hekka-man knew there was somethin' out av the 
 common in the air. He grinned an' sez, 'Bate achee! I 
 goin' damn fast.' I prayed that the Kernel's b'roosh 
 wudn't arrive till me darlin' Benira by the grace av God 
 was undher weigh. The little man puts his thruck into the 
 hekka an' scuttles in like a fat guinea-pig; niver offerin' 
 us the price av a dhrink for our services in helpin' him home. 
 'He's off to the Padsahi jhii; sez I to the others." 
 
 Ortheris took up the tale - 
 
 "Jist then, little Buldoo kim up, 'oo was the son of one 
 of the Artillery grooms 'e would 'av made a 'evinly news- 
 paper-boy in London, bein' sharp an' fly to all manner o' 
 games. 'E 'ad bin watchin' us puttin' Mister Benhira into 
 'is temporary baroush, an' 'e sez, 'What 'ave you been been 
 a doin' of, Sahibs?' sez 'e. Learoyd 'e caught 'im by the 
 
 "Ah says," went on Learoyd, " 'Young mon, that mon's 
 
96 THE GREAT MODERN, ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 gooin' to have t' goons out o' Thursday to-morrow an' 
 thot's more work for you, young mon. Now, sitha, tak' 
 a tat an' a lookri, an' ride the domdest to t' Padsahi Jhil. 
 Cotch thot there hekka, and tell t' driver iv your lingo 
 thot you've coom to tak' his place. T' Sahib doesn't 
 speak t' bat, an' he's a little mon. Drive t' hekka into 
 t' Padsahi Jhil into t' watter. Leave t' Sahib theer an' 
 roon hoam ; an' here's a rupee for thaV " 
 
 Then Mulvaney and Ortheris spoke together in alter- 
 nate fragments: Mulvaney leading (You must pick out 
 the two speakers as best you can) : "He was a knowin' 
 little divil was Bhuldoo, 'e sez bate achee an' cuts wid 
 a wink in his oi but Hi sez there's money to be made 
 an' I wanted to see the ind ave the campaign so Hi says 
 we'll double hout to the Padsahi Jhil an' save the little 
 man from bein' dacoited by the murtherin' Bhuldoo an* 
 turn hup like reskooers in a Vic'oria Melodrama so we 
 doubled for the jhil, an' prismtly there was the divil av a 
 hurroosh behind us an' three bhoys on grass-cuts' ponies 
 come by, poundin' along for the dear life s'elp me Bob, 
 hif Bhuldoo 'adn't raised a rig'lar harmy of decoits to do 
 the job in shtile. An' we ran, an' they ran, shplittin' with 
 laughin', till we gets near the jhil and 'ears sounds of 
 distress floatin' molloncolly on the hevenin' hair. (Ortheris 
 was growing poetical under the influence of the beer. The 
 duet recommenced: Mulvaney leading again.) 
 
 "Thin we heard Bhuldoo, the dacoit, shoutin' to the 
 hekka man, an' wan of the young divils brought his stick 
 down on the top av the hekka-cover, an' Benira Thrigg in- 
 side howled 'Murther an' Death.' Bhuldoo takes the reins 
 and dhrives like mad for the jhil, havin' dispersed the hekka- 
 dhriver 'oo cum up to us an' e' sez, sez 'e, 'That Sahib's 
 nigh mad with funk! Wot devil's work 'ave you led me 
 into?' 'Hall right,' sez we, 'you catch that there pony an' 
 come along. This Sahib's been decoited, an' we're going 
 to resky 'im!' Says the driver, 'Decoits! Wot decoits? 
 That's Bhuldoo the budmask' 'Bhuldoo be shot,' sez we. 
 ' Tis a woild dissolute Pa than frum the hills. There's about 
 eight av thim coercin' the Sahib. You remimber that an' 
 
THE THREE MUSKETEERS 97 
 
 you'll get another rupee!' Thin we heard the whop-whop- 
 whop av the hekka turnin' over, an' a splash av water an' 
 trie voice av Benira Thrigg callin' upon God to forgive his 
 sins an' Bhuldoo an' 'is friends squotterin' in the water 
 like boys in the Serpentine." 
 
 Here the three musketeers retired simultaneously into the 
 beer. 
 
 "Well? What came next?" said I. 
 
 "Fwhat nex'?" answered Mulvaney, wiping his mouth. 
 "Wud ye let three bould sodgerbhoys lave the ornamint 
 av the House av Lords to be dhrowned an' dacoited in 
 a jhil? We formed line av quarther-column an' we discinded 
 upon the inimy. For the better part av tin minutes you 
 could not hear yerself spake. The tattoo was screamin' 
 in chune wid Benira Thrigg an' Bhuldoo's army, an' the 
 shticks was whistlin' roun' the hekka, an' Orth'ris was beatin' 
 the hekka-cover wid his fists, an' Learoyd yellin' 'Look 
 out for their knives!' an' me cuttin' into the dark, right 
 an' lef, disphersin' arrmy corps av Pathans. Holy Mother 
 av Moses! 'Twas more disp'rit than Ahmid Kheyl 
 wid Maiwund thrown in. Afther a while Bhuldoo an' his 
 bhoys flees. Have ye iver seen a rale live Lord thryin' to 
 hide his nobility undher a fut an' a half av brown swamp- 
 wather? 'Tis the livin' image av a water-carrier's goat- 
 skin wid the shivers. It tuk toime to pershuade me f rind 
 Benira he was not disimbowilled : an' more toime to get 
 out the hekka. The dhriver come up afther the battle, 
 swearin' he tuk a hand in repulsin' the inimy. Benira was 
 sick wid the fear. We escorted him back, very slow, to 
 cantonmints, for that an' the chill to soak into him. It 
 suk? Glory be to the Rigimintil Saint, but it suk to the 
 marrow av Lord Benira Thrigg!" 
 
 Here Ortheris, slowly, with immense pride "'E sez, 'You 
 bar my noble preservers,' sez 'e. 'You har a 7/onour to the 
 British Harmy,' sez 'e. With that 'e describes the hawful 
 band of dacoits wot set on 'im. Ther was about forty of 
 'em an' 'e was hoverpowered by numbers, so 'e was; but 'e 
 never lorst 'is presence of mind, so 'e didn't. 'E guv the 
 hekka-driver five rupees for 'is noble assistance, an' 'e said 
 
98 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 'e would see to us after 'e 'ad spoken to the Kernul. For we 
 was a //onour to the Regiment, we was." 
 
 "An' we three," said Mulvaney, with a seraphic smile, 
 "have dhrawn the par-ti-cu-lar attinshin av Bobs Baha- 
 dur more than wanst. But he's a rale good little man is 
 Bobs. Go on, Orth'ris, my son." 
 
 "Then we leaves 'im at the Kernul's 'ouse, werry sick, 
 an' we cuts hover to B Comp'ny barrick an' we sez we 
 'ave saved Benira from a bloody doom, an' the chances 
 was agin there bein' p'raid on Thursday. About ten min- 
 utes later come three envelicks, one for each of us. S'elp 
 me Bob, if the old bloke 'adn't guv us a fiver apiece 
 sixty- four rupees in the bazar! On Thursday 'e was in 
 'orspital recoverin' from 'is sanguinary encounter with a 
 gang cf Pathans, an' B Comp'ny was drinkin' 'emselves 
 into Ciink by squads. So there never was no Thursday 
 )j'raid. But the Kernul, when 'e 'card of our galliant 
 conduct, 'e sez, 'Hi know there's been some devilry some- 
 wheres,' sez 'e, 'but I can't bring it 'ome to you three.' " 
 
 "An' my privit imprisshin is," said Mulvaney, getting 
 off the bar and turning his glass upside down, "that, av 
 they had known they wudn't have brought ut home. 'Tis 
 fly in' in the face, firstly av Nature, secon' av the Rig'la- 
 tions, an' third the will av Terence Mulvaney, to hold 
 p'rades av Thursdays." 
 
 "Good, ma son!" said Learoyd; "but, young mon, what's 
 t' notebook for?" 
 
 "Let be," said Mulvaney; "this time next month we're 
 in the Sherapis. 'Tis immortial fame the gentleman's goin' 
 to give us. But kape it dhark till we're out av the range 
 av me little frind Bobs Bahadur." 
 
 And I have obeyed Mulvaney's order. 
 
WEE WILLIE WINKIE 
 
 BY RUDYARD KIPLING 
 
 "An officer and a gentleman." 
 
 HIS full name was Percival William Williams, but 
 he picked up the other name in a nursery-book, and 
 that v/as the end of the christened titles. His 
 mother's ayah called him Willie-Baba, but as he never 
 paid the faintest attention to anything that the ayah said, 
 her wisdom did not help matters. 
 
 His father was the Colonel of the 19 5th, and as soon 
 as Wee Willie Winkle was old enough to understand what 
 Military Discipline meant, Colonel Williams put h'm un- 
 der it. There was no other way of managing the child. 
 When he was good for a week, he drew good-conduct pay; 
 and when he was bad, he was deprived of his good-conduct 
 stripe. Generally he was bad, for India offers many chances 
 of going wrong to little six-year-olds. 
 
 Children resent familiarity from strangers, and Wee 
 Willie Winkie was a very particular child. Once he ac- 
 cepted an acquaintance, he was graciously pleased to 
 thaw. He accepted Brandis, a subaltern of the 19 5th, 
 on sight. Brandis was having tea at the Colonel's, 
 and Wee Willie Winkie entered strong in the possession 
 of a good-conduct badge won for not chasing the hens 
 round the compound. He regarded Brandis with gravity 
 for at least ten minutes, and then delivered himself of his 
 opinion. 
 
 "I like you," said he slowly, getting off his chair and 
 coming over to Brandis. "I like you. I shall call you 
 Coppy, because of your hair. Do you mind being called 
 Coppy? It is because of ve hair, you know." 
 
 99 
 
ioo THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 Here was one of the most embarrassing of Wee Willie 
 Winkie's peculiarities. He would look at a stranger for 
 some time, and then, without warning or explanation, would 
 give him a name. And the name stuck. No regimental 
 penalties could break Wee Willie Winkie of this habit. 
 He lost his good-conduct badge for christening the Com- 
 missioner's wife "Fobs"; but nothing that the Colonel 
 could do made the Station forego the nickname, and Mrs. 
 Collen remained "Fobs" till the end of her stay. So 
 Brandis was christened "Coppy," and rose, therefore, in 
 the estimation of the regiment. 
 
 If Wee Willie Winkie took an interest in anyone, the 
 fortunate man was envied alike by the mess and the rank 
 and file. And in their envy lay no suspicion of self-inter- 
 est. "The Colonel's son" was idolised on his own merits 
 entirely. Yet Wee Willie Winkie was not lovely. His 
 face was permanently freckled, as his legs were permanently 
 scratched, and in spite of his mother's almost tearful re- 
 monstrances he had insisted upon having his long yellow 
 locks cut short in the military fashion. "I want my hair 
 like Sergeant Tummil's," said Wee Willie Winkie, and, his 
 father abetting, the sacrifice was accomplished. 
 
 Three weeks after the bestowal of his youthful affections 
 on Lieutenant Brandis henceforward to be called "Coppy" 
 for the sake of brevity Wee Willie Winkie was destined 
 to behold strange things and far beyond his comprehen- 
 sion. 
 
 Coppy returned his liking with interest. Coppy had 
 let him wear for five rapturous minutes his own big sword 
 just as tall as Wee Willie Winkie. Coppy had promised 
 him a terrier puppy, and Coppy had permitted him to wit- 
 ness the miraculous operation of shaving. Nay, more 
 Coppy had said that even he, Wee Willie Winkie, would 
 rise in time to the ownership of a box of shiny knives, a 
 silver soap-box and a silver-handled "sputter-brush," as 
 Wee Willie Winkie called it. Decidedly, there was no one 
 except his father, who could give or take away good-con- 
 duct badges at pleasure, half so wise, strong, and valiant 
 as Coppy with the Afghan and Egyptian medals on his 
 
WEE WILLIE WINKIE 101 
 
 breast. Why, then, should Coppy be guilty of the unmanly 
 weakness of kissing vehemently kissing a "big girl," 
 Miss Allardyce to wit? In the course of a morning ride, 
 Wee Willie Winkie had seen Coppy so doing, and, like the 
 gentleman he was, had promptly wheeled round and can- 
 tered back to his groom, lest the groom should also see. 
 
 Under ordinary circumstances he would have spoken to 
 his father, but he felt instinctively that this was a matter 
 on which Coppy ought first to be consulted. 
 
 "Coppy," shouted Wee Willie Winkie, reining up out- 
 side that subaltern's bungalow early one morning "I want 
 to see you, Coppy!" 
 
 "Come in, young 'un," returned Coppy, who was at early 
 breakfast in the midst of his dogs. "What mischief have 
 you been getting into now?" 
 
 Wee Willie Winkie had done nothing notoriously bad 
 for three days, and so stood on a pinnacle of virtue. 
 
 "I've been doing nothing bad," said he, curling himself 
 into a long chair with a studious affectation of the Colo- 
 nel's languor after a hot parade. He buried his freckled* 
 nose in a tea-cup and, with eyes staring roundly over the 
 rim, asked: "I say, Coppy, is it pwoper to kiss big girls?" 
 
 "By Jove! You're beginning early. Who do you want 
 to kiss?" 
 
 "No one. My muvver's always kissing me if I don't stop 
 her. If it isn't pwcper, how was you kissing Major Allar- 
 dyce's big girl last morning, by ve canal?" 
 
 Coppy 's brow wrinkled. He and Miss Alldardyce had 
 with great craft managed to keep their engagement secret 
 for a fortnight. There were urgent and imperative reasons 
 why Major Allardyce should not know how matters stood 
 for at least another month, and this small marplot had dis- 
 covered a great deal too much. 
 
 "I saw you," said Wee Willie Winkie calmly. "But ve 
 saL iidn't see. I said, 'Hut jao!' " 
 
 "Oh, you had that much sense, you young Rip," groaned 
 poor Coppy, half amused and half angry. "And how many 
 people may you have told about it?" 
 
 "Only me myself. You didn't tell when I twied to wide 
 
102 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 ve buffalo ven my pony was lame ; and I fought you wouldn't 
 like." > 
 
 " Winkle, " said Coppy enthusiastically, shaking the small 
 hand, "you're the best of good fellows. Look here, you 
 can't understand all these things. One of these days 
 hang it, how can I make you see it! I'm going to marry 
 Miss Allardyce, and then she'll be Mrs. Coppy, as you say. 
 If your young mind is so scandalised at the idea of kissing 
 big girls, go and tell your father." 
 
 "What will happen?" said Wee Willie Winkie, who 
 firmly believed that his father was omnipotent. 
 
 "I shall get into trouble," said Coppy, playing his trump 
 card with an appealing look at the holder of the ace. 
 
 "Ven I won't," said Wee Willie Winkie briefly. "But 
 my faver says it's un-man-ly to be always kissing, and I 
 didn't fink you'd do vat, Coppy." 
 
 "I'm not always kissing, old chap. It's only now and 
 then, and when you're bigger you'll do it too. Your father 
 meant it's not good for little boys." 
 
 "Ah!" said Wee Willie Winkie, now fully enlightened. 
 "It's like ve sputter-brush?" 
 
 "Exactly," said Coppy gravely. 
 
 "But I don't fink I'll ever want to kiss big girls, nor 
 no one, 'cept my muvver. And I must vat, you know." 
 
 There was a long pause, broken by Wee Willie Winkie. 
 
 "Are you fond of vis big girl, Coppy?" 
 
 "Awfully!" said Coppy. 
 
 "Fonder van you are of Bell or ve Butcha or me?" 
 
 "It's in a different way," said Coppy. "You see, one of 
 these days Miss Allardyce will belong to me, but you'll 
 grow up and command the Regiment and all sorts of 
 things. It's quite different, you see." 
 
 "Very well," said Wee Willie Winkie, rising. "If you're 
 fond of ve big girl, I won't tell anyone. I must go 
 now." 
 
 Coppy rose and escorted his small guest to the door, 
 adding "You're the best of little fellows, Winkie. I tell 
 you what. In thirty days from now you can tell if you 
 like tell anyone you like." 
 
WEE WILLIE WINKIE 103 
 
 Thus the secret of the Brandis-Allardyce engagement 
 was dependent on a little child's word. Coppy, who knew 
 Wee Willie Winkie's idea of truth, was at ease, for he 
 felt that he would not break promises. Wee Willie Winkie 
 betrayed a special and unusual interest in Miss Allardyce, 
 and, slowly revolving round that embarrassed young lady, 
 was used to regard her gravely with unwinking eye. He 
 was trying to discover why Coppy should have kissed her. 
 She was not half so nice as his own mother. On the 
 other hand, she was Coppy's property, and would in time 
 belong to him. Therefore it behooved him to treat her with 
 as much respect as Coppy's big sword or shiny pistol. 
 
 The idea that he shared a great secret in common with 
 Coppy kept Wee Willie Winkie unusually virtuous for 
 three weeks. Then the Old Adam broke out, and he made 
 what he called a "camp-fire" at the bottom of the garden. 
 How could he have foreseen that the flying sparks would 
 have lighted the Colonel's little hay-rick and consumed a 
 week's store for the horses? Sudden and swift was the 
 punishment deprivation of the good-conduct badge and, 
 most sorrowful of all, two days' confinement to barracks 
 the house and veranda coupled with the withdrawal 
 of the light of his father's countenance. 
 
 He took the sentence like the man he strove to be, drew 
 himself up with a quivering under-lip, saluted, and, once 
 clear of the room, ran to weep bitterly in his nursery 
 called by him "my quarters." Coppy came in the after- 
 noon and attempted to console the culprit. 
 
 "I'm under awwest," said Wee Willie Winkie mourn- 
 fully, "and I didn't ought to speak to you." 
 
 Very early the next morning he climbed on to the roof 
 of the house that was not forbidden and beheld Miss 
 Allardyce going for a ride. 
 
 "Where are you going?" cried Wee Willie Winkie. 
 
 "Across the river," she answered, and trotted forward. 
 
 Now the cantonment in which the 19 5th lay was bounded 
 on the north by a river dry in the winter. From his earli- 
 est years, Wee Willie Winkie had been forbidden to go 
 across the river, and had noted that even Coppy the almost 
 
104 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 almighty Coppy had never set foot beyond it. Wee Wil- 
 lie Winkie had once been read to, out of a big blue book, 
 the history of the Princess and the Goblins a most won- 
 derful tale of a land where the Goblins were always war- 
 ring with the children of men until they were defeated by 
 one Curdie. Ever since that date it seemed to him that 
 the bare black and purple hills across the river were in- 
 habited by Goblins, and, in truth, everyone had said that 
 there lived the Bad Men. Even in his own house the lower 
 halves of the windows were covered with green paper on 
 account of the Bad Men who might, if allowed clear view, 
 fire into peaceful drawing-rooms and comfortable bedrooms. 
 Certainly, beyond the river, which was the end of all the 
 Earth, lived the Bad Men. And here was Major Allar- 
 dyce's big girl, Coppy's property, preparing to venture into 
 their borders! What would Coppy say if anything hap- 
 pened to her? If the Goblins ran off with her as they did 
 with Curdie's Princess? She must at all hazards be turned 
 back. 
 
 The house was still. Wee Willie Winkie reflected for a 
 moment on the very terrible wrath of his father; and then 
 broke his arrest! It was a crime unspeakable. The low 
 sun threw his shadow, very large and very black, on the 
 trim garden-paths, as he went down to the stables and 
 ordered his pony. It seemed to him in the hush of the 
 dawn that all the big world had been bidden to stand still 
 and look at Wee Willie Winkie guilty of mutiny. The 
 drowsy sais gave him his mount, and, since the one great 
 sin made all others insignificant, Wee Willie Winkie said 
 that he was going to ride over to Coppy Sahib, and went 
 out at a foot-pace, stepping on the soft mould of the 
 flower-borders. 
 
 The devastating track of the pony's feet was the last 
 misdeed that cut him off from all sympathy of Human- 
 ity. He turned into the road, leaned forward, and rode 
 as fast as the pony could put foot to the ground in the 
 direction of the river. 
 
 But the liveliest of twelve-two ponies can do little against 
 the long canter of a Waler. Miss Allardyce was far ahead, 
 
WEE WILLIE WINKIE 105 
 
 had passed through the crops, beyond the Police-posts, 
 when all the guards were asleep, and her mount was scat- 
 tering the pebbles of the river-bed as Wee Willie Winkie 
 left the cantonment and British India behind him. Bowed 
 forward and still flogging, Wee Willie Winkie shot into 
 Afghan territory, and could just see Miss Allardyce a black 
 speck, flickering across the stony plain. The reason of 
 her wandering was simple enough. Coppy, in a tone of 
 too-hastily-assumed authority, had told her over night that 
 she must not ride out by the river. And she had gone to 
 prove her own spirit and teach Coppy a lesson. 
 
 Almost at the foot of the inhospitable hills, Wee Willie 
 Winkie saw the Waler blunder and come down heavily. 
 Miss Allardyce struggled clear, but her ankle had been 
 severely twisted, and she could not stand. Having fully 
 shown her spirit, she wept, and was surprised by the ap- 
 parition of a white, wide-eyed child in khaki, on a nearly 
 spent pony. 
 
 "Are you badly, badly hurted?" shouted Wee Willie 
 Winkie, as soon as he was within range. "You didn't ought 
 to be here." 
 
 "I don't know," said Miss Allardyce ruefully, ignoring 
 the reproof. "Good gracious, child, what are you doing 
 here?" 
 
 "You said you was going acwoss ve wiver," panted Wee 
 Willie Winkie, throwing himself off his pony. "And no- 
 body not even Coppy must go acwoss ve wiver, and 
 I came after you ever so hard, but you wouldn't stop, and 
 now you've hurted yourself, and Coppy will be angwy wiv 
 me, and I've bwoken my awwest! I've bwoken my 
 awwest!" 
 
 The future Colonel of the 19 5th sat down and sobbed. 
 In spite of the pain in her ankle the girl was moved. 
 
 "Have you ridden all the way from cantonments, little 
 man? What for?" 
 
 "You belonged to Coppy. Coppy told me so!" wailed 
 Wee Willie Winkie disconsolately. "I saw him kissing you, 
 and he said he was fonder of you van Bell or ve Butcha 
 or me. And so I came. You must get up and come back. 
 
io6 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 You didn't ought to be here. Vis is a bad place, and I've 
 bwoken my awwest." 
 
 "I can't move, Winkie," said Miss Allardyce, with a 
 groan. "I've hurt my foot. What shall I do?" 
 
 She showed a readiness to weep anew, which steadied Wee 
 Willie Winkie, who had been brought up to believe that 
 tears were the depth of unmanliness. Still, when one is as 
 great a sinner as Wee Willie Winkie, even a man may be 
 permitted to break down. 
 
 "Winkie," said Miss Allardyce, "when you've rested a 
 little, ride back and tell them to send out something to 
 carry me back in. It hurts fearfully." 
 
 The child sat still for a little time and Miss Allardyce 
 closed her eyes; the pain was nearly making her faint. 
 She was roused by Wee Willie Winkie tying up the reins on 
 his pony's neck and setting it free with a vicious cut of his 
 whip that made it whicker. The little animal headed 
 towards the cantonments. 
 
 "Oh, Winkie! What are you doing?" 
 
 "Hush!" said Wee Willie Winkie. "Vere's a man com- 
 ing one of ve Bad Men. I must stay wiv you. My 
 faver says a man must always look after a girl. Jack will 
 go home, and ven vey'll come and look for us. Vat's why 
 I let him go." 
 
 Not one man but two or three had appeared from be- 
 hind the rocks of the hills, and the heart of V/ce Willie 
 Winkie sank within him, for just in this manner were the 
 Goblins wont to steal out and vex Curdie'? so-0. Thus 
 had they played in Curdie's garden, he had s^en the pic- 
 ture, and thus h^d they frightened the Princess's nurse. 
 He heard them talking to each other, and recognised with 
 joy the bastard Pushto that he had picked up from one of 
 his father's grooms lately dismissed. People who ^poke that 
 tongue could not be the Bad Men. They were only natives 
 after all. 
 
 They came up to the bowlders on which Miss Allar- 
 dyce's horse had blundered. 
 
 Then rose from the rock Wee Willie Winkie, child of 
 the Dominant Race, aged six and three-quarters, and said 
 
WEE WILLIE WINKIE 107 
 
 briefly and emphatically "JaoT The pony had crossed the 
 river-bed. 
 
 The men laughed, and laughter from natives was the 
 one thing Wee Willie could not tolerate. He asked them 
 what the}- wanted and why they did not depart. Other men 
 with most evil faces and crooked-stocked guns crept out of 
 the shadows of the hills, till, soon, Wee Willie Winkie was 
 face to face with an audience some twenty strong. Miss 
 Allardyce screamed. 
 
 "Who are you?" said one of the men. 
 
 "I am the Colonel Sahib's son, and my order is that 
 you go at once. You black men are frightening the Miss 
 Sahib. One of you must run into cantonments and take 
 the news that the Miss Sahib has hurt herself, and that 
 the Colonel's son is here with her." 
 
 "Put our feet into the trap?" was the laughing reply. 
 "Hear this boy's speech!" 
 
 "Say that I sent you I, the Colonel's son. They will 
 give you money." 
 
 "What is the use of this talk? Take up the child and 
 the girl, and we can at least ask for the ransom. Ours are 
 the villages on the heights," said a voice in the back- 
 ground. 
 
 These were the Bad Men worse than Goblins and it 
 needed all Wee Willie Winkie's training to prevent him 
 from bursting into tears. But he felt that to cry before 
 a native, excepting only his mother's ayah, would be an 
 infamy greater than any mutiny. Moreover, he, as future 
 Colonel of the iQSth, had that grim regiment at his 
 back. 
 
 "Are you going to carry us away?" said Wee Willie 
 Winkie, very blanched and uncomfortable. 
 
 "Yes, my little Sahib Bahadur" said the tallest of the 
 men, "and eat you afterwards." 
 
 "That is child's talk," said Wee Willie Winkie. "Men 
 do not eat men." 
 
 A yell of laughter interrupted him, but he went on 
 firmly "And if you do carry us away, I tell you that 
 all my regiment will come up in a day and kill you all 
 
io8 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 without leaving one. Who will take my message to the 
 Colonel Sahib?" 
 
 Speech in any vernacular and Wee Willie Winkie had 
 a colloquial acquaintance with three was easy to the boy 
 who could not yet manage his "r's" and "th's" aright. 
 
 Another man joined the conference, crying: "O fool- 
 ish men! What this babe says is true. He is the heart's 
 heart of those white troops. For the sake of peace let 
 them go both, for if he be taken, the regiment will break 
 loose and gut the valley. Our villages are in the. valley, 
 and we shall not escape. That regiment are devils. They 
 broke Khoda Yar's breastbone with kicks when he tried 
 to take the rifles; and if we touch this child they will fire 
 and rape and plunder for a month, till nothing remains. 
 Better to send a man back to take the message and get a 
 reward. I say that this child is their God, and that they 
 will spare none of us, nor our women, if we harm him." 
 
 It was Din Mahommed, the dismissed groom of the Colo- 
 nel, who made the diversion, and an angry and heated dis- 
 cussion followed. Wee Willie Winkie, standing over Miss 
 Allardyce, waited the upshot. Surely his "wegiment," his 
 own "wegiment," would not desert him if they knew of his 
 extremity. 
 
 ****** 
 
 The riderless pony brought the news to the iQSth, though 
 there had been consternation in the Colonel's household 
 for an hour before. The little beast came in through the 
 parade-ground in front of the main barracks, where the 
 men were settling down to play Spoilfive till the afternoon. 
 Devlin, the Colour-Sergeant of E Company, glanced at the 
 empty saddle and tumbled through the barrack-rooms, kick- 
 ing up each Room Corporal as he passed. "Up, ye beggars! 
 There's something happened to the Colonel's son," he 
 shouted. 
 
 "He couldn't fall off! S'elp me, 'e couldn't fall off," 
 blubbered a drummer-boy. "Go an' hunt acrost the river. 
 He's over there if he's anywhere, an' maybe those Pathans 
 have got 'im. For the love o' Gawd don't look for 'im in 
 the nullahs! Let's go over the river." 
 
WEE WILLIE WINKIE 109 
 
 "There's sense in Mott yet," said Devlin. "E Com- 
 pany, double out to the river sharp!" 
 
 So E Company, in its shirt-sleeves mainly, doubled for 
 the dear life, and in the rear toiled the perspiring Ser- 
 geant, adjuring it to double yet faster. The cantonment 
 was alive with the men of the igsth hunting for Wee 
 Willie Winkie, and the Colonel finally overtook E Company, 
 far too exhausted to swear, struggling in the pebbles of the 
 river-bed. 
 
 Up the hill under which Wee Willie Winkie's Bad Men 
 were discussing the wisdom of carrying off the child and 
 the girl, a look-out fired two shots. 
 
 "What have I said?" shouted Din Mahommed. "There 
 is the warning! The pulton are out already and are com- 
 ing across the plain! Get away! Let us not be seen with 
 the boy!" 
 
 The men waited for an instant, and then, as another 
 shot was fired, withdrew into the hills, silently as they 
 had appeared. 
 
 "The wegiment is coming," said Wee Willie Winkie con- 
 fidently to Miss Allardyce, "and it's all wight. Don't cwy ! " 
 
 He needed the advice himself, for ten minutes later, when 
 his father came up, he was weeping bitterly with his head 
 in Miss Allardyce's lap. 
 
 And the men of the 19 5th carried him home with shouts 
 and rejoicings; and Coppy, who had ridden a horse into 
 a lather, met him, and, to his intense disgust, kissed him 
 openly in the presence of the men. 
 
 But there was balm for his dignity. His father assured 
 him that not only would the breaking of arrest be con- 
 doned, but that the good-conduct badge would be restored 
 as soon as his mother could sew it on his blouse-sleeve. 
 Miss Allardyce had told the Colonel a story that made 
 him proud of his son. 
 
 "She belonged to you, Coppy," said Wee Willie Winkie, 
 indicating Miss Allardyce with a grimy forefinger. "I knew 
 she didn't ought to go acwoss ve wiver, and I knew ve wegi- 
 ment would come to me if I sent Jack home." 
 
 "You're a hero, Winkie," said Coppy "a pukka hero!" 
 
no THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 "I don't know what vat means," said Wee Willie Winkie, 
 "but you mustn't call me Winkie any no more. I'm 
 Percival WilPam WiU'ams." 
 
 And in this manner did Wee Willie Winkie enter into 
 his manhood. 
 
HOW GAVIN BIRSE PUT IT TO 
 MAG LOWNIE 
 
 BY SIR J. M. BARRIE 
 
 IN a wet day the rain gathered in blobs on the road that 
 passed our garden. Then it crawled into the cart- 
 tracks until the road was streaked with water. Lastly, 
 the water gathered in heavy yellow pools. If the on-ding 
 still continued, clods of earth toppled from the garden 
 dyke into the ditch. 
 
 On such a day, wjien even the dulseman had gone into 
 shelter, and the women scudded by with their wrappers 
 over their heads, came Gavin Birse to our door. Gavin, 
 who was the Glen Quharity post, was still young, but 
 had never been quite the same man since some amateurs 
 in the glen ironed his back for rheumatism. I thought 
 he had called to have a crack with me. He sent his com- 
 pliments up to the attic, however, by Leeby, and would 
 I come and be a witness? 
 
 Gavin came up and explained. He had taken off his 
 scarf and thrust it into his pocket, lest the rain should 
 take the colour out of it. His boots cheeped, and his 
 shoulders had risen to his ears. He stood steaming be- 
 fore my fire. 
 
 "If it's no ower muckle to ask ye," he said, "I would 
 like ye for a witness." 
 
 "A witness! But for what do you need a witness, 
 Gavin?" 
 
 "I want ye," he said, "to come wi' me to Mag's, and 
 be a witness." 
 
 Gavin and Mag Lownie had been engaged for a year or 
 more. Mag was the daughter of Janet Ogilvy, who was 
 best remembered as the body that took the hill (that is, 
 
 in 
 
H2 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 wandered about it) for twelve hours on the day Mr. Dis- 
 hart, the Auld Licht minister, accepted a call to another 
 church. 
 
 "You don't mean to tell me, Gavin," I asked, "that 
 .your marriage is to take place to-day?" 
 
 By the twist of his mouth I saw that he was only de- 
 ferring a smile. 
 
 "Far frae that," he said. 
 
 "Ah, then, you have quarrelled, and I am to speak up 
 for you?" 
 
 "Na, na," he said, "I dinna want ye to do that above 
 all things. It would be a favour if ye could gie me a bad 
 character." 
 
 This beat me, and, I dare say, my face showed it. 
 
 "I'm no juist what ye would call anxious to marry Mag 
 noo," said Gavin, without a tremor. 
 
 I told him to go on. 
 
 "There's a lassie oot at Craigiebuckle," he explained, 
 "workin' on the farm Jeanie Luke by name. Ye may 
 hae seen her?" 
 
 "What of her?" I asked, severely. 
 
 "Weel," said Gavin, still unabashed, "I'm thinkin' noo 'at 
 I would rather hae her." 
 
 Then he stated his case more fully. 
 
 "Ay, I thocht I liked Mag oncommon till I saw Jeanie, 
 an* I like her fine yet, but I prefer the other ane. That 
 state o' matters canna gang on for ever, so I came into 
 Thrums the day to settle 't one wy or another." 
 
 "And how," I asked, "do you propose going about it? 
 It is a somewhat delicate business." 
 
 "Ou, I see nae great difficulty in't. I'll speir at Mag, 
 blunt oot, if she'll let me aff . Yes, I'll put it to her 
 plain." 
 
 " You're sure Jeanie would take you?" 
 
 "Ay; oh, there's nae fear o' that." 
 
 "But if Mag keeps you to your bargain?" 
 
 "Weel, in that case there's nae harm done." 
 
 "You are in a great hurry, Gavin?" 
 
 "Ye may say that; but I want to be married. The wifie 
 
HOW GAVIN BIRSE PUT IT TO MAG LOWNIE 113 
 
 I lodge wi' cannot last lang, an' I would like to settle doon 
 in some place." 
 
 "So you are on your way to Mag's now?" 
 
 "Ay, we'll get her in atween twaP and ane." 
 
 "Oh, yes; but why do you want me to go with you?" 
 
 "I want ye for a witness. If she winna let me aff, weel 
 and guid ; and if she will, it's better to hae a witness in case 
 she should go back on her word." 
 
 Gavin made his proposal briskly, and as coolly as if 
 he were only asking me to go fishing; but I did not ac- 
 company him to Mag's. He left the house to look for 
 another witness, and about an hour afterwards Jess saw 
 him pass with Tammas Haggart. Tammas cried in during 
 the evening to tell us how the mission prospered. 
 
 "Mind ye," said Tammas, a drop of water hanging to 
 the point of his nose, "I disclaim all responsibility in the 
 business. I ken Mag weel for a thrifty, respectable 
 woman, as her mither was afore her, and so I said to Gavin 
 when he came to speir me." 
 
 "Ay, mony a pirn has 'Lisbeth filled to me," said Hendry, 
 settling down to a reminiscence. 
 
 "No to be ower hard on Gavin," continued Tammas, 
 forestalling Hendry, "he took what I said in guid part; 
 but aye when I stopped speakin' to draw breath, he says, 
 'The question is, will ye come wi' me?' He was michty 
 made up in's mind." 
 
 "Weel, ye went wi' him," suggested Jess, who wanted 
 to bring Tammas to the point. 
 
 "Ay," said the stone-breaker, "but no in sic a hurry 
 as that." 
 
 He worked his mouth round and round, to clear the 
 course, as it were, for a sarcasm. 
 
 "Fowk often say," he continued, "'at am quick beyond 
 the ord'nar' in seeing the humorous side o' things." 
 
 Here Tammas paused, and looked at us. 
 
 "So ye are, Tammas," said Hendry. "Losh, ye mind hoo 
 ye saw the humorous side o' me wearin' a pair o' boots 
 'at wisna marrows! No, the ane had a toe-piece on, an' 
 the other hadna." 
 
H4 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 "Ye juist wore them sometimes when ye was delvin'," 
 broke in Jess, "ye have as guid a pair o' boots as ony in 
 Thrums." 
 
 "Ay, but I had worn them," said Hendry, "at odd 
 times for mair than a year, an' I had never seen the humor- 
 ous side o' them. Weel, as fac as death (here he addressed 
 me) , Tammas had juist seen them twa or three times when 
 he saw the humorous side o' them. Syne I saw their hu- 
 morous side, too, but no till Tammas pointed it oot." 
 
 "That was naething," said Tammas, "naething ava to 
 some things I've done." 
 
 "But what aboot Mag?" said Leeby. 
 
 "We wasna that length, was we?" said Tammas. "Na, 
 we was speakin' aboot the humorous side. Ay, wait a wee, 
 I didna mention the humorous side for naething." 
 
 He paused to reflect. 
 
 "Oh, yes," he said at last, brightening up, "I was savin' 
 to ye hoo quick I was to see the humorous side o' onything. 
 Ay, then, what made me say that was 'at in a clink (flash) 
 I saw the humorous side o' Gavin's position." 
 
 "Man, man," said Hendry, admiringly, "and what is *t?" 
 
 "Oh, it's this, there's something humorous in speirin' a 
 woman to let ye aff so as ye can be married to another 
 woman." 
 
 "I daursay there is," said Hendry, doubtfully. 
 
 "Did she let him aff?" asked Jess, taking the words out 
 of Leeby's mouth. 
 
 "I'm comin' to that," said Tammas. "Gavin proposes 
 to me after I had ha 'en my laugh " 
 
 "Yes," cried Hendry, banging the table with his fist, 
 "it has a humorous side. Ye're richt again, Tammas." 
 
 "I wish ye wadna blatter (beat) the table," said Jess, 
 and then Tammas proceeded. 
 
 "Gavin wanted me to tak' paper an' ink an' a pen wi' 
 me, to write the proceeding doon, but I said, 'Na, na, I'll 
 tak' paper, but no nae ink nor nae pen, for there'll be ink 
 an' a pen there.' That was what I said." 
 
 "An' did she let him aff?" asked Leeby. 
 
 "Weel," said Tammas, "aff we goes to Mag's hoose, an' 
 
HOW GA VI N BIRSE PUT IT TO MAG LOWNIE 1 1 5 
 
 sure enough Mag was in. She was alone, too; so Gavin, 
 no to waste time, juist sat doon for politeness' sake, an* 
 syne rises up again; an' says he, 'Marget Lownie, I hae a 
 solemn question to speir at ye, namely this, Will you, 
 Marget Lownie, let me, Gavin Birse, aff?' " 
 
 "Mag would start at that?" 
 
 "Sal, she was braw an' cool. I thocht she maun hae 
 got wind o' his intentions aforehand, for she juist replies, 
 quiet-like, 'Hoo do ye want aff, Gavin?' ' 
 
 " 'Because,' says he, like a book, 'my affections has un- 
 dergone a change.' 
 
 " 'Ye mean Jean Luke,' says Mag. 
 
 " 'That is wha I mean,' says Gavin, very straitforrard." 
 
 "But she didna let him aff, did she?" 
 
 "Na, she wasna the kind. Says she, 'I wonder to hear 
 ye, Gavin, but am no goin' to agree to naething o' that sort.' 
 
 " 'Think it ower,' says Gavin. 
 
 :< 'Na, my mind's made up,' said she. 
 
 " 'Ye would sune get anither man,' he says, earnestly. 
 
 " 'Hoo do I ken that?' she speirs, rale sensibly, I thocht, 
 for men's no sae easy to get. 
 
 " 'Am sure o't,' Gavin says, wi' michty conviction in his 
 voice, 'for ye 're bonny to look at, an' weel kent for bein' 
 a guid body.' 
 
 " 'Ay,' says Mag, 'I'm glad ye like me, Gavin, for ye 
 have to tak me.' ' 
 
 "ThaUput a clincher on him," interrupted Hendry. 
 
 "He was loth to gie in," replied Tammas, "so he says, 
 'Ye think am a fine character, Marget Lownie, but ye're 
 very far mista'en. I wouldna wonder but what I was losin* 
 my place some o' thae days, an' syne whaur would ye be? 
 Marget Lownie,' he goes on, 'am nat'rally lazy an' fond 
 o' the drink. As sure as ye stand there, am a reg'lar 
 deevil!'" 
 
 "That was strong language," said Hendry, "but he would 
 be wantin' to fleg (frighten) her?" 
 
 "Juist so, but he didna manage 't, for Mag says, 'We 
 a' hae oor faults, Gavin, an' deevil or no deevil, ye're the 
 man for me!' 
 
n6 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 "Gavin thocht a bit," continued Tammas, "an' syne 
 he tries her on a new tack. 'Marget Lownie,' he says, 
 *yer father's an auld man noo, an' he has naebody but 
 yersel to look after him. I'm thinkin' it would be kind o' 
 cruel o r me to tak ye awa' frae him?' " 
 
 "Mag wouldna be ta'en wi' that; she wasna born on a 
 Sawbath," said Jess, using one of her favorite sayings. 
 
 "She wasna/' answered Tammas. "Says she, 'Hae nae 
 fear on that score, Gavin; my father's fine willin' to spare 
 me!'" 
 
 "An' that ended it? w 
 
 "Ay, that ended it." 
 
 "Did ye tak it doun in writin'?" asked Hendry. 
 
 "There was nae need," said Tammas, handing round his 
 snuff-mull. "No, I never touched paper. When I saw 
 the thing was settled, I left them to their coortin'. They're 
 to tak a look at Snecky Hobart's auld hoose the nicht. It's 
 to let." 
 
THE FISHER OF MEN 1 
 
 BY FIONA MACLEOD 
 
 "But now I have grown nothing, being all, 
 
 And the whole world weighs down upon my heart" 
 
 (Fergus and the Druid.) 
 
 WHEN old Sheen nic Leoid came back to the croft, 
 after she had been to the burn at the edge of the 
 green airidh, where she had washed the claar that 
 was for the potatoes at the peeling, she sat down before the 
 peats. 
 
 She was white with years. The mountain wind was chill, 
 too, for all that the sun had shone throughout the midsum- 
 mer day. It was well to sit before the peat-fire. 
 
 The croft was on the slope of a mountain and had the 
 south upon it. North, south, east, and west, other great 
 slopes reached upward like hollow green waves frozen into 
 silence by the very wind that curved them so, and freaked 
 their crests into peaks and jagged pinnacles. Stillness was 
 in that place for ever and ever. What though the Gor- 
 romalt Water foamed down Ben Nair, where the croft was, 
 and made a hoarse voice for aye surrendering sound to 
 silence? What though at times the stones fell from the 
 ridges of Ben Chaisteal and Maolmor, and clattered down 
 the barren declivities till they were slung in the tangled 
 meshes of whin and juniper? What though on stormy 
 dawns the eagle screamed as he fought against the wind 
 that graved a thin line upon the aged front of Ben Mulad, 
 where his eyrie was: or that the kestrel cried above the 
 
 1 From "The Sin-Eater," and "Washer of the Ford," Vol. II 
 of the Collected Edition of "Fiona Macleod" (William Sharp). 
 Published by Duffield & Company. By permission of Mrs. Wil- 
 liam Sharp. 
 
 117 
 
ii8 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 rabbit-burrows in the strath: or that the hill-fox barked, or 
 that the curlew wailed, or that the scattered sheep made 
 an endless mournful crying? What were these but the 
 ministers of silence? 
 
 There was no blue smoke in the strath except from the 
 one turf cot. In the hidden valley beyond Ben Nair there 
 was a hamlet, and nigh upon three-score folk lived there; 
 but that was over three miles away. Sheen nic Leoid was 
 alone in that solitary place, save for her son Alasdair M6r 
 Og. "Young Alasdair" he was still, though the grey feet 
 of fifty years had marked his hair. Alasclair Og he was 
 while Alasdair Ruadh mac Chalum mh:c Leoid, that was 
 his father, lived. But when Alasdair Ruadh changed, and 
 Sheen was left a mourning woman, he that was their son 
 was Alasdair Og still. 
 
 She had sore weariness that day. For all that, it was 
 not the weight of the burden that made her go in and out 
 of the afternoon sun, and sit by the red glow of the peats, 
 brooding deep. 
 
 When, nigh upon an hour later, Alasdair came up the 
 slope, and led the kye to the byre, she did not hear him: 
 nor had she sight of him, when his shadow flickered in be- 
 fore him and lay along the floor. 
 
 "Poor old woman," he said to himself, bending his head 
 because of the big height that was his, and he there so 
 heavy and strong, and tender, too, for all the tangled black 
 beard and the wild hill-eyes that looked out under bristling 
 grey-black eyebrows. 
 
 "Poor old woman, and she with the tired heart that she 
 has. Aye, aye, for sure the weeks lap up her shadow, as 
 the sayin' is. She will be thinking of him that is gone. 
 Aye, or maybe the old thoughts of her are goin' back on 
 their own steps, down this glen an' over that hill an' away 
 beyont that strath, an' this corrie an' that moor. Well, 
 well, it is a good love, that of the mother. Sure a bitter 
 pain it will be to me when there's no old grey hair there to 
 stroke. It's quiet here, terrible quiet, God knows, to Him- 
 self be the blessin' for this an' for that; but when she has 
 the white sleep at last, then it'll be a sore day for me, an' 
 
THE FISHER OF MEN 119 
 
 one that I will not be able to bear to hear the sheep callin', 
 callin', callin' through the rain on the hills here, and Gor- 
 romalt Water an' no other voice to be with me on that day 
 of the days." 
 
 She heard a faint sigh, and stirred a moment, but did not 
 look round. 
 
 "Muim'-a-ghraidh, is it tired you are, an' this so fine a 
 time, too?" 
 
 With a quick gesture, the old woman glanced at him. 
 
 "Ah, child, is that you indeed? Well, I am glad of that, 
 for I have the trouble again." 
 
 "What trouble, Muim' ghaolaiche?" 
 
 But the old woman did not answer. Wearily she turned 
 her face to the psat-glow again. 
 
 Alasdair seated himself on the big wooden chair to her 
 right. For a time he stayed silent thus, staring into the 
 red heart of the peats. What was the gloom upon the 
 old heart that he loved? What trouble was it? 
 
 At last he rose and put meal and water into the iron pot, 
 and stirred the porridge while it seethed and sputtered. 
 Then he poured boiling water upon the tea in the brown 
 jenny, and put the new bread and the sweet-milk scones 
 on the rude deal board that was the table. 
 
 "Come, dear tired old heart," he said, "and let us give 
 thanks to the Being." 
 
 "Blessings and thanks," she said, and turned round. 
 
 Alasdair poured out the porridge, and watched the steam 
 rise. Then he sat down, with a knife in one hand and the 
 brown-white leaf in the other. 
 
 "Oh God," he said, in the low voice he had in the kirk 
 when the Bread and Wine were given "Oh God, be giving 
 us now thy blessing, and have the thanks. And give us 
 peace." 
 
 Peace there was in the sorrowful old eyes of the mother. 
 The two ate in silence. The big clock that was by the bed 
 tick-tacked, tick-tacked. A faint sputtering came out of 
 a peat that had bog-gas in it. Shadows moved in the 
 silence, and met and whispered and moved into deep, warm 
 darkness. There was peace. 
 
120 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 There was still a red flush above the hills in the west 
 when the mother and son sat in the ingle again. 
 
 "What is it, mother-my-heart?" Alasdair asked at last, 
 putting his great red hand upon the woman's knee. 
 
 She looked at him' for a moment. When she spoke she 
 turned away her gaze again. 
 
 "Foxes have holes, and the fowls of the air have their 
 places of rest, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay 
 his head." 
 
 "And what then, dear? Sure, it is the deep meaning you 
 have in that grey old head that I'm loving so." 
 
 "Aye, lennav-aghray, there is meaning to my words. It 
 is old I am, and the hour of my hours is near. I heard 
 a voice outside the window last night. It is a voice I 
 will not be hearing, no, not for seventy years. It was 
 cradle-sweet, it was." 
 
 She paused, and there was silence for a time. 
 
 "Well, dear,," she began again, wearily, and in a low, 
 weak voice, "it is more tired and more tired I am every 
 day now this last month. Two Sabbaths ago I woke, and 
 there were bells in the air: and you are for knowing well, 
 Alasdair, that no kirk-bells ever rang in Straith-Nair. At 
 edge o' dark on Friday, and by the same token the thir- 
 teenth day it was, I fell asleep, and dreamed the mools 
 were on my breast, and that the roots of the white daisies 
 were in the hollows where the eyes were that loved you, 
 Alasdair, my son." 
 
 The man looked at her with troubled gaze. No words 
 would come. Of what avail to speak when there is nothing 
 to be said? God sends the gloom upon the cloud, and 
 there is rain: God sends the gloom upon the hill, and there 
 is mist: God sends the gloom upon the sun, and there is 
 winter. It is God, too, sends the gloom upon the soul, and 
 there is change. The swallow knows when to lift up her 
 wing over against the shadow that creeps out of the north: 
 the wild swan knows when the smell of snow is behind the 
 sun: the salmon, lone in the brown pool among the hills, 
 hears the deep sea, and his tongue pants for salt, and his 
 fins quiver, and he knows that his time is come, and that the 
 
THE FISHER OF MEN 121 
 
 sea calls. The doe knows when the fawn hath not yet 
 quaked in her belly: is not the violet more deep in the 
 shadowy dewy eyes? The woman knows when the babe 
 hath not yet stirred a little hand: is not the wild-rose on her 
 cheek more often seen, and are not the shy tears moist on 
 quiet hands in the dusk? How, then, shall the soul not 
 know when the change is nigh at last? Is it a less thing 
 than a reed, which sees the yellow birch-gold adrift on the 
 lake, and the gown of the heather grow russet when the 
 purple has passed into the sky, and the white bog-down 
 wave grey and tattered where the loneroid grows dark and 
 pungent which sees, and knows that the breath of the 
 Death- Weaver at the Pole is fast faring along the frozen 
 norland peaks. It is more than a reed, it is more than 
 a wild doe on the hills, it is more than a swallow lifting 
 her wing against the coming of the shadow, it is more than 
 a swan drunken with the savour of the blue wine of the 
 waves when the green Arctic lawns are white and still. It 
 is more than these, which has the Son of God for brother, 
 and is clothed with light. God doth not extinguish at the 
 dark tomb what he hath litten in the dark womb. 
 
 Who shall say that the soul knows not when the bird is 
 aweary of the nest, and the nest is aweary of the wind? 
 Who shall say that all portents are vain imaginings? A 
 whirling straw upon the road is but a whirling straw: yet 
 the wind is upon the cheek almost ere it is gone. 
 
 It was not for Alasdair Og, then, to put a word upon the 
 saying of the woman that was his mother, and was age- 
 white, and could see with the seeing of old wise eyes. 
 
 So all that was upon his lips was a sigh, and the poor 
 prayer that is only a breath out of the heart. 
 
 "You will be telling me, grey sweetheart," he said lovingly, 
 at last "you will be telling me what was behind the word 
 that you said: that about the foxes that have holes for the 
 hiding, poor beasts, and the birdeens wi' their nests, though 
 the Son o' Man hath not where to lay his head?" 
 
 "Aye, Alasdair, my son that I bore long syne an' that 
 I'm leaving soon, I will be for telling you that thing, for I 
 am knowing what is in the dark this night o' the nights." 
 
122 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 Old Sheen put her head back wearily on the chair, and 
 let her hands lie, long and white, palm-downward upon her 
 knees. The peat-glow warmed the dull grey that lurked 
 under her closed eyes and about her mouth, and in the 
 furrowed cheeks. Alasdair moved nearer and took her 
 right hand in his, where it lay like a tired sheep between 
 two scarped rocks. Gently he smoothed her hand, and 
 wondered why so frail and slight a creature as this small 
 old wizened woman could have mothered a great swarthy 
 man like himself he a man now, with his two score and 
 ten years, and yet but a boy there at the dear side of her. 
 
 "It was this way, Alasdair-mochree," she went on in her 
 low thin voice like a wind-worn leaf, the man that was her 
 son thought. "It was this way. I went down to the burn 
 to wash the claar, and when I was there I saw a wounded 
 fawn in the bracken. The big sad eyes of it were like those 
 of Maisie, poor lass, when she had the birthing that was 
 her going-call. I went through the bracken, and down by 
 the Gorromalt, and into the Glen of the Willows. 
 
 "And when I was there, and standing by the running 
 water, I saw a man by the stream-side. He was tall, but 
 spare and weary: and the clothes upon him were poor and 
 worn. He had sorrow. When he lifted his head at me, I 
 saw the tears. Dark, wonderful, sweet eyes they were. His 
 face was pale. It was not the face of a man of the hills. 
 There was no red in it, and the eyes looked in upon them- 
 selves. He was a fair man, with the white hands that 
 a woman has, a woman like the Bantighearna of Glenchais- 
 teal over yonder. His voice, too, was a voice like that: in 
 the softness, and the sweet, quiet sorrow, I am meaning. 
 
 "The word that I gave him was in the English: for I 
 thought he was like a man out of Sasunn, or of the south- 
 lands somewhere. But he answered me in the Gaelic: 
 sweet, good Gaelic like that of the Bioball over there, to 
 Himself be the praise. 
 
 " 'And it is the way down the Strath you are seeking,' 
 I asked: 'and will you not be coming up to the house 
 yonder, poor cot though it is, and have a sup of milk, and 
 a rest if it's weary you are?' 
 
THE FISHER OF MEN 123 
 
 " 'You are having my thanks for that/ he said, 'and it 
 is as though I had both the good rest and the cool sweet 
 drink. But I am following the flowing water here/ 
 
 " 'Is it for the fishing?' I asked. 
 
 " 'I am a Fisher,' he said, and the voice of him was 
 low and sad. 
 
 "He had no hat on his head, and the light that streamed 
 through a rowan-tree was in his long hair. He had the 
 pity of the poor in his sorrowful grey eyes. 
 
 "'And will you not sleep with us?' I asked again: 'that 
 is, if you have no place to go to, and are a stranger in this 
 country, as I am thinking you are; for I have never had 
 sight of you in the home-straths before.' 
 
 " 'I am a stranger,' he said, 'and I have no home, and 
 my father's house is a great way off.' 
 
 " 'Do not tell me, poor man,' I said gently, for fear of 
 the pain, 'do not tell me if you would fain not; but it is 
 glad I will be if you will give me the name you have.' 
 
 " 'My name is Mac-an-t'-Saoir,' he answered with the 
 quiet deep gaze that was his. And with that he bowed 
 his head, and went on his way, brooding deep. 
 
 "Well, it was with a heavy heart I turned, and went 
 back through the bracken. A heavy heart, for sure, and yet, 
 oh peace too, cool dews of peace. And the fawn was there: 
 healed, Alasdair, healed, and whinny-bleating for its doe, 
 that stood on a rock wi' lifted hoof an' stared down the 
 glen to where the Fisher was. 
 
 "When I was at the burnside, a woman came down the 
 brae. She was fair to see, but the tears were UDon her. 
 
 " 'Oh,' she cried, 'have you seen a man going this way?' 
 
 " 'Aye, for sure,' I answered, 'but what man would he be?' 
 
 " 'He is called Mac-an-t'-Saoir." 
 
 " 'Well, there are many men that are called Son of the 
 Carpenter. What will his own name be?' 
 
 " 'losa/ she said. 
 
 "And when I looked at her, she was weaving the wavy 
 branches of a thorn near by, and sobbing low, and it was 
 like a wreath or crown that she made. 
 
 " 'And who will you be, poor woman?' I asked. 
 
i2 4 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 " { Oh my Son, my Son,' she said and put her apron over 
 her head and went down into the Glen of the Willows, she 
 weeping sore, too, at that, poor woman. 
 
 "So now, Alasdair, my son, tell me what thought you 
 have about this thing that I have told you. For I know 
 well whom I met on the brae there, and who the Fisher 
 was. And when I was at the peats here once more I sat 
 down, and my mind sank into myself. And it is knowing 
 the knowledge I am." 
 
 "Well, well, dear, it is sore tired you are. Have rest 
 now. But -sure there are many men called Macintyre." 
 
 "Aye, an* what Gael that you know will be for giving 
 you his surname like that?" 
 
 Alasdair had no word for that. He rose to put some 
 more peats on the fire. When he had done this, he gave 
 a cry. 
 
 The whiteness that was on the mother's hair was now in 
 the face. There was no blood there, or in the drawn lips. 
 The light in the old, dim eyes was like water after frost. 
 
 He took her hand in his. Clay-cold it was. He let it 
 go, and it fell straight by the chair, stiff as the cromak 
 he carried when he was with the sheep. 
 
 "Oh my God and my God," he whispered, white with the 
 awe, and the bitter cruel pain. 
 
 Then it was that he heard a knocking at the door. 
 
 "Who is there?" he cried hoarsely. 
 
 "Open, and let me in." It was a low, sweet voice, but 
 was that grey hour the time for a welcome? 
 
 "Go, but go in peace, whoever you are. There is death 
 here." 
 
 "Open, and let me in." 
 
 At that, Alasdair, shaking like a reed in the wind, un- 
 clasped the latch. A tall fair man, ill-clad and weary, 
 pale, too, and with dreaming eyes, came in. 
 
 "Beannachd Dhe an Tigh," he said, "God's blessing on 
 this house; and on all here." 
 
 "The same upon yourself," Alasdair Said, with the weary 
 pain in his voice. "And who will you be? and forgive the 
 asking." 
 
TEE FISHER OF MEN 125 
 
 "I am called Mac-an-t'-Saoir, and losa is the name I 
 bear Jesus, the Son of the Carpenter." 
 
 "It is a good name. And is it good you are seeking this 
 night?" 
 
 "I am a Fisher." 
 
 "Well, that's here an' that's there. But will you go to 
 the Strath over the hill, and tell the good man that is there, 
 the minister, Lachlan McLachlan, thut old Sheen nic Leoid, 
 wife of Alasdair Ruadh, is dead." 
 
 "I know that, Alasdair Og." 
 
 "And how will you be knowing that, and my name too, 
 you that are called Macintyre?" 
 
 "I met the white soul of Sheen as it went down by the 
 Glen of the Willows a brief while ago. She was singing a 
 glad song, she was. She had green youth in her eyes. And 
 a man was holding her by the hand. It was Alasdair 
 Ruadh." 
 
 At that Alasdair fell on his knees. When he looked up 
 there was no one there. Through the darkness outside the 
 door, he saw a star shining white, and leaping like a pulse. 
 
 It was three days after that day of shadow that Sheen 
 nic Leoid was put under the green turf. 
 
 On each night, Alasdair Og walked in the Glen of the 
 Willows, and there he saw a man fishing, though ever afar 
 off. Stooping he was, always, and like a shadow at times. 
 But he was the man that was called losa Mac-an-t'-Saoir 
 Jesus, the Son of the Carpenter. 
 
 And on the night of the earthing he saw the Fisher 
 close by. 
 
 "Lord God," he said, with the hush on his voice, and 
 deep awe in his wondering eyes: "Lord God!" 
 
 And the Man looked at him. 
 
 "Night and day, Alasdair MacAlasdair," he said, "night 
 and day I fish in the waters of the world. And these waters 
 are the waters of grief, and the waters of sorrow, and the 
 waters of despair. And it is the souls of the living I fish 
 for. And lo, I say this thing unto you, for you shall not 
 see me again: Go in peace. Go in peace, good soul of a 
 poor man, for thou hast seen the Fisher of Men." 
 
QUATTROCENTISTERIA 
 
 (How Sandra Botticelli Saw Simonetta in the Spring) 
 
 I 
 BY MAURICE HEWLETT 
 
 UP at Fiesole among the olives and chestnuts which 
 cloud the steeps, the magnificent Lorenzo was en- 
 tertaining his guests on a morning in April. The 
 olives were just whitening to silver; they stretched in a 
 trembling sea down the slope. Beyond lay Florence, misty 
 and golden; and round about were the mossy hills, cut sharp 
 and definite against a grey-blue sky, printed with starry 
 buildings and sober ranks of cypress. The sun catching 
 the mosaics of San Miniato and the brazen cross on the 
 fagade, made them shine like sword-blades in the quiver 
 of the heat between. For the valley was just a lake of hot 
 air, hot and murky "fever weather," ?nid the people in 
 the streets with a glaring summer sun let in between two 
 long spells of fog. 'Twas unnatural at that season, via; 
 but the blessed Saints sent the weather and one could only 
 be careful what one was about at sun-down. 
 
 Up at the Villa, with brisk morning airs rustling over- 
 head, in the cool shades of trees and lawns, it was pleasant 
 to lie still, watching these things, while a silky young ex- 
 quisite sang to his lute a not too audacious ballad about 
 Selvaggia, or Becchina and the saucy Prior of Sant' Onofrio. 
 He sang well, too, that dark-eyed boy; the girl at whose 
 feet he was crouched was laughing and blushing at once; 
 and, being very fair, she blushed hotly. She dared not 
 raise her eyes to look into his, and he knew it and was 
 quietly measuring his strength it was quite a comedy! 
 At each wanton refrain he lowered his voice to a whisper 
 
 126 
 
()UAH KULEN 1 IST&KIA 127 
 
 and bent a little forward. And the girl's laughter became 
 hysterical; she was shaking with the effort to control her- 
 self. At last she looked up with a sort of sob in her 
 breath and saw his mocking smile and the gleam of the 
 wild beast in his eyes. She grew white, rose hastily and 
 turned away to join a group of ladies sitting apart. A 
 man with a heavy, rather sullen face and a bush of yellow 
 hair falling over his forehead in a wave, was standing aside 
 v/atching all this. He folded his arms and scowled under 
 his big brows; and when the girl moved away his eyes fol- 
 lowed her. 
 
 The lad ended his song in a broad sarcasm amid bursts 
 of laughter and applause. The Magnificent, sitting in his 
 carved chair, nursed his sallow face and smiled approval. 
 "My brother boasts his invulnerability," he said, turning 
 to his neighbour, "let him look to it, Messer Cupido will 
 have him yet. Already, we can see, he has been let into 
 some of the secrets of the bower." The man bowed and 
 smiled deferentially. "Signor Giuliana has all the qualities 
 to win the love of ladies, and to retain it. Doubtless he 
 awaits his destiny. The Wise Man has said that 'Beauty 
 . . .' " The young poet enlarged on his text with some 
 fire in his thin cheeks, while the company kept very silent. 
 It was much to their liking; even Giuliano was absorbed; 
 he sat on the ground clasping one knee between his hands, 
 smiling upwards into vacancy, as a man does whose imagina- 
 tion is touched. Lorenzo nursed his sallow face and beat 
 time to the orator's cadences with his foot; he, too, was ab- 
 stracted and smiling. At the end he spoke: "Our Mar- 
 silio himself has never said nobler words, my Agnolo. The 
 mantle of the Attic prophet has descended indeed upon 
 this Florence. And Beauty, as thou sayest, is from heaven. 
 But where shall it be found here below, and how dis- 
 cerned?" The man of the heavy jowl was standing with 
 folded arms, looking from under his brows at the group of 
 girls. Lorenzo saw everything; he noticed him. "Our 
 Sandro will tell us it is yonder. The Star of Genoa shines 
 over Florence and our poor little constellations are gone 
 out. Ecco, my Sandro, gravest and hardiest of painters, 
 
128 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 go summon Madonna Simonetta and her handmaidens to 
 our Symposium. Agnolo will speak further to us of this 
 sovereignty of Beauty." 
 
 The painter bowed his head and moved away. 
 
 A green alley vaulted with thick ilex and myrtle formed 
 a tapering vista where the shadows lay misty blue and pale 
 shafts of light pierced through fitfully. At the far end it 
 ran out into an open space and a splash of sunshine. A 
 marble Ganymede with lifted arms rose in the middle like 
 a white flame. The girls were there, intent upon some com- 
 merce of their own, flashing hither and thither over the 
 grass in a flutter of saffron and green and crimson. Simon- 
 etta Sandro could see was a little apart, a very tall, iso- 
 lated figure, clear and cold in a recess of shade, standing 
 easily, resting on one hip with her hands behind her. A 
 soft, straight robe of white clipped her close from shoulder 
 to heel; the lines of her figure were thrust forward by her 
 poise. His eye followed the swell of her bosom very 
 gentle and girlish, and the long folds of her dress falling 
 thence to her knee. While she stood there, proud and re- 
 mote, a chance beam of the sun shone on her head so that 
 it seemed to burn. "Heaven salutes the Queen of Heaven, 
 Venus Urania! " With an odd impulse he stopped, crossed 
 himself, and then hurried on. 
 
 He told his errand to her; having no eyes for the others. 
 
 "Signorina I am to acquaint her Serenity that the di- 
 vine poet Messer Agnolo is to speak of the sovereign power 
 of beauty; of the Heavenly Beauty whereof Plato taught, 
 as it is believed." 
 
 Simonetta arched a slim neck and looked down at the 
 obsequious speaker, or at least he thought so. And he 
 saw how fair she was, a creature how delicate and gracious, 
 with grey eyes frank and wide, and full red lips where a 
 smile (nervous and a little wistful, he judged, rather than 
 defiant) seemed always to hover. Such clear-cut, high 
 beauty made him ashamed; but her colouring (for he was 
 a painter) made his heart beat. She was no ice-bound 
 shadow of deity then! but flesh and blood; a girl a child, 
 of timid, soft contours, of warm roses and blue veins laced 
 
QUATTROCENTISTERIA 129 
 
 in a pearly skin. After she was crowned with a heavy 
 wealth of red-gold hair, twisted in great coils, bound about 
 with pearls, and smouldering like molten metal where it 
 fell rippling along her neck. She dazzled him, so that he 
 could not face her or look further. His eyes dropped. He 
 stood before her moody, disconcerted. 
 
 The girls, who had dissolved their company at his ap- 
 proach, listened to what he had to say linked in knots of 
 twos and threes. They needed no excuses to return; some 
 were philosophers in their way, philosophers and poetesses; 
 some had left their lovers in the ring round Lorenzo. So 
 they went down the green alley still locked by the arms, 
 by the waist or shoulders. They did not wait for Simonetta. 
 She was a Genoese, and proud as the snow. Why did Giuli- 
 ano love her? Did he love her, indeed? He was bewitched' 
 then, for she was cold, and a brazen creature in spite of it. 
 How dare she bare her neck so! Oh! 'twas Genoese, "Uo- 
 mini senza fede e donne senze vergogna," they quoted as 
 they ran. 
 
 And Simonetta walked alone down the way with her 
 head high; but Sandro stepped behind, at the edge of her 
 trailing white robe. . . . 
 
 . . . The poet was leaning against an ancient alabaster 
 vase, soil-stained, yellow with age and its long sojourn 
 in the loam, but with traces of its carved garlands clinging 
 to it still. He fingered it lovingly as he talked. His ora- 
 tion was concluding, and his voice rose high and tremulous; 
 there were sparks in his hollow eyes. . . . "And as this 
 sovereign Beauty is queen of herself, so she is subject to 
 none other, owns to no constraining custom, fears no re- 
 proach of man. What she wills, that has the force of a law. 
 Being Beauty, her deeds are lovely and worshipful. There- 
 fore Phryne, whom men, groping in darkness and the dull 
 ways of earth, dubbed courtesan, shone in a Court of Law 
 before the assembled nobles of Athens, naked and undis- 
 mayed in the blaze of her fairness. And Athens discerned 
 the goddess and trembled. Yes, and more; even as Aphro- 
 dite, whose darling she was, arose pure from the foam, so she 
 too came up out of the sea in the presence of a host, and 
 
130 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 the Athenians, seeing no shame, thought none, but, rather, 
 reverenced her the more. For what shame is it that the 
 body of one so radiant in clear perfections should be re- 
 vealed? Is then the garment of the soul, her very mould 
 and image, so shameful? Shall we seek to know her es- 
 sence by the garment of a garment, or hope to behold that 
 which really is in the shadows we cast upon shadows? 
 Shame is of the brute dullard who thinks shame. The evil 
 ever sees Evil glaring at him. Plato, the golden-mouthed, 
 with the soul of pure fire, has said the truth of this mat- 
 ter in his De Republica, the fifth book, where he speaks 
 of young maids sharing the exercise of the Palaestra, yea, 
 and the Olympic contests even! For he says, 'Let the 
 wives of our wardens bare themselves, for their virtue will 
 be a robe; and let them share the toils of war and defend 
 their country. And for the man who laughs at naked* 
 women exercising their bodies for high reasons, his laughter 
 is a fruit of unripe wisdom, and he himself knows not what 
 he is about; for that is ever the best of sayings that the 
 useful is the noble and the hurtful the base.' . . ." 
 
 There was a pause. The name of Plato had had a strange 
 effect upon the company. You would have said they had 
 suddenly entered a church and had felt all lighter interests 
 sink under the weight of the dim, echoing nave. After a 
 few moments the poet spoke again in a quieter tone, but 
 his voice had lost none of the unction which had enriched 
 it. ... "Beauty is queen: by the virtue of Deity, whose 
 image she is, she reigns, lifts up, fires. Let us beware how 
 we tempt Deity lest we perish ourselves. Actaeon died 
 when he gazed unbidden upon the pure body of Artemis; 
 but Artemis herself rayed her splendour upon Endymion, 
 and Endymion is among the immortals. We fall when we 
 rashly confront Beauty, but that Beauty who comes un- 
 awares may nerve our souls to wing to heaven." He ended 
 on a resonant note, and then, still looking out over the 
 valley, sank into his seat. Lorenzo, with a fine humility, 
 got up and kissed his thin hand. Giuliano looked at Simon- 
 etta, trying to recall her gaze, but she remained standing 
 in her place, seeing nothing of her companions. She was 
 
QUATTROCENTISTERIA 131 
 
 thinking of something, frowning a little and biting her lip, 
 her hands before her; her slim fingers twisted and locked 
 themselves nervously, like a tangle of snakes. Then she 
 tossed her head, as a young horse might, and looked at 
 Giuliano suddenly, full in the eyes. He rose to meet her 
 with a deprecating smile, cap in hand but she walked past 
 him, almost brushing him with her gown, but never flinch- 
 ing her full gaze, threaded her way through the group to 
 the back, behind the poet, where Sandro was. He had seen 
 her coming, indeed he had watched her furtively through- 
 out the oration, but her near presence disconcerted him 
 again and he looked down. She was strongly excited with 
 her quick resolution; her colour had risen and her voice 
 faltered when she began to speak. She spoke eagerly, run- 
 ning her words together. 
 
 "Ecco, Messer Sandro," she whispered blushing. "You 
 have heard these sayings. . . . Who is there in Florence 
 like me?" 
 
 "There is no one," said Sandro simply. 
 
 "I will be your Lady Venus," she went on breathlessly. 
 "You shall paint me, rising from the sea-foam. . . . The 
 Genoese love the sea." She was still eager and defiant; 
 her bosom rose and fell unchecked. 
 
 "The Signorina is mocking me; it is impossible; the Sig- 
 norina knows it." 
 
 "Eh, Madonna! is it so shameful to be fair Star of the 
 Seaas your poets sing at evening? Do you mean that I 
 dare not do it? Listen then, Signer Pittore; to-morrow 
 morning at mass-time you will come to the Villa Vespucci 
 with your brushe? and pans and you will ask for Monna 
 Simonetta. Then you will see. Leave it row; it is 
 settled." And she walked away with her head hi ;h and the 
 same superb smile on her red lips. Mockery! She was in 
 dead earnest; all her child's feelings were in hot revolt. These 
 women who had whispered to each other, sniggered at her 
 dress, her white neck and her free carriage; Giuliano who 
 had presumed so upon her candour these prying, cen- 
 sorious Florentines she would strike them dumb with her 
 amazing loveliness. They sang her a goddess that she 
 
132 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 might be flattered and suffer their company: she would 
 show herself a goddess indeed the star of her shining 
 Genoa, where men were brave and silent and maidens frank 
 like the sea. Yes, and then she would withdraw herself 
 suddenly and leave them forlorn and dismayed. 
 
 As for Sandro, he stood where she had left him, peering 
 after her with a mist in his eyes. He seemed to be looking 
 over the hill-side, over the city glowing afar off gold and 
 purple in the hot air, to Mont' Oliveto and the heights, 
 where a line of black cypresses stood about a low white 
 building. At one angle of the building was a little turret 
 with a belvedere of round arches. The tallest cypress just 
 topped the windows. There his eyes seemed to rest. 
 
 II 
 
 At mass-time Sandro, folded in his shabby green cloak, 
 stepped into the sun on the Ponte Vecchio. The morning 
 mists were rolling back under the heat; you began to see 
 the yellow line of houses stretching along the turbid river 
 on the far side, and frowning down upon it with blank, 
 mud-stained faces. Above, through steaming air. the sky 
 showed faintly blue and a campanile to the right loomed 
 pale and uncertain like a ghost. The sound of innumerable 
 bells floated over the still city. Hardly a soul was abroad; 
 here and there a couple of dusty peasants were trudging in 
 with baskets of eggs and jars of milk and oil; a boat passed 
 down to the fishing, and the oar knocked sleepily in the 
 rowlock as she cleared the bridge. And above, on the 
 heights of Mont' Oliveto, the tapering forms of cypresses 
 were faintly outlined straight bars of shadow and the 
 level ridge of a roof ran lightly back into the soft shroud. 
 
 Sandro could mark these things as he stepped resolutely 
 on to the bridge, crossed it, and went up a narrow street 
 among the sleeping houses. The day held golden promise; 
 it was the day of his life! Meantime the mist clung to 
 him and nipped him; what had fate in store? What was 
 to be the issue? In the Piazza Santo Spirito, grey and hol- 
 low-sounding in the chilly silences, his own footsteps echoed 
 
QUA TTROCENTISTERIA 133 
 
 solemnly as he passed by the door of the great ragged 
 church. Through the heavy darkness within lights flick- 
 ered faintly and went; service was not begun. A drab 
 crew of cripples lounged on the steps yawning and shiver- 
 ing, and two country girls were strolling to the mass with 
 brown arms round each other's waists. When Sandro's 
 footfall clattered on the stones they stopped by the door 
 looking after him and laughed to see his dull face and muf- 
 fled figure. In the street beyond he heard a bell jingling, 
 hasty, incessant; and soon a white-robed procession swept 
 by him, fluttering vestments, tapers, and the Host under 
 a canopy, silk and gold. Sandro snatched at his cap and 
 dropped on his knees in the road, crouching low and mut- 
 tering under his breath as the vision went past. He re- 
 mained kneeling for a moment after it had gone, then 
 crossed himself forehead, breast, lip, and hurried for- 
 ward. ... He stepped under the archway into the Court. 
 There was a youth with a cropped head and swarthy neck 
 lounging there teasing a spaniel. As the steps sounded on 
 the flags he looked up; the old green cloak and clumsy- 
 shoes of the visitor did not interest him; he turned his 
 back and went on with his game. Sandro accosted him 
 Was the Signcrina at the house? The boy went on with 
 his game. "Eh, Diavolo! I know nothing at all," he 
 said. 
 
 Sandro raised his voice till it rang round the courtyard. 
 "You will go at once and inquire. You will say to the 
 Signorina that Sandro di Mariano Filipepi the Florentine 
 painter is here by her orders; that he waits her pleasure 
 below." 
 
 The boy had got up; he and Sandro eyed each other for 
 a little space. Sandro was the taller and had the glance 
 of a hawk. So the porter went. . . . 
 
 . . . Presently with throbbing brows he stood on the 
 threshold of Simonetta's chamber. It was the turret room 
 of the villa and its four arched windows looked through a 
 leafy tracery over towards Florence. Sandro could see 
 down below him in the haze the glitter of the Arno and 
 the dusky dome of Brunelleschi cleave the sward of the 
 
134 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 hills like a great burnished bowl. In the room itself there 
 was tapestry, the Clemency of Scipio, with courtiers in 
 golden cuirasses and tall plumes, and peacocks and huge 
 Flemish horses a rich profusion of crimson and blue 
 drapery and stout limbed soldiery. On a bracket, above 
 a green silk curtain, was a silver statuette of Madonna and 
 the Bambino Gesu, with a red lamp flickering feebly be- 
 fore. By the windows a low divan heaped with velvet 
 cushions and skins. But for a coffer and a prayer desk 
 and a curtained recess which enshrined Simonetta's bed, 
 the room looked wind-swept and bare. 
 
 When he entered Simonetta was standing by the window 
 leaning her hand against the ledge for support. She was 
 draped from top to toe in a rose-coloured mantle which 
 shrouded her head like a nun's wimple and then fell in 
 heavy folds to the ground. She flushed as he came in, but 
 saluted him with a grave inclination. Neither spoke. The 
 silent greeting, the full consciousness in each of their parts, 
 gave a curious religious solemnity to the scene like some 
 familiar but stately Church mystery. Sandro busied him- 
 self mechanically with his preparations he was a lover 
 and his pulse chaotic, but he had come to paint and when 
 these were done, on tip-toe, as it were, he looked timidly 
 about him round the room, seeking where to pose her. 
 Then he motioned her with the same reverential, preoccupied 
 air, silent still, to a place under the silver Madonna. . . . 
 
 . . . There was a momentary quiver of withdrawal. 
 Simonetta blushed vividly and drooped her eyes down to 
 her little bare foot peeping out below the lines of the rosy 
 cloak. The cloak's warmth shone on her smooth skin and 
 rayed over her cheeks. In her flowery loveliness she looked 
 diaphanous, ethereal; and yet you could see what a child 
 she was, with her bright audacity, her ardour and her 
 wilfulness flushing and paling about her like the dawn. 
 There she stood trembling on the brink. . . . 
 
 Suddenly all her waywardness shot into her eyes; she 
 lifted her arms and the cloak fell back like the shard of a 
 young flower; then, delicate and palpitating as a silver 
 reed, she stood up in the soft light of the morning, and the 
 
QUA TTROCENTISTERIA 135 
 
 sun, slanting in between the golden leaves and tendrils, 
 kissed her neck and shrinking shoulder. 
 
 Sandro stood facing her, moody and troubled, fingering 
 his brushes and bits of charcoal: his shaggy brows were 
 knit, he seemed to be breathing hard. He collected him- 
 self with an effort and looked up at her as she stood before 
 him shrinking, awe-struck, panting at the thing she had 
 done. Their eyes met, and the girl's distress increased; 
 she raised her hand to cover her bosom; her breath came 
 in short gasps from parted lips, but her wide eyes still 
 looked fixedly into his, with such blank panic that a sud- 
 den movement might really have killed her. He saw it 
 all; she! there 'at his mercy. Tears swam and he trem- 
 bled. Ah! the gracious lady! what divine condescension! 
 what ineffable courtesy! But the artist in him was awak- 
 ened almost at the same moment; his looks wandered in 
 spite of her piteous candour and his own nothingness. 
 Sandro the poet would have fallen on his face with an "Exi 
 a me, nam peccator sum." Sandro the painter was dif- 
 ferent no mercy there. He made a snatch at a carbon 
 and raised his other hand with a kind of command "Holy 
 Virgin! what a line! Stay as you are, I implore you: 
 swerve not one hair's breadth and I have you forever!" 
 There was conquest in his voice. 
 
 So Simonetta stood very still, hiding her bosom with 
 her hand, but never took her watch off the enemy. As 
 he ran blindly about doing a hundred urgent indispensable 
 things, noting the lights, the line she made, how her 
 arm cut across the folds of the curtain she dogged him 
 with staring, fascinated eyes, just as a hare, crouching 
 in her form, watches a terrier hunting round her and waits 
 for the end. 
 
 But the enemy was disarmed. Sandro the passionate, 
 the lover, the brooding devotee, was gone; so was la belle 
 Simonetta the beloved, the be-hymned. Instead, here was 
 a fretful painter, dashing lines and broad smudges of shade 
 on his paper, while before him rose an exquisite, slender, 
 swaying form, glistening carnation and silver, and, over 
 all, the maddening glow of red-gold hair. Could he but 
 
136 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 catch those velvet shadows, those delicate, glossy, re- 
 flected lights! Body of Bacchus! How could he put them 
 in! What a picture she was! Look at the sun on her 
 shoulder! and her hair Christ! how it burned! It was a 
 curious moment. The girl who had never understood or 
 cared to understand this humble lover, guessed now that 
 he was lost in the artist. She felt that she was simply an 
 effect and she resented it as a crowning insult. Her colour 
 rose again, her red lips gathered into a pout. If Sandro 
 had but known, she was his at that instant. He had but 
 to drop the painter, throw down his brushes, set his heart 
 and hot eyes bare to open his arms and she would have 
 fled into them and nestled there; so fierce was her instinct 
 just then to be loved, she who had always been loved! 
 But Sandro knew nothing and cared nothing. He was ab- 
 sorbed in the gracious lines of her body, the lithe long 
 neck, the drooping shoulder, the tenderness of her youth; 
 and then the grand open curve of the hip and thigh on 
 which she was poised. He drew them in with a free hand 
 in great sweeping lines, eagerly, almost angrily; once or 
 twice he broke his carbon and body of a dog! he 
 snatched at another. 
 
 This lasted a few minutes only: even Simonetta, with 
 all her maiden tremors still feverishly acute, hardly no- 
 ticed the flight of time; she was so hot with the feeling 
 of her wrongs, the slight upon her victorious fairness. Did 
 she not know how fair she was? She was very angry; she 
 had been made a fool of. All Florence would come and 
 gape at the picture and mock her in the streets with bad 
 names and coarse gestures as she rode by. She looked at 
 Sandro. Santa Maria! how hot he was! His hair was 
 drooping over his eyes! He tossed it back every second! 
 And his mouth was open, one could see his tongue work- 
 ing! Why had she not noticed that great mouth before? 
 'Twas the biggest in all Florence. Oh! why had he come? 
 She was frightened, remorseful, a child again, with a 
 trembling pathetic mouth and shrinking limbs. And then 
 her heart began to beat under her slim fingers. She 
 pressed them down into her flesh to stay those great mas- 
 
QUA TTROCENTISTERIA 137 
 
 terful throbs. A tear gathered in her eye; larger and 
 larger it grew, and then fell. A shining drop rested on the 
 round of her cheek and rolled slowly down her chin to her 
 protecting hand, and lay there half hidden, shining like a 
 rain-drop between two curving petals of a rose. 
 
 It was just at that moment the painter looked up from 
 his work and shook his bush of hair back. Something in 
 his sketch had displeased him; he looked up frowning, 
 with a brush between his teeth. When he saw the tear- 
 stained, distressful, beautiful face it had a strange effect 
 upon him. He dropped nerveless, like a wounded man, 
 to his knees, and covered his eyes with his hands. "Ah, 
 Madonna! for the pity of heaven forgive me! forgive me! 
 I have sinned, I have done thee fearful wrong; I, who 
 still dare to love thee." He uncovered his face and looked 
 up radiant: his own words had inspired him. "Yes," he 
 went on, with a steadfast smile, "I, Sandro, the painter, 
 the poor devil of a painter, have seen thee and I dare to 
 love!" His triumph was short-lived. Simonetta had grown 
 deadly white, her eyes burned, she had forgotten herself. 
 She was tall and slender as a lily, and she rose, shaking, 
 to her height. 
 
 "Thou presumest strangely," she said, in a slow still 
 voice, "Go! Go in peace!" 
 
 She was conqueror. In her calm scorn, she was like a 
 young immortal, some cold victorious Cynthia whose chas- 
 tity had been flouted. Sandro was pale, too: he said noth- 
 ing and did not look at her again. She stood quivering 
 with excitement, watching him with the same intent alert- 
 ness as he rolled up his paper and crammed his brushes and 
 pencils into the breast of his jacket. She watched him 
 still as he backed out of the room and disappeared through 
 the curtains of the archway. She listened to his footsteps 
 along the corridor, down the stair. She was alone in the 
 silence of the sunny room. Her first thought was for her 
 cloak; she snatched it up and veiled herself shivering as 
 she looked fearfully round the walls. And then she flung 
 herself on the piled cushions before the window and sobbed 
 piteously, like an abandoned child. 
 
138 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 The sun slanted in between the golden leaves and ten- 
 drils and played in the tangle of her hair. . . 
 
 Ill 
 
 At ten o'clock on the morning of April the twenty-sixth, 
 a great bell began to toll: two beats heavy and slow, and 
 then silence, while the air echoed the reverberation, moan- 
 ing. Sandro, in shirt and breeches, with bare feet spread 
 broad, was at work in his garret on the old bridge. He 
 stayed his hand as the strong tone struck, bent his head' 
 and said a prayer : N "Miserere ei, Domine; requiem eternam 
 dona, Domine;" the words came out of due order as if 
 he was very conscious of their import. Then he went on. 
 And the great bell went on; two beats together, and then 
 silence. It seemed to gather solemnity and a heavier mes- 
 sage as he painted. Through the open window a keen 
 draught of air blew in with dust and a scrap of shaving 
 from the Lung' Arno down below; it circled round his 
 workshop, fluttering the sketches and rags pinned to the 
 walls. He looked out on a bleak landscape San Miniato 
 in heavy shade, and the white houses by the river staring 
 like dead faces. A strong breeze was abroad; it whipped 
 the brown water and raised little curling billows, ragged 
 and white at the edges, and tossed about snaps of surf. It 
 was cold. Sandro shivered as he shut to his casement; and 
 the stiffening gale rattled at it fitfully. Once again it 
 thrust it open, bringing wild work among the litter in 
 the room. He made fast with the rain driving in his face. 
 And above the howling of the squall he heard the sound 
 of the great bell, steady and unmoved as if too full of its 
 message to be put aside. Yet it was coming to him athwart 
 the wind. 
 
 Sandro stood at his casement and looked at the weather 
 beating rain and yeasty water. He counted, rather nervous- 
 ly, the pulses between each pair of the bell's deep tones. 
 He was impressionable to circumstances, and the coinci- 
 dence of storm and passing-bell awed him. . . . "Either 
 the God of Nature suffers or the fabric of the world is 
 
QUA TTROCENTISTERIA 139 
 
 breaking;" he remembered a scrap of talk wafted to- 
 wards him (as he stood in attendance) from some human- 
 ist at Lorenzo's table only yesterday, above the light laugh- 
 ter and snatches of song. That breakfast party at the 
 Camaldoli yesterday! What a contrast the even spring 
 weather with the sun in a cloudless sky, and now this icy 
 dead morning with its battle of wind and bell, fighting, 
 he thought, over the failing breath of some strong man. 
 Man! God, more like. "The God of Nature suffers," he 
 murmured as he turned to his work. . . . 
 
 Simonetta had not been there yesterday. He had not 
 seen her, indeed, since that nameless day when she had 
 first transported him with the radiance of her bare beauty 
 and then struck him down with a level gaze from steel- 
 cold eyes. And he had deserved it, he had she had said 
 "presumed strangely." Three more words only had she 
 uttered and he had slunk out from her presence like a dog. 
 What a Goddess! Venus Urania! So she, too, might 
 have ravished a worshipper as he prayed, and, after, slain 
 him for a careless word. Cruel? No, but a Goddess. 
 Beauty had no laws; she was above them. Agnolo him- 
 self had said it, from Plato. . . . Holy Michael! What 
 a blast! Black and desperate weather. . . . "Either the 
 God of Nature suffers." . . . God shield all Christian 
 souls on such a day! . . . 
 
 One came and told him Simonetta Vespucci was dead. 
 Some fever had torn at her and raced through all her 
 limbs, licking up her life as it passed. No one had known 
 of it it was so swift! But there had just been time to 
 fetch a priest! Fra Matteo, they said, from the Carmine, 
 had shrived her ('twas a bootless task, God knew, for 
 the child had babbled so, her wits wandered, look you), and 
 then he had performed the last office. One had fled to 
 tell the Medici. Giuliano was wild with grief; 'twas as 
 if he had killed her instead of the Spring-ague but then, 
 people said he loved her well! And our Lorenzo had bid 
 them swing the great bell of the Duomo Sandro had 
 heard it perhaps? and there was to be a public proces- 
 sion, and a Requiem sung at Santa Croce before they took 
 
I 4 o THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 her back to Genoa to lie with her fathers. Eh! Bacchus!' 
 She was fair and Giuliano had loved her well. 'Twas nat- 
 ural enough then. So the gossip ran out to tell his news 
 to more attentive ears, and Sandro stood in his place, 
 intoning softly "Te Deum Laudamus." 
 
 He understood it all. There had been a dark and aw- 
 ful strife earth shuddering as the black shadow of death 
 swept by. Through tears now the sun beamed broad over 
 the gentle city where she lay lapped in her mossy hills. 
 "Lux eterna lucet ei," he said with a steady smile; "atque 
 lucebit," he added after a pause. He had been painting 
 that day an agonizing Christ, red and languid, crowned 
 with thorns. Some of his own torment seems to have en- 
 tered it, for, looking at it now, we see, first of all, wild 
 eyeballs staring with the mad earnestness, the purposeless 
 intensity of one seized or "possessed." He put the panel 
 away and looked about for something else, the sketch he 
 had made of Simonetta on that last day. When he had 
 found it he rolled it straight and set it on his easel. It 
 was not the first charcoal study he had made from life, 
 but a brush drawing on dark paper, done in sepia-wash 
 and the lights in white lead. He stood looking into it 
 with his hands clasped. About half a braccia high, faint 
 and shadowy in the pale tint he had used, he saw her 
 there victim rather than Goddess. Standing timidly and* 
 wistfully, shrinking rather, veiling herself, maiden-like, 
 with her hands and hair, with lips trembling and dewy 
 eyes, she seemed to him now an immortal who must needs 
 suffer for some great end; live and suffer and die; live 
 again, and suffer and die. It was a doom perpetual like 
 Demeter's, to bear, to nurture, to lose and to find her 
 Persephone. She had stood there immaculate and appre- 
 hensive, a wistful victim. Three days before he had seen 
 her thus; and now she was dead. He would see her no 
 more. 
 
 Ah! Yes, once more he would see her. . . . 
 
 They carried dead Simonetta through the streets of 
 Florence with her pale face uncovered and a crown of 
 
QUA TTROCENTISTERIA 141 
 
 myrtle in her hair. People thronging there held their 
 breath, or wept to see such still loveliness; and her poor 
 parted lips wore a patient little smile, and her eyelids were 
 pale violet and lay heavy to her cheek. White, like a 
 bride, with a nosegay of orange-blossom and syringa at 
 her throat, she lay there on her bed with lightly folded 
 hands and the strange aloofness and preoccupation all the 
 dead have. Only her hair burned about her like a molten 
 copper; and the wreath of myrtle leaves ran forward to 
 her brows and leapt beyond them into a tongue. 
 
 The great procession swept forward; black brothers of 
 Misericordia, shrouded and awful, bore the bed or stalked 
 before it with torches that guttered and flared sootily in 
 the dancing light of day. They held the pick of Florence, 
 those scowling shrouds Giuliano and Lorenzo, Pazzi, Tor- 
 nabuoni, Soderini or Pulci; and behind, old Cattaneo, bat- 
 tered with storms, walked heavily, swinging his long arms 
 and looking into the day's face as if he would try an- 
 other fall with Death yet. Priests and acolytes, tapers, 
 banners, vestments and a great silver Crucifix, they drifted 
 by, chanting the dirge for Simonetta; and she, as if for a 
 sacrifice, lifted up on her silken bed, lay couched like a 
 white flower, waxen, imperturbable, edged with the colour 
 of flame. . . . 
 
 \ ... Santa Croce, the great church, stretched forward 
 beyond her into distances of grey mist and cold spaces of 
 , light. Its bare vastness was damp like a vault. And she 
 lay in the midst listless, heavy-lidded, apart, with the half- 
 smile, as it seemed, of some secret mirth. Round her the 
 great candles smoked and flickered, and mass was sung at 
 the High Altar for her soul's repose. Sandro stood alone 
 facing the shining altar but looking fixedly at Simonetta 
 on her couch. He was white and dry parched lips and 
 eyes that ached and smarted. Was this the end? Was it 
 possible, my God! that the transparent, unearthly thing 
 lying there so prone and pale was dead? Had such love- 
 liness aught to do with life or death? Ah! sweet lady, 
 dear heart, how tired she was, how deadly tired! From 
 where he stood he' could see with intolerable anguish the 
 
142 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 sombre rings round her eyes and the violet shadows on 
 the lids, her folded hands and the straight, meek line to 
 her feet. And her poor wan face with its wistful, pitiful 
 little smile was turned half aside on the delicate throat, 
 as if in a last appeal: "Leave me now, O Florentines, to 
 my rest. I have given you all I had: ask no more. I was 
 a young girl, a child; too young for your eager strivings. 
 You have killed me with your play ; let me be now, let me 
 sleep!" Poor child! Poor child! Sandro was on his knees 
 with his face pressed against the pulpit and tears running 
 through his fingers as he prayed. . . . 
 
 As he had seen her, so he painted. As at the beginning 
 of life in a cold world, passively meeting the long trouble 
 of it, he painted her a rapt Presence floating evenly to 
 our earth. A grey, translucent sea laps silently upon a 
 little creek and, in the hush of a still dawn, the myrtles 
 and sedges on the water's brim are quiet. It is a dream 
 in half tones that he gives us, grey and green and steely 
 blue; and just that, and some homely magic of his own, 
 hint the commerce of another world with man's discarded 
 domain. Men and women are asleep, and as in an early 
 walk you may startle the hares at their play, or see the 
 creatures of the darkness owls and night hawks and heavy 
 moths flit with fantastic purpose over the familiar scene, 
 so here it comes upon you suddenly that you have sur- 
 prised Nature's self at her mysteries; you are let into the 
 secret; you have caught the spirit of the April woodland 
 as she glides over the pasture to the copse. And that, 
 indeed, was Sandro's fortune. He caught her in just such 
 a propitious hour. He saw the sweet wild thing, pure and 
 undefined by touch of earth; caught her in that pregnant 
 pause of time ere she had lighted. Another moment and 
 a buxom nymph of the grove would fold her in a rosy 
 mantle, coloured as the earliest wood-anemones are. She 
 would vanish, we know, into the daffodils or a bank of 
 violets. And you might tell her presence there, or in the 
 rustle of the myrtles, or coo of doves mating in the pines; 
 you might feel her genius in the scent of the earth or 
 the kiss of the West wind; but you could only see her in 
 
QUA TTROCENTISTERIA 143 
 
 mid- April, and you should look for her over the sea. She 
 always comes with the first warmth of the year. 
 
 But daily, before he painted, Sandro knelt in a dark 
 chapel in Santa Croce, while a blue-chinned priest said 
 mass for the repose of Simonetta's soul. 
 
THE STOLEN BACILLUS 
 
 BY H. G. WELLS 
 
 THIS again," said the Bacteriologist, slipping a glass 
 slide under the microscope, "is a preparation of the 
 celebrated Bacillus of cholera the cholera germ." 
 
 The pale-faced man peered down the microscope. He 
 was evidently not accustomed to that kind of thing, and 
 held a limp white hand over his disengaged eye. "I see 
 very little," he said. 
 
 "Touch this screw," said the Bacteriologist; "perhaps 
 the microscope is out of focus for you. Eyes vary so much. 
 Just the fraction of a turn this way or that." 
 
 "Ah! now I see," said the visitor. "Not so very much 
 to see, after all. Little streaks and shreds of pink. And 
 yet these little particles, those mere atomies, might mul- 
 tiply and devastate a city! Wonderful!" 
 
 He stood up, and releasing the glass slip from the micro- 
 scope, held it in his hand towards the window. "Scarcely 
 visible," he said, scrutinising the preparation. He hesi- 
 tated. "Are these alive? Are they dangerous now?" 
 
 "Those have been stained and killed," said the Bac- 
 teriologist. "I wish, for my own part, we could kill and 
 stain every one of them in the universe." 
 
 "I suppose," the pale man said with a slight smile, "that 
 you scarcely care to have such things about you in the 
 living in the active state?" 
 
 "On the contrary, we are obliged to," said the Bacteri- 
 ologist. "Here, for instance * He walked across the 
 
 room and took up one of several sealed tubes. "Here is 
 the living thing. This is a cultivation of the actual liv- 
 ing disease bacteria." He hesitated. "Bottled cholera, so 
 to speak." 
 
 144 
 
THE STOLEN BACILLUS 145 
 
 A slight gleam of satisfaction appeared momentarily in 
 the face of the pale man. "It's a deadly thing to have in 
 your possession," he said, devouring the little tube with 
 his eyes. The Bacteriologist watched the morbid pleasure 
 in his visitor's expression. This man, who had visited him 
 that afternoon with a note of introduction from an old 
 friend, interested him from the very contrast of their dis- 
 positions. The lank black hair and deep grey eyes, the 
 haggard expression and nervous manner, the fitful yet keen 
 interest of his visitor were a novel change from the phleg- 
 matic deliberations of the ordinary scientific worker with 
 whom the Bacteriologist chiefly associated. It was per- 
 haps natural, with a hearer evidently so impressionable 
 to the lethal nature of his topic, to take the most effective 
 aspect of the matter. 
 
 He held the tube in his hand thoughtfully. "Yes, here 
 is the pestilence imprisoned. Only break such a little tube 
 as this into a supply of drinking-water, say to these minute 
 particles of life that one must needs stain and examine with 
 the highest powers of the microscope even to see, and that 
 one can neither smell nor taste say to them, 'Go forth, 
 increase and multiply, and replenish the cisterns/ and 
 Death mysterious, untraceable Death, Death swift and 
 terrible, Death full of pain and indignity would be re- 
 leased upon this city, and go hither and thither seeking 
 his victims. Here he would take the husband from the 
 wife, here the child from its mother, here the statesman 
 from his duty, and here the toiler from his trouble. He 
 would follow the water-mains, creeping along streets, pick- 
 ing out and punishing a house here and a house there 
 where they did not boil their drinking-water, creeping into 
 the wells of the mineral-water makers, getting washed into 
 Salad, and lying dormant in ices. He would wait ready to 
 be drunk in the horse-troughs, and by unwary children 
 in the public fountains. He would soak into the soil, to 
 reappear in springs and wells at a thousand unexpected 
 places. Once start him at the water-supply, and before 
 we could ring him in and catch him again he would have 
 decimated the metropolis." 
 
146 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 He stopped abruptly. He had been told rhetoric was 
 his weakness. 
 
 "But he is quite safe here, you know quite safe." 
 
 The pale-faced man nodded. His eyes shone. He cleared 
 his throat. "These Anarchist rascals," said he, "are fools, 
 blind fools to use bombs when this kind of thing is at- 
 tainable. I think " 
 
 A gentle rap, a mere light touch of the fingernails, was 
 heard at the door. The Bacteriologist opened it. "Just a 
 minute, dear," whispered his wife. 
 
 When he re-entered the laboratory his visitor was look- 
 ing at his watch. "I had no idea I had wasted an hour 
 of your time," he said. "Twelve minutes to four. I ought 
 to have left here by half-past three. But your things were 
 really too interesting. No, positively, I cannot stop a mo- 
 ment longer. I have an engagement at four." 
 
 He passed out of the room reiterating his thanks, and 
 the Bacteriologist accompanied him to the door, and then 
 returned thoughtfully along the passage to his laboratory. 
 He was musing on the ethnology of his visitor. Certainly 
 the man was not a Teutonic type nor a common Latin one. 
 "A morbid product, anyhow, I am afraid," said the Bac- 
 teriologist to himself. "How he gloated on those cultiva- 
 tions of disease-germs!" A disturbing thought struck him. 
 He turned to the bench by the vapour-bath, and then Very 
 quickly to his writing-table. Then he felt hastily in his 
 pockets and then rushed to the door. "I may have put it 
 down on the hall table," he said. 
 
 "Minnie!" he shouted hoarsely in the hall. 
 
 "Yes, dear," came a remote voice. 
 
 "Had I anything in my hand when I spoke to you, dear, 
 just now?" 
 
 Pause. 
 
 "Nothing, dear, because I remember " 
 
 "Blue ruin!" cried the Bacteriologist, and incontinently 
 ran to the front door and down the steps of his house to 
 the street. 
 
 Minnie, hearing the door slam violently, ran in alarm 
 to the window. Down the street a slender man was get- 
 
THE STOLEN BACILLUS 147 
 
 ting into a cab. The Bacteriologist, hatless, and in his 
 carpet slippers, was running and gesticulating wildly to- 
 wards this group. One slipper came off, but he did not 
 wait for it. "He has gone mad!" said Minnie; "it's 
 that horrid science of his;" and, opening the window, would 
 have called after him. The slender man, suddenly glanc- 
 ing round, seemed struck with the same idea of mental 
 disorder. He pointed hastily to the Bacteriologist, said 
 something to the cabman, the apron of the cab slammed, 
 the whip swished, the horse's feet clattered, and in a mo- 
 ment cab, and Bacteriologist hotly in pursuit, had receded 
 up the vista of the roadway and disappeared round the 
 corner. 
 
 Minnie remained straining out of the window for a min- 
 ute. Then she drew her head back into the room again. 
 She was dumbfounded. "Of course he is eccentric," she 
 meditated. "But running about London in the height of 
 the season, too in his socks!" A happy thought struck 
 her. She hastily put her bonnet on, seized his shoes, went 
 into the hall, took down his hat and light overcoat from 
 the pegs, emerged upon the doorstep, and hailed a cab 
 that opportunely crawled by. "Drive me up the road and 
 round Havelock Crescent, and see if we can find a gentle- 
 man running about in a velveteen coat and no hat." 
 
 "Velveteen coat, ma'am, and no 'at. Very good, ma'am." 
 And the cabman whipped up at once in the most matter- 
 of-fact way, as if 'he drove to this address every day in his 
 life. 
 
 Some few minutes later the little group of cabmen and 
 loafers that collects round the 'cabmen's shelter at Haver- 
 stock Hill were startled by the passing of a cab with a 
 ginger-coloured screw of a horse, driven furiously. 
 
 They were silent as it went by, and then as it receded 
 "That's 'Any Tcks. Wot's he got?" said the stout gen- 
 tleman known as Old Tootles. 
 
 "He's a-using his whip, he is, to rights," said the 'ostler 
 boy. 
 
 "Hullo!" said poor old Tommy Byles; "here's an- 
 other bloomin' loonattic. Blowed if there ain't." 
 
148 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 "It's old George," said Old Tootles, "and he's drivin' a 
 loonattic, as you say. Ain't he a-clawin' out of the keb? 
 Wonder if he's after 'Any 'Icks?" 
 
 The group round the cabmen's shelter became animated. 
 Chorus: "Go it, George!" "It's a race." "You'll ketch 
 'ernl" "Whip up!" 
 
 "She's a goer, she is!" said the ostler boy. 
 
 "Strike me giddy!" said Old Tootles. "Here!" I'm 
 a-goin' to begin in a minute. Here's another comin'. If 
 all the kebs in Hampstead ain't gone mad this morn- 
 ing!" 
 
 "It's a fieldmale this time," said the ostler boy. 
 
 "She's a followin 7 him," said Old Tootles. "Usually the 
 other way about." 
 
 "What's she got in her 'and?" 
 
 "Looks like a 'igh 'at." 
 
 "What a bloomin' lark it is! Three to one on old George," 
 said the ostler boy. "Next!" 
 
 Minnie went by in a perfect roar of applause. She did 
 not like it, but she felt that she was doing her duty, and 
 whirled on down Haverstock Hill and Camden Town High 
 Street, with her eyes ever intent on the animated view of 
 old George, who was driving her vagrant husband so in- 
 comprehensively away from her. 
 
 The man in the foremost cab sat crouched in the corner, 
 his arms tightly folded, and the little tube that contained 
 such vast possibilities of destruction gripped in his hand. 
 His mood was a singular mixture of fear and exultation. 
 Chiefly he was afraid of being caught before he could ac- 
 complish his purpose, but behind this was a vaguer but 
 larger fear of the awfulness of his crime. But his exulta- 
 tion far exceeded his fear. No Anarchist before him had 
 ever approached this conception of his. Ravachol, Vail- 
 lant, all those distinguished persons whose fame he had en- 
 vied dwindled into insignificance beside him. He had only 
 to make sure of the water-supply, and break the little tube 
 into a reservoir. How brilliantly he had planned it, forged 
 the letter of introduction and got into the laboratory, and 
 how brilliantly he had seized his opportunity! The world 
 
THE STOLEN BACILLUS 149 
 
 should hear of him at last. All those people who had 
 sneered at him, neglected him, preferred other people to him, 
 found his company undesirable, should consider him at 
 last. Death, death, death! They had always treated him 
 as a man of no importance. All the world had been in a 
 conspiracy to keep him under. He would teach them yet 
 what it is to isolate a man. What was this familiar street? 
 Great Saint Andrew's Street, of course! How fared the 
 chase? He craned out of the cab. The Bacteriologist was 
 scarcely fifty yards behind. That was bad. He would be 
 caught and stopped yet. He felt in his pocket for money, 
 and found half-a-sovereign. This he thrust up through the 
 trap in the top of the cab into the man's face. "More," 
 he shouted, "if only we get away." 
 
 The money was snatched out of his hand. "Right you 
 are," said the cabman, and the trap slammed, and the lash 
 lay along the glistening side of the horse. The cab swayed, 
 and the Anarchist, half-standing under the trap, put the 
 hand containing the little glass tube upon the apron to pre- 
 serve his balance. He felt the brittle thing crack, and the 
 broken half of it rang upon the floor of the cab. He fell 
 back into the seat with a curse, and stared dismally at the 
 two or three drops of moisture on the apron. 
 
 He shuddered. 
 
 "Well! I suppose I shall be the first. Phew! Anyhow, 
 I shall be a Martyr. That's something. But it is a filthy 
 death, nevertheless. I I wonder if it hurts as much as they 
 say." 
 
 Presently a thought occurred to him he groped between 
 his feet. A little drop was still in the broken end of the 
 tube, and he drank that to make sure. It was better to 
 make sure. At any rate, he would not fail. 
 
 Then it dawned upon him that there was no further 
 need to escape the Bacteriologist. In Wellington Street he 
 told the cabman to stop, and got out. He slipped on the 
 step, and his head felt queer. It was rapid stuff, this 
 cholera poison. He waved his cabman out of existence, so 
 to speak, and stood on the pavement with his arms folded 
 upon his breast awaiting the arrival of the Bacteriologist. 
 
ISO THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 There was something tragic in his pose. The sense of im- 
 minent death gave him a certain dignity. He greeted his 
 pursuer with a defiant laugh. 
 
 "Vive FAnarchie! You are too late, my friend, I have 
 drunk it. The cholera is abroad !" 
 
 The Bacteriologist from his cab beamed curiously at him 
 through his spectacles. "You have drunk it! An Anar- 
 chist! I see now." He was about to say something more, 
 and then checked himself. A smile hung in the corner of 
 his mouth. He opened the apron of his cab as if to descend, 
 at which the Anarchist waved him a dramatic farewell and 
 strode off towards Waterloo Bridge, carefully jostling his 
 infected body against as many people as possible. The 
 Bacteriologist was so preoccupied with the vision of him 
 that he scarcely manifested the slightest surprise at the 
 appearance of Minnie upon the pavement with his hat and 
 shoes and overcoat. "Very good of you to bring my 
 things," he said, and remained lost in contemplation of the 
 receding figure of the Anarchist. 
 
 "You had better get in," he said, still staring. Minnie 
 felt absolutely convinced now that he was mad, and di- 
 rected the cabman home on her own responsibility. "Put 
 on my shoes? Certainly, my dear," said he, as the cab 
 began to turn, and hid the strutting black figure, now 
 small in the distance, from his eyes. Then suddenly some- 
 thing grotesque struck him, and he laughed. Then he re- 
 marked, "It is really very serious, though. 
 
 "You see, that man came to my house to see me, and he 
 is an Anarchist. No don't faint, or I cannot possibly tell 
 you the rest. And I wanted to astonish him, not knowing 
 he was an Anarchist, and took up a cultivation of that new 
 species of Bacterium I was telling you of, that infest, and I 
 think cause, the blue patches upon various monkeys; and, 
 like a fool, I said it was Asiatic cholera. And he ran away 
 with it to poison the water of London, and he certainly 
 might have made things look blue for this civilised city. 
 And now he has swallowed it. Of course, I cannot say 
 what will happen, but you know it turned that kitten blue, 
 and the three puppies in patches, and the sparrow bright 
 
THE STOLEN BACILLUS 151 
 
 blue. But the bother is I shall have all the trouble and ex- 
 pense of preparing some more. 
 
 "Put on my coat on this hot day! Why? Because we 
 might meet Mrs. Jabber. My dear, Mrs. Jabber is not a 
 draught. But why should I wear a coat on a hot day be- 
 cause of Mrs. , Oh! very well." 
 
OLD MSON 
 
 BY SIR ARTHUR T. QUILLER-COUCH 
 
 JUDGE between me and my guest, the stranger within 
 my gates, the man whom in his extremity I clothed 
 and fed. 
 
 I remember well the time of his coming, for it happened 
 at the end of five days and nights during which the year 
 passed from strength to age; in the interval between the 
 swallow's departure and the redwing's coming; when the 
 tortoise in my garden crept into his winter quarters, and the 
 equinox was on us, with an east wind that parched the 
 blood in the trees, so that their leaves for once knew no 
 gradations of red and yellow, but turned at a stroke to 
 brown and crackled like tinfoil. 
 
 At five o'clock in the morning of the sixth day I looked 
 out. The wind still whistled across the sky, but now with- 
 out the obstruction of any cloud. Full in front of my win- 
 dow Sirius flashed with a whiteness that pierced the eye. A 
 little to the right, the whole constellation of Orion was sus- 
 pended clear over a wedgelike gap in the coast, wherein 
 the sea could be guessed rather than seen. And, travelling 
 yet further, the eye fell on, two brilliant lights, the one 
 set high above the other the one steady and a fiery red, 
 the other yellow and blazing intermittently the one Alde- 
 B'aranj the other revolving on the lighthouse top, fifteen miles 
 away. 
 
 Half-way up the east, the moon, now in her last quarter 
 and decrepit, climbed with the dawn close at her heels. And 
 at this hour they brought in the Stranger, asking if my 
 pleasure were to give him clothing and hospitality. 
 
 152 
 
OLD MSON 153 
 
 Nobody knew whence he came except .that it was from 
 the wind and the night seeing that he spoke in a strange 
 tongue, moaning and making a sound like the twittering of 
 birds in a chimney. But his journey must have been long 
 and painful; for his legs bent under him, and he could not 
 stand when they lifted him. So, finding it useless to ques- 
 tion him for the time, I learned from the servants all they 
 had to tell namely, that they had come upon him, but a 
 few minutes before, lying on his face within my grounds, 
 withou f C , J ff or scrip, bareheaded, spent, and crying feebly 
 for succour in his foreign tongue; and that in pity they 
 had carried him in and brought him to me. 
 
 Now for the look of this man, he seemed a century old, 
 being bald, extremely wrinkled, with wide hollows where the 
 teeth should be, and the flesh hanging loose and flaccid on 
 his cheek-bones; and what colour he had could have come 
 only from exposure to that bitter night. But his eyes 
 chiefly spoke of his extreme age. They were blue and deep, 
 and filled with the wisdom of years; and when he turned 
 them in my direction they appeared to look through me, 
 beyond me, and back upon centuries of sorrow and the slow 
 endurance of man, as if his immediate misfortune were but 
 an inconsiderable item in a long list. They frightened me. 
 Perhaps they conveyed a warning of that which I was to 
 endure at their owner's hands. From compassion, I ordered 
 the servants to take him to my wife, with word that I 
 wished her to set food before him, and see that it passed his 
 lips. 
 
 So much I did for this Stranger. Now learn how he re- 
 warded me. 
 
 He has taken my youth from me, and the most of my 
 substance, and the love of my wife. 
 
 From the hour when he tasted food in my house, he sat 
 there without hint of going. Whether from design, or be- 
 cause age and his sufferings had really palsied him, he came 
 back tediously to life and warmth, nor for many days pro- 
 fessed himself able to stand erect. Meanwhile he lived on 
 the best of our hospitality. My wife tended him, and my 
 
154 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 servants ran at his bidding; for he managed early to make 
 them understand scraps of his language, though slow in 
 acquiring ours I believe out of calculation, lest some one 
 should inquire his business (which was a mystery) or hint 
 at his departure. I myself often visited' the room he had 
 appropriated, and would sit for an hour watching those 
 fathomless eyes while I tried to make head or tail of his 
 discourse. When we were alone, my wife and I used to 
 speculate at times on his probable profession. Was he 
 a merchant an aged mariner a tinker, tailor, beggar- 
 man, thief? We could never decide, and he never dis- 
 closed. 
 
 Then the awakening came. I sat one day in the chair 
 beside his, wondering as usual. I had felt heavy of late, 
 with a soreness and languor in my bones, as if a dead weight 
 hung continually on my shoulders, and another rested on 
 my heart. A warmer color in the Stranger's cheek caught 
 my attention ; and I bent forward, peering under the pendu- 
 lous lids. His eyes were livelier and less profound. The 
 melancholy was passing from them as breath fades off a 
 pane of glass. He was growing younger. Starting up, I 
 ran across the room, to the mirror. 
 
 There were two white hairs in my fore-lock, and, at the 
 corner of either eye, half a dozen radiating lines. I was 
 an old man. 
 
 Turning, I regarded the Stranger. He sat phlegmatic as 
 an Indian idol; and in my fancy I felt the young blood 
 draining from my own heart, and saw it mantling in his 
 cheeks. Minute by minute I watched the slow miracle 
 the old man beautified. As buds unfold, he put on a lovely 
 youthfulness ; and, drop by drop, left me winter. 
 
 I hurried from the room, and seeking my wife, laid the 
 case before her. "This is a ghoul," I said, "that we harbour; 
 he is sucking my best blood, and the household is clean be- 
 witched." She laid aside the book in which she read and 
 laughed at me. Now my wife was well-looking, and her eyes 
 were the light of my soul. Consider, then, how I felt as she 
 laughed, taking the Stranger's part against me. When I left 
 her, it was with a new suspicion in my heart. "How shall 
 
OLD MSON 155 
 
 it be," I thought, "if, after stealing my youth, he go on to 
 take the one thing that is better?" 
 
 In my room, day by day, I brooded upon this hating 
 my own alteration, and fearing worse. With the Stranger 
 there was no longer any disguise. His head blossomed 
 in curls; white teeth filled the hollows of his mouth; the 
 pits in his cheeks were heaped full with roses, glowing 
 under a transparent skin. It was ^Eson renewed and thank- 
 less; and he sat on, devouring my substance. 
 
 Now, having probed my weakness, and being satisfied 
 that I no longer dared to turn him out, he, who had half 
 imposed his native tongue upon us, constraining the house- 
 hold to a hideous jargon, the bastard growth of two lan- 
 guages, condescended to jerk us back rudely into our own 
 speech once more, mastering it with a readiness that proved 
 his former dissimulation, and using it henceforward as the 
 sole vehicle of his wishes. On his past life he remained silent; 
 but took occasion to confide in me that he proposed em- 
 bracing a military career as soon as he should tire of the 
 shelter of my roof. 
 
 And I groaned in my chamber; for that which I feared 
 had come to pass. He was making open love to my wife. 
 And the eyes with which he looked at her, and the lips 
 with which he coaxed her, had been mine; and I was an 
 old man. Judge now between me and this guest. 
 
 One morning I went to my wife; for the burden was past 
 bearing, and I must satisfy myself. I found her tending 
 the plants on her window-ledge; and when she turned, I 
 saw that years had not taken from her comeliness, one jot. 
 And I was old. 
 
 So I taxed her on the matter of this Stranger, saying 
 this and that, and how I had cause to believe he loved her. 
 
 "That is beyond doubt," she answered, and smiled. 
 
 "By my head, I believe his fancy is returned!" I blurted 
 out. 
 
 And her smile grew radiant as, looking me in the face, 
 she answered, "By my soul, husband, it is." 
 
 Then I went from her, down into my garden, where 
 the day grew hot and the flowers were beginning to droop. 
 
1 56 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 I stared upon them, and could find no solution to the prob- 
 lem that worked in my heart. And then I glanced up, 
 eastward, to the sun above the privet-hedge, and saw 
 him coming across the flower beds, treading them down in 
 wantonness. He came with a light step and a smile, and I 
 waited for him, leaning heavily on my stick. 
 
 "Give me your watch!" he called out as he drew near. 
 
 "Why should I give you my watch?" I asked, while some- 
 thing worked in my throat. 
 
 "Because I wish it; because it is gold; because you are 
 too old, and won't want it much longer." 
 
 "Take it!" I cried, pulling the watch out and thrusting 
 it into his hand. "Take it you who have taken all that 
 is better! Strip me; spoil me " 
 
 A soft laugh sounded above, and I turned. My wife 
 was looking down on us from the window, and her eyes were 
 both moist and glad. 
 
 "Pardon me," she said, "it is you who are spoiling the 
 child." 
 
THE FIRE OF PROMETHEUS 
 
 BY HENRY W. NEVINSON 
 
 THROUGH the long noon, while the sun marched as 
 usual across the enormous sky through the dead 
 hours of the day, when thunder fell upon us like 
 blows, and the lightning's white arm could hardly pierce 
 the shrieking columns of the rain, I lay upon the moun- 
 tain-side among the soldiers of a large army. In war, as 
 in extreme grief, a numbness overcomes the spirit; the mind 
 swoons under the stress of anxiety or pain; it can feel no 
 more, and can realise no more. Situations which at other 
 times would appear to it incredible and dreamlike with ter- 
 ror, are then quite natural, as though they came in the ordi- 
 nary course. Horror, astonishment, the realisation of the 
 truth these are things that grow up afterwards, but for the 
 time, perception and even fear are stifled by something, 
 which is perhaps their own excess. My chief thought was 
 a weary longing for the night. When would the night come 
 to shelter us from that other shrieking storm which swept 
 across the woof of drenching water? When would it come 
 to lull that other thunder which rattled and paused and 
 was renewed and died away and roared again with quick- 
 ened rage as though in mortal haste for our destruction? 
 Hour after hour I lay, peering vainly into the chaos of 
 rain and lightning and invisible peril, while around me the 
 air sang and growled with lead, and men died. The fate 
 I of an army, the issue of a war, depended on the mountain 
 | ridge where I was lying, and of such advantages as an at- 
 tacking force can hold, the enemy had all. Yet I no more 
 I considered defeat than did the gods when the Titans set 
 about their assault upon heaven, and the men around me 
 
 157 
 
 
158 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 seemed to realise no more than myself either the importance 
 of the struggle or its meaning to themselves. 
 
 Food, drink, and the coming night that would end our 
 danger those were the things we thought of; and among 
 the coarse grass and rocks on which we lay, beetles and ants 
 were hurrying up and down, seeking escape from the stormy 
 rivulets of the rain. 
 
 Night came at last. Somewhere behind that whirling cur- 
 tain of storm and war, the sun departed to light the tinkling 
 lines of muleteers up quiet gorges of the Andes. Renewed 
 now and again in spitting outbursts like the end of angry 
 words, the firing slackened. In the gathering darkness, forms 
 of unusual size began to move about. Men got up from in- 
 visible hiding-places and shook themselves, as though shak- 
 ing off the fear of death. With just the same interest 
 they tried to rub the slime from their knees. They spat, 
 and turned their heads, and looked at each other. One 
 or two whispered something, as people whisper in church 
 or at a funeral. An officer came by, trying to walk as usual. 
 He contrived to speak aloud after a few attempts, and fire 
 and thunder mixed never fell on us with so strange a shock 
 as the sound of his voice. The men watched him go as 
 ghosts might watch a fellow-ghost in limbo, and his word 
 of command was passed almost silently from mouth to 
 mouth. 
 
 Tormented by thirst, I turned and scrambled down the 
 hill to the narrow road which in peace time had led from 
 one little village to another far away across the position we 
 were defending. A mere track of loose stones and mud, 
 it was now choked from end to end by all the chaos which 
 eddies behind the course of battle: the wounded on stretch- 
 ers dripping red, the wounded in carts, the wounded totter- 
 ing back on their own feet, sobbing as they went; ammuni- 
 tion wagons with terrified and screaming mules; batteries 
 taking position in reserve; dying horses being urged out of 
 the way with whips and bayonets; broken-down limbers; 
 reinforcements in companies threading their way to the 
 front ; orderlies trying in vain to gallop through the muddle 
 of it all. Splashing along the gutter which the rain had, 
 
THE FIRE OF PROMETHEUS 
 
 washed beside the road, I got among the scattered houses 
 at last. Nearly all were dark and empty, but from the 
 main church as I passed it came the cries of the wounded 
 and the quiet hum of surgeons and attendants at their work. 
 It had been suddenly turned into a hospital. Lights were 
 burning inside, and cast the crimsons and golds of the 
 stained windows upon the steaming, misty air. I don't 
 know why the sight of those colours affected me so strangely 
 then. Hunger and exhaustion may have given distinctness 
 to the vision they called up, but to most people the outside 
 of a lighted church at night is full of half-forgotten associa- 
 tions, and one of a child's first mysteries is the enchanted 
 brilliance of the windows as he leaves the porch to the; 
 sound of the organ's voluntary. 
 
 In the midst of all the pain and wretchedness, there came 
 to me the smell of an evening in early spring; and instead 
 of the crowded and slushy track between the bare reck and 
 the starveling houses appeared a gentle, gravelly road, guid- 
 ed by clipped hedgerows through plough and pasture from 
 which a god could have scraped the fatted soil as a thrifty 
 nurse scrapes off the children's butter. The horses wait- 
 ing with the squire's carriage were like the land, their shin- 
 ing quarters all coated over with laps and folds of fatness. 
 So were the congregation, who, having sung "A few more 
 years shall roll," and prayed to be led through the desert 
 here, came out of the church door, well clothed, well washed, 
 well fed. Like the Ancient Mariner watching the water- 
 snakes at play, I blessed them unaware. All had come tb 
 the service warmed and enlivened by their tea, and were 
 now returning to supper with Sunday night's exhilaration of 
 duty performed and tongues released from religious silence, 
 whilst the collection-plate tinkled at the door. Issuing into 
 blue air from the bright orange of the porch, lover signalled 
 to lover under a silver star. So the ghostly but substantial 
 procession passed out into a land of bread and flesh and 
 milk and drinkable water, secure of the morrow, and rooted 
 in a past of uninterrupted days. As I watched them move 
 comfortably down the poignant ways of memory, I knew 
 that an exactly similar procession would be crossing that an- 
 
160 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 cient porch to-night (for it was Sunday) ; lovers would 
 signal their meetings in the darkened lanes, the smell of vio- 
 lets would swim like dreams through the air, and from the 
 fields the lambs cry sleepily. I wondered how it was pos- 
 sible for those people ever to be unhappy in their nestling 
 homes. No misery seemed to count beside the wretchedness 
 of war, and a longing for peace and all that peace means 
 came over me. I longed for the tranquillity of the coun- 
 try lanes and the purple woods of spring; I longed for the 
 spacious and quiet homes, for the silver smiling on the 
 tablecloth and on the darkly gleaming sideboards, for the 
 soft stir of women in the room and the faint smell of their 
 hair and dresses, for the talking and quick laughter, for the 
 clean sheets en wholesome beds, and the glad calling of the 
 rooks when morning came above the elms. 
 
 In a dark and empty shed which was now my home, I 
 drank deep of a bucket into which the rain was dripping 
 through the roof, and began eating my half biscuit, very 
 slowly, to make it last. I was full of vague and bitter 
 rage rage at the grit and sand in the biscuit, at the slimy 
 floor and the sopping rug under which I had to sleep 
 rage at the risk of death, which might prevent me seeing 
 anything I loved again. I prayed to witness th? enemy's 
 quick and entire overthrow, to watch them scattered over 
 the hills and swept from the plains by our pursuing guns. 
 Only over their dead could we win the road to happiness, 
 and now they were actually attacking us, and on the rocks 
 our dead lay almost as thick as theirs. It seemed as 
 though a natural law had gone crazy. Full of irritation and 
 angry fears of what the night would bring to succeed so 
 horrible a day, I fell asleep with exhaustion, while a thin 
 dust of water kept stealing down on me through the chinks 
 of the boarding. 
 
 Hours passed before I woke, and then the rain had 
 stopped and there was no more noise of wagons on the 
 road. "Now is the time they'll renew the attack," I said 
 wearily to myself; and getting up from the filthy ground 
 I went out again into the night and wandered back towards 
 a part of the front where I had not been before, though it 
 
THE FIRE OF PROMETHEUS 161 
 
 was a continuation cf the same ridge which we had been 
 defending. All was quiet now. Here and there I came 
 upon little groups of our men along the line, stretched 
 in sleep or huddled together for warmth, though the night 
 was hot. Late and red the waning moon had risen, and 
 it now gave an uncertain light, crossed by mists and films 
 of moving cloud, the rear-guard of the storm. Stumbling 
 over the rocks, I reached the further crest of the hill, where 
 sentries were posted at intervals, and from there I could 
 see down into the misty valley along which the enemy had 
 come. Ridge after ridge of mountain stretched before me 
 just discernible in the moonlight, and all looked so free 
 and peaceful that war seemed an absurdity, and with the 
 mere desire of escape, as from an iron ring, I began to creep 
 down the steep hillside. The dead ground soon concealed 
 me from above, and I there sat down to brood and to await 
 what might happen before the dawn. 
 
 I waited long in the silence, and then I suddenly heard 
 something like the gentle movement of a shy animal, and 
 looking to the side I saw a figure stooping down over a 
 dark object lying upon the ground. The figure appeared to 
 be shaking a man by the shoulder as though to wake him 
 up. I got my revolver ready in my hand, but uncertain 
 whether it might not be one of our own sentries, I first said 
 in a low voice, "Hullo, there 1 Why can't you let the poor 
 fellow sleep?" 
 
 "I'm afraid I must," said the other without looking up: 
 "yet it is but ten pulses of the blood since he was awake." 
 
 Sitting down, he raised the man's head and supported 
 it on his knees, as gently as a woman moves her sleeping 
 lover. I went and peered into the motionless face. Under 
 the dim moon it was a blur of greenish white, like the moon 
 herself. 
 
 "Why, he's one of the enemy!" I said, seeing the badge 
 on his cap. 
 
 "No," the other answered; "he is dead." He took the 
 man's hand, and one by one undid the tightly clenched 
 fingers, stretching them out and watching them slowly curl 
 together again. 
 
1 62 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 "Look," he said, "touch this queer thing, and you will 
 find it still warmish and limp. Only sixty pulses of the 
 blood ago it was awake with life. See what peculiar stuff 
 it is, solid and yet full of red and blue waters which have 
 only just stopped running backwards and forwards oh, 
 far quicker than the waves upon a shore; a network sub- 
 stance of tender cords and jellies, finer than the loom, cov- 
 ered with a porous coating, more pliant than silk, and fit- 
 ting closer than a light lady's robe. Five hooks, you see, 
 with props and sticks of hollowed lime, pulleys and hinges 
 complete, and tipped with horn. And all alive 'all but 
 alive* still, as the honest fishmongers say only three min- 
 utes ago quivering with the last beat of life. Only this 
 morning it buttoned this jacket, or carried food to this poor 
 mouth, just as the life devised, and far better than any con- 
 trivance man has ever made. But now nothing can set it 
 moving ever again. I tried to hold in the life and keep it 
 mingled with the. body, I tried to catch it by the throat 
 and prevent its escape. But while I clutched it tight, it was 
 gone through my fingers. To feel it go was worse than a 
 lover's longing which vanishes in waking. For the life had 
 been there, and now it was not anywhere at all." 
 
 "Many things are sad, but death is not the saddest, and 
 the poor fellow is only dead," I said, speaking like the 
 chorus of a play. 
 
 "You are young compared to me, and therefore wise," he 
 answered. "But this rough hand, now more perishable 
 than a stone what astonishing things it has done since it 
 was pink and small, pressing against some mother's breast. 
 Now it is lined and twisted and embrowned, just like a 
 wild hawk's claw. Year after year it has harnessed the 
 horse and ox, and scraped the mud from their coated fur. 
 It has cloven the woods for fire and dug trenches where 
 water should run. Inside it is hard and knotted with the 
 plough and spade. It has shorn the wool from sheep, and 
 flung the seeds of corn trustfully upon the earth. It has 
 shovelled snow from the cottage door. It has heaped a road 
 across the swampy fen. Steeped in filth, and caked with 
 dust that clave to its sweat, it has seemed but a clod of 
 
THE FIRE OF PROMETHEUS 163 
 
 earth, more insensible than the cloven feet of oxen. Yet it 
 has known pleasure better than the marble hands of gods. 
 At the fire it has warmed itself, and after the heat of the 
 day it has held the wine. It has touched the hands of 
 other men, and stroked the lamb 's-wool hair of children, 
 and carried them along the weary road. Do you not sup- 
 pose that it too has very likely throbbed with ecstasy at the 
 touch of the beloved? Has it not embraced her, and been 
 laid upon her heart, feeling the bell of her life ring muffled 
 in her softness? What has the King of Babylon's hand 
 done more or better than this poor bit of cold and greenish 
 stuff which already is falling back into the earth it knew 
 so well? Yet all such things he cast behind him, and in the 
 assault was with the first, although the last to die. As he 
 lay unnoticed in this cranny of the rocks, scorched by the 
 sun and sodden by the rain, he knew all day long that he 
 should never see his little farm again, or wake at dawn, 
 or hear the voice of any woman." 
 
 "If he so valued his life," I said, "he should not have 
 come out to battle." 
 
 "Do you not value your life?" he answered. "To him 
 it was as sweet as to you. Do you wish never to see again 
 the things and people you are fond of, or never again to 
 do what most you like? It was for love of him that this 
 coloured rag about his neck was made. He was among 
 my worshippers; oh, why was he not content in all the good 
 things I can give in rising up and lying down, in love and 
 pleasant food and all the deep laughter of the world? Now 
 he lies here quenched. His beard and hair are matted with 
 blood and water mixed, his clothes are rent into holes and 
 coated with mud, his toes stick out through the fragments 
 of his boots. What was it drove him on to leave his home 
 and flocks and all he loved beside? In his heart there 
 burned a raging fire. The Titans possessed him, and now 
 like a Titan he lies prone." 
 
 "Poor fellow," I said, "he has met with a strange epitaph, 
 who all his life was insignificant and unknown now to be 
 called a Titan when he is dead, and more insignificant still." 
 
 "I admit," he said, laughing, with a far-off look as though 
 
1 64 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 he were calling up scenes long hidden; "I admit the out- 
 ward resemblance is not very great. Dear and savage sons 
 of earth, gigantic and uncouth, they wallowed in ocean, 
 making it boil like a pot, and in their wrath or jollity they 
 hurled mountains with all their trees from land to land. 
 Black and red they were, and their fiery hair streamed 
 upon the clouds as the sun went down in storm. With the 
 sides of precipices they built their homes, and on beds of 
 flat-topped hills they stretched their coiling limbs to rest, 
 shaking their fists in exultation among the clouds when 
 morning woke them. The joints of behemoth were their 
 food, and with pails of foaming milk they washed down the 
 slices of leviathan. The passion of their love shook the 
 earth like earthquakes of the prime. 
 
 "Suddenly fate came fate with the limits that conquer 
 all things but the thoughts and desires of the soul. High in 
 heaven, above the topmost mountains, the trim, white gods 
 appeared, and against their fastidious pride those earth-born 
 monsters raged in vain, breathing out defiance, lifting their 
 wild arms against the sky, piling up their mountains that 
 the height of heaven might be scaled. The lightning blazed. 
 On sea and land their bodies writhed. Before they could 
 say 'What is it?' the lightning blazed. Bolts of fire hissed 
 in their fiery blood. Shrieking they lay as the tempest 
 shrieks upon the cliffs when speeding over the sea it smites 
 the armoured and creviced rocks with blow on blow, and 
 to the thunder of the poles their roarings made answer. 
 Precipices fell to cover them, and the weight of mountains 
 hardly stilled the twistings of their pain. Solid beds of 
 granite were molten with their rage. The crust of the world 
 was turned to jelly. It rent and split, and through its 
 chinks their nostrils breathed the sulphurous smoke of their 
 anguish. Up from deep chasms they spat their boiling 
 spittle against the sky. With their sighs they shot the 
 depths of the sea aloft, so that weak water stood up straight 
 upon a watery floor like the columns of the gods. Through 
 their prisons of broad-based mountains their torturing fires 
 burst the breathing-holes whence issued flame mixed with 
 crags and fervent boulders and the melted water of adaman- 
 
THE FIRE OF PROMETHEUS 165 
 
 tine ores. Day and night for ever the smoke of their misery- 
 hung upon the mountain-tops. Their crimson indignation 
 scorched the cool grey clouds that fluttered past, and 
 brought them to earth like birds transfixed. As often as 
 they turned their weary sides, the world shook and the 
 crystal pinnacles of the hills toppled into ruin. So sprawled 
 across the face of earth they lay in lengths of bleeding 
 cinder." 
 
 He ceased, and drew the limbs of the dead man straight, 
 removing some rough stones from beneath him, as though 
 they could hurt him still. Then leaning over him, he sighed 
 and said: "The outward resemblance indeed is small; but 
 though he is so far greater than all the Titans, his fate is 
 much the same, and he has won a crown like theirs." 
 
 "Your speech," I said, "is ever a journey varied by col- 
 lisions." 
 
 Looking up like simplicity surprised, he answered: "But 
 is it not a glorious crown to be well lamented? And the 
 Titans, you know, had that advantage. Why, the whole 
 circle of the world joined in lamentation for their ancient 
 sovereignty the days when things went merrily, though 
 with some pleasing disorder. The dear Earth mourned over 
 them, beweeping with bitter tears the pangs of children 
 whose bones her young womb had formed. And did not the 
 poet tell us that all who loved the wild young Earth 
 mourned too the wanderers of Asia, and those who pitch 
 beside the lake at the world's edge, and the spearmen watch- 
 ing like eagles from the peaks above the gulf of nothing- 
 ness. Was it not a crown of triumph to touch the hearts 
 which none could tame the breastless girls who lay the 
 bow and not the baby to their side, and sweep across the 
 desert, horse and limbs beclouded in their whirling hair? 
 Or think of Atlas, upon whom fell the bitterest doom that 
 can befall the damned the doom of usefulness. Bound in 
 steel, he propped the turning dome of heaven, and but for 
 him the hosts of stars would have fluttered down upon the 
 earth like twinkling snow. Yet the poet says: 
 
 'For him the waves of the sea are heard 
 Moaning in cadence, and the precipitous gulf 
 
1 66 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 Groans, and the black chasm of the unseen world 
 Mutters its deep-hid woe; 
 Yea, from the holy streams a pitying voice 
 Whispers of sorrow as they brightly go.' 
 
 Would you choose the acclamations of victory rather than 
 be mourned like that? Crowns are of many kinds, and 
 there are gods who linger with the weaker side. Let us 
 therefore lament this man, as the Titans were lament- 
 ed." 
 
 "With all my heart," I answered. "But, after all, the 
 Titans were ignorant and mistaken. The gods were against 
 them." 
 
 "Oh yes, I know," he sighed; "any one can see that now. 
 There was one of them saw it at the time, and being neither 
 ignorant nor mistaken himself, he even helped the gods. 
 Yet in the end he fared no better for his foresight. There 
 is a cliff in Caucasus. At its foot the innumerable waves 
 are smiling. Above it moves the scorching sun, and dark- 
 ness warps it with the frost. An eagle tears the heart that 
 so loved mankind." 
 
 As he spoke, he undid the dead man's filthy and torn 
 shirt, and smoothed the dark hair on his chest, down which 
 the blood had trickled. 
 
 "Here, indeed," he said, "the fire of Prometheus has gone 
 out. But have you never thought of fire how strange it is, 
 how it multiplies itself more quickly than lovers, more 
 quickly than the jelly of the sea, which splits and is two? 
 With even greater similitude to itself it produces its young; 
 for in a moment a hundred flames may spring, yet each will 
 be the same flame as the first and as every other. Even 
 if the first goes out, it lives identical and unappeased in all 
 the rest. Of the same nature is the fire of Prometheus. Here 
 it has gone out, but who knows how many flames may 
 already have sprung from it? each the same as itself, or 
 differing only in brightness or colour according to the heart 
 in which it dwells." 
 
 "I have heard," I said, "how the one intelligent Titan 
 brought fire down from heaven to men, carrying it in a 
 fennel-stalk, of all strange warming-pans, and how wofully 
 
THE FIRE OF PROMETHEUS 167 
 
 he suffered for his philanthropic ways. But I suppose the 
 fire you now speak of is something different?" 
 
 "I am hardly sure," he answered, with his puzzled air. 
 "For I have seen this inner fire make the inside of a face 
 reflect its flame, just as a blazing log reddens the outside. 
 And when the inner fire dies away, the face turns to dull 
 ashes, like burnt lovetokens. I have felt that if a heart in 
 which this fire kindled, could suddenly be laid bare, bright 
 tongues of flame would leap from it as from a forge blown 
 by the bellows; and sometimes I have seen the very depths. 
 of human eyes turn crimson with little points of fire more 
 crimson than a hare's eye when you catch it sideways in 
 the sun. So that I am inclined to think the inner and 
 outer fires may originally have been the same, and now only 
 differ in the stuff on which they feed. But if I am wrong, 
 please laugh at my simplicity." 
 
 "I think you yourself," I said, "are never far from laugh- 
 ter; but I cannot laugh to-night, being sorrowful." 
 
 "Nay," he answered, "if you will not laugh, and are 
 sorrowful enough for understanding, I might tell you a story, 
 almost as short as strange, about that selfsame fire. 
 
 "You remember what the poet tells us about the race of 
 poor little mortal men and women when first they began, 
 to venture out upon the scum which gathered over the boil- 
 ing star of earth. It was still warm in parts and every- 
 where flexible, so that what to-day was a plain might to- 
 morrow be tossed up into a snow-capped mountain, or 
 sunk to a lake, full of bitumen and biting salts. That con- 
 dition of things was enough by itself to give great uncer- 
 tainty to existence, and upon this bewildering surface men 
 crept about, astonished and at random, never knowing 
 what might happen next, or in what altitude and surround- 
 ings they might wake in the morning. Understanding no 
 guidance of stars or of seasons, they lived in shocks, as when 
 we slide in sleep from catastrophe to catastrophe. So the 
 poet, describing their condition, says: 
 
 'Seeing they saw not, in those ancient days, 
 
 And hearing heard not, but like shapes of dreams, 
 
 Their life was one long whirl of inconsequence.' 
 
1 68 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 "Of course they enjoyed no comforts of expensive sim- 
 plicity such as you love. They did not even build sunny 
 little houses, but for shelter from rain and heat they 
 grubbed holes with their claws like phantom ants, or lay 
 huddled together in slimy caverns where the roof dripped 
 upon them till they steamed. In cold and damp and misery 
 they lived, uncertain of the morrow, and they stayed their 
 hunger by swallowing seeds and berries, or if they saw a 
 four-footed animal sick and dying they crowded round him 
 pelting him with stones, and then leapt upon his body with 
 gluttonous howls, tearing his limbs asunder and gnawing 
 them like lions; for they were not at all refined. 
 
 "But Prometheus, being only half a god, pitied their 
 wretchedness, as he went among them to and fro from heav- 
 en. You know what strange services he did the poor crea- 
 tures, for he himself described it all to those dear girls of 
 the sea who came to cheer his lonely suffering with the 
 sighs of their little bosoms and with commonplace as tender 
 as their own caresses. Birds know the coming seasons, but 
 poor man had to be taught their order by the punctual 
 stars, which, as perhaps you may have heard, do not run 
 about anyhow as they like, but have their risings and set- 
 tings fitted with extreme nicety. Stars are, no doubt, the 
 best guides to the future, but the Titan taught men other 
 signs also by which to make a pretty fair guess at what 
 was likely to happen: such as the difference between false 
 dreams and true, the meaning of haunting sounds at night 
 or dawn, and of the flight and habits of birds. He taught 
 them too the more difficult art of calculating probabilities 
 by the shape and colour of the insides of sacrificed animals, 
 and by the general appearance of a sirloin at dinner. By 
 such means he saved many mighty armies, giving the enemy 
 over to destruction instead. Further, he told men what 
 herbs to drink or chew in sickness a matter in which dogs 
 had some knowledge, but man none whether hellebore was 
 best, or mandragora, or mint, or poppy-seed, or fox-glove, 
 or garlic which gives heroic heart; and what was good as a 
 soothing plaster for wounds, whether pounded nipple-wort 
 or grated cheese mingled with honey. Then he taught them 
 
THE FIRE OF PROMETHEUS 169 
 
 the use of the wheel, and how saving it was to harness other 
 animals than themselves to their carts. More wonderful 
 still, he made the white- winged wagons that flit across the 
 sea. In crystal he showed them thin veins of rustless gold, 
 and from lumps of uncouth rock he hammered out the 
 sword. 
 
 "One singularly beautiful gift of a very different kind he 
 also gave them, though the poets have not made much of 
 it, perhaps because, having it in abundance themselves, they 
 hardly realised its beauty. You remember how the Titan 
 said: 
 
 'I stopped man looking at the truth of fate, 
 And in his heart I lodged the blinding hopes/ 
 
 "That is the golden gift which casts a golden gleam 
 about the world, making the sun appear more glorious than 
 he is, and giving deeper blues and blacks and greens to the 
 sea; making the sea, indeed, appear to be a beautiful or ter- 
 rific being, though we know it is only so many jugfuls of 
 salted water, and to a dog or horse it is dangerous and nasty 
 to drink, but no more. For the dog and horse see the truth 
 of fate; they see the bare facts of things, and when they 
 come to a stream they drink of it, but do not worship. 
 Man alone is blinded by the Promethean gift, and passing 
 over reality with indifference, he fixes his vision on things 
 which are not there. In the translucent pools of the stream 
 he alone can see the beautiful spirit sitting with amber 
 hair, just as the lover beholds something beautified and 
 divine in his maiden, who very likely is only a poor un- 
 washed and witless thing, not in the least nobler than him- 
 self. In his own heart also man is blinded to grim fate, 
 and sees a finer spirit than exists. No one appears to him- 
 self quite so bad as he really is. When he had to die, the 
 matricide lamented what an artist was dying, and in his 
 own judgment Phalaris would have deserved the hemlock 
 almost as little as the Philosopher. Wherever he moves 
 through the world, man sees around him the fool, the 
 knave, the scoundrel, the murderer, the swindler, the luster, 
 the drunkard, the glutton, the coward, the traitor, the hypo- 
 
170 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 crite, the braggart, the idiot, the gossip, the weakling, the 
 mean and crawling soul. Yet in mankind, which is a com- 
 bination of all these indifferent creatures, he sees something 
 great and admirable; in the midst of unnatural cruelty he 
 speaks of humanity as though it were the common posses- 
 sion of the human race, and of virtue as the proper quality 
 of man. Some indeed are so richly endowed with these 
 blinding and beneficent hopes, that they move through the 
 world as though they had but one step to reach the Blessed 
 Isles, of which they see the assurance in the colours of 
 sunset clouds, or in the riding moon, or in the gleams of 
 loveliness that flit across men's hearts like sunshine on dark 
 mountains. By such men evil things are speedily forgotten, 
 and a radiance of joy dances before their eyes. To them 
 the common scenes of earth are illuminated by a glamour of 
 sweet or heroic associations, and even through the ceilings 
 of domestic architecture they ever behold the stars. Sad 
 and impatient they may well be, overcome by a wild yearn- 
 ing for something which even their hearts can hardly 
 imagine, yet they are surrounded by a glory which exists 
 but for them, and is nowhere found. Or may we perhaps 
 say that in a sense it actually exists by their means, and 
 that their passionate conception has indeed the power to 
 create the things they seek; just as lovers create something 
 that is themselves and yet separate and substantial? Or 
 if that thought appears to you too beautiful even for hope, 
 let us remember what the Iberians say; for they dwell upon 
 the verge of Ocean, and ever watching westward for the 
 Blessed Isles with illimitable desire, about once every seven 
 years they actually behold those islands far away, quiver- 
 ing with beauty on the horizon's rim. And thereupon they 
 all set out in coracles, canoes, and boats of hide, with fire 
 in their hearts and hands, for they know very well that if 
 they can once fling fire on that enchanted land, it will 
 abide with them for ever and be their home. Ah, son of 
 mine," he went on, stroking the dead man's head, "on what 
 land of desire did you seek to fling the fire of your soul? 
 And what haven is this that you have found?" 
 As he seemed lost in thought, I said: "There it is again. 
 
THE FIRE OF PROMETHEUS 171 
 
 You speak of the fire of the soul; but I only know that 
 Prometheus brought fire to man in a fennel-stalk, and when 
 you said that in this poor fellow here the fire of Prometheus 
 had gone out, you were not speaking of the same fire as 
 the kitchen grate, I suppose, excellent and comforting as 
 that is." 
 
 He smiled shyly and rubbed his hairy face between his 
 hands, en which the blood lay black. 
 
 "How you drive me on," he said, "worse than the gadfly! 
 Did we not agree that the outer and inner fires were prob- 
 ably of the same nature, their manifestations being so 
 closely alike?" 
 
 "Oh, if you are going to talk in symbols," I said, "it. is 
 hopeless for an ordinary man like me." 
 
 "And yet," he answered, "you yourself are but a symbol 
 of the fighting soul upon her perilous way. Well, I can 
 only repeat the things I myself heard long ago, and in a dif- 
 ferent place to this. 
 
 "It was late twilight when I crept down the mountain 
 cliffs to where the Titan lay. For in the daytime many 
 strange beings came to see him not only the tender mer- 
 maids, but that poor cow-headed thing, and Ocean with a 
 shopman's reverence for success and his suspicion of people 
 who have come down in the world: So I waited till his 
 other visitors had gone, and then I crept along the edge 
 to where he lay, indistinguishable from rock, save for the 
 heaving of his breath. I stood beside him in silence, for 
 there was nothing to say, and I saw his great limbs, how 
 wearily they hung, being tortured and clamped with spikes 
 and metal bands. But as midnight passed, and I watched 
 Orion and the Pleiades and all the chilly stars going on their 
 way without a sign of care, I touched his arm where it was 
 pinned to the rock, and said: 'Son of Earth, I too am here.' 
 But he made no more answer than the rock. Then I lay 
 down beside him, warding off the frost with my nice furry 
 skin, and all night long he hung there silent. But when 
 first a glimmer of white stole into the eastern sky, I spoke 
 again: 'Son of Earth, I too am here, for a flame consumes 
 me.' And at the word he moved, as the rock of Caucasus 
 
172 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 stirs beside the streams of ice. Then a voice came, low 
 and proud: 'It was I brought flame to man, when before 
 he was colder than dumb fishes.' 
 
 "Again he was silent, and as the white dawn slowly 
 grew, I said: 'Son of Earth, a flame consumes me, seeing 
 what injustice a god suffers at the hands of gods.' 
 
 "Then he answered: 'It was I brought flame to man, the 
 flame for his hearth and his frozen hands. And as I bore it 
 swiftly to earth the sparks kept streaming behind me like 
 a comet's hair, and they mingled with the shivering spirits 
 of unborn men. Into their very hearts the fire entered, and 
 was made one with their blood. There it smoulders for ever, 
 and at a breath it kindles, nor can it ever be quenched, for 
 it is passed on from life to life. In the soul of the men I 
 loved, the fire is kindled which shall avenge me. At the 
 blast of its fury the gods themselves shall wither, and long 
 ages after they have shrivelled like beaten lead in the melt- 
 ing-pot, the fire of my gift shall glow and quicken in the 
 heart of man, nor shall Ocean himself avail to quench it. 
 They into whose blood one spark of it has entered shall 
 never rest from their defiance. Titans of mankind, pity 
 and wrath shall not suffer them to be at peace. At the 
 breath of injustice they shall blaze into fury, sc that be- 
 fore them the proclamations of heaven and earth shall shrink 
 into nothingness, and statues of stone be burnt like withered 
 leaves. All the wealth and power of the world shall ally 
 themselves with the thunders of the gods to tread them 
 down, but defeated in every battle they shall never doubt 
 of victory, for the conflict is their reward, and in the blood 
 of their suffering they shall win their desire. Lean and dis- 
 quiet they shall be, and nothing shall tempt them from 
 their wrath. No paradise of delight shall give them com- 
 fort, nor can their indignation be appeased by all the prom- 
 ises of heaven. Pinned and clamped immovably to the 
 rocks of fate, scorched by derision, frozen by the indifferent 
 stars, torn at heart by the winged ministers of power, they 
 shall not temper their defiance, though the world were one 
 chrysolite, to be theirs in exchange. For these are they 
 who dare to be sad, and have the courage to mate with 
 
THE FIRE OF PROMETHEUS 173 
 
 sorrow. Unobserved they shall toil in the fields or pass up 
 and down the streets of cities, but their souls are wild as 
 the desert where lions tread it only. Therefore let the gods 
 send all the aviary of heaven to devour my heart, let them 
 split my flesh with spikes of steel, or spurn me down the 
 crags of the abyss to roll with earthquakes in the furnaces 
 of hell wherever that little spark shall glimmer in man's 
 soul, there my avenger goes. O children of men, on whom 
 I had pity, I charge you never suffer the flame of my indig- 
 nation to die! In your soul from age to age it shall kindle, 
 it shall work. When most it seems to sleep, it shall but 
 gather rage to blaze anew, giving you no peace till the fury 
 of its wrath is satisfied, and consuming with its flickering 
 tongue the fortresses where injustice like the injustice of the 
 gods had thought to dwell everlastingly at ease behind its 
 battlements.' 
 
 "So he spoke, and the sun's edge shot above the line of 
 the sea, for day had come and the gods were at ease in 
 heaven. Then I departed to tend my goats, and as I went 
 I heard upon the air the rustling of terrible feathers, and a 
 shadow of wings swooped over the reddening ground. That 
 day my flocks went wandering far, for I paid them little 
 heed, so hot a fire burned in my own heart, as though 
 kindled by the breath of the son of Earth. From that time 
 on how often it has blazed anew, driving me into the very 
 trough of war, one of the queerest places for a shepherd! 
 For though I am but an old god from the country, awe- 
 struck and speechless before the glitter and threatening at- 
 titude of all military men, yet I have taken some part, as 
 you know, in many battles, as on that far-off day when I 
 walked up and down the front at Marathon cleaving skulls 
 with a ploughshare, so that the fatted ranks of wealth and 
 slavery shivered before my rustic battle-axe." 
 
 He was silent for a time, and I could see his eyes gleam- 
 ing with splendid memories. For now the filmy moon had 
 crossed the top of heaven, and faced us from the west. 
 
 "Forgive the neighing of an old war-horse," he said, with 
 a sudden smile. "Every one forgives that, and really it 
 seems so long ago I can scarcely believe I am the same 
 
174 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 god. But it is still longer since the rage of the Titans was 
 sent sprawling over the world, and the son of Earth was 
 nailed to his cliff; and yet I suppose something less than 
 two hundred pairs of lovers have sufficed to hand on life 
 from that time down to you. Or even if the right number 
 were four hundred, that would not be very many not nearly 
 half as many as the men lying dead on this hill to-night 
 and is it not pleasant to think of all the lovers dear who 
 have been happy in conveying to you so charming a gift 
 as life? To this poor peasant here it was conveyed in like 
 manner, though by a more numerous succession, for the 
 generations of the poor are short. And with his blood they 
 handed on that spark of Promethean fire, imparted with 
 greater similitude than life itself. In the hearts of his 
 creators it smouldered and glowed, till at last the flame 
 was fanned and sped him on so that here he lies, blasted 
 as by the thunderbolt of Zeus." 
 
 "Dear son," he said, pushing his fingers through the dead 
 man's hair, "like me you loved the light and rain and the 
 sheep upon the hills. You loved the ploughing ox and the 
 ripening vines. You were happy eating and drinking, and 
 one woman at least liked to have you near her. What was 
 it so filled your soul with rage, that you counted all those 
 things as nothing in the balance? Suddenly the fire grew 
 hot, its smoke stifled your utterance, it gleamed in flame. 
 To your fury it would have been a light task to have stormed 
 the gates of heaven, so wild a blaze streamed along your 
 blood. No gifts, no terms, no promises could twist you 
 from your purpose; you could but kill or die. Nothing but 
 death could hold you quiet, and now you are quiet indeed. 
 Wonder fills me as I behold you, of so great a passion was 
 this small body the shrine. Consecrated by flame, your life 
 was as the life of gods, and by the sacrificial fire of its in- 
 dignation it has been consumed. See, then, in place of the 
 purple robes of sepulchre, I button up your tattered shirt, 
 and draw your sodden trousers straight. For the caerulean 
 fillets of death, I lay your weathered and sweated cap upon 
 your brows. For the winged sandals of Hermes, conduc- 
 tor of souls, I tie the laces of your heavy boots around your 
 
THE FIRE OF PROMETHEUS 175 
 
 naked feet. And for the fee of death's river, upon your 
 mouth I lay the kiss of reverence and awe." 
 
 The light of another day was now beginning to steal 
 through the mist. Hungry and worn out, I lay back upon 
 the stones, indifferent to whatever might befall, and I heard 
 no more till there came a scraping of nailed boots upon rock 
 and a murmur of low voices. Presently some one kicked me 
 in the side, and cried out: 
 
 "Blest if he isn't one of us, and alive, too! And we were 
 just going to bury him. I say, you there 1 What are you 
 doing, nursing a dead enemy?" 
 
 "Oh, he's an enemy, is he?" I said, getting up; "I had 
 quite forgotten there was such a thing." 
 
 "He's gone clean off his head," said another. "Lend a 
 hand to heave the body down." I took the peasant's arm, 
 and three of the burying party held his other limbs, turning 
 him over so that he might be the easier to carry. Then 
 with a cry all together, we raised him up and bore him 
 down the hill to where the dead were laid out in a row. 
 His head nodded, face downwards, between his shoulders. 
 
 "Lift up a bit, or you'll knock him against the rocks," 
 I said to the man who held the other arm. 
 
 "That won't do him much damage," was the reply, "but 
 up he comes!" 
 
THE MAN WHO PLAYED UPON 
 THE LEAF 1 
 
 BY ALGERNON BLACKWOOD 
 
 WHERE the Jura pine-woods push the fringe of their 
 purple cloak down the slopes till the vineyards stop 
 them lest they should troop into the lake of Neu- 
 chatel, you may find the village where lived the Man Who 
 Played Upon the Leaf. 
 
 My first sight of him was genuinely prophetic that 
 spring evening in the garden cafe of the little mountain 
 auberge. But before I saw him I heard him, and ever after- 
 wards the sound and the sight have remained inseparable 
 in my mind. 
 
 Jean Grospierre and Louis Favre were giving me con- 
 fused instructions the vin rouge of Neuchatel is heady, 
 you know as to the best route up the Tete-de-Rang, when 
 a thin, wailing music, that at first I took to be rising wind, 
 made itself heard suddenly among the apple trees at the 
 end of the garden, and riveted my attention with a thrill of 
 I know not what. 
 
 Favre's description of the bridle path over Mont Racine 
 died away; then Grospierre's eyes wandered as he, too, 
 stopped to listen; and at the same moment a mongrel dog 
 of indescribably forlorn appearance came whining about our 
 table under the walnut tree. 
 
 "It's Ferret ' Comment- va,' the man who plays on the 
 leaf," said Favre. 
 
 "And his cursed dog," added Grospierre, with a shrug of 
 
 1 From "The Lost Valley." By permission of E. P. Dutton and 
 Company. 
 
 176 
 
THE MAN WHO PLAYED UPON THE LEAF 177 
 
 disgust. And, after a pause, they fell again to quarrelling 
 about my complicated path up the Tete-de-Rang. 
 
 I turned from them in the direction of the sound. 
 
 The dusk was falling. Through the trees I saw the vine- 
 yards sloping down a mile or two to the dark blue lake 
 with its distant-shadowed shore and the white line of misty 
 Alps in the sky beyond. Behind us the forests rose in folded 
 purple ridges to the heights of Boudry and La Tourne, soft 
 and thick like carpets of cloud. There was no one about 
 in the cabaret. I heard a horse's hoofs in the village street, 
 a rattle of pans from the kitchen, and the soft roar of a 
 train climbing the mountain railway through gathering 
 darkness towards France and, singing through it all, like 
 a thread of silver through a dream, this sweet and windy 
 music. 
 
 But at first there was nothing to be seen. The Man 
 Who Played on the Leaf was not visible, though I stared 
 hard at the place whence the sound apparently proceeded. 
 The effect, for a moment, was almost ghostly. 
 
 Then, down there among the shadows of fruit trees and 
 small pines, something moved, and I became aware with a 
 start that the little sapin I had been looking at all the time 
 was really not a tree, but a man hatless, with dark face, 
 loose hair, and wearing a pelerine over his shoulders. How 
 he had produced this singularly vivid impression and taken 
 upon himself the outline and image of a tree is utterly be- 
 yond me to describe. It was, doubtless, some swift sugges- 
 tion in my own imagination that deceived me. . . . Yet 
 he was thin, small, straight, and his flying hair and spread- 
 ing pelerine somehow pictured themselves in the network of 
 dusk and background into the semblance, I suppose, of 
 branches. 
 
 I merely record my impression with the truest available 
 words also my instant persuasion that this first view of 
 the man was, after all, significant and prophetic: his domi- 
 nant characteristics presented themselves to me symbolically. 
 I saw the man first as a tree; I heard his music first as 
 wind. 
 
 Then, as he came slowly towards us, it was clear that 
 
178 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 he produced the sound by blowing upon a leaf held to his 
 lips between tightly closed hands. And at his heel followed 
 the mongrel dog. 
 
 "The inseparables!" sneered Grospierre, who did not ap- 
 preciate the interruption. He glanced contemptuously at 
 the man and the dog, his face and manner, it seemed to 
 me, conveying a merest trace, however, of superstitious 
 fear. "The tune your father taught you, hein?" he added, 
 with a cruel allusion I did not at the moment under- 
 stand. 
 
 "Hush!" Favre said; "he plays thunderingly well all 
 the same!" His glass had not been emptied quite so often, 
 and in his eyes as he listened there was a touch of some- 
 thing that was between respect and wonder. 
 
 "The music of the devil," Grospierre muttered as he 
 turned with the gesture of surly impatience to the wine and 
 the rye bread. "It makes me dream at night. Ooua!" 
 
 The man, paying tio attention to the gibes, came closer, 
 continuing his leaf-music, and as I watched and listened 
 the thrill that had first stirred in me grew curiously. To 
 look at, he was perhaps forty, perhaps fifty; worn, thin, 
 broken; and something seizingly pathetic in his appearance 
 told its little wordless story into the air. The stamp of 
 the outcast was mercilessly upon him. But the eyes were 
 dark and fine. They proclaimed the possession of some- 
 thing that was neither worn nor broken, something that 
 was proud to be outcast, and welcomed it. 
 
 "He's cracky, you know," explained Favre, "and half 
 blind. He lives in that hut on the edge of the forest" 
 pointing with his thumb toward Cotendard "and plays on 
 the leaf for what he can earn." 
 
 We listened for five minutes perhaps while this singular 
 being stood there in the dusk and piped his weird tunes; 
 and if imagination had influenced my first sight of him it 
 certainly had nothing to do with what I now heard. For it 
 was unmistakable; the man played, not mere tunes and 
 melodies, but the clean, strong, elemental sounds of Nature 
 especially the crying voices of wind. It was the raw 
 material, if you like, of what the masters have used here 
 
THE MAN WHO PLAYED UPON THE LEAP 179 
 
 and there Wagner, and so forth but by him heard closely 
 and wonderfully, and produced with marvellous accuracy. 
 It was now the notes of birds or the tinkle and rustle of 
 sounds heard in groves and copses, and now the murmur 
 of those airs that lose their way on summer noons among 
 the tree tops; and then, quite incredibly, just as the man 
 came closer and the volume increased, it grew to the cry- 
 ing of bigger winds and the whispering rush of rain among 
 tossed branches. . . . 
 
 How he produced it passed my comprehension, but I 
 think he somehow mingled his own voice with the actual 
 notes of the vibrating edge of the leaf; perhaps, too, that 
 the strange passion shaking behind it all in the depths 
 of the bewildered spirit poured out and reached my mind 
 by ways unknown and incalculable. 
 
 I must have momentarily lost myself in the soft magic 
 of it, for I remember coming back with a start to notice that 
 the man had stopped, and that his melancholy face was 
 turned to me with a smile of comprehension and sympathy 
 that passed again almost before I had time to recognise it, 
 and certainly before I had time to reply. And this time 
 I am ready to admit that it was my own imagination, singu- 
 larly stirred, that translated his smile into the words that 
 no one else heard 
 
 "I was playing for you because you understand." 
 
 Favre was standing up and I saw him give the man the 
 half loaf of coarse bread that was on the table, offering also 
 his own partly-emptied wine-glass. "I haven't the sou to- 
 day," he was saying, "but if you're hungry, mon brave ~ 1 
 
 And the man, refusing the wine, took the bread with an air 
 of dignity that precluded all suggestion of patronage or 
 favour, and ought to have made Favre feel proud that he 
 had offered it. 
 
 "And that for his son!" laughed the stupid Grospierre, 
 tossing a cheese-rind to the dog, "or for his forest god!" 
 
 The music was about me like a net that still held my 
 words and thoughts in a delicate bondage which is my 
 only explanation for not silencing the coarse guide in the 
 way he deserved; but a few minutes later, when the men, 
 
i8o THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 had gone into the inn, I crossed to the end of the garden, 
 and there, where the perfumes of orchard and forest de- 
 liciously mingled, I came upon the man sitting on the grass 
 beneath an apple-tree. The dog, wagging its tail, was at his 
 feet, as he fed it with the best and largest portions of the 
 bread. For himself, it seemed, he kept nothing but the 
 crust, and what I could hardly believe, had I not actually 
 witnessed it the cur, though clearly hungry, had to be 
 coaxed with smiles and kind words to eat what he realised 
 in some dear dog-fashion was needed even more by his 
 master. A pair of outcasts they looked indeed, sharing 
 dry bread in the back garden of the village inn ; but in the 
 soft discerning eyes of that mangy creature there was an 
 expression that raised it, for me at least, far beyond the 
 ranks of common curdom; and in the eyes of the man, 
 half-witted and pariah as he undoubtedly was, a look that 
 set him somewhere in a lonely place where he heard the 
 still, small voices of the world and moved with the ele- 
 mental tides of life that are never outcast and that in- 
 clude the farthest suns. 
 
 He took the franc I offered; and, closer, I perceived 
 that his eyes, for all their moments of fugitive brilliance, 
 were indeed half sightless, and that perhaps he saw only 
 well enough to know men as trees walking. In the village 
 some said he saw better than most, that he saw in the 
 dark, possibly even into the peopled regions beyond this 
 world, and there were reasons uncanny reasons to explain 
 the belief. I only know, at any rate, that from this first 
 moment of our meeting he never failed to recognise me at 
 a considerable distance, and to be aware of my whereabouts 
 even in the woods at night; and the best explanation I 
 ever heard, though of course unscientific, was Louis Favre's 
 whispered communication that "he sees with the whole sur- 
 face of his skin!" 
 
 He took the franc with the same air of grandeur that 
 he took the bread, as though he conferred a favour, yet was 
 grateful. The beauty of that gesture has often come back 
 to me since with a sense of wonder for the sweet nobility 
 that I afterwards understood inspired it. At the time, 
 
THE MAN WHO PLAYED UPON THE LEAF 181 
 
 however, he merely looked up at me with the remark, "C'est 
 pour le Dieu merci!" 
 
 He did not say "le bon Dieu," as every one else did. 
 
 And though I had meant to get into conversation with 
 him, I found no words quickly enough, for he at once stood 
 up and began to play again on his leaf ; and while he played 
 his thanks and gratitude, or the thanks and gratitude of his 
 God, that shaggy mongrel dog stopped eating and sat up 
 beside him to listen. Both fixed their eyes upon me as the 
 sounds of wind and birds and forest poured softly and won- 
 derfully about my ears ... so that, when it was over 
 and I went down the quiet street to my pension, I was 
 aware that some tiny sense of bewilderment had crept into 
 the profounder regions of my consciousness and faintly dis- 
 turbed my oormal conviction that I belonged to the com- 
 mon world of men as of old. Some aspect of the village, 
 especially of the human occupants in it, had secretly 
 changed for me. 
 
 Those pearly spaces of sky, where the bats flew over the 
 red roofs, seemed more alive, more exquisite than before; 
 the smells of the open stables where the cows stood munch- 
 ing, more fragrant than usual of sweet animal life that in- 
 cluded myself delightfully, keenly ; the last chatterings of the 
 sparrows under the eaves of my own pension more inti- 
 mate and personal. . . . 
 
 Almost as if those strands of elemental music the man 
 played on his leaf had for the moment made me free of the 
 life of the earth, as distinct from the life of men. . . . 
 
 I can only suggest this, and leave the rest to the care 
 of the imaginative reader; for it is impossible to say along 
 what inner byways of fancy I reached the conclusion that 
 when the man spoke of "the God," and not "the good God," 
 he intended to convey his sense of some great woodland 
 personality some Spirit of the Forests whom he knew and 
 loved and worshipped, and whom, he was intuitively aware, 
 I also knew and loved and worshipped. 
 
 During the next few weeks I came to learn more about 
 this poor, half-witted man. In the village he was known 
 
i82 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 as Ferret "Comment-va," the Man Who Plays on the Leaf; 
 but when the people wished to be more explicit they de- 
 scribed him as the man "without parents and without God." 
 The origin of " Comment-va" I never discovered, but the 
 other titles were easily explained he was illegitimate and 
 outcast. The mother had been a wandering Italian girl 
 and the father a loose-living bucheron, who was, it seems, 
 a standing disgrace to the community. I think the villagers 
 were not conscious of their severity; the older generation of 
 farmers and vignerons had pity, but the younger ones and 
 those of his own age were certainly guilty, if not of deliber- 
 ate cruelty, at least of a harsh neglect and the utter with- 
 holding of sympathy. It was like the thoughtless cruelty 
 of children, due to small unwisdom, and to that absence of 
 charity which is based on ignorance. They could not in the 
 least understand this crazy, picturesque being who wandered 
 day and night in the forests and spoke openly, though never 
 quite intelligibly, of worshipping another God than their 
 own anthropomorphic deity. People looked askance at him 
 because he was queer; a few feared him; one or two I 
 found later all women felt vaguely that there was some- 
 thing in him rather wonderful, they hardly knew what, 
 that lifted him beyond the reach of village taunts and 
 sneers. But from all he was remote, alien, solitary an out- 
 cast and a pariah. 
 
 It so happened that I was very busy at the time, seeking 
 the seclusion of the place for my work, and rarely going 
 out until the day was failing; and so it was, I suppose, that 
 my sight of the man was always associated with a gentle 
 dusk, long shadows and slanting rays of sunlight. Every 
 time I saw that thin, straight, yet broken figure, every time 
 the music of the leaf reached me, there came, too, the in- 
 explicable thrill of secret wonder and delight that had 
 first accompanied his presence, and with it the subtle sug- 
 gestion of a haunted woodland life, beautiful with new 
 values. To this day I see that sad, dark face moving about 
 the street, touched with melancholy, yet with the singular 
 light of an inner glory, that sometimes lit flames in the 
 poor eyes. Perhaps the fancy entered my thoughts some- 
 
THE MAN WHO PLAYED UPON THE LEAF 183 
 
 times when I passed him those who are half out of their 
 minds, as the saying goes, are at the same time half in 
 another region whose penetrating loveliness has so be- 
 wildered and amazed them that they no longer can play 
 their dull part in our commonplace world; and certainly 
 for me this man's presence never failed to convey an aware- 
 ness of some hidden and secret beauty that he knew apart 
 from the ordinary haunts and pursuits of men. 
 
 Often I followed him up into the woods in spite of the 
 menacing growls of the dog, who invariably showed his teeth 
 lest I should approach too close with a great longing to 
 know what he did there and how he spent his time wander- 
 ing in the great forests, sometimes, I was assured, staying 
 out entire nights or remaining away for days together. 
 For in these Jura forests that cover the mountains from 
 Neuchatel to Yverdon, and stretch thickly up to the very 
 frontiers of France, you may walk for days without finding 
 a farm or meeting more than an occasional bucheron. And 
 at length, after weeks of failure, and by some process of 
 sympathy he apparently communicated in turn to the dog, 
 it came about that I was accepted. I was allowed to fol- 
 low at a distance, to listen and, if I could, to watch. 
 
 I make use of the conditional, because once in the forest 
 this man had the power of concealing himself in the same 
 way that certain animals and insects conceal themselves by 
 choosing places instinctively where the colours of their sur- 
 roundings merge into their outlines and obliterate them. 
 So long as he moved all was well; but the moment he 
 stopped and a chance dell or cluster of trees intervened I lost 
 sight of him, and more than once passed within a foot of his 
 presence without knowing it, though the dog was plainly 
 there at his feet. And the instant I turned at the sound of 
 the leaf, there he was, leaning against some dark tree-stem, 
 part of a shadow perhaps, growing like a forest-thing out 
 of the thick moss that hid his feet, or merging with extraor- 
 dinary intimacy into the fronds of some drooping pine 
 bough! Moreover, this concealment was never intentional, 
 it seems, but instinctive. The life to which he belonged 
 took him close to its heart, draping about the starved and 
 
1 84 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 wasted shoulders the cloak of kindly sympathy which the 
 world of men denied him. 
 
 And, while I took my place some little way off upon a 
 fallen stem, and the dog sat looking up into his face with 
 its eyes of yearning and affection, Ferret "Comment-va" 
 would take a leaf from the nearest ivy, raise it between 
 tightly pressed palms to his lips and begin that magic sound 
 that seemed to rise out of the forest-voices themselves rather 
 than to be a thing apart. 
 
 It was a late evening towards the end of May when I 
 first secured this privilege at close quarters, and the mem- 
 ory of it lives in me still with the fragrance and wonder 
 of some incredible dream. The forest just there was scented 
 with wild lilies of the valley which carpeted the more open 
 spaces with their white bells and big, green leaves; patches 
 of violets and pale anemone twinkled down the mossy stair- 
 ways of every glade; and through slim openings among the 
 pine-stems I saw the shadowed blues of the lake beyond and 
 the far line of the high Alps, soft and cloud-like in the sky. 
 Already the woods were drawing the dusk out of the earth 
 to cloak themselves for sleep, and in the east a rising moon 
 stared close over the ground between the big trees, dropping 
 trails of faint and yellowish silver along the moss. Dis- 
 tant cow-bells, and an occasional murmur of village voices, 
 reached the ear. But a deep hush lay over all that mighty 
 slope of mountain forest, and even the footsteps of our- 
 selves and the dog had come to rest. 
 
 Then, as sounds heard in a dream, a breeze stirred the 
 topmost branches of the pines, filtering down to us as from 
 the wings of birds. It brought new odours of sky and sun- 
 kissed branches with it. A moment later it lost itself in the 
 darkening aisles of forest beyond; and out of the stillness 
 that followed, I heard the strange music of the leaf rising 
 about us with its extraordinary power of suggestion. 
 
 And, turning to see the face of the player more closely, 
 I saw that it had marvellously changed, had become young, 
 unlined, soft with joy. The spirit of the immense woods 
 possessed him, and he was at peace. . . . 
 
THE MAN WHO PLAYED UPON THE LEAF 185 
 
 While he played, too, he swayed a little to and fro, just 
 as a slender sapin sways in wind, and a revelation came to 
 me of that strange beauty of combined sound and move- 
 ment trees bending while they sing, branches trembling 
 and a-whisper, children that laugh while they dance. And, 
 oh, the crying, plaintive notes of that leaf, and the pro- 
 found sense of elemental primitive sound that they woke in 
 the penetralia of the imagination, subtly linking simplicity 
 to grandeur! Terribly yet sweetly penetrating, how they 
 searched the heart through, and troubled the very sources 
 of life! Often and often since have I wondered what it 
 was in that singular music that made me know the distant 
 Alps listened in their sky-spaces, and that the purple slopes 
 of Boudry and Mont Racine bore it along the spires of 
 their woods as though giant harp-strings stretched to the 
 far summits of Chasseral and the arid wastes of Tete-de- 
 Rang. 
 
 In the music this outcast played upon the leaf there was 
 something of a wild, mad beauty that plunged like a knife 
 to the home of tears, and at the same time sang out beyond 
 them something coldly elemental, close to the naked heart 
 of life. The truth, doubtless, was that his strains, making 
 articulate the sounds of Nature, touched deep, primitive 
 yearnings that for many are buried beyond recall. And be- 
 tween the airs, even between the bars, there fell deep weep- 
 ing silences when the sounds merged themselves into the 
 sigh of wind or the murmur of falling water, just as the 
 strange player merged his body into the form and colour of 
 the trees about him. 
 
 And when at last he ceased, I went close to him, hardly 
 knowing what it was I wanted so much to ask or say. He 
 straightened up at my approach. The melancholy dropped 
 its veil upon his face instantly. 
 
 "But that was beautiful unearthly!" I faltered. "You 
 never have played like that in the village " 
 
 And for a second his eyes lit up as he pointed to the 
 dark spaces of forest behind us: 
 
 "In there," he said softly, "there is light!" 
 
 "You hear true music in these woods," I ventured, hop- 
 
186 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 ing to draw him out; "this music you play this exquisite 
 singing of winds and trees ?" 
 
 He looked at me with a puzzled expression and I knew, 
 of course, that I had blundered with my banal words. Then, 
 before I could explain or alter, there floated to us through 
 the trees a sound of church bells from villages far away; 
 and instantly, as he heard, his face grew dark, as though he 
 understood in some vague fashion that it was a symbol of 
 the faith of those parents who had wronged him, and of the 
 people who continually made him suffer. Something of this, 
 I feel sure, passed through his tortured mind, for he looked 
 menacingly about him, and the dog, who caught the shadow 
 of all his moods, began to growl angrily. 
 
 "My music," he said, with a sudden abruptness that was 
 almost fierce, "is for my God." 
 
 "Your God of the Forests?" I said, with a real sympathy 
 that I believe reached him. 
 
 "Pour sur! Pour sur! I play it all over the world" he 
 looked about him down the slopes of villages and vineyards 
 "and for those who understand those who belong to 
 come." 
 
 He was, I felt sure, going to say more, perhaps to un- 
 bosom himself to me a little; and I might have learned 
 something of the ritual this self-appointed priest of Pan fol- 
 lowed in his forest temples when, the sound of the bells 
 swelled suddenly on the wind, and he turned with an angry 
 gesture and made to go. Their insolence, penetrating even 
 to the privacy of his secret woods, was too much for him. 
 
 "And you find many?" I asked. 
 
 Ferret "Contment-va" shrugged his shoulders and smiled 
 pityingly. 
 
 "Mot. Puis le Men puts maintenant vous!" 
 
 He was gone the same minute, as if the branches stretched 
 out dark arms to draw him away among them, . . . and 
 on my way back to the village, by the growing light of the 
 moon, I heard far away in that deep world of a million 
 trees the echoes of a weird, sweet music, as this unwit- 
 ting votary of Pan piped and fluted to his mighty God 
 upon an ivy leaf. 
 
THE MAN WHO PLAYED UPON THE LEAF 187 
 
 And the last thing I actually saw was the mongrel cur 
 turning back from the edge of the forest to look at me 
 for a moment of hesitation. He thought it was time now 
 that I should join the little band of worshippers and follow 
 them to the haunted spots of worship. 
 
 "Moi puis le chien puis maintenant vous!" 
 
 From that moment of speech a kind of unexpressed in- 
 timacy between us came into being, and whenever we passed 
 one another in the street he would give me a swift, happy 
 look, and jerk his head significantly towards the forests. 
 The feeling that, perhaps, in his curious lonely existence I 
 counted for something important made me very careful 
 with him. From time to time I gave him a few francs, and 
 regularly twice a week when I knew he was away, I used to 
 steal unobserved to his hut on the edge of the forest and 
 put parcels of food inside the door salame, cheese, bread; 
 and on one or two occasions when I had been extravagant 
 with my own tea, pieces of plum-cake what the Colombier 
 baker called plume-cak'/ 
 
 He never acknowledged these little gifts, and I some- 
 times wondered to what use he put them, for though the 
 dog remained well favoured, so far as any cur can be so, 
 he himself seemed to waste away more rapidly than ever. 
 I found, too, that he did receive help from the village 
 official help but that after the night when he was caught 
 on the church steps with an oil can, kindling-wood and a 
 box of matches, this help was reduced by half, and the 
 threat made to discontinue it altogether. Yet I feel sure 
 there was no inherent maliciousness in the Man Who Played 
 upon the Leaf, and that his hatred of an "alien" faith was 
 akin to the mistaken zeal that in other days could send 
 poor sinners to the stake for the ultimate safety of their 
 souls. 
 
 Two things, moreover, helped to foster the tender be- 
 lief I had in his innate goodness: first, that all the children 
 of the village loved him and were unafraid, to the point of 
 playing with him and pulling him about as though he were 
 a big dog; and, secondly, that his devotion for the mongrel 
 
1 88 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 hound, his equal and fellow-worshipper, went to the length 
 of genuine self-sacrifice. I could never forget how he fed it 
 with the best of the bread, when his own face was pinched 
 and drawn with hunger ; and on other occasions I saw many 
 similar proofs of his unselfish affection. His love for that 
 mongrel, never uttered, in my presence at least, perhaps 
 unrecognised as love even by himself, must surely have 
 risen in some form of music or incense to sweeten the very 
 halls of heaven. 
 
 In the woods I came across him anywhere and every- 
 where, sometimes so unexpectedly that it occurred to me 
 he must have followed me stealthily for long distances. And 
 once, in that very lonely stretch above the mountain rail- 
 way, toward Montmollin, where the trees are spaced apart 
 with an effect of cathedral aisles and Gothic arches, he 
 caught me suddenly and did something that for a moment 
 caused me a thrill of genuine alarm. 
 
 Wild lilies of the valley grow very thickly thereabouts, 
 and the ground falls into a natural hollow that shuts it 
 off from the rest of the forest with a peculiar and delightful 
 sense of privacy; and when I came across it for the first 
 time I stopped with a sudden feeling of quite bewildering 
 enchantment with a kind of childish awe that caught my 
 breath as though I had slipped through some fairy door or 
 blundered out of the ordinary world into a place of holy 
 ground where solemn and beautiful things were the order of 
 the day. 
 
 I waited a moment and looked about me. It was utterly 
 still. The haze of the day had given place to an evening 
 clarity of atmosphere that gave the world an appearance of 
 having just received its finishing touches of pristine beauty. 
 The scent of the lilies was overpoweringly sweet. But the 
 whole first impression before I had time to argue it away 
 was that I stood before some mighty chancel steps on the 
 eve of a secret festival of importance, and that all was 
 prepared and decorated with a view to the coming cere- 
 mony. The hush was the most delicate and profound 
 imaginable almost forbidding. I was a rude disturber. 
 
 Then, without any sound of approaching footsteps, my 
 
THE MAN WHO PLAYED UPON THE LEAF 189 
 
 hat was lifted from my head, and when I turned with a 
 sudden start of alarm, there before me stood Ferret "Com- 
 ment-'Da" the Man Who Played upon the Leaf. 
 
 An extraordinary air of dignity hung about him. His 
 face was stern, yet rapt; something in his eyes genuinely 
 impressive; and his whole appearance produced the instant 
 impression it touched me with a fleeting sense of awe 
 that here I had come upon him in the very act had sur- 
 prised this poor, broken being in some dramatic moment 
 when his soul sought to find its own peculiar region, and to 
 transform itself into loveliness through some process of 
 outward worship. 
 
 He handed the hat back to me without a word, and I 
 understood that I had unwittingly blundered into the se- 
 cret place of his strange cult, some shrine, as it were, 
 haunted doubly by his faith and imagination, perhaps even 
 into his very Holy of Holies. His own head, as usual, was 
 bared. I could no more have covered myself again than I 
 could have put my hat on in Communion service of my own 
 church. 
 
 "But this wonderful place this peace, this silence!" I 
 murmured, with the best manner of apology for the intru- 
 sion I could muster on the instant. "May I stay a little 
 with you, perhaps and see?" 
 
 And his face passed almost immediately, when he realised 
 that I understood, into that soft and happy expression the 
 woods invariably drew out upon it the look of the soul, 
 complete and healed. 
 
 "Hush!" he whispered, his face solemn with the mystery 
 of the listening trees; "Vous etes un peu en retard mais 
 pourtant. . . ." 
 
 And lifting the leaf to his lips he played a soft and whir- 
 ring music that had for its undercurrent the sounds of run- 
 ning water and singing wind mingled exquisitely together. 
 It was half chant, half song, solemn enough for the dead, 
 yet with a strain of soaring joy in it that made me think of 
 children and a perfect faith. The music blessed me, and 
 the leagues of forest, listening, poured about us all their 
 healing forces. 
 
IQO THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 I swear it would not have greatly surprised me to see the 
 shaggy flanks of Pan himself disappearing behind the moss- 
 grown boulders that lay about the hollows, or to have 
 caught the flutter of white limbs as the nymphs stepped to 
 the measure of his tune through the mosaic of slanting sun- 
 shine and shadow beyond. 
 
 Instead, I saw only that picturesque madman playing 
 upon his ivy leaf, and at his feet the faithful dog staring up 
 without blinking into his face, from time to time turning 
 to make sure that I listened and understood. 
 
 But the desolate places drew him most, and no distance 
 seemed too great either for himself or his dog. 
 
 In this part of the Jura there is scenery of a sombre and 
 impressive grandeur that, in its way, is quite as majestic 
 as the revelation of far bigger mountains. The general 
 appearance of soft blue pine woods is deceptive. The 
 Boudry cliffs, slashed here and there with inaccessible cou- 
 loirs, are undeniably grand, and in the sweep of the Creux 
 du Van precipices there is a splendid terror quite as solemn 
 as that of the Matterhorn itself. The shadows of its smooth, 
 circular walls deny the sun all day, and the winds, caught 
 within the yooft. sides of its huge amphitheatre, as in the 
 hollow of some awful cup, boom- and roar with the crying 
 of lost thunders. 
 
 I often met him in these lonely fastnesses, wearing that 
 half-bewildered, half-happy look of the wandering child; 
 and cne day in particular, when I risked my neck scrambling 
 up the most easterly of the Boudry couloirs, I learned after- 
 wards that he had spent the whole time four hours and 
 more on the little Champ de Tremont at the bottom, 
 watching me with his dog till I arrived in safety at the top. 
 His fellow-worshippers were few, he explained, and worth 
 keeping; though it was ever inexplicable to me how his 
 poor damaged eyes performed the marvels of sight they 
 did. 
 
 And another time, at night, when, I admit, no sane man 
 should have been abroad, and I had lost my way coming 
 home from a climb along the torn and precipitous ledges 
 
THE MAN WHO PLAYED UPON THE LEAF 191 
 
 of La Tourne, I heard his leaf thinly piercing the storm, 
 always in front of me yet never overtaken, a sure though in- 
 visible guide. The cliffs on that descent are sudden and 
 treacherous. The torrent of the Areuse, swollen with the 
 melting snows, thundered ominously far below; and the 
 forests swung their vast wet cloaks about them with tor- 
 rents of blinding rain and clouds of darkness yet all fra- 
 grant with warm wind as a virgin world answering to its first 
 spring tempest. There he was, the outcast with his leaf, 
 playing to his God amid all these crashings and bellow- 
 ings. . . . 
 
 In the night, too, when skies were quiet and stars a-gleam, 
 or in the still watches before the dawn, I would sometimes 
 wake with the sound of clustered branches combing faint 
 music from the gently-rising wind, and figure to myself that 
 strange, lost creature wandering with his dog and leaf, his 
 ptterine, his flying hair, his sweet, rapt expression of an in- 
 ner glory, out tbere among the world of swaying trees he 
 loved so well. And then my first soft view of the man 
 would come back to me when I had seen him in the dusk as 
 a tree; as though by some queer optical freak my outer and 
 my inner vision had mingled so that I perceived both his 
 broken body and his soul of magic. 
 
 For the mysterious singing of the leaf, heard in such mo- 
 ments from my window while the world slept, expressed ab- 
 solutely the inmost cry of that lonely and singular spirit, 
 damaged in the eyes of the village beyond repair, but in the 
 sight of the wood-gods he so devoutly worshipped, made 
 whole with their own peculiar loveliness and fashioned after 
 the image of elemental things. 
 
 The spring wonder was melting into the peace of the 
 long summer days when the end came. The vineyards had 
 begun to dress themselves in green, and the forest in those 
 soft blues when individual trees lose their outline in the 
 general body of the mountain. The lake was indistinguish- 
 able from the sky ; the Jura peaks and ridges gone a-soaring 
 into misty distances; the white Alps withdrawn into inac- 
 cessible and remote solitudes of heaven. I was making re- 
 
192 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 luctant preparations for leaving dark London already in 
 my thoughts when the news came. I forget who first put 
 it into actual words. It had been about the village all the 
 morning, and something of it was in every face as I went 
 down the street. But the moment I came out and saw the 
 dog on my doorstep, looking up at me with puzzled and 
 beseeching eyes, I knew that something untoward had 
 happened; and when he bit at my boots and caught my 
 trousers in his teeth, pulling me in the direction of the 
 forest, a sudden sense of poignant bereavement shot through 
 my heart that I found it hard to explain, and that must 
 seem incredible to those who have never known how potent 
 may be the conviction of a sudden intuition. 
 
 I followed the forlorn creature whither it led, but before a 
 hundred yards lay behind us I had learned the facts from 
 half-a-dozen mouths. That morning, very early, before the 
 countryside was awake, the first mountain train, swiftly de- 
 scending the steep incline below Chambrelien, had caught 
 Ferret "Comment-va" just where the Mont Racine sentier 
 crosses the line on the way to his best-beloved woods, and 
 in one swift second had swept him into eternity. The spot 
 was in the direct line he always took to that special wood- 
 land shrine his Holy Place. 
 
 And the manner of his death was characteristic of what I 
 had divined in the man from the beginning; for he had 
 given up his life to save his dog this mongrel and faithful 
 creature that now tugged so piteously at my trousers. De- 
 tails, too, were not lacking; the engine-driver had not failed 
 to tell the story at the next station, and the news had 
 travelled up the mountain-side in the way that all such 
 news travels swiftly. Moreover, the woman who lived at 
 the hut beside the crossing, and lowered the wooden bar- 
 riers at the approach of all trains, had witnessed the whole 
 sad scene from the beginning. 
 
 And it is soon told. Neither she nor the engine-driver 
 knew exactly how the dog got caught in the rails, but both 
 saw that it was caught, and both saw plainly how the 
 figure of the half-witted wanderer, hatless as usual and with 
 cape flying, moved deliberately across the line to release il 
 
THE MAN IV HO PLAYED UPON THE LEAF 193 
 
 It all happened in a moment. The man could only have 
 saved himself by leaving the dog to its fate. The shrieking 
 whistle had as little effect upon him as the powerful brakes 
 had upon the engine in those few available moments. Yet, 
 in the fraction of a second before the engine caught them, 
 the dog somehow leapt free, and the soul of the Man Who 
 Played upon the Leaf passed into the presence of his God 
 singing. 
 
 As soon as it realised that I followed willingly, the beastie 
 left me and trotted on ahead, turning every few minutes to 
 make sure that I was coming. But I guessed our destination 
 without difficulty. We passed the Pontarlier railway first, 
 then climbed for half-an-hour and crossed the moun- 
 tain line about a mile above the scene of the disaster, 
 and so eventually entered the region of the forest, still 
 quivering with innumerable flowers, where in the shaded 
 heart of trees we approached the spot of lilies that I knew 
 the place where a few weeks before the devout worshipper 
 had lifted the hat from my head because the earth whereon 
 I stood was holy ground. We stood in the pillared gateway 
 of his Holy of Holies. The cool airs, perfumed beyond be- 
 lief, stole out of the forest to meet us on the very threshold, 
 for the trees here grew so thickly that only patches of the 
 summer blaze found an entrance. And this time I did not 
 wait on the outskirts, but followed my four-footed guide to a 
 group of mossy boulders that stood in the very centre of the 
 hollow. 
 
 And there, as the dog raised its eyes to mine, soft with 
 the pain of its great unanswerable question, I saw in a 
 cleft of the grey rock the ashes of many hundred fires; 
 and, placed about them in careful array, an assortment of 
 the sacrifices he had offered, doubtless in sharp personal 
 deprivation, to his deity: bits of mouldy bread, half-loaves, 
 untouched portions of cheese, salami with the skin uncut 
 most ef i* exactly as I had left it in his hut; and last of 
 all, wrapped in the original white paper, the piece of Colom- 
 bier plume-cak', and a row of ten silver francs round the 
 edge. . . . 
 
 I learned afterwards, too, that among the almost un- 
 
194 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 recognisable remains on the railway, untouched by the de- 
 vouring terror of the iron, they had found a hand tightly 
 clasping in its dead fingers a crumpled ivy leaf. . . . 
 
 My efforts to find a home for the dog delayed my depart- 
 ture, I remember, several days; but in the autumn when I 
 returned it was only to hear that the creature had refused to 
 stay with any one, and finally had escaped into the forest 
 and deliberately starved itself to death. They found its 
 skeleton, Louis Favre told me, in a rocky hollow on the 
 lower slopes of Mont Racine in the direction of Montmollin. 
 But Louis Favre did not know, as I knew, that this hollow 
 had received other sacrifices as well, and was consecrated 
 ground. 
 
 And somewhere, if you search well the Jura slopes be- 
 tween Champ du Moulin, where Jean- Jacques Rousseau had 
 his temporary house, and Cotendard, where he visited Lord 
 Wemyss when "Milord Marechal Keith" was Governor of 
 the Principality of Neuchatel under Frederic II, King of 
 Prussia if you look well these haunted slopes, somewhere 
 between the vineyards and the gleaming limestone heights, 
 you shall find the forest glade where lie the bleached bones 
 of the mongrel dog, and the little village cemetery that 
 holds the remains of the Man Who Played upon the Leaf 
 to the honour of the Great God Pan. 
 
AN OLD THORN 
 
 BY W. H. HUDSON 
 
 THE little village of Ingden lies in a hollow of the South 
 Wiltshire Downs, the most isolated of the villages in 
 that lonely district. Its one short street is crossed at 
 right angles in the middle part by the Salisbury road, and 
 standing just at that point, the church on one hand, the old 
 inn on the other, you can follow it with the eye for a dis- 
 tance of nearly three miles. First it goes winding up the 
 low down under which the village stands, then vanishes over 
 the brow to reappear again a mile and a half further away 
 as a white band on the vast green slope of the succeeding 
 down, which rises to a height of over 600 feet. On the 
 summit it vanishes once more, but those who use it know it 
 for a laborious road crossing several high ridges before 
 dropping down into the valley road leading to Salisbury. 
 
 When, standing in the village street, your eye travels up 
 that white band, you can distinctly make out even at that 
 distance a small solitary tree standing near the summit 
 an old thorn with an ivy growing on it. My walks were 
 often that way, and invariably on coming to that point I 
 would turn twenty yards aside from the road to spend half 
 an hour seated on the turf near or under the old tree. These 
 half-hours were always grateful; and conscious that the 
 tree drew me to it I questioned myself as to the reason. 
 It was, I told myself, nothing but mental curiosity my in- 
 terest was a purely scientific one. For how comes it, I asked, 
 that a thorn can grow to a tree and live to a great age in 
 such a situation, on a vast naked down, where for many 
 centuries, perhaps for thousands of years, the herbage has 
 been so closely fed by sheep as to have the appearance of a 
 carpet or newly mown lawn? The seed is carried and scat- 
 
 J95 
 
196 TEE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 tered everywhere by the birds, but no sooner does it germi- 
 nate and send up a shoot than it is eaten down to the roots ; 
 forrthere is no scent that attracts a sheep more, no flavour 
 it has greater taste for, than that of any forest seedling 
 springing up amidst the minute herbaceous plants which car- 
 pet the downs. The thorn, like other organisms, has its 
 own unconscious intelligence and cunning by means of 
 which it endeavours to save itself and fulfil its life. It opens 
 its first tender leaves under the herbage and at the same 
 time thrusts up a vertical spine to wound the nibbling 
 mouth; and no sooner has it got a leaf or two and a spine 
 than it spreads its roots all round and from each of them 
 springs a fresh shoot, leaves and protecting spine, to in- 
 crease the chance of preservation. In vain! the cunning ani- 
 mal finds a way to defeat all this strategy, and after the 
 leaves have been bitten off again and again, the infant plant 
 gives up the struggle and dies in the ground. Yet we see 
 that from time to time one survives one perhaps in a mil- 
 lion; but how whether by a quicker growth or a harder or 
 more poisonous thorn, an unpalatable leaf, or some secret 
 agency we cannot guess. First, as a diminutive, scrubby 
 shrub, with numerous iron-hard stems, with few and small 
 leaves but many thorns, it keeps its poor flower less frus- 
 trate life for perhaps half a century or longer, without grow- 
 ing more than a couple of feet high; and then, as by a 
 miracle, it will spring up until its top shoots out of reach 
 of the browsing sheep, and in the end it becomes a tree 
 with spreading branches and fully developed leaves, and 
 flowers and fruit in its season. 
 
 One day I was visited by an artist from a distance who, 
 when shown the thorn, pronounced it a fine subject for his 
 pencil, and while he made his picture we talked about the 
 hawthorn generally as compared with other trees, and 
 agreed that, except in its blossoming time when it is merely 
 pretty, it is the most engaging and perhaps the most beau- 
 tiful of our native trees. We said that it was the most 
 individual of trees, that its variety was infinite, for you 
 never find two alike whether growing in a forest, in groups 
 or masses, or alone. We were almost lyrical in its praises. 
 
AN OLD THORN 197 
 
 But the solitary thorn was always best, he said, and this 
 one was perhaps the best of all he had seen; strange and 
 at the same time decorative in its form, beautiful too in its 
 appearance of great age with unimpaired vigour and some- 
 thing more in its expression that elusive something whicti 
 we find in some trees and don't know how to explain. 
 
 Ah, yes, thought I, it was this appeal to the aesthetic 
 faculty which attracted me from the first, and not, as I 
 had imagined, the mere curiosity of the naturalist inter- 
 ested mainly and always in the habits of living things, 
 plant or animal. 
 
 Certainly the thorn had strangeness. Its appearance as 
 to height was deceptive; one would have guessed it eighteen 
 feet; measuring it I was surprised to find it only ten. It 
 has four separate boles, springing from one root, leaning 
 a little away from each other, the thickest just a foot in 
 circumference. The branches are few, beginning at about 
 five feet from the ground, the foliage thin, the leaves 
 throughout the summer stained with grey, rust-red, and 
 purple colour. Though so small and exposed to the full fury 
 of every wind that blows over that vast naked down, it has 
 yet an ivy growing on it the strangest of the many strange 
 ivy-plants I have seen. It comes out of the ground as two 
 ivy trunks on opposite sides of the stoutest bole, but at a 
 height of four feet from the surface the two join and ascend 
 the tree as one round iron-coloured and iron-hard stem, 
 which goes curving and winding snakewise among the 
 branches as if with the object of roping them to save them 
 from being torn off by the winds. Finally, rising to the top, 
 the long serpent-stem opens out in a flat disc-shaped mass of 
 close-packed branchlets and twigs densely set with small 
 round leaves, dark dull green and tough as parchment. 
 One could only suppose that thorn and ivy had been part- 
 ners from the beginning of life, and that the union was 
 equally advantageous to both. 
 
 The small ivy disc or platform on top of the tree was 
 a favourite stnrd and look-out for the downland birds. I 
 seldom visited the spot without disturbing some of them, 
 now a little company of missel-thrushes, now a crowd of 
 
198 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 starlings, then perhaps a dozen rooks, crowded together, 
 looking very big and conspicuous on their little platform. 
 
 Being curious to find out something about the age of 
 the tree I determined to put the question to my old friend 
 Malachi, aged eighty-nine, who was born and had always 
 lived in the parish and had known the clowns and prob- 
 ably every tree growing on them for miles around from 
 his earliest years. It was my custom to drop in of an 
 evening and sit with him, listening to his endless reminis- 
 cences of his young days. That evening I spoke of the 
 thorn, describing its position and appearance, thinking that 
 perhaps he had forgotten it. How long, I asked him, had 
 the thorn been there? 
 
 He was one of those men, usually of the labouring class, 
 to be met with in such lonely, out-of-the-world places as 
 the Wiltshire Downs, whose eyes never look old however 
 many their years may be, and are more like the eyes of a 
 bird or animal than a human being, for they gaze at you 
 and through you when you speak without appearing to 
 know what you say. So it was on this occasion ; he looked 
 straight at me with no sign of understanding, no change 
 in his clear grey eyes, and answered nothing. But I 
 would not be put off, and when, raising my voice, I re- 
 peated the question, he replied after another interval of 
 silence that the thorn "was never any different." 'Twas 
 just the same, ivy and all, when he were a small boy. It 
 just looked old: why, he remembered his old father saying 
 the same thing 'twas the same when he were a boy, and 
 'twas the same in his father's time. Then anxious to es- 
 cape from the subject he began talking of something else. 
 
 It struck me that after all the most interesting thing 
 about the thorn was it appearance of great age, and this 
 aspect I had now been told had continued for at least a 
 century, probably for a much longer time. It produced 
 a reverent feeling in me such as we experience at the sight 
 of some ancient stone monument. But the tree was alive, 
 and because of its life the feeling was perhaps stronger 
 than in the case of a granite cross or cromlech or other 
 memorial of antiquity. 
 
AN OLD THORN 199 
 
 Sitting by the thorn one day it occurred to me that, 
 growing at this spot close to the road and near the summit 
 of that vast down, numberless persons travelling to and 
 from Salisbury must have turned aside to rest on the turf 
 in the shade after that laborious ascent or before begin- 
 ning the long descent to the valley below. Travellers of 
 all conditions, on foot or horseback, in carts and carriages, 
 merchants, bagmen, farmers, drovers, gipsies, tramps and 
 vagrants of all descriptions, and from time to time troops 
 of soldiers. Yet never one of them had injured the tree 
 in any way! I could not remember ever finding a tree 
 growing alcne by the roadside in a lonely place which had 
 not the marks of many old and new wounds inflicted on its 
 trunk with knives, hatchets, and other implements. Here 
 not a mark, not a scratch had been made on any one of 
 its four trunks or on the ivy stem by any thoughtless or 
 mischievous person, nor had ! any branch been cut or 
 broken off. Why had they one and all respected this tree? 
 
 It was another subject to talk to Malachi about, and to 
 him I went after tea and found him with three of his neigh- 
 bours sitting by the fire and talking; for though it was 
 summer the old man always had a fire in the evening. 
 
 They welcomed and made room for me, but I had no 
 sooner broached the subject in my mind than they all fell 
 into silence, then after a brief interval the three callers 
 began to discuss some little village matter. I was not going 
 to be put off in that way, and leaving them out, went on 
 talking to Malachi about the tree. Presently one by one the 
 visitors got up and, remarking that it was time to be going, 
 they took their departure. 
 
 The old man could not escape nor avoid listening, and 
 in the end had to say something. He said he didn't know 
 nothing about all them tramps and gipsies and other sorts 
 of men who had sat by the tree; all he knowed was that 
 the old thorn had been a good thorn to him first srd 
 last. He remembered once when he was a young man. not 
 yet twenty, he went to do some work at a village five miles 
 away, and being winter time he left early, about four o'clock, 
 to walk home over the downs. He had just got married 
 
200 THE GREAT MODERN, ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 and had promised his wife to be home for tea at six 
 o'clock. But a thick fog came up over the downs and 
 soon as it got dark he lost himself. 'Twas the darkest, 
 thickest night he had ever been out in; and whenever he 
 came against a bank or other obstruction he would get 
 down on his hands and knees and feel it up and down to 
 get its shape and find out what it was, for he knew all 
 the marks on his native downs; 'twas all in vain noth- 
 ing could he recognise. In this way he wandered about 
 for hours and was in despair of getting home that night 
 when all at once there came a sense of relief, a feeling that 
 it was all right, that something was guiding him. 
 
 I remarked that I knew what that meant: he had lost 
 his sense of direction and had now all at once recovered 
 it; such a thing had often happened; I once had such an 
 experience myself. 
 
 No, it was not that, he returned. He had not gone a 
 dozen steps from the moment that sense of confidence 
 came to him, before he ran into a tree, and feeling the 
 trunk with his hands he recognised it as the old thorn 
 and knew where he was. In a couple of minutes he was 
 on the road, and in less than an hour, just about midnight, 
 he was safe at home. 
 
 No more could I get out of him, at all events on that oc- 
 casion; nor did I ever succeed in extracting any further" 
 personal experience in spite of his having let out that the 
 thorn had been a good thorn to him, first and last. I had, 
 however, heard enough to satisfy me that I had at length 
 discovered the real secret of the tree's fascination. I re- 
 called other trees which had similarly affected me, and how, 
 long years ago, when a good deal of my time was spent on 
 horseback, whenever I found myself in a certain district 
 I would go miles out of my way just to look at a solitary 
 old tree growing in a lonely place, and to sit for an hour 
 to refresh myself, body and soul, in its shade. I had, in- 
 deed, all along suspected the thorn of being one of this 
 order of mysterious trees; and from other experiences I 
 had met with, one some years ago in a village in this same 
 county of Wilts, I had formed the opinion that in many 
 
AN OLD THORN 201 
 
 persons the sense of a strange intelligence and possibly 
 of power in such trees is not a mere transitory mental state 
 but an enduring influence which profoundly affects their 
 whole lives. 
 
 Determined to find out something more, I went to 
 other villagers, mostly women, who are more easily dis- 
 armed and made to believe that you too know and are of 
 the same mind with them, being under the same mysterious 
 power and spell. In this way, laying many a subtle snare, 
 I succeeded in eliciting a good deal of information. It 
 was, however, mostly of a kind which could not profitably 
 be used in any inquiry into the subject; it simply went to 
 show that the feeling existed and was strong in many of 
 the villagers. During this inquiry I picked up several 
 anecdotes about a person who lived in Ingden close upon 
 three generations ago, and was able to piece them to- 
 gether so as to make a consistent narrative of his life. This 
 was Johnnie Budd, a farm labourer, who came to his end 
 in 1821, a year or so before my old friend Malachi was 
 born. It is going very far back, but there were circum- 
 stances in his life which made a deep impression on the 
 mind of that little community and the story had lived on 
 through all these years. 
 
 Johnnie had fallen on hard times when in an exception- 
 ally severe winter season he with others had been thrown 
 out of employment at the farm where he worked; then 
 with a wife and three small children to keep he had in his 
 desperation procured food 'for them one dark night in an 
 adjacent field. But alas! one of the little ones, playing 
 in the road with some of her companions, who were all 
 very hungry, let it out that she wasn't hungry, that for 
 three days she had had as much nice meat as she wanted 
 to eat! Play over, the hungry little ones flew home to 
 tell their parents the wonderful news why didn't they 
 have nice meat like Tilly Budd, instead of a piece of rye 
 bread without even dripping on it, when they were so 
 hungry? Much talk followed, and spread from cottage to 
 cottage until it reached the constable's ears, and he, already 
 informed of the loss of a wether taken from its fold close 
 
202 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 by, went straight to Johnnie and charged him with the 
 offence. Johnnie lost his head, and dropping on his knees 
 confessed his guilt and begged his old friend Lampard to' 
 have mercy on him and to overlook it for the sake of his 
 wife and children. 
 
 It was his first offence, but when he was taken from the 
 lock-up at the top of the village street to be conveyed to 
 Salisbury, his friends and neighbours who had gathered at 
 the spot to witness his removal shook their heads and 
 doubted that Ingden would ever see him again. The con- 
 fession had made the case so simple a one that he had 
 at once been committed to take his trial at Salisbury As- 
 sizes, and as the time was near the constable had been or- 
 dered to convey the prisoner to the town himself. Ac- 
 cordingly he engaged old Joe Blaskett, called Daddy in the 
 village, to take them in his pony cart. Daddy did not 
 want .the job, but was talked or bullied into it, and there 
 he now sat in his cart, waiting in glum silence for his 
 passengers; a bent old man of eighty, with a lean, grey, 
 bitter face, in his rusty cloak, his old rabbit-skin cap 
 drawn down over his ears, his white disorderly beard scat- 
 tered over his chest. The constable Lampard was a big, 
 powerful man, with a great round, good-natured face, but 
 just now he had a strong sense of his responsibility, and 
 to make sure of not losing his prisoner he handcuffed him 
 before bringing him out and helping him to take his seat 
 on the bottom of the cart. Then he got up himself to 
 his seat by the driver's side; the last good-bye was spoken, 
 the weeping wife being gently led away by her friends, and 
 the cart rattled away down the street. Turning into the Salis- 
 bury road it was soon out of sight over the near down, 
 but half an hour later it emerged once more into sight be- 
 yond the great dip, and the villagers who had remained 
 standing about at the same spot watched it crawling like 
 a beetle up the long white road on the slope of the vast 
 down beyond. 
 
 Johnnie was now lying coiled up on his rug, his face 
 hidden between his arms, abandoned to his grief, sobbing 
 aloud. Lampard, sitting athwart the seat so as to keep an 
 
AN OLD THORN 203 
 
 eye on him, burst out at last: "Be a man, Johnnie, and 
 stop your crying! 'Tis making things no better by taking 
 on like that. What do you say, Daddy?" 
 
 "I say nought," snapped the old man, and for a while 
 they proceeded in silence except for those heartrending sobs. 
 As they approached the old thorn tree, near the top of the 
 long slope, Johnnie grew more and more agitated, his whole 
 frame shaking with his sobbing. Again the constable re- 
 buked him, telling him that 'twas a shame for a man to 
 go on like that. Then with an effort he restrained his 
 sobs, and lifting a red, swollen, tear-stained face he stam- 
 mered out: "Master Lampard, did I ever ask 'ee a favour 
 in my life?" 
 
 "What be after now?" said the other suspiciously. "Well, 
 no, Johnnie, not as I remember." 
 
 "An' do 'ee think I'll ever come back home again, Master 
 Lampard?" 
 
 "Maybe no, maybe yes; 'tis not for me to say." 
 
 "But 'ee knows 'tis a hanging matter?" 
 
 " 'Tis that for sure. But you be a young man with a 
 wife and childer, and have never done no wrong before 
 not that I ever heard say. Maybe the judge'll recommend 
 you to mercy. What do you say, Daddy?" 
 
 The old man only made some inarticulate sounds in 
 his beard, without turning his head. 
 
 "But, Master Lampard, suppose I don't swing, they'll 
 send I over the water and I'll never see the wife and chil- 
 dren no more." 
 
 "Maybe so; I'm thinking that's how 'twill be." 
 
 "Then will 'ee do me a kindness? 'Tis the only one I 
 ever asked 'ee, and there'll be no chance to ask 'ee an- 
 other." 
 
 "I can't say, Johnnie, not till I know what 'tis you 
 want." 
 
 " 'Tis only this, Master Lampard. When we git to th* 
 old thorn let me out o' the cart and let me stand under it 
 one minnit and no more." 
 
 "Be you wanting to hang yourself before the trial, then?" 
 said the constable, trying to make a joke of it. 
 
204 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 "I couldn't do that," said Johnnie, simply, "seeing my 
 hands be fast and you'd be standing by." 
 
 "No, no, Johnnie, 'tis nought but just foolishness. What 
 do you say, Daddy?" 
 
 The old man turned round with a look of sudden rage in 
 his grey face which startled Lampard: but he said nothing, 
 he only opened and shut his mouth two or three times with- 
 out a sound. 
 
 Meanwhile the pony had been going slower and slower 
 for the last thirty or forty yards, and now when they 
 were abreast of the tree, stood still. 
 
 "What be stopping for?" cried Lampard. "Get on 
 get on, or we'll never get to Salisbury this day." 
 
 Then at length old Blaskett found a voice. 
 
 "Does thee know what thee's saying, Master Lampard, 
 or be thee a stranger in this parish?" 
 
 "What d'ye mean, Daddy? I be no stranger; I've 
 a-known this parish and known 'ee these nine years." 
 
 "Thee asked why I stopped when 'twas the pony stopped, 
 knowing where we'd got to. But thee's not born here 
 or thee'd a-known what a boss knows. An' since 'ee asks 
 what I says, I say this, 'twill not hurt 'ee to let Johnnie 
 Budd stand one minute by the tree." 
 
 Feeling insulted and puzzled the constable was about to 
 assert his authority when he was arrested by Johnnie's 
 cry, "Oh, Master Lampard, 'tis my last hope!" and by 
 the sight of the agony of suspense on his swollen face. Af- 
 ter a short hesitation he swung himself out over the side 
 of the cart, and letting down the tailboard laid rough hands 
 on Johnnie and half helped, half dragged him out. 
 
 They were quickly by the tree, where Johnnie stood si- 
 lent with downcast eyes a few moments; then dropping 
 upon his knees leant his face against the bark, his eyes 
 closed, his lips murmuring. 
 
 "Time's up!" cried Lampard presently, and taking him 
 by the collar pulled him to his feet; in a couple of min- 
 utes more they were in the cart and on their way. 
 
 It was grey weather, very cold, with an east wind blow- 
 ing, but for the rest of that dreary seventeen-miles journey 
 
AN OLD THORN 205 
 
 Johnnie was very quiet and submissive and shed no more 
 tears. 
 
 What had been his motive in wishing to stand by the 
 tree? What did he expect when he said that it was his 
 last hope? During the way up the long laborious slope 
 an incident of his early years in connection with the tree 
 had been in his mind, and had wrought tm him until it 
 culminated in that passionate outburst and his strange 
 request. It was when he was a boy not quite ten years 
 old, that one afternoon in the summer-time he went with 
 other children to look for wild raspberries on the summit 
 of the great down. Johnnie being the eldest was the leader 
 of the little band. On the way back from the brambly 
 place where the fruit grew, on approaching the thorn they 
 spied a number of rooks sitting on it, and it came into 
 Johnnie's mind that it would be great fun to play at 
 crows by sitting on the branches as near the top as they 
 could get. Running on, with cries that sent the rooks 
 cawing away, they began swarming up the trunks, but in 
 the midst of their frolic, when they were all struggling for 
 the best places on the branches, they were startled by 
 a shout, and looking up to the top of the down saw a 
 man on horseback coming towards them at a gallop, shak- 
 ing a whip in anger as he rode. Instantly they began 
 scrambling down, falling over each other in their haste, 
 then, picking themselves up, set off down the slope as fast 
 as they could run. Johnnie was foremost, while close be- 
 hind him came Marty, who was nearly the same age and 
 though a girl almost as swift-footed, but before going fifty 
 yards she struck her foot against an ant-hill and was 
 thrown violently, face down, on the turf. Johnnie turned 
 at her cry and flew back to help her up, but the shock 
 of the fall and her extreme terror had deprived her for 
 the moment of all strength, and while he struggled to 
 raise her the smaller children one by one overtook and 
 passed them, and in another moment the man was off his 
 horse, standing over them. "Do you want a good thrash- 
 ing?" he said, grasping Johnnie by the collar. 
 
 "Oh, sir, please don't hit me!" answered Johnnie; then 
 
206 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 looking up he was astonished to see that his captor was 
 not the stern old farmer, the tenant of the down, he had 
 taken him for, but a stranger and a strange-looking man, 
 in a dark grey cloak with a red collar; he had a pointed 
 beard and long black hair and dark eyes that were not 
 evil yet frightened Johnnie when he caught them gazing 
 down on him. 
 
 "No, I'll not thrash you," said he, "because you stayed 
 to help the little maiden, but I'll tell you something for 
 your good about the tree you and your little mates have 
 been climbing, bruising the bark with your heels and break- 
 ing off leaves and twigs. Do you know, boy, that if you 
 hurt it, it will hurt you? It stands here with its roots in 
 the ground and you you can go away from it, you think. 
 'Tis not so; something will come out of it and follow you 
 wherever you go and hurt and break you at last. But if 
 you make it a friend and care for it it will care for you 
 and give you happiness and deliver you from evil." 
 
 Then touching Johnnie's cheeks with his gloved hand he 
 got on his horse and rode away, and no sooner was he 
 gone than Marty started up, and hand in hand the two 
 children set off at a run down the long slope. 
 
 Johnnie's playtime was nearly over then, for by-an-by 
 he was taken as farmer's boy at one of the village farms. 
 When he was nineteen years old, one Sunday evening when 
 standing in the road with other young people of the vil- 
 lage, youths and girls, it was powerfully borne on his 
 mind that his old playmate Marty was not only the pret- 
 tiest and best girl in the place, but that she had something 
 which set her apart and far, far above all other women. 
 For now, after having known her intimately from his first 
 years, he had suddenly fallen in love with her, a feeling 
 which caused him to shiver in a kind of ecstasy, yet made 
 him miserable since it had purged his si<rht and made him 
 see, too, how far apart they were and how hopeless his 
 case. It was true that they had been comrades from child- 
 hood, fond of each other, but she had grown and devel- 
 oped until she had become that most bright and lovely 
 being, while he had remained the same slow-witted, awk- 
 
AN OLD THORN 207 
 
 ward, almost inarticulate Johnnie he had always been. This 
 feeling preyed on his poor mind, and when he joined the 
 evening gathering in the village street he noted bitterly 
 how contemptuously he was left out of the conversation 
 by the others, how incapable he was of keeping pace with 
 them in their laughing talk and banter. And, worst of all, 
 how Marty was the leading spirit, bandying words and 
 bestowing smiles and pleasantries all round but never a 
 word or a smile for him. He could not endure it, and so 
 instead of smartening himself up after work and going 
 for company to the village street, he would walk down the 
 secluded lane near the farm to spend the hour before sup- 
 per and bedtime sitting on a gate, brooding on his misery; 
 and if by chance he met Marty in the village he would 
 try to avoid her and was silent and uncomfortable in her 
 presence. 
 
 After work, one hot summer evening, Johnnie was walk- 
 ing along the road near the farm in his working-clothes, 
 clay-coloured boots, and old dusty hat, when who should 
 he see but Marty coming toward him, looking very sweet 
 and fresh in her light-coloured print gown. He looked to 
 this side and that for some friendly gap or opening in the 
 hedge so as to take himself out of the road, but there was 
 no way of escape at that spot and he had to pass her, and 
 so casting down his eyes he walked on, wishing he could 
 sink into the earth out of her sight. But she would not 
 allow him to pass; she put herself directly in his way and 
 spoke. 
 
 "What's the matter with 'ee, Johnnie, that 'ee don't want 
 to meet me and hardly say a word when I speak to 'ee?" 
 
 He could not find a word in reply: he stood still, his 
 face crimson, his eyes on the ground. 
 
 "Johnnie, dear, what is it?" she asked, coming closer 
 and putting her hand on his arm. 
 
 Then he looked up, and seeing the sweet compassion in 
 her eyes he could no longer keep the secret of his pain 
 from her. 
 
 " Tis 'ee, Marty," he said. "Thee'll never want I 
 there's others 'ee'll like better. 'Tisn't for I to say a word 
 
208 THE GREAT MODERN^ ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 about that, I'm thinking, for I be just nothing. An' an 7 
 I be going away from the village, Marty, and I'll never 
 come back no more." 
 
 "Oh, Johnnie, don't 'ee say it! Would 'ee go and break 
 my heart? Don't 'ee know I've always loved 'ee since 
 we were little mites together?" 
 
 And thus it came about that Johnnie, most miserable of 
 men, was all at once made happy beyond his wildest 
 dreams. And he proved himself worthy of her: from that 
 time there was not a more diligent and sober young labourer 
 in the village, nor one of a more cheerful disposition, nor 
 more careful of his personal appearance when, the day's 
 work done, the young people had their hour of social in- 
 tercourse and courting. Yet he was able to put by a por- 
 tion of his weekly wages of six shillings to buy sticks so 
 that when spring came round again he was able to marry 
 and take Marty to live with him in his own cottage. 
 
 One Sunday afternoon, shortly after this happy event, 
 they went out for a walk on the high down. 
 
 "Oh, Johnnie, 'tis a long time since we were here to- 
 gether, not since we used to come and play and look for 
 cowslips when we were little." 
 
 Johnnie laughed with pure joy and said they would just 
 be children and play again, now they were alone and out 
 of sight of the village; and when she smiled up at him he 
 rejoiced to think that his union with this perfect girl was 
 producing a happy effect on his poor brains, making him 
 as bright and ready with a good reply as any one! And 
 in their happiness they played at being children just as 
 in the old days they had played at being grown-ups. Cast- 
 ing themselves down on the green, elastic, flower-sprinkled 
 turf, they rolled one after the other down the smooth 
 slopes of the terrace, the old "shepherd's steps," and by- 
 and-by Johnnie, coming upon a patch of creeping thyme, 
 rubbed his hands in the pale purple flowers, then rubbed 
 her face to make it fragrant. 
 
 . "Oh, 'tis sweet!" she cried. "Did 'ee ever see so many 
 little flowers on the down? 'tis as if they came out just 
 for us." Then, indicating the tiny milkwort faintly sprink- 
 
AN OLD THORN 209 
 
 ling the turf all about them, "Oh, the little blue darlings! 
 Did 'ee ever see such a dear blue?" 
 
 "Oh, aye, a prettier blue nor that," said Johnnie. " 'Tis 
 just here, Marty," and pressing her down he kissed her on 
 the eyelids a dozen times. 
 
 "You silly Johnnie!" 
 
 "Be I silly, Marty? but I love the red, too," and with 
 that he kissed her on the mouth. "And, Marty, I do love 
 the red on the breasties, too won't 'ee let me have just 
 one kiss there?" 
 
 And she, to please him, opened her dress a little way, 
 but blushingly, though she was his wife and nobody was 
 there to see, but it seemed strange to her out of doors with 
 the sun overhead. Oh, 'twas all delicious 1 Never was 
 earth so heavenly sweet as on that wide green down, 
 sprinkled with innumerable little flowers, under the wide 
 blue sky and the all-illuminating sun that shone into their 
 hearts! 
 
 At length, rising to her knees and looking up the green 
 slope, she cried out: "Oh, Johnnie, there's the old thorn 
 tree! Do 'ee remember when we played at crows on it and 
 had such a fright? 'Twas the last time we came here to- 
 gether. Come, let's go to the old tree and see how it looks 
 now." 
 
 Johnnie all at once became grave, and said No, he 1 
 wouldn't go to it for anything. She was curious and made 
 him tell her the reason. He had never forgotten that day 
 and the fear that came into his mind on account of the 
 words the strange man had spoken. She didn't know what 
 the words were: she had been too frightened to listen, and 
 so he had to tell her. 
 
 "Then, 'tis a wishing-tree for sure," Marty exclaimed. 
 When he asked her what a wishing-tree was, she could only 
 say that her old grandmother, now dead, had told her. 'Tis 
 a tree that knows us and can do us good and harm, but 
 will do good only to some; but they must go to it and ask 
 for its protection, and they must offer it something as well 
 as pray to it. It must be something bright a little jewel 
 or coloured bead is best, and if you haven't got such a thing, 
 
210 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISfl STORIES 
 
 a bright-coloured ribbon, or strip of scarlet cloth or silk 
 thread which you must tie to one of the twigs. 
 
 "But we hurted the tree, Marty, and 'twill do no good 
 to we." 
 
 They were both grave now; then a hopeful thought came 
 to her aid. They had not hurt the tree intentionally: the 
 tree knew that it knew more than any human being. They 
 might go and stand side by side under its branches and' 
 ask it to forgive them, and grant them all their desires. 
 But they must not go empty-handed, they must have some 
 bright thing with them when making their prayer. Then 
 she had a fresh inspiration. She would take a lock of her 
 own bright hair and braid it with some of his, and tie it 
 with a piece of scarlet thread. 
 
 Johnnie was pleased with this idea, and they agreed to 
 take another Sunday afternoon walk and carry out their 
 plan. 
 
 The projected walk was never taken, for by-and-by 
 Marty's mother fell ill and Marty had to be with her, 
 nursing her night and day, and months went by, and at 
 length when her mother died she was not in a fit condi- 
 tion to go long walks and climb those long steep slopes. 
 After the child was born it was harder than ever to leave 
 the house, and Johnnie too had so much work at the farm 
 that he had little inclination to go out on Sundays. They 
 ceased to speak of the tree, and their long-projected pil- 
 grimage was impracticable until they could see better days. 
 But the wished time never came, for after the first child 
 Marty was never strong; then a second child came, then a 
 third, and so five years went by of toil and suffering and 
 love, and the tree, with all their hopes and fears and in- 
 tentions regarding it, was less and less in their minds and 
 was all but forgotten. Only Johnnie, when at long in- 
 tervals his master sent him to Salisbury with the cart, re- 
 membered it all only too well when, coming to the top of 
 the down, he saw the old thorn directly before him. Pass- 
 ing it he would turn his face away not to see it too closely, 
 or perhaps to avoid being recognised by it. Then came the 
 time of their extreme poverty, when there was no work 
 
AN OLD THORN 211 
 
 at the farm and no one of their own people to help them 
 tide over a season of scarcity, for the old people were dead 
 or in the workhouse or so poor as to want help themselves. 
 It was then that in his misery at the sight of his ailing 
 anxious wife the dear Marty of the beautiful vanished 
 days and his three little hungry children, that he went 
 out into the field one dark night to get them food. 
 
 The whole sad history was in his mind as they slowly 
 crawled up the hill, until it came to him that perhaps all 
 their sufferings and this great disaster had been caused by 
 the tree by that something from the tree which had fol- 
 lowed him, never resting in its mysterious enmity, until it! 
 broke him. Was it too late to repair that terrible mistake? 
 A gleam of hope shone on his darkened mind, and he made 
 his passionate appeal to the constable. He had no offer- 
 ing his hands were powerless now; but at least he could 
 stand by it and touch it with his body and face and pray 
 for its forgiveness and for deliverance from the doom which 
 threatened him. The constable had compassionately or 
 from some secret motive granted his request, but alas! if 
 in very truth the power he had come to believe in resided 
 in the tree he was too late in seeking it. 
 
 The trial was soon over; by pleading guilty Johnnie had 
 made it a very simple matter for the court. The main thing 
 was to sentence him. By an unhappy chance the judge 
 was in one of his occasional bad moods; he had been en- 
 tertained too well by one of the local magnates on the pre- 
 vious evening and had sat late, drinking too much wine, 
 with the result that he had a bad liver, with a mind to 
 match it. He was only too ready to seize the first oppor- 
 tunity that offered and poor Johnnie's case was the first 
 that morning of exercising the awful power a barbarous 
 law had put into his hands. When the prisoner's defender 
 declared that this was a case which called loudly for mercy 
 the judge interrupted him to say that he was taking too 
 much on himself, that he was in fact instructing the judge 
 in his duties, which was a piece of presumption on his part. 
 The other was quick to make a humble apology and to 
 bring his perfunctory address to a conclusion. The judge, 
 
212 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 in addressing the prisoner, said he had been unable to dis- 
 cover any extenuating circumstances in the case. The fact 
 that he had a wife and family dependent on him only 
 added to his turpitude, since it proved that no consideration 
 could serve to deter him from a criminal act. Further- 
 more, in dealing with his case, he must take into account 
 the prevalence of this particular form of crime; he would 
 venture to say that it had been encouraged by an extreme 
 leniency in many cases on the part of those whose sacred 
 duty it was to administer the law of the land. A sterner 
 and healthier spirit was called for at the present juncture. 
 The time had come to make an example, and a more suit- 
 able case than the one now before him could not have been 
 found for such a purpose. He would accordingly hold out 
 no hope of a reprieve, but would counsel prisoner to make 
 the best use of the short time remaining to him. 
 
 Johnnie standing in the dock appeared to the spectators 
 to be in a half-dazed condition as dull and spiritless a 
 clodhopper as they had ever beheld. The judge and bar- 
 risters, in their wigs and robes and gowns, were unlike any 
 human beings he had ever looked on. He might have been 
 transported to some other world, so strange did the whole 
 scene appear to him. He only knew, or surmised, that all 
 these important people were occupied in doing him to 
 death, but the process, the meaning of their fine phrases, 
 he could not follow. He looked at them, his glazed eyes 
 travelling from face to face to be fixed finally on the judge 
 in a vacant stare; but he scarcely saw them, he was all 
 the time gazing on, and his mind occupied with, other forms 
 and scenes invisible to the court. His village, his Marty, 
 his dear little playmate of long ago, the sweet girl he had 
 won, the wife and mother of his children with her white 
 terrified face, clinging to him and crying in anguish: "Oh, 
 Johnnie, what will they do to 'ee!" And all the time, with 
 it all, he saw the vast green slope of the down with the 
 Salisbury road lying like a narrow white band across it, 
 and close to it, near the summit, the solitary old tree. 
 
 During the delivery of the sentence, and when he was 
 led from the dock and conveyed back to the prison, that 
 
 
AN OLD THORN 213 
 
 image or vision was still present. He sat staring at the 
 wall of his cell as he had stared at the judge, the fatal 
 tree still before him. Never before had he seen it in that 
 vivid way in which it appeared to him now, standing alone 
 on the vast green down, under the wide sky, its four separate 
 boles leaning a little away from each other, like the middle 
 ribs of an open fan, holding up the wide, spread branches, 
 the thin open foliage, the green leaves stained with rusty 
 brown and purple: and the ivy rising like a slender black 
 serpent of immense length springing from the roots, wind- 
 ing upwards and in and out among the grey branches, 
 binding them together, and resting its round dark cluster 
 of massed leaves on the topmost boughs. That green disc 
 was the ivy-serpent's flat head and was the head of the 
 whole tree, and there it had its eyes which gazed for 
 ever over the wide downs, watching all living things, cattle 
 and sheep and bird and men in their comings and goings; 
 and although fast-rooted in the earth, following them too 
 in all their ways, even as it had followed him to break him 
 at last. 
 
THE FOURTH MAGUS 1 
 
 BY R. B. CUNNINGHAMS GRAHAM 
 
 SOME ancient writer or another the Arabs frequently 
 begin a tale "Says somebody" relates the story of 
 his life and miracles. Balthasar, Caspar, and Mel- 
 chior were, as he tells us, kings in Babylon. How Babylon 
 came to be supplied with such a superfluity of kings he does 
 not say, even if he knew why. Still, it was so, for all of 
 them had crowns; rich mantles trimmed with ermine; fine 
 Arab horses with legs as slim as a gazelle's, tails floating in 
 the air, heads like a peacock's, eyes that shot fire, and with 
 a general air as of a hippogriff. In fact, these kings had 
 myrrh, frankincense, jewels, furs, scimitars, vessels of rich- 
 est plate, and everything befitting to their state. 
 
 All this I know, for I have seen it all in pictures, and 
 have rejoiced to learn their horses were of a pale cea-green 
 or else of a rich cinnamon, colours quite natural in royal 
 steeds, and blending well into the faint blue landscape of the 
 Umbrian School of painters, who alone had the true vision 
 of these kings. The circumstance that one of them was 
 black was not the least bit disconcerting to the painters 
 (no colour line exists in art), but on the contrary it helped 
 them in their work, by furnishing a contrast to the pale, 
 yellow faces of the other two. As they sat in their palaces, 
 following the usual avocations of their kind, either being 
 occupied in administering injustice or else in watching 
 dancing-girls gyrate, strange news was brought into the 
 town. 
 
 Shepherds, all seated on the ground, watching their 
 sheep folded inside a net of ropes, their dogs beside them, 
 
 'From "Hope." By permission of Frederick A. Stokes Com- 
 pany. 
 
 214 
 
THE FOURTH MAGUS 215 
 
 and their thoughts fixed on the heavens as often hap- 
 pens with people of their kind, which in itself accounts why 
 they so often lose their sheep had seen a wondrous star. 
 
 Lustrous and bright as Sirius, redder than Aldebaran, and 
 far more luminous than Zubenel-Chamali or Altair, it lighted 
 all the sky. Around it was a space as if the other stars 
 had all agreed they were not worthy even to feel its radi- 
 ance fall upon them, and it appeared to beckon, as the 
 shepherds thought, and move a little towards the West, as 
 if inviting them to follow in its wake. 
 
 Night after night the star appeared in the same place, 
 just up above their heads. At last, seeing, as shepherds 
 will, something miraculous in the affair, they left their 
 flocks for, after all, what is a sheep or two beside so 
 bright a star and sought out a Wise Man. After con- 
 sideration and due examination of the case, he solved the 
 mystery, telling them that a mighty prophet would be 
 born, who should raise up the lowly, redress injustices, cast 
 down the powerful, make rough places smooth, and be the 
 champion of the weak the whole world over; and all they 
 had to do was but to follow in the way the star directed 
 them, and it would take them to the place. 
 
 Such things not being for the kind of men they were, 
 they went to Babylon, and, walking up and down about the 
 streets, began to tell what they had seen and heard to 
 everyone they met. Little by little the fame of what they 
 said filled all men's minds, and in bazaars and markets, in 
 fondaks, stores, and caravanserais, the wondrous rumour 
 grew. 
 
 Lastly, as happens in such cases, now, as in Babylon, it 
 passed the palace gates. The kings were fired with it at 
 once, either being filled with faith and hatred of injustice, 
 things natural to men of their estate, or else impelled by 
 that desire of movement which in kings plays the part 
 imagination plays in poets and sets their blood astir. 
 
 So taking horse, and followed by a fitting retinue car- 
 rying the presents which the painters of the Umbrian 
 School have seen so well, and have depicted for us in the 
 middle distance of their canvases, they set out on their 
 
216 THE GREAT MODERN^ ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 quest. All the world knows the story of their ride, and 
 how, following the star over the plains, through the defiles 
 of mountains, and across rivers, at last it stopped above 
 the stable in which the ox and ass were feeding, making a 
 nimbus with their warm clover-scented breath round the 
 child's head as it lay sleeping in the crib. Their reward 
 was instant, for they beheld their faith made patent by 
 their work, a thing that few attain, however firmly they 
 believe, and whilst men read the simple story of their brief 
 passage through the scene of history, they still will love 
 them, as long as faith and stars continue and shepherds 
 watch their sheep upon the plains. They saw the birth of 
 God made man, and, after having seen it and adored, be- 
 came immortal; but the fourth Magus, he who lingered 
 on the road, saw man made God, and is forgotten and un- 
 known to anyone except to those who, like some diving 
 negro, seek their pearls in the unnavigated creeks of ancient 
 chroniclers. 
 
 That Nicanor hangs out of fashion on his rusty nail, and 
 Caspar, Balthasar, and Melchior still are household words, 
 is perhaps natural, for they by faith were justified, and 
 faith is the true royal road to fame. King Nicanor followed 
 the path along which man from the beginning of the 
 world has worn out countless million pairs of shoes, blis- 
 tered infinities of feet, and quite as naturally has been for- 
 gotten by his kind. 
 
 This, then, is how the thing fell out. 
 
 When the three kings had ridden off upon their quest, 
 King Nicanor was left behind, owing to his horse having 
 cast a shoe. When the Chaldean smith had shod the 
 horse, after considerable delay for then as now in black- 
 smith's shops, nothing was ready, and not a single shoe 
 in the whole place would fit Balthasar, Melchior, and 
 Caspar had vanished on the plain, and it was almost night. 
 Determining to make at least a start, for being a Wise 
 Man and from the East, where people know the benefit of 
 camping even a league outside the city walls upon the first 
 day of a journey, Nicanor got on his horse and sallied 
 forth, passing the horseshoe arch of the great gate in the 
 
THE FOURTH MAGUS 217 
 
 town wall towards the west, about an hour before the sun 
 had set. 
 
 The camp was pitched just by the side of a wide cross- 
 ing of a river edged by palm trees and broken into several 
 channels by beds of sand and stones. Right at the cross- 
 ing the feet of camels and of mules, passing for centuries, 
 had made a well-defined deep track, in which the riders' 
 feet were almost on the ground as they rode through to 
 reach the stream, their horses stumbling occasionally as 
 they struck their feet against the sides. Young date palms 
 springing from the sand struggled against the nibbling of 
 the camels and the mules that snatched a mouthful as they 
 passed. A haze of orange fading into pink outlined the 
 palms upon the farther bank, showing each knot upon 
 their trunks. In the light air the leaves just stirred and 
 made a creaking sound, unlike the whispering of the oaks 
 and beeches of the north. White bones, and here and there 
 a skull, showed where a baggage animal had been released 
 from toil, and round them the sparse grass grew just a little 
 greener, and myriads of the minutest flies crawled in and 
 out between the vertebrae of the dry backbone that would 
 never more bend underneath a pack. 
 
 Sitting upon his horse, with one leg crossed upon its 
 neck, the long reins dangling almost to the ground as it 
 hung down its head a little to snatch a mouthful of the 
 grass, the Magus gave directions to his men to pitch his 
 tents. 
 
 Quickly the packs were lifted off the mules' and camels' 
 backs, and the tents rose as if by magic from the sandy 
 grass, flecked here and there with tiny jonquils: a sky of 
 flowery stars spread or reflected on the ground. 
 
 The evening call to prayer, which Mahomet must have 
 perpetuated, for it could not have sprung into his brain 
 unaided, being in itself a necessary action after the daily 
 battle with the sun, rang out, and for a moment all the 
 camp was prostrate, thanking some god or other for the 
 evening breeze. 
 
 Slowly King Nicanor got off his horse, and a black slave 
 tied it up to the rope of camel's hair which, stretched be- 
 
2i8 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 tween two stakes, was set before his tent. Its lofty saddle 
 stood up like an island outlined against the deep blue clouds, 
 for nothing broke the horizon to the south but the tents 
 and the feeding animals. As Nicanor sat on a saddle-cloth 
 before his tent thinking upon the wondrous star of which 
 the shepherds had brought tidings, and inwardly determin- 
 ing to push on at the first light of day to catch up his com- 
 panions, three or four figures came out of the palm grove, 
 and dragging themselves slowly across the sand and grass, 
 stood in a row before him and pointed upwards to the sky 
 with a mute gesture of despair. Famine had wasted them 
 almost beyond the semblance of mankind. Their sunken 
 stomachs and protruding ribs made them look something 
 like a fossil fish embedded in the coal-measures, whilst their 
 thin arms and legs hardly sustained their feet and hands, 
 which looked enormous in comparison to their shrunk, 
 wasted limbs. Save for a wisp of dirty cotton rags about 
 their loins they were as naked as a skeleton, and their 
 parched tongues were rough and horny, like a parrot's! 
 within their parchment-looking mouths. 
 
 The Magus gazed at them fascinated, and in a moment 
 the wondrous star and the new prophet to be born into the 
 world were both forgotten in the horror of the scene. As 
 he stood petrified, from every side, from hollows scooped 
 out of the sand, from tufts of thorny shrubs, thin tottering 
 figures rose and staggered to his tent. Women held chil- 
 dren by the hand, and miserable boys supported aged men, 
 whilst an old crone crawled on her hands and knees close to 
 his feet, and then, raising herself a little, pointed a skinny 
 finger to the sky. None of them spoke, but the mute 
 glance of their beseeching eyes struck horror to his soul. 
 When he could speak he called for bread, and with his 
 men cut it in slices, then moistening it in water passed it 
 along the ranks. It vanished as by magic, but still the 
 line grew longer, and in the moonlight the famine-stricken 
 people looked like a troop of wolves that had surrounded 
 some belated traveller on the plain. Some of the people 
 snatched the barley from the horses and the mules as they 
 stood feeding, whilst others struggled for the crumbs, 
 
THE FOURTH MAGUS 219 
 
 fighting like starving dogs. King Nicanor called to 
 his men and sent back two of them to bring a mule 
 laden with bread from town, as the throng seemed to grow 
 as if the people sprang up from the sand. The mule-load 
 disappeared almost as quickly as if it had been thrown into 
 the sea. Night waned and the first flush of dawn still 
 found the Magus and his camp besieged with famine-strick- 
 en folk. Several days passed, and then the starvelings, 
 having eaten, vanished as speedily as they had come, leav- 
 ing no trace of their appearance except upon the Wise 
 Man's soul. Then, after resting for a day, he once more 
 set out on his way. The sun was rising as he struck his 
 camp, and as he started once again towards the west his 
 thoughts reverted to the birth of the great prophet, the 
 wondrous star, and to his friends, whom he supposed would 
 now be almost at their journey's end. 
 
 He caught himself at times almost regretting the delay 
 the. starving folk had brought about, and then again thought 
 that if the prophet to be born had come to heal the sor- 
 rows of the world, to clothe the naked, heal the sick, and 
 feed the hungry, that at least he had tried humbly to do 
 likewise, though not himself inspired; and that there still 
 was left good work to do on earth during the childhood 
 of the great one, whose birth he hoped to see. 
 
 So he rode on, finding upon his path here a blind man 
 and there some wayfarer sitting dejectedly beside his dy- 
 ing horse. Each case delayed him, and when he reached 
 a town his fame had gone before him, and halt and sick, 
 those who had had their eyes burned out for theft, and others 
 who had lost a hand or foot, lopped off to show that justice 
 was as deaf to pity as she is blind to facts, swarmed round 
 him and implored his alms. 
 
 Sometimes when passing a lone duar on the plains, just 
 at the saint's house, with its tuft of feathery palms, some 
 wretch would sally forth and, rushing to his side, clutch 
 fast his stirrup, exclaiming, "I take refuge with you," and 
 he would stop and look into his case. 
 
 Still, though he knew the prophet must by this time be 
 a youth and growing to a man, when he escaped from the 
 
220 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 accumulating cares his pilgrimage had brought upon him 
 he pressed on towards the west. Across the heated plains 
 at times he toiled, mocked by the mirage, and with the 
 heat reflected from some stony tract burning his face, and 
 sometimes through some mountain pass where the frost 
 froze his stirrups to his boots, he kept upon his way, just 
 as men labour towards a goal they know it is impossible 
 to reach, unconscious that they carry it within themselves 
 from the first day on which they had set out. 
 
 Years passed, and not an animal which he had brought 
 from Babylon remained alive, some having died upon the 
 road, and others of old age, in the long halts he made in 
 cities where some injustice or another had detained him 
 on his way. Still, as he lingered, endeavouring to do good, 
 news reached him now and then about the doings of the 
 prophet whose birth he once had hoped to see, and when 
 he got the news a sort of fever would come over him, 
 making him long to see him ere he died. 
 
 The flight of time had not left Nicanor unaltered, and 
 from the sleek and prosperous king who had left Babylon 
 so many years ago, young, careless, and with hope spring- 
 ing in his heart, he had become a weather-beaten man, 
 grizzled and careworn, and in his eyes had come that look 
 of watchfulness that comes to those who pass their lives 
 upon the road. 
 
 The horse he rode, a darkish bay of the Keheilan breed, 
 he had received from an old Bedouin chief near Baalbec, 
 whose son he nursed when stricken with the plague. No 
 other horse throughout Irak could be compared with it, 
 either for shape or blood. His full round eyes, and ears 
 lean as a lynx's, his round and flinty feet, broad forehead, 
 silky mane, and tail he carried like a flag, with the sunk 
 channel running down his spine, which, as the Arabs say, 
 could carry off the dew, showed him an archetype of the 
 breed which alone amongst all the horses of the world is 
 truly noble and fit for kings to ride. Years had fallen 
 lightly on King Nicanor himself, leaving him upright, though 
 they had flecked his hair with grey upon the temples, and 
 given him that gravity which many Orientals seem to 
 
THE FOURTH MAGUS 221 
 
 acquire in middle life, as it were, by an effort of the 
 mind. Most of his followers had returned home or died, 
 except a man or two who, by long converse with their 
 master, had imbibed some of his ideas, or else found life 
 upon the road too pleasant to desert and dwell again in 
 the dull round of cities, seeing the sun rise from behind the 
 selfsame mountain range and sink into the plain, at eve- 
 ning, leaving no sign to mark its passage through the sky, 
 just as a stone sinks out of sight into a pond. 
 
 Now and again strange rumours reached the wandering 
 Magus of what was going on in the far country he had left 
 home to visit, and how the prophet who had come had 
 gathered to himself a rout of fishermen, of outcasts, publi- 
 cans, and women, who, it appeared, all followed him about, 
 striving to found no kingdom, but listening to his words 
 in desert places and on the tops of hills. Much did he 
 ponder on the tidings, thinking at first the prophet must 
 be mad, and then, as he thought more upon the case, see- 
 ing a half-resemblance to his own way of life, that is, of 
 course, with that due difference of their respective stand- 
 ings in the world, taken into account. 
 
 At last, for even in the East all things draw to an end, 
 he found himself close to Jerusalem. Halting upon a hill 
 which overlooked the town, he pitched his camp near to a 
 well, close to which grew a grove of olive trees. As he 
 sat, after so many years, gazing down on the city where 
 he had heard the prophet lived, whose wondrous birth, 
 heralded by the bright star, had induced him in his early 
 manhood to set forth from Babylon, he looked back on 
 his life. The city lay beneath him, bathed in the golden 
 haze that in the East hides mouldering palaces and tottering 
 weed-grown walls into whose chinks dart lizards in their 
 play, blots out the dirt and squalor and gilds the broken 
 potsherds on the great dunghills by the gates, setting all 
 floating in a sea of glory, above whose waters float the 
 feathery palms. 
 
 After the custom, which in his case was now well sanc- 
 tified by time, the camp of the Wise Man for now at last, 
 being in Jerusalem, he was a Wise Man of the East was 
 
222 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 overrun by beggars, halt and blind. From them he learned 
 that on the morrow the Romans, who had become the mas- 
 ters of the place since he set out upon his travels from the 
 East, were going to execute two thieves, and one who, as 
 they said, was to be put to death for having called himself 
 a king. 
 
 After the beggars had been supplied with bread, a wan- 
 dering fakir came to the camp, and sitting down before the 
 tent entered into one of those long conversations which in 
 the East supply the place of newspapers, filling exactly the 
 same use even to the extent of tinging all the news with 
 the narrator's sympathies, just as a newspaper is but the 
 mirror of the mind of those who write in it. 
 
 Long did the dervish talk about the state of Palestine, 
 the price of bread and barley, the raids the tribes had made 
 on one another's herds, and lastly, of the execution which 
 was going to be held. 
 
 The thieves he touched on lightly, saying they both were 
 sons of mothers who had never yet said no. He thought 
 the name of one of them was Dimas, the other Gestas, but 
 was not sure of their identity. Of the third sufferer, the 
 one who had been called a king, he had more details, and 
 remarked, by the sun's light, he is a man. 
 
 Little by little he unfolded all he knew about the man 
 who was to pay the penalty of being called a king. It 
 seemed that prodigies had happened at his birth. A star 
 had heralded it, and three Wise Men had come out of the 
 East . . . wisdom is in the East, the stranger said, with 
 the air of one who enunciates a fact that none can contro- 
 vert. King Nicanor, who all the time had listened patiently, 
 broke in upon the tale, exclaiming: "These Wise Men, I 
 know them well, their names are Caspar, Melchior, and 
 Balthasar. They are my kinsmen; are they still in the 
 town?" 
 
 The dervish looked at him, as people look upon a man 
 who, without rhyme or reason, suddenly has a lapse of mem- 
 ory, and answered: "In the town! . . . Why, they were 
 here, as I heard tell, some three-and- thirty years ago, and 
 only stayed a night." 
 
THE FOURTH MAGUS 223 
 
 Drawing his hand across his eyes the Magus muttered: 
 "Three-and-thirty years ago it seems but yesterday when 
 I set out. This prophet then of whom you speak, who dies 
 to-morrow, is the wondrous babe of whom the shepherds 
 told of yesterday that is, three-and- thirty years ago; but 
 he was to redress men's wrongs, lift up the down-trodden, 
 to heal the halt, make the blind see, fight the oppressor, and 
 be a shield unto the weak.. Can it be then that in Jerusalem 
 they execute a man for striving for such ends?" 
 
 If the fakir had thought the speaker mad at first, he now 
 looked on him as a lunatic. 
 
 "Where have you lived," he said, "and do not know that 
 such a man since the beginning of the world can have but 
 such a fate?" 
 
 King Nicanor, after a pause, said: "I have lived, as I 
 now see, upon the road, never remaining very long in any 
 place; but I remember now and then it has amazed me, 
 that when I fed the hungry, as you say this man who is to 
 die has done, that many hated me, saying I did it all for 
 the love of praise." 
 
 Hours came and hours passed as they sat talking, and by 
 degrees King Nicanor heard all the prophet's life, his love 
 of liberty, his truth, his justice, charity, and how the peo- 
 ple loved him, especially the lowly and the meek, and of the 
 special charm he had for women, the sweetness of his nature, 
 and how no one who ever heard him but fell beneath his 
 spell. 
 
 At last, as dawn began to creep into the sky with a pale 
 milky whiteness that gradually extended through the deep, 
 blue eastern night, just as a drop or two of mastic tinges 
 the water in a glass, King Nicanor rose to his feet and said : 
 "It is now time to rest. Fate has deprived me of the joy 
 of being present at the birth of him the star announced; I 
 can at least be present at his death . . . and birth and 
 death are not so very different, after all." 
 
 Fate, though, that mocks our resolutions, making us but 
 the creatures of itself, had almost made him miss the chance, 
 for in the morning he found his camp besieged with a great 
 horde of beggars and of folk who had heard that one who, 
 
224 THE GREAT MODERN, ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 some said, was a fool and others a Wise Man, but who in 
 any case gave bread away to all who asked for it, had come 
 into the town. 
 
 All day he sat and gave his alms and listened to their 
 plaints, until the seventh hour or the eighth, and then 
 mounting his horse, rode up to Golgotha. Darkness was 
 spread upon the land as he toiled up the rocky path, making 
 his way with difficulty through the press. 
 
 Right at the top, in the half-light he saw three figures set 
 on high. Two of them hung inert; the third just stirred and 
 asked for drink, and Nicanor observed that his long hair 
 hung down upon one side and half obscured his face. 
 
 Just at that moment a young man came running with a 
 sponge of vinegar upon a reed, and, holding it up to the 
 middle figure, pushed it into his mouth. He drank, and after 
 a long shiver had run through his body, he gave a cry so 
 wild and terrible that the dark bay Kehlani that, the king 
 rode reared up and snorted, pawing the air with his fore feet, 
 and as he struck the ground King Nicanor saw that the mid- 
 dle figure hung limp upon the cross. 
 
THE GHOST-SHIP 1 
 
 BY RICHARD MIDDLETON 
 
 F AIRFIELD is a little village lying near the Portsmouth 
 Road, about half-way between London and the sea. 
 Strangers who now and then find it by accident, call it 
 a pretty, old-fashioned place; we who live in it and call it 
 home don't find anything very pretty about it, but we should 
 be sorry to live anywhere else. Our minds have taken the 
 shape of the inn and the church and the green, I suppose. 
 At all events, we never feel comfortable out of Fairfield. 
 
 Of course the cocknej^s, with their vasty houses and noise- 
 ridden streets, can call us rustics if they choose; but for 
 all that, Fairfield is a better place to live in than London. 
 Doctor says that when he goes to London his mind is bruised 
 with the weight of the houses, and he was a cockney born. 
 He had to live there himself when he was a little chap, but 
 he knows better now. You gentlemen may laugh, per- 
 haps some of you come from London-way but it seems 
 to me that a witness like that is worth a gallon of argu- 
 ments. 
 
 Dull? Well, you might find it dull, but I assure you that 
 I've listened to all the London yarns you have spun to- 
 night, and they're absolutely nothing to the things that hap- 
 pen at Fairfield. It's because of our way of thinking, and 
 minding our own business. If one of your Londoners was set 
 down on the green of a Saturday night when the ghosts 
 of the lads who died in the war keep tryst with the lasses 
 who lie in the churchyard, he couldn't help being curious and 
 
 1 This story is reprinted by permission of Mitchell Kennerley, 
 the authorised publisher in America of Richard Middleton's 
 books. It is taken from the volume, "The Ghost Ship and Other 
 Stories." 
 
 225 
 
226 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 interfering, and then the ghosts would go somewhere where 
 it was quieter. But we just let them come and go and don't 
 make any fuss, and in consequence Fairneld is ths ghosti- 
 est place in all England. Why, I've seen a headless man 
 sitting on the edge of the well in broad daylight, and the 
 children playing about his feet as if he were their father. 
 Take my word for it, spirits know when they are well off as 
 much as human beings. 
 
 Still, I must admit that the thing I'm going to tell you 
 about was queer even for our part of the world, where three 
 packs of ghost-hounds hunt regularly during the season, and 
 blacksmith's great-grandfather is busy all night shoeing the 
 dead gentlemen's horses. Now that's a thing that wouldn't 
 happen in London, because of their interfering ways; but 
 blacksmith he lies up aloft and sleeps as quiet as a lamb. 
 Once when he had a bad head he shouted down to them not 
 to make so much noise, and in the morning he found an old 
 guinea left on the anvil as an apology. He wears it on his 
 watch-chain now. But I must get on with my story; if I 
 start telling you about the queer happenings at Fairneld 
 I'll never stop. 
 
 It all came of the great storm in the spring of '97, the 
 year that we had two great storms. This was the first one, 
 and I remember it well, because I found in the morning 
 that it had lifted the thatch of my pigsty into the widow's 
 garden as clean as a boy's kite. When I looked over the 
 hedge, widow Tom Lamport's widow that was was prod- 
 ding for her nasturtiums with a daisy-grubber. After I had 
 watched her for a little I went down to the Fox and Grapes 
 to tell landlord what she had said to me. Landlord he 
 laughed, being a married man and at ease with the sex. 
 "Come to that," he said, "the tempest has blowed something 
 into my field. A kind of a ship I think it would be." 
 
 I was surprised at that until he explained that it was only 
 a ghost-ship, and would do no hurt to the turnips. We ar- 
 gued that it had been blown up from the sea at Portsmouth, 
 and then we talked of something else. There were two 
 slates down at the parsonage and a big tree in Lumley's 
 meadow. It was a rare storing 
 
 *. ., . 
 
THE GHOST-SHIP 227 
 
 I reckon the wind had blown our ghosts all over England. 
 They were coming back for days afterward with foundered 
 horses, and as footsore as possible, and they were so glad to 
 get back to Fairfield that some of them walked up the 
 street ciying like little children. Squire said that his great- 
 grandfather's great-grandfather hadn't looked so dead-beat 
 since the battle of Naseby, and he's an educated man. 
 
 What with one thing and another, I should think it was a 
 week before we got straight again, and then one afternoon 
 I met the landlord on the green, and he had a worried face. 
 "I wish you'd come and have a look at that ship in my 
 field," he said to me. "It seems to me it's leaning real hard 
 on the turnips. I can't bear thinking what the missus will 
 say when she sees it." 
 
 I walked down the lane with him, and, sure enough, there 
 was a ship in the middle of his field, but such a ship as 
 no man had seen on the water for three hundred years, let 
 alone in the middle of a turnip-field. It was all painted 
 black, and covered with carvings, and there was a great bay- 
 window in the stern, for all the world like the squire's draw- 
 ing-room. There was a crowd of little black cannon on 
 deck and looking out of her port-holes, and she was an- 
 chored at each end to the hard ground. I have seen the 
 wonders of the world on picture post-cards, but I have never 
 seen anything to equal that. 
 
 "She seems very solid for a ghost-ship," I said, seeing that 
 landlord was bothered. 
 
 "I should say it's a betwixt and between," he answered, 
 puzzling it over; "but it's going to spoil a matter of fifty 
 turnips, and missus she'll want it moved." We went up to 
 her and touched the side, and it was as hard as a real 
 ship. "Now, there's folks in England would call that very 
 curious," he said. 
 
 Now, I don't know much about ships, but I should think' 
 that that ghost-ship weighed a solid two hundred tons, and 
 it seemed to me that she had come to stay; so that I felt 
 sorry for the landlord, who was a married man. "All the 
 horses in Fairfield won't move her out of my turnips," he 
 said, frowning at her. 
 
228 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 Just then we heard a noise on her deck, and we looked up 
 and saw that a man had come out of her front cabin and 
 was looking down at us very peaceably. He was dressed in 
 a black uniform set off with rusty gold lace, and he had 
 a great cutlass by his side in a brass sheath. "I'm Captain 
 Bartholomew Roberts," he said in a gentleman's voice, put 
 in for recruits. "I seem to have brought her rather far up 
 the harbour." 
 
 "Harbour 1 " cried landlord. "Why, you're fifty miles from 
 the sea." 
 
 Captain Roberts didn't turn a hair. "So much as that, is 
 it?" he said coolly. "Well, it's of no consequence." 
 
 Landlord was a bit upset at this. "I don't want to be 
 unneighbourly," he said, "but I wish you hadn't brought 
 your ship into my field. You see, my wife sets great store 
 on these turnips." 
 
 The captain took a pinch of snuff out of a fine gold box 
 that he pulled out of his pocket, and dusted his fingers with 
 a silk handkerchief in a very genteel fashion. "I'm only here 
 for a few months," he said, "but if a testimony of my esteem 
 would pacify your good lady, I should be content," and with 
 the words he loosed a great gold brooch from the neck of 
 his coat and tossed it down to landlord. 
 
 Landlord blushed as red as a strawberry. "I'm not de- 
 nying she's fond of jewelry," he said; "but it's too much 
 for half a sackful of turnips." Indeed, it was a handsome 
 brooch. 
 
 The captain laughed. "Tut, man! " he said, "it's a forced 
 sale, and you deserve a good price. Say no more about it," 
 and nodding good day to us, he turned on his heel and went 
 into the cabin. Landlord walked back up the lane like a 
 man with a weight off his mind. "That tempest has blowed 
 me a bit of luck," he said; "the missus will be main pleased 
 with that brooch. It's better than blacksmith's guinea any 
 day." 
 
 '97 was Jubilee year the year of the second Jubi- 
 lee, you remember, and we had great doings at Fair- 
 field, so that we hadn't much time to bother about the 
 ghost-ship, though, anyhow, it isn't our way to meddle in 
 
THE GHOST-SHIP 229 
 
 things that don't concern us. Landlord he saw his tenant 
 once or twice when he was hoeing his turnips, and passed the 
 time of day, and landlord's wife wore her new brooch to 
 church every Sunday. But we didn't mix much with the 
 ghosts at any time, all except an idiot lad there was in the 
 village, and he didn't know the difference between a man 
 and a ghost, poor innocen ; ! On Jubilee day, however, some- 
 body told Captain Roberts why the church bells were ring- 
 ing, and he hoisted a flag and fired off his guns like a loyal 
 Englishman. 'Tis true the guns were shotted, and one of 
 the round shot knocked a hole in Farmer Johnstone's bam, 
 but nobody thought much of that in such a season of re- 
 joicing. 
 
 It wasn't till our celebrations were over that we noticed 
 that anything was wrong in Fairfield. 'Twas shoemaker 
 who told me first about it one morning at the Fox and 
 Grapes. "You know my great-great-uncle?" he said to me. 
 
 "You mean Joshua, the quiet lad?" I answered, knowing 
 him well. 
 
 "Quiet!" said shoemaker, indignantly. "Quiet you call 
 him, coming home at three o'clock every morning as drunk 
 as a magistrate and waking up the whole house With his 
 noise!" 
 
 "Why, it can't be Joshua," I said, for I knew him for one 
 of the most respectable young ghosts in the village. 
 
 "Joshua it is," said the shoemaker; "and one of these 
 nights he'll find himself out in the street if he isn't care- 
 ful." 
 
 This kind of talk shocked me, I can tell you, for I don't 
 like to hear a man abusing his own family, and I could 
 hardly believe that a steady youngster like Joshua had taken 
 to drink. But just then in came butcher Aylwin in such a 
 temper that he could hardly drink his beer. "The young 
 puppy! the young puppy!" ne kept on saying, and it was 
 some time before shoemaker and I found out that he was 
 talking about his ancestor that fell at Senlac. 
 
 "Drink?" said the shoemaker, hopefully, for we all like 
 company in our misfortune, and butcher nodded grimly. 
 "The young noodle!" he said, emptying his tankard. 
 
230 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 Well, after that I kept my ears open, and it was the same 
 story all over the village. There was hardly a young man 
 among all the ghosts of Fairfield who didn't roll home in the 
 small hours of the morning the worse for liquor. I used 
 to wake up in the night and heaiLthem stumble past my 
 house singing outrageous songs. |The worst of it was that 
 we couldn't keep the scandal to ourselves, and the folk at 
 Greenhill began to talk of "sodden Fairfield" and taught 
 their children to sing a song about us: 
 
 Sodden Fairfield, sodden Fairfield, 
 Has no use for bread and butter, 
 
 Rum for breakfast, rum for dinner, , 
 Rum for tea, and rum for supper ! \ 
 
 We are easy-going in our village, but we didn't like that.\ 
 
 Of course we soon found out where the young fellows went 
 to get the drink, and landlord was terribly cut up that his 
 tenant should have turned out so badly; but his wife 
 wouldn't hear of parting with the brooch, so he couldn't give 
 the captain notice to quit. But as time went on, things 
 grew from bad to worse, and at all hours of the day you 
 would see those young reprobates sleeping it off on the vil- 
 lage green. Nearly every afternoon a ghost-wagon used to 
 jolt down to the ship with a lading of rum, and though the 
 older ghosts seemed inclined to give the captain's hospitality 
 the go-by, the youngsters were neither to hold nor to 
 bind. 
 
 So one afternoon when I was taking my nap, I heard a 
 knock at the door, and there was parson, looking very seri- 
 ous, like a man with a job before him that he didn't alto- 
 gether relish. 
 
 "I'm going down to talk to th captain about all this 
 drunkenness in the village, and I want you to come with 
 me," he said straight out. 
 
 I can't say that I fancied the visit much myself, and I 
 tried to hint to parson that as, after all, they were only a 
 lot of ghosts, it didn't much matter. 
 
 "Dead or alive, I'm responsible for their good conduct," 
 he said, "and I'm going to do my duty and put a stop to 
 
THE GHOST-SHIP 231 
 
 this continued disorder. And you are coming with me, John 
 Simmons." 
 
 So I went, parson being a persuasive kind of man. 
 
 We went down to the ship, and as we approached her, I 
 could see the captain tasting the air on deck. When he saw 
 parson he took off his hat very politely, and I can tell you 
 that I was relieved to find that he had a proper respect for 
 the cloth. Parson acknowledged his salute, and spoke out 
 stoutly enough. 
 
 "Sir, I should be glad to have a word with you." 
 
 "Come on board, sir, come on board," said the captain, 
 and I could tell by his voice that he knew why we were 
 there. 
 
 Parson and I climbed up an uneasy kind of ladder, and 
 the captain took us into the great cabin at the back of the 
 ship, where the bay-window was. It was the most won- 
 derful place you ever saw in your life, all full of gold and 
 silver plate, swords with jewelled scabbards, carved oak 
 chairs, and great chests that looked as though they were 
 bursting with guineas. Even parson was surprised, and he 
 did not shake his head very hard when captain took down 
 some silver cups and poured us out a drink of rum. I tasted 
 mine, and I don't mind saying that it changed my view of 
 things entirely. There was nothing betwixt and between 
 about that rum, and I felt that it was ridiculous to blame 
 the lads for drinking too much of stuff like that. It seemed 
 to fill my veins with honey and fire. 
 
 Parson put the case squarely to the captain, but I didn't 
 listen much to what he said. I was busy sipping my drink 1 
 and looking through the window at the fishes swimming to 
 and fro over landlord's turnips: Just then it seemed the 
 most natural thing in the world that they should be there, 
 though afterward, of course, I could see that that proved 
 it was a ghost-ship. 
 
 But even then I thought it was queer when I saw a 
 drowned sailor float by in the thin air, with his hair and 
 beard all full of bubbles. It was the first time I had seen 
 anything quite like that at Fairfield. 
 
 All the time I was regarding the wonders of the deep, par- 
 
232 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 son was telling Captain Roberts how there was no peace or 
 rest in the village owing to the curse of drunkenness, and 
 what a bad example the youngsters were setting to the older 
 ghosts. The captain listened very attentively, and put in a 
 word only now and then about boys being boys and young 
 men sowing their wild oats. But when parson had finished 
 his speech, he filled up our silver cups and said to parson 
 with a flourish: 
 
 "I should be sorry to cause trouble anywhere where I 
 have been made welcome, and you will be glad to hear that 
 I put to sea to-morrow night. And now you must drink me 
 a prosperous voyage." 
 
 So we all stood up and drank the toast with honor, and 
 that noble rum was like hot oil in my veins. 
 
 After that, captain showed us some of the curiosities he 
 had brought back from foreign parts, and we were greatly 
 amazed, though afterward I couldn't clearly remember what 
 they were. And then I found myself walking across the 
 turnips with parson, and I was telling him of the glories 
 of the deep that I had seen through the window of the 
 ship. He turned on me severely. 
 
 "If I were you, John Simmons," he said, "I should go 
 straight home to bed." He has a way of putting things that 
 wouldn't occur to an ordinary man, has parson, and I did 
 as he told me. 
 
 Well, next day it came on to blow, and it blew harder, 
 and harder till about eight o'clock at night I heard a noise 
 and looked out into the garden. I dare say you wouldn't 
 believe me, it seems a bit tall even to me, but the wind 
 had lifted the thatch of my pigsty into the widow's garden a 
 second time. I thought I wouldn't wait to hear what widow 
 had to say about it, so I went across the green to the Fox 
 and Grapes, and the wind was so strong that I danced along 
 on tiptoe like a girl at the fair. When I got to the inn, land- 
 lord had to help me shut the door. It seemed as though a 
 dozen goats were pushing against it to come in out of the 
 storm. 
 
 "It's a powerful tempest," he said, drawing the beer. 
 "I hear there's a chimney down at Dickory End." 
 
THE GHOST-SHIP 233 
 
 "It's a funny thing how these sailors know about the 
 weather," I answered. "When the captain said he was go- 
 ing to-night, I was thinking it would take a capful of wind 
 to carry the ship back to sea; and now here's more than a 
 capful." 
 
 "Ah, yes," said landlord; "it's to-night he goes true 
 enough, and mind you, though he treated me handsome over 
 the rent, I'm not sure it's a loss to the village. I don't hold 
 with gentrice who fetch their drink from London instead of 
 helping local traders to get their living." 
 
 "But you haven't got any rum like his," I said, to draw 
 him out. 
 
 His neck grew red above his collar, and I was afraid I'd 
 gone too far; but after a while he got his breath with a grunt. 
 "John Simmons," he said, "if you've come down here this 
 windy night to talk a lot of fool's talk, you've wasted a 
 journey." 
 
 Well, of course, then I had to smooth him down with 
 praising his rum, and Heaven forgive me for swearing it 
 was better than captain's. For the like of that rum no liv- 
 ing lips have tasted save mine and parson's. But some- 
 how or other I brought landlord round, and presently we 
 must have a glass of his best to prove its quality. 
 
 "Beat that if you can," he cried, and we both raised our 
 glasses to our mouths, only to stop half-way and look at 
 each other in amaze. For the wind that had been howling 
 outside like an outrageous dog had all of a sudden turned 
 as melodious as the carol-boys of a Christmas eve. 
 
 "Surely that's not my Martha," whispered landlord, 
 Martha being his great-aunt, who lived in the loft over- 
 head. 
 
 We went to the door, and the wind burst it open so that 
 the handle was driven clean into the plaster wall, but we 
 didn't think about that at the time; for over our heads, 
 sailing very comfortably through the windy stars, was the 
 ship that had passed the summer in landlord's field. Her 
 port-holes and her bay-window were blazing with lights, and 
 there was a noise of singing and fiddling on her decks. "He's 
 gone!" shouted landlord above the storm, "and he's taken 
 
234 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 half the village with him." I could only nod in answer, 
 not having lungs like bellows of leather. 
 
 In the morning we were able to measure the strength of 
 the storm, and over and above my pigsty, there was damage 
 enough wrought in the village to keep us busy. True it was 
 that the children had to break down no branches for the 
 firing that autumn, since the wind had strewn the woods 
 with more than they could carry away. Many of our ghosts 
 were scattered abroad, but this time very few came back, 
 all the young men having sailed with captain jQnd not only 
 ghosts, for a poor half-witted lad was missing, and we reck- 
 oned that he had stowed himself away or perhaps shipped as 
 cabin-boy, net knowing any better. 
 
 What with the lamentations~of the ghost girls and the 
 grumblings of families who had lost ancestors, the village 
 was upset for awhile, and the funny thing was that it was 
 the folk who had complained most of the carryings-on of the 
 youngsters who made most noise now that they were gone. 
 I hadn't any sympathy with shoemaker or butcher, who 
 ran about saying how much they missed their lads, but it 
 made me grieve to hear the poor bereaved girls calling their 
 lovers by name on the village green at nightfall. It didn't 
 seem fair to me that they should have lost their men a sec- 
 ond time, after giving up life in order to join them, as like as 
 not. Still, not even a spirit can be sorry for ever, and after 
 a few months we made up our mind that the folk who had 
 sailed in the ship were never coming back; and we didn't 
 talk about it any more. 
 
 And then one day, I dare say it would be a couple of 
 years after, when the whole business was quite forgotten, 
 who should come trapesing along the road from Portsmouth 
 but the daft lad who had gone away with the ship without 
 waiting till he was dead to become a ghost. You never saw 
 such a boy as that in all your life. He had ?. great rusty 
 cutlass hanging to a string at his waist, and he was tattooed 
 all over in- fine colours, so that even his free looked like a 
 girl's samnler. He had a handkerchief in his hand full of 
 foreign shells and old-fashioned pieces of ?mall money, very 
 curious, and he walked up to the well outside his mother's 
 
THE GHOST-SHIP 235 
 
 house and drew himself a drink as if he had been nowhere 
 in particular. 
 
 The worst of it was that he had come back as soft-headed 
 as he went, and try as we might, we couldn't get anything 
 reasonable out of him. He talked a lot of gibberish about 
 keelhauling and walking the plank and crimson murders 
 things which a decent lad should know nothing about, so 
 that it seemed to me that for all his manners captain had 
 been more of a pirate than a gentleman mariner. But to 
 draw sense out of that boy was as hard as picking cherries 
 off a crab-tree. One silly tale he had that he kept on drift- 
 ing back to, and to hear him you would have thought that 
 it was the only thing that happened to him in his life. 
 
 "We was at anchor," he would say, "off an island called 
 the Basket of Flowers, and the sailors caught a lot of par- 
 rots, and we were teaching them to swear. Up and down 
 the decks, up and down the decks, and the language they 
 used was dreadful. Then we looked up and saw the masts 
 of the Spanish ship outside the harbour. Outside the har- 
 bour they were, so we threw the parrots in the sea, and 
 sailed out to fight. And all the parrots were drowneded in 
 the sea, and the language they used was dreadful." 
 
 That's the sort of a boy he was nothing but silly talk of 
 parrots when we asked him about* the fighting. And we ; 
 never had a chance of teaching him better, for two days 
 after he ran away again, and hasn't been seen since. 
 
 That's my story, and I assure you that things like that 
 are happening at Fairfield all the time. The ship has never 
 come back, but somehow, as people grow older, they seem 
 to think that one of these windy nights she'll come sailing 
 in over the hedges with all the lost ghosts on board. Well, 
 when she comes, she'll be welcome. There's one ghost lass 
 that has never grown tired of waiting for her lad to return. 
 Every night you'll see her out on the green, straining her 
 poor eyes with looking for the mast-lights among the stars. 
 A faithful lass you'd call her and I'm thinking you'd be right. 
 
 Landlord's field wasn't a penny the worse for the visit; 
 but they do say that since then the turnips that have been 
 grown in it have tasted of rum. 
 
BUSINESS IS BUSINESS 
 
 BY "JOHN TREVENA" 
 
 TAVY river rises on Cranmere, flows down Tavy Cleave, 
 divides the parish of Mary Tavy from that of Peter 
 Tavy, passes Tavy Mount, and leaves Dartmoor at 
 Tavystock, or Tavistock as it is now spelt. Each Dartmoor 
 river confers its name, or a portion of it, upon certain* 
 features of its own district. The Okements meet at Oke- 
 hampton, and one of them has Oke Tor, which has been 
 corrupted into Ock and even Hock. Even the tiny Lyd has 
 its Lydford. Each river has also it particular characteristic. 
 The East Okement is the river of ferns, the Teign the river 
 of woods, the Taw the river of noise, the Dart the river of 
 silence, and the Tavy is the river of rocks. Tavy Cleave, 
 from the top of Ger Tor, presents a grand and solemn spec- 
 tacle of rock masses piled one upon the other; it is a valley 
 of rocks, relieved only by the foaming little river. 
 
 Mary Tavy is a straggling village of unredeemed ugliness, 
 wild and bare. It lies exposed on the side of the moor and is 
 swept by every wind, for not a bush or even a bramble will 
 be found upon the rounded hills adjoining. Once the place 
 was a mining centre of some importance. The black moor 
 has been torn into pits and covered with mounds by the tin- 
 streamers in early days, and more recently by the copper- 
 miners. All around Mary Tavy appear the dismal ruins of 
 these mines, or wheals as they are called. Peter Tavy, across 
 the river, is not so dreary, but is equally exposed. This 
 region during the winter is one of the most inhospitable 
 spots to be found in England. 
 
 In Peter Tavy there lived, until quite recently, an elderly 
 man, who might have posed as the most incompetent 
 creature in the West Country. It is hardly necessary to say 
 
 236 
 
BUSINESS IS BUSINESS 237 
 
 he did not do so; on the contrary, he posed as a many- 
 sided genius. He occupied a hideous little tin house, which 
 would have been condemned at a glance in those parts of 
 the country where building by-laws are in existence. At 
 one time and another he had borrowed the dregs of paint- 
 pots, and had endeavoured to decorate the exterior. As a 
 result, one portion was black, another white, and another 
 blue. Over the door a board appeared setting forth the 
 accomplishments of Peter Tavy, as he may here be called. 
 According to his own showing he was a clock-maker; he 
 was a photographer; he was a Dartmoor guide; he was a 
 dealer in antiquities ; he was a Reeve attached to the Manor 
 of Lydford ; and he was a purveyor of manure. This board 
 was in its way a masterpiece of fiction. Once upon a time 
 a resident, anxious to put Peter's powers to the test, sent 
 him an old kitchen-clock to repair. He examined it, and 
 gave it as his opinion that the undertaking would require 
 time. When a year had passed the owner of the clock re- 
 quested Peter to report progress. He replied that the work 
 was getting on, but " 'Twas a slow business and 'twould take 
 another six months to make a job of it." At the end of that 
 period the clock was removed, almost by force, and it was 
 then discovered that Peter had sold most of the interior 
 mechanism to a singularly innocent tourist as Druidical re- 
 mains unearthed by him in one of the shafts of Wheal Betsy. 
 
 As a photographer he carried his impudence still further. 
 Some one had given him an old camera and a few plates. 
 He began at once to inveigle visitors chiefly elderly ladies, 
 "half-dafty maidens" he impolitely called them down 
 Tavy Cleave, where he would pose them on rocks and pre- 
 tend to photograph them with plates which had already been 
 exposed more than once. "If I doan't get a picture first 
 time, I goes on till I du," he explained. Once, when Peter 
 announced " 'twas a fine picture this time," a gentleman of 
 the party reminded him he had omitted to remove the cap 
 from the lens. Peter was not to be caught that way: "I 
 took 'en," he said, "I took 'en, but yew warn't looking." 
 
 As a guide upon the moor Peter was an equal failure. He 
 ought to have known Dartmoor after living upon it all his 
 
238 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 life; the truth was, he would have lost his way up on the 
 road to Tavistock had he strayed from it a moment. Visi- 
 tors, lured by the notice-board, had approached him from 
 time to time with the request to be guided to Cranmere. 
 Peter would take them along Tavy Cleave for a mile, then 
 assure them a storm was coming up and it would be neces- 
 sary to seek shelter as soon as possible, hurry them back, 
 and demand half-a-guinea in return for his services. Peter 
 had never been to Cranmere Pool, and had no idea how to 
 get there. Sometimes a party would insist upon proceeding, 
 in spite of the guide's warning, and in such cases the be- 
 wildered Peter would have to be shown the way home by 
 his victims. He would demand the half-guinea all the 
 same. 
 
 As a dealer in antiquities nothing came amiss. Broken 
 pipes, bits of crockery, old mining-tools, any rubbish rotting 
 or rusting upon the peat was gathered and classified as 
 Druidical remains. No one knew where Peter had picked 
 up the word Druidical; but it was certain he picked up 
 their supposed remains on the piece of black moor which 
 surrounded his house. Sometimes, it was said, he found a 
 tourist foolish enough to purchase a selection of this rub- 
 bish. 
 
 What he meant by describing himself as an official re- 
 ceiving pay from the Duchy of Cornwall nobody ever knew. 
 As a Reeve (another word he had picked up somewhere) of 
 the Manor of Lydford he believed himself to be intimately 
 connected with the lord of that manor, who is the Prince of 
 Wales. He knew that august personage was interested some- 
 how in three feathers. The public-house in the neighbour- 
 hood called THE PLUME OF FEATHERS had something to do 
 with it he was sure, though he had never seen "goosey's 
 feathers same as they on the sign-board." Once he thought 
 seriously of erecting three feathers above his own door, and 
 for that purpose captured a neighbour's goose and plucked 
 three large quills from one of its wings, accompanying his 
 action with the bland request, "Now bide still, goosey- 
 gander, do' ye." He could not make his three goose-quills 
 graceful and drooping, like those upon the signboard, and 
 
BUSINESS IS BUSINESS 239 
 
 that was probably why Peter refrained from doing the Lord 
 of Dartmoor the compliment of assuming his crest. 
 
 The village of Peter Tavy, like most spots upon Dart- 
 moor, has its summer visitors ; and these were sure, sooner or 
 later, to make the acquaintance of Peter Tavy the man. 
 They thought him a harmless idiot, and he reciprocated* 
 One summer a journalist came upon the moor for his health 
 and, desiring to combine business with pleasure, he wrote a 
 descriptive sketch of Peter, and this was published in due 
 course in a paper which by a curious accident reached Peter 
 himself. The man was furious. He went about the two 
 villages with the paper in his hand, his scanty hair bristling, 
 his watery eyes bulging, his mouth twisted into a very ugly 
 shape. It was a good thing the journalist had departed, for 
 just then Peter was angry and vindictive enough for any- 
 thing. Presently he met his clergyman; he made towards 
 him, held cut the paper, and, regardless of grammar, cried 
 out, "That's me." 
 
 "He does not mention you by name," said the clergy-, 
 man. 
 
 "He says the man in the iron house wi' notice-board atop. 
 He's got down the notice-board as 'tis," spluttered Peter, 
 "He says a ginger-headed man that's me; face like a rab- 
 bit well, that's me." 
 
 It was as a purveyor of manure that Peter found his level, 
 if not a living. Probably he received financial assistance 
 from his sister, who lived across the river at Mary Tavy. 
 She had been formerly a lady's maid in Torquay; after 
 more than thirty years' service her mistress had died, and 
 had bequeathed to her a modest income, and on this she 
 lived comfortably in retirement, crossing Tavy Cleave occa- 
 sionally to visit her eccentric brother. She, too, was said to 
 be eccentric, but that was only because she was fond of get- 
 ting full value for a. halfpenny. Mary Tavy was a spinster, 
 and Peter Tavy was a bachelor. On those occasions when 
 some ne'er-do-well attempted to annex Mary and her in- 
 come, the good woman's eccentricity had revealed itself very 
 strongly; and as for Peter, his own sister would remark, 
 "Women never could abide he." 
 
240 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 The Tavies always passed Christmas together. One year 
 Peter would go across and stop with Mary for three days; 
 the next, Mary would come across and stop with Peter 
 for three days. Their rule on this matter was fixed ; the visit 
 never extended beyond three days, and Peter would not have 
 dreamed of going across to Mary if it were the turn of Mary 
 to come across to him. 
 
 Peter had a little cart and a pony to draw it. How he 
 came by the pony nobody knew, but as it was never identi- 
 fied no hard questions were asked. Every year a few Dart- 
 moor ponies are missed when the drift takes place; and at 
 the same time certain individuals take to owning shaggy 
 little steeds which have no past history. When a brand has 
 ; been skilfully removed, one Dartmoor pony is very much 
 like a score of others. To drive Peter into a corner over his 
 title to the pony which pulled his shameful little cart it 
 was hardly better than a packing-case on wheels would 
 have been impossible. He had hinted that it was a present 
 from the Prince of Wales as a slight return for services faith- 
 fully rendered; and as no one else in the Tavy district was 
 in the habit of communicating with the lord of the manor, 
 his statement could not easily be refuted. 
 
 With this pony and unlicensed cart Peter would convey 
 people from time to time to the station at Mary Tavy, mak- 
 ing a charge of eighteenpence, which was not exorbitant con- 
 sidering the dangers and difficulties of the road. For con- 
 veying his sister from her home to his at Christmas he made 
 a charge of one shilling; when she expostulated, as she al- 
 ways did, and quoted the proverb "Charity begins at home," 
 Peter invariably replied with another proverb, "Business is 
 business." 
 
 Few will have forgotten the winter of 1881, when snow 
 fell for over a week, and every road was lost and every 
 cleave choked. Snow was lurking in sheltered nooks upon 
 the tops of Ger Tor and the High Willhays range as late as 
 the following May. Snow upon Dartmoor does not always 
 mean snow elsewhere. It is possible sometimes to stand 
 knee-deep upon the high moor and look down upon a stretch 
 of country without a flake upon it, and so on to the sugared 
 
BUSINESS IS BUSINESS 241 
 
 and frosted hills of Exmoor; but no part of the country 
 escaped the great fall of 1881. Every one on the moor can 
 tell of some incident in connection with that Christmas. At 
 the two Tavies they tell how Peter tried to drive Mary 
 from his village to hers, how he failed in the attempt, and 
 how both of them remained good business people to the end. 
 
 It was Mary's turn to visit Peter that year, and she ar- 
 rived upon Christmas Eve, quaintly but warmly dressed, a 
 small boy carrying her basket, which contained the articles 
 that she deemed necessary for her visit, together with a 
 bottle of spiced wine, some cream cakes, and a plum-pud- 
 ding as big as her head. The boy said a good many un- 
 complimentary things about that pudding as they climbed 
 up from the Tavy, comparing it to the Giant's Pebble higher 
 up the cleave. When Mary raised her black-mittened hand 
 and threatened him with chastisement, the urchin lifted 
 out the pudding in its cloth, set it at her feet, and told her 
 to carry it herself, as it was "enough to pinch a strong man 
 dragging thikky gurt thing up the cleave"; so Mary had to 
 finish the journey hugging the pudding like a baby. She 
 was walking to save herself sixpence. Peter had offered to 
 come for her with his pony and cart, the charge to be one 
 shilling, payable as follows sixpence when she got into the 
 cart and sixpence when she got out; but she had told him 
 that she could get a boy to carry her basket for half that 
 amount; when he protested she reminded him that business 
 was business. 
 
 A light sprinkle of snow had fallen, just enough to dust 
 over the rocks and furze-bushes; but it was very cold, the 
 clouds were low and wool-like, and there was in the air that 
 feel of snow which animals can nearly always detect, and 
 men who live on the moors can sometimes. 
 
 Peter and Mary spent the evening in simple style. Peter 
 sat on one side of the fire, Mary on the other; sometimes 
 Peter stirred to get fresh turves for the fire; sometimes Mary 
 got up to heap the little table with good cheer and place it 
 |niidway between the old-fashioned chairs. They both 
 smoked, they both took snuff, they both drank spiced wine. 
 Towards evening they talked of old times and became merry. 
 
242 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 Then they talked of old people and grew sentimental, drop- 
 ping tears into their hot wine. Peter got up and kissed 
 Mary, but Mary did not care for Peter's caresses and told 
 him so, whereupon Peter advised her to "get along home 
 then." Mary declared she would, but changed her mind 
 when she thought of the gloomy cleave and the Tavy in 
 winter flood; so they went on smoking, taking snuff, and 
 drinking spiced wine. 
 
 The next day was fine, and Peter and Mary went to 
 chapel. Mary gave her brother a penny to put into the 
 plate, but he put it into his pocket instead; he was always 
 a man of business. She also gave him a bright new florin 
 as a Christmas present. He had made her understand, 
 when the coin was safe in his possession, that he should still 
 demand a shilling for driving her home, and over that point 
 they wrangled for some time. In the evening, when Peter 
 had fallen asleep over the fire, Mary repented of her kind- 
 ness and sought to regain the florin; but Peter had it hidden 
 away safely in his boot. 
 
 When the time came for Mary to start homewards it was 
 snowing fast, and she did not like the prospect. Although 
 it was not much after three o'clock, the outlook was ex- 
 ceedingly dark; there was an unpleasant silence upon the 
 moor, and the snowflakes were larger and falling thickly. 
 But the pony was harnessed to the unsteady conveyance, 
 and Peter was waiting; before Mary could utter a word of 
 protest, he had bundled her in and they were off. 
 
 " 'Twould have paid me better to bide home," said 
 Mary. 
 
 "Do'ye sit quiet," Peter growled. Then he added, 
 "Where's the shillun?" 
 
 "There now, doan't ye worry about the shillun," said 
 Mary; "I'll give it ye when I'm safe and sound to home wi' 
 no bones broke." 
 
 "Shillun be poor pay vor driving this weather," said her 
 avaricious brother. 
 
 Now and again a light appeared from one of the cottages. 
 The pony struggled on with its head down, while the silence 
 seemed to grow more unearthly, and the darkness increased, 
 
BUSINESS IS BUSINESS 243 
 
 and the snow became a solid descending mass. The road 
 between the two Tavies is not easy in. winter under favour- 
 able conditions, and on that night it was to become prac- 
 tically impassable. When the last light of Peter Tavy the 
 village had vanished, Peter Tavy the man had about as much 
 idea where he was as if he had just dropped out of the 
 moon. 
 
 "Where be'st going?" shrieked Mary, as the cart swerved 
 violently to the right. 
 
 "Taking a short cut," explained Peter. 
 
 "Dear life!" gasped Mary, "he'm pixy-led." 
 
 "I b'ain't," said Peter; "I be driving straight vor Mary 
 Tavy." 
 
 Had he said straight for the edge of Tavy Cleave he 
 would have spoken the truth. The pony knew perfectly 
 well that they were off the road, and the sensible beast 
 would have returned to the right way had it not been for 
 Peter, who kept pulling its head round towards the cleave. 
 Left to itself the pony would have returned to Peter Tavy, 
 having quite enough sense to know that it was impossible 
 to reach the sister village on such a night. Its master, with 
 his fatal knack of blundering, tugged at the reins with one 
 hand and plied his whip with the other. The snow was 
 like a wall on every side ; the clouds seemed to be dissolving 
 upon them ; suddenly the silence was broken by the roaring 
 of the Tavy below. 
 
 "Us be going to kingdom come," shrieked Mary. 
 
 "Us b'ain't," said Peter; "us be going to Mary Tavy." 
 
 The pony stopped. Peter used his whip, and the next 
 instant the snow appeared to rush towards them, open, and 
 swallow them UD. They had struck a boulder and gone over 
 the cleave. The body of the cart was in one spot, its wheels 
 were in another; and wallowing in that sea of snow were 
 Peter and Mary and the pony. The animal was the first to 
 regain its feet, and made off at once, with the broken harness 
 trailing behind. Mary was the next to rise, plastered over 
 with snow from head to foot; but she was soon down again, 
 because her legs refused to support her. Presently she heard 
 her brother's voice. He was invisible, because he had been 
 
244 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 thrown several feet lower, and had landed among rocks 
 somewhat bruised and sprained ; had it not been for the soft 
 snow he would probably have been killed. 
 
 "I be broke to bits," he wailed. 
 
 "So be I," cried Mary; "so be the cart." 
 
 "Be the cart broke?" said Peter; and when Mary had 
 replied it was only fit for firewood (it had not been fit for 
 much else before the accident), he went on, " 'Twill cost ye 
 a lot o' money to buy me a new one." 
 
 "Buy ye a new one? The man be dafty!" screamed 
 Mary. 
 
 c 'Twas taking yew home what broke it," Peter explained. 
 
 "Call this taking me home?" Mary shouted. 
 
 "I done my best," said Peter; " 'twas your weight what 
 sent it over. There'll be the cart, and the harness, and doc- 
 tor's bill; 'twill cost ye a heap o' money." 
 
 "Dear life, hear the man talk!" said Mary, appealing to 
 the snow which was piled upon her ample form. 
 
 "Maybe there'll be funeral expenses," said Peter lugu- 
 briously; "I be hurt dreadful." 
 
 "Yew wun't want the cart then," his sister muttered; 
 "and I'll have the pony." 
 
 "Where be the pony?" Peter demanded. 
 
 "Gone home likely; got more sense than we," said Mary. 
 "Why doan't ye get up, Peter?" 
 
 "Get up wi' my two legs broke!" Peter replied in dis- 
 gust. 
 
 "Dear life, man, get up!" Mary went on, with real alarm. 
 "If us doan't get up soon us'll be stone dead carpses when 
 us gets home." 
 
 "I'll try, Mary, I'll try," said Peter. 
 
 "Come up here, Peter; there be a lew spot over agin them 
 rocks," said Mary. 
 
 "There be a lew spot down here," Peter answered; " 'tis 
 easier vor yew to roll down than vor me to climb up." 
 
 When that question had been argued, Mary went down; 
 that is to say, she groped and grovelled through the snow, 
 half-rolling, half-sliding, until she reached the sheltered spot 
 to which Peter had dragged himself. It was a small cleft, 
 
BUSINESS IS BUSINESS 245 
 
 a chimney, mountaineers would have called it, in the centra 
 of a rock-mass which made a small tor on the side of the 
 cleave. Normally, this chimney acted as a drain for the 
 rock-basin above, but it was then frozen up and dry. Peter 
 was right at the back, huddled up as he could never have 
 been had any bones been broken. When Mary appeared 
 he dragged her in; she was almost too stout to pass inside, 
 but as he placed her she made an excellent protection for 
 him against the storm. Mary realised this, and suggested 
 they should change places; but Peter pointed out that in his 
 shattered condition any movement might easily prove fatal. 
 
 Presently Mary began to cry, realising the gravity of, 
 their position. The snow was descending more thickly than 
 ever, drifting up the side of the cleave and choking the en- 
 trance to their cleft. Fortunately the night was not very 
 cold, and they were both warmly clad, while the snow which 
 was threatening to bury them was itself a protection. Help 
 could not possibly reach them while the night lasted ; no one 
 would know what had befallen them, and they were unable 
 to walk. When Mary began to cry Peter abused her, until 
 his thoughts began also to trouble him. 
 
 "Think they'll put what's on my notice-board on my 
 tombstone?" he enquired. 
 
 "Now doan't ye talk about tombstoanes, doan't ye now," 
 implored Mary tearfully. 
 
 "Business is business," said Peter. "I told 'em to give 
 me a gurt big tombstone, and to put upon him, Peter Tavy, 
 Clock-maker, Photographer, Dealer in Antiquities, Dart- 
 moor Guide, Reeve of the Manor of Lydjord, Purveyor of 
 Manure, and et cetera" 
 
 "Doan't ye worry about it; they'll put it all down," said 
 Mary. 
 
 "Us'll be buried together, same afternoon, half-past two 
 likely," Peter went on. 
 
 "Doan't ye talk about funerals and tombstoanes," Mary 
 implored. "Talk about spicy wine, and goosey fair, and 
 them wooden horses what go round and round, and hurdy- 
 gurdy music; talk about they, Peter." 
 
 "It ain't the time," said Peter bitterly. 
 
246 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 A long dreary period of silence followed. Peter Tavy 
 the village and Mary Tavy its sister were completely snowed 
 up; and in the cleave of the river which divided the parishes 
 Peter Tavy the man was snowed up with Mary Tavy his sis- 
 ter. They were miserably cold and drowsy. The snow 
 was piled up in front of the chimney like a wall ; there was 
 hardly room for Mary to move, and Peter kept on groaning. 
 At length he roused himself to remark: "Yew owes me a 
 shillun." 
 
 "What would I owe ye a shillun vor?" said Mary sharply, 
 wideawake immediately at any suggestion of parting with 
 money. 
 
 "Vor the drive," said Peter. 
 
 "I was to give ye a shillun vor taking me home, not vor 
 breaking me bones and leaving me to perish in Tavy Cleave," 
 said Mary. "Yew ain't earned the shillun, and I doan't see 
 how yew'm going to." 
 
 "Yew owes me a shillun," repeated her brother doggedly. 
 "I done my best to tak' ye home, and there was naught 
 in your agreement wi' me about accidents. I never con- 
 tracted to tak' ye home neither." 
 
 "Yew never promised to starve me wi' ice and snow on 
 Tavy Cleave neither," replied Mary. 
 
 "I didn't promise nothing. I meant to tak' ye home, 
 reasonable wear and tear excepted; this here is reasonable 
 wear and tear. Yew promised to give me a shillun." 
 
 "When yew put me down," added Mary. 
 
 "Yew wur put down," said Peter. 
 
 "Not to my door," 
 
 "That warn't my fault," said Peter. " Twas your wor- 
 riting what done it; if yew hadn't worrited I'd have put ye 
 out to Mary Tavy. Yew worrited and upset the cart, and 
 now we'm dying." 
 
 "I b'ain't dying," said Mary stoutly. 
 
 "I be," said Peter drearily. "I be all cold and nohow 
 inside. I be a going to die; I'd like to die wi' that shillun 
 in my pocket." 
 
 "Doan't ye go on about it, Peter. If yew'm dying yew'll 
 soon be in a place where yew wun't want shilluns." 
 
BUSINESS IS BUSINESS 247 
 
 "While I be here I want J en," said Peter. "Yewll be 
 fearful sorry when yew see me lying a cold carpse wi'out a 
 shillun in my pocket." 
 
 "Give over, can't ye," cried Mary. "You'll be giving 
 me the creepies. If yew wur to turn carpsy I wouldn't bide 
 wi' ye." 
 
 There was no reply. Silence fell again, and the only 
 sound was the moaning of the wind and the roaring of the 
 Tavy; the snow went on falling and drifting. Another 
 hour passed, and then Mary shook off her drowsiness, and 
 called timidly, "Peter." There was no answer; she could 
 see nothing; her fear returned and she shuddered. "Peter," 
 she called again; there was still no reply. Mary pressed 
 her stout figure forward and reached out fearfully ; she heard 
 a groan. "Ah, doan't ye die," she implored; "wait till us 
 gets out o' this. What's the matter, Peter?" 
 
 "Yew owes me a shillun," whispered a voice. 
 
 "I doan't owe it, Peter, I doan't," cried Mary pitifully. 
 "If yew had drove me across the Tavy I'd have paid ye, I 
 would; but us be still in the parish of Peter Tavy ' 
 
 She was interrupted by another and a deeper groan. "Be 
 yew that bad?" she asked earnestly. 
 
 "I be like an old clock past mending," Peter answered, 
 "like old George Routleigh in Lydford churchyard. My main- 
 spring be broke; I be about to depart this life, December 
 the twenty-seventh, eighteen hundred and eighty-one, aged 
 fifty-eight, in hopes of being thoroughly cleaned and re- 
 paired and set a going in the world to come." 
 
 "Can I du anything vor ye, Peter?" asked Mary gently. 
 
 "Yew can give me the shillun yew owes me," replied 
 Peter. 
 
 " 'Tis hard of ye to want a shillun if yew'm dying." 
 
 "Business is business," Peter moaned. 
 
 Fumbling in the little black bag she carried beneath her 
 skirt, Mary produced a coin and held it out, saying sadly: 
 "Here "tis, Peter; I doan't want to give it ye, but if 'twill 
 make yew die happy, I must." 
 
 With singular agility Peter reached out his hand, and 
 after groping a little in the darkness secured the precious 
 
248 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 coin. He felt it, he bit it, and he asked with suspicion: 
 "How be I to know 'tis a shillun? He tastes like a half- 
 penny." 
 
 "I know 'tis a shillun; I ain't got no halfpence," Mary 
 answered. 
 
 Peter's groans ceased from that moment; he pocketed the 
 coin and chuckled. 
 
 "I be a lot better," he said; "my legs b'ain't quite broke, 
 I reckon, and I ain't so cold inside, neither." 
 
 Mary's reply was too eccentric to mention. 
 
 So soon as it was day a party of villagers set out from 
 Peter Tavy well supplied with blankets and stimulants; 
 Peter and Mary were not the only ones missing that fateful 
 morning. The pony had returned to its stable the evening 
 before, and had been seen by the local constable trailing its 
 broken harness past the beer-house. An attempt had been 
 made to find the couple then, but their tracks were com- 
 pletely hidden. Snow was still descending as the relief 
 party waded through the drifts upon the edge of the cleave. 
 The moor had disappeared during the night, and a strange 
 region of white mountains had risen in its stead. The 
 searchers worked their way on, with a hopeless feeling that 
 they were only wasting their time, when they thought they 
 heard a whistle. They stopped and argued the matter like 
 the three jolly huntsmen; one said it was a man, another 
 said it was a bird, and another it was the wind. They were 
 all wrong; it was a woman. Out of the centre of a huge 
 white mass down the cleave appeared a black scarf tied to 
 the end of an umbrella. 
 
 Peter and Mary were rescued, not without difficulty, be- 
 cause the snow was four feet in depth on the side of the 
 cleave, and were conveyed in due course to their respective 
 villages. Being a hardy couple they were little the worse 
 for their adventure, although Peter posed as an invalid to 
 the end of his days, and sought parish relief in consequence; 
 that was simply a matter of business. 
 
 So soon as the roads were passable and he was able to 
 walk, Peter tramped across to Mary Tavy, to pay his sister 
 a friendly, and a business, visit. "There be ten shilluns 
 
BUSINESS IS BUSINESS 249 
 
 yew owes vor breaking my cart and harness," he explained. 
 "When be yew a going to pay?" 
 
 "Never," replied Mary decidedly. 
 
 "Then I'll tak' ye into court," said Peter. 
 
THE CHINK AND THE CHILD 1 
 
 BY THOMAS BURKE 
 
 IT is a tale of love and lovers that they tell in the low- 
 lit Causeway that slinks from West India Dock Road 
 to the dark waste of waters beyond. In Penny fields, 
 too, you may hear it; and I do not doubt that it is told in 
 far-away Tai-Ping, in Singapore, in Tokio, in Shanghai, 
 and those other gay-lamped haunts of wonder whither the 
 wandering people of Limehouse go and whence they re- 
 turn so casually. It is a tale for tears, and should you hear 
 it in the lilied tongue of the yellow men, it would awaken 
 in you all your pity. In our bald speech it must, unhap- 
 pily, lose its essential fragrance, that quality that will lift 
 an affair of squalor into the loftier spheres of passion and 
 imagination, beauty and sorrow. It will sound uncon- 
 vincing, a little . . . you know ... the kind of thing that 
 is best forgotten. Perhaps . . . 
 
 But listen. 
 
 It is Battling Burrows, the lightning welterweight of 
 Shadwell, the box o' tricks, the Tetrarch of the ring, who 
 enters first. Battling Burrows, the pride of Ratcliff, Poplar 
 and Limehouse, and the despair of his manager and backers. 
 For he loved wine, woman and song; and the boxing world 
 held that he couldn't last long on that. There was any 
 amount of money in him for his parasites if only the 
 damned women could be cut out; but again and again would 
 he disappear from his training quarters on the eve of a 
 big fight, to consort with Molly and Dolly, and to drink 
 other things than barley-water and lemon-juice. Where- 
 
 1 From "Limehouse Nights." By permission of Robert M. 
 McBride and Company, and Thomas Burke. 
 
 250 
 
THE CHINK AND THE CHILD 251 
 
 fore Chuck Lightfoot, his manager, forced him to fight on 
 any and every occasion while he was good and a money- 
 maker; for at any moment the collapse might come, and 
 Chuck would be called upon by his creditors to strip off that 
 "shirt" which at every contest he laid upon his man. 
 
 Battling was of a type that is too common in the eastern 
 districts of London; a type that upsets all accepted classi- 
 fications. He wouldn't be classed. He was a curious mix- 
 ture of athleticism and degeneracy. He could run like a 
 deer, leap like a greyhound, fight like a machine, and drink 
 like a suction-hose. He was a bully; he had the courage 
 of the high hero. He was an open-air sport; he had the 
 vices of a French decadent. 
 
 It was one of his love adventures that properly begins 
 this tale; for the girl had come to Battling one night with 
 a recital of terrible happenings, of an angered parent, of a 
 slammed door. ... In her arms was a bundle of white 
 rags. Now Battling, like so many sensualists, was also a 
 sentimentalist. He took that bundle of white rags; he 
 paid 'the girl money to get into the country; and the bundle 
 of white rags had existed in and about his domicile in 
 Pekin Street, Lirnehouse, for some eleven years. Her position 
 was nondescript; to the casual observer it would seem that 
 she was Battling's relief punch-ball an unpleasant post for 
 any human creature to occupy, especially if you are a little 
 girl of tv/clve, and the place be the one-room household 
 of the lightning welter-weight. When Battling was cross 
 with his manager . . . well, it is indefensible to strike 
 your manager or to throw chairs at him, if he is a good 
 manager; but to use a dog- whip on a small child is per- 
 missible and quite as satisfying; at least, he found it so. 
 On these occasions, then, when very cross with his sparring 
 partners, or over-flushed with victory and juice of the 
 grape, he would flog Lucy. But he was reputed by the 
 boys to be a good fellow. He only whipped the child when 
 he was drunk; and he was only drunk for eight months of 
 the year. 
 
 For just over twelve years this bruised little body had 
 crept about Poplar and Limehouse. Always the white 
 
252 THE GREAT MODERN. ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 face was scarred with red, or black-furrowed with tears; 
 always' in her steps and in her look was expectation of 
 dread things. Night after night her sleep was broken by 
 the cheerful Battling's brute voice and violent hands; and 
 terrible were the lessons which life taught her in those few 
 years. Yet, for all the starved face and the transfixed air, 
 there was a lurking beauty about her, a something that 
 called you in the soft curve of her cheek that cried for 
 kisses and was fed with blows, and in the splendid mourn- 
 fulness that grew in eyes and lips. The brown hair chimed 
 against the pale face, like the rounding of a verse. The 
 blue cotton frock and the broken shoes could not break 
 the loveliness of her slender figure or the shy grace of her 
 movements as she flitted about the squalid alleys of the 
 docks; though in all that region of wasted life and toil and 
 decay, there was not one that noticed her, until . . . 
 
 Now there lived in Chinatown, in one lousy room over 
 Mr. Tai Fu's store in Penny fields, a wandering yellow 
 man, named Cheng Huan. Cheng Huan was ,a poet. He 
 did not realise it. He had never been able to understand 
 why he was unpopular; and he died without knowing. But 
 a poet he was, tinged with the materialism of his race, and 
 in his poor listening heart strange echoes would awake of 
 which he himself was barely conscious. He regarded things 
 differently from other sailors; he felt things more passion- 
 ately, and things which they felt not at all; so he lived 
 alone instead of at one of the lodging-houses. Every eve- 
 ning he would sit at his window and watch the street. 
 Then, a little later, he would take a jolt of opium at the 
 place at the corner of Formosa Street. 
 
 He had come to London by devious ways. He had 
 loafed on the Bund at Shanghai. The fateful interven- 
 tion of a crimp had landed him on a boat. He got to 
 Cardiff, and sojourned in its Chinatown; thence to Liver- 
 pool, to Glasgow; thence, by a ticket from the Asiatics' Aid 
 Society, to Limehouse, where he remained for two reasons 
 because it cost him nothing to live there, and because 
 he was too lazy to find a boat to take him back to Shang- 
 hai. 
 
THE CHINK AND THE CHILD 253 
 
 So he would lounge and smoke cheap cigarettes, and sit 
 at his window, from which point he had many times ob- 
 served the lyrical Lucy. He noticed her casually. An- 
 other day, he pbserved her, not casually. Later, he looked 
 long at her; later still, he began to watch for her and for 
 that strangely provocative something about .the toss of the 
 head and the hang of the little blue skirt as it coyly kissed 
 her knee. 
 
 Then that beauty which all Limehouse had missed smote 
 Cheng. Straight to his heart it went, and cried itself into 
 his very blood. Thereafter the spirit of poetry broke her 
 blossoms all about his odorous chamber. Nothing was 
 the same. Pennyfields became a happy-lanterned street, 
 and the monotonous fiddle in the house opposite was the 
 music of his fathers. Bits of old song floated through his 
 mind: little sweet verses of Le Tai-pih, murmuring of 
 plum blossom, ricefield and stream. Day by day he would 
 moon at his window, or shuffle about the streets, lighting 
 to a flame when Lucy would pass and gravely return his 
 quiet regard ; and night after night, too, he would dream of 
 a pale, lily-lovely child. 
 
 And now the Fates moved swiftly various pieces on their 
 sinister board, and all that followed happened with a speed 
 and precision that showed direction from higher ways. 
 
 It was Wednesday night in Limehouse, and for once clear 
 of mist. Out of the coloured darkness of the Causeway 
 stole the muffled wail of reed instruments, and, though 
 every window was closely shuttered, between the joints shot 
 jets of light and stealthy voices and you could hear the 
 whisper of slippered feet, and the stuttering steps of the 
 satyr and the sadist. It was to the cafe in the middle of 
 the Causeway, lit by the pallid blue light that is the 
 symbol of China throughout the world, that Cheng Huan 
 came, to take a dish of noodle and some tea. Thence he 
 moved to another house whose stairs ran straight to the 
 street, and above whose doorway a lamp glowed like an 
 evil eye. At this establishment he mostly took his pipe 
 of "chandu" and a brief chat with the keeper of the house, 
 for, although not popular, and very silent, he liked some- 
 
254 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 times to be in the presence of his compatriots. Like a 
 figure of a shadowgraph he slid through the door and up 
 the stairs. 
 
 The chamber he entered was a bit of the Orient squatting 
 at the portals of the West. It was a well-kept place where 
 one might play a game of fan-tan, or take a shot or so of 
 li-un, or purchase other varieties of Oriental delight. It 
 was sunk in a purple dusk, though here and there a lan- 
 tern stung the glooms. Low couches lay around the walls, 
 and strange men decorated them: Chinese, Japs, Malays, 
 Lascars, with one or two white girls; and sleek, noiseless 
 attendants swam from couch to couch. Away in the far 
 corner sprawled a lank figure in brown shirting, its nerve- 
 less fingers curled about the stem of a spent pipe. On 
 one of the lounges a scorbutic nigger sat with a Jewess from 
 Shadwell. Squatting on a table in the centre, beneath 
 one of the lanterns, was a musician with a reed, blinking 
 upon the company like a sly cat, and making his melody 
 of six repeated notes. 
 
 The atmosphere churned. The dirt of years, tobacco of 
 many growings, opium, betel nut, and moist' flesh allied 
 themselves in one grand assault against the nostrils. 
 
 As Cheng brooded on his insect-ridden cushion, of a 
 sudden the lantern above the musician was caught by the 
 ribbon of his reed. It danced and flung a hazy radiance 
 on a divan in the shadow. He saw started half rose. His 
 heart galloped, and the blood pounded in his quiet veins. 
 Then he dropped again, crouched, and stared. 
 
 O lily-flowers and plum blossoms! O silver streams and 
 dim-starred skies! O wine and roses, song and laughter! 
 For there, kneeling on a mass of rugs, mazed and big- 
 eyed, but understanding, was Lucy . . . his Lucy . . . his 
 little maid. Through the dusk she must have felt his in- 
 tent gaze upon her; for he crouched there, fascinated, star- 
 ing into the now obscured corner where she knelt. 
 
 But the sickness which momentarily gripped him on find- 
 ing in this place his snowy-breasted pearl passed and gave 
 place to great joy. She was here; he would talk with her. 
 Little English he had, but simple words, those with few 
 
THE CHINK AND THE CHILD 255 
 
 gutturals, he had managed to pick up ; so he rose, the mas- 
 terful lover, and, with feline movements, crossed the night- 
 mare chamber to claim his own. 
 
 If you wonder how Lucy came to be in this bagnio, the 
 explanation is simple. ' Battling was in training. He had 
 flogged her that day before starting work; he had then 
 had a few brandies not many; some eighteen or nineteen 
 and had locked the door of his room and taken the 
 key. Lucy was, therefore, homeless, and a girl somewhat 
 older than Lucy, so old and so wise, as girls are in that 
 region, saw in her a possible source of revenue. So there 
 they were, and to them appeared Cheng. 
 
 From what horrors he saved her that night cannot be 
 told, for her ways were too audaciously childish to hold her 
 long from harm in such a place. What he brought to her 
 was love and death. 
 
 For he sat by her. He looked at her reverently yet 
 passionately. He touched her wistfully yet eagerly. He 
 locked a finger in her wondrous hair. She did not start 
 away; she did not tremble. She knew well what she had 
 to be afraid of in that place; but she was not afraid of 
 Cheng. She pierced the mephitic gloom and scanned his 
 face. No, she was not afraid. His yellow hands, his yel- 
 low face, his smooth black hair . . . well, he was the first 
 thing that had ever spoken soft words to her; the first 
 thing that had ever laid a hand upon her that was not 
 brutal; the first thing that had deferred in manner towards 
 her as though she, too, had a right to live. She knew his 
 words were sweet, though she did not understand them.| Nor 
 can they be set down. Half that he spoke was in village 
 Chinese; the rest in a mangling of English which no dis- 
 torted spelling could possibly reproduce. 
 
 But he drew her back against the cushions and asked 
 her name, and she told him; and he inquired her age, and 
 she told him; and he had then two beautiful words which 
 came easily to his tongue. He repeated them again and 
 again: 
 
 "Lucia . . . li'l Lucia. . . . Twelve. . . . Twelve." Mu- 
 sical phrases they were, dropping from his lips, and to the 
 
256 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 child who heard her name pronounced so lovingly, they 
 were the last heights of melody. | She clung to him, and he 
 to her. She held his strong~arm in both of hers as they 
 crouched on the divan, and nestled her cheek against his 
 coat. 
 
 Well ... he took her home to his wretched room. 
 
 "Li'l Lucia, come-a-home . . . Lucia." 
 
 His heart was on fire. As they slipped out of the noi- 
 someness into the night air and crossed the West India 
 Dock Road into Pennyfields, they passed unnoticed. It 
 was late, for one thing, and for another . . . well, nobody 
 cared particularly. His blood rang with soft music and 
 the solemnity of drums, for surely/he had found now what 
 for many years he had sought tffs" world's one flower. 
 Wanderer he was, from Tuan-tsen to Shanghai, Shanghai 
 to Glasgow . . . Cardiff . . . Liverpool . . . London. He 
 had dreamed often of the women of his native land; per- 
 chance one of them should be his flower. Women, indeed, 
 there had been. Swatow ... he had recollections of cer- 
 tain rose-winged hours in coast cities. At many places to 
 which chance had led him a little bird had perched itself 
 upon his heart, but so lightly and for so brief a while as 
 hardly to be felt. But now now he had found her in this 
 alabaster Cockney child. So that he was glad and had 
 great joy of himself and the blue and silver night, and the 
 harsh flares of the Poplar Hippodrome. 
 
 You will observe that he had claimed her, but had not 
 asked himself whether she were of an age for love. The 
 white perfection of the child had captivated every ~sehse. 
 It may be that he forgot that he was in London and not 
 in Tuan-tsen. It may be that he did not care. Of that 
 nothing can be told. All that is known is that his love was 
 a pure and holy thing. Of that we may be sure; for his 
 worst enemies have said it. 
 
 Slowly, softly they mounted the stairs to his room, and 
 with almost an obeisance he entered and drew her in. A 
 bank of cloud raced to the east and a full moon thrust a 
 sharp sword of light upon them. Silence lay over all Pen- 
 nyfields. With a bird-like movement, she looked up at him 
 
THE CHINK AND THE CHILD 257 
 
 her face alight, her tiny hands upon his coat clinging, 
 wondering, trusting. He took her hand and kissed it; 
 repeated the kiss upon her cheek and lip and little bosom, 
 twining his fingers in her hair. Docilely, and echoing the 
 smile of his lemon lips in a way that thrilled him almost 
 to laughter, she returned his kisses impetuously, gladly. 
 
 He clasped the nestling to him. Bruised, tearful, with 
 the love of life almost thrashed out of her, she had fluttered 
 to him out of the evil night. 
 
 ; "O li'l Lucia!" And he put soft hands upon her, and 
 smoothed her and crooned over her many gracious things 
 in his flowered speech. So they stood in the moonlight 
 while she told him the story of her father, of her beatings, 
 and starvings, and unhappiness. 
 
 "O li'l Lucia. . . . White Blossom. . . . Twelve. . . . 
 Twelve years old!" 
 
 As he spoke, the clock above the Milwall Docks shot 
 twelve crashing notes across the night. - When the last echo 
 died, he moved to a cupboard, and from it he drew strange 
 things . . . formless masses of blue and gold, magical things 
 of silk, and a vessel that was surely Aladdin's lamp, and a 
 box of spices. He took these robes, and, with tender, rever- 
 ent fingers, removed from his White Blossom the besmirched 
 rags that covered her, and robed her again, a&d led her 
 4he to the heap of stuff that was his bed, and bestowed 
 her safely. 
 
 For himself, he squatted on the floor before her, holding 
 one grubby little hand. There he crouched all night, under 
 the lyric moon, sleepless, watchful; and sweet content was 
 his. He had fallen into an uncomfortable posture, and his 
 muscles ached intolerably. But she slept, and he dared 
 not move nor release her hand lest he should awaken her. 
 Weary and trustful, she slept, knowing that the yellow man 
 was kind and that she might sleep with no fear of a steel 
 hand smashing the delicate structure of her dreams. 
 
 In the morning, when she awoke, still wearing her blue 
 and yellow silk, she gave a cry of amazement. Cheng had 
 been about. Many times had be glided up and down the 
 two flights of stairs, and now at last his room was pre- 
 
THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 pared for Ms princess. It was swept and garnished, and 
 was an apartment worthy a maid who is loved by a poet- 
 prince. There was a bead curtain. There were muslins of 
 pink and white. There were four bowls of flowers, clean, 
 clear flowers to gladden the White Blossom and set off her 
 sharp beauty. And there was a bowl of water, and a sweet 
 lotion for the bruise on her cheek. 
 
 When she had risen, her prince ministered to her with 
 rice and egg and tea. Cleansed and robed and calm, she 
 sat before him, perched on the edge of many cushions as 
 on a throne, with all the grace of the child princess in 
 the story. She was a poem. The beauty hidden by neglect 
 and fatigue shone out now more clearly and vividly, and 
 from the head sunning over with curls to the small white 
 feet, now bathed and sandalled, she seemed the living in- 
 terpretation of a Chinese lyric. And she was his ; her sweet 
 self and her prattle, and her birdlike ways were all his 
 own. 
 
 Oh, beautifully they loved. For two days he held her. 
 Soft caresses from his yellow hands and long, devout kisses 
 were all their demonstration. Each night he would tend 
 her, as might mother to child; and each night he watched 
 and sometimes slumbered at the foot of her couch. 
 
 But now there were those that ran to Battling at his 
 training quarters across the river, with the news that his 
 child had gone with a Chink a yellow man. And Battling 
 was angry. He discovered parental rights. He discovered 
 indignation. A yellow man after his kid! He'd learn 
 him. Battling did not like men who were not born in the 
 same great country as himself. Particularly he disliked 
 yellow men. His birth and education in Shadwell had 
 taught him that of all creeping things that creep upon the 
 earth the most insidious is the Oriental in the West. And 
 a yellow man and a child. It was ... as you might say 
 ... so ... kind of ... well, wasn't it? He bellowed 
 that it was "unnacherel." The yeller man would go through 
 it. Yeller! It was his supreme condemnation, his final 
 epithet for all conduct of which he disapproved. 
 
 There was no doubt that he was extremely annoyed. He 
 
THE CHINK AND THE CHILD 259 
 
 went to the Blue Lantern, in what was once Ratcliff High- 
 way, and thumped the bar, and made all his world agree 
 with him. And when they agreed with him he got angrier 
 still. So that when, a few hours later, he climbed through 
 the ropes at the Netherlands to meet Bud Tuffit for ten 
 rounds, it was Bud's fight all the time, and to that bright 
 boy's astonishment he was the victor on points at the end 
 of the ten. Battling slouched out of the ring, still more de- 
 termined to let the Chink have it where the chicken had 
 the axe. He left the house with two pals and a black man, 
 and a number of really inspired curses from his manager. 
 On the evening of the third day, then, Cheng slipped 
 sleepily down the stairs to procure more flowers and more 
 rice. The genial Ho Ling, who keeps the Canton store, 
 held him in talk some little while, and he was gone from 
 his room perhaps half-an-hour. Then he glided back, and 
 climbed with happy feet the forty stairs to his temple of 
 wonder. 
 
 With a push of a finger he opened the door, and the 
 blood froze on his cheek, the flowers fell from him. The 
 temple was empty and desolate; White Blossom was gone. 
 The muslin hangings were torn down and trampled under- 
 foot. The flowers had been flung from their bowls about 
 the floor, and the bowls lay in fifty fragments. The joss 
 was smashed. The cupboard had been opened. Rice was 
 scattered here and there. The little straight bed had been 
 jumped upon by brute feet. Everything that could be 
 smashed or violated had been so treated, and horror of 
 all the blue and yellow silk robe had been rent in pieces, 
 tied in grotesque knots, and slung derisively about the 
 table legs. 
 
 I pray devoutly that you may never suffer what Cheng 
 Huan suffered in that moment. The pangs of death, with 
 no dying; the sickness of the soul which longs to escape 
 and cannot; the imprisoned animal within the breast 
 which struggles madly for a voice and finds none; all the 
 agonies of all the ages the agonies of every abandoned 
 lover and lost woman, past and to come all these things 
 were his in that moment. 
 
26o THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 Then he found voice and gave a great cry, and men from 
 below came up to him; and they told him how the man 
 who boxed had been there with a black man; how he had 
 torn the robes from his child, and dragged her down the 
 stairs by her hair; and how he had shouted aloud for 
 Cheng and had vowed to return and deal separately with 
 him. 
 
 Now a terrible dignity came to Cheng, and the soul of 
 his great fathers swept over him. He closed the door 
 against them, and fell prostrate over what had been the 
 resting-place of White Blossom. Those without heard 
 strange sounds as of an animal in its last pains; and it 
 was even so. Cheng was dying. The sacrament of his high 
 and holy passion had been profaned; the last sanctuary of 
 the Oriental his soul dignity had been assaulted. The 
 love robes had been torn to ribbons; the veil of his temple 
 cut down. Life was no longer possible; and life without his 
 little lady,"Ms~ White Blossom, was no longer desirable. 
 
 Prostrate he lay for the space of some five minutes. 
 Then, in his face all the pride of accepted destiny, he arose. 
 He drew together the little bed. With reverent hands he 
 took the pieces of blue and yellow silk, kissing them and 
 fondling them and placing them about the pillow. Silently 
 he gathered up the flowers, and the broken eartnenware, 
 and burnt some prayer papers and prepared himself for 
 death. 
 
 Now it is the custom among those of the sect of Cheng 
 that the dying shall present love-gifts to their enemies; 
 and when he had set aJL4n order, he gathered his brown 
 canvas coat about himy stole from the house, and set out 
 to find Battling Burrows, bearing under the coat his love- 
 gift to Battling. White Blossom he had no hope of finding. 
 He had heard of Burrows many times; and he judged that, 
 now that she was taken from him, never again would he 
 hold those hands or touch that laughing hair. Nor, if he 
 did, could it change things from what they were. Nothing 
 that was not a dog could live in the face cf this sacrilege. 
 
 As he came before the house in Pekin Street, where Bat- 
 tling lived, he murmured gracious prayers. Fortunately, it 
 
THE CHINK AND THE CHILD 261 
 
 was a night of thick river mist, and through the enveloping 
 velvet none could observe or challenge him. The main 
 door was open, as are all doors in this district. He writhed 
 across the step, and through to the back room, where again 
 the door yielded to a touch. 
 
 Darkness. Darkness and silence, and a sense of fright- 
 ful things. He peered through it. Then he fumbled under 
 his jacket found a match struck it. An inch of candle 
 stood on the mantelshelf. He lit it. He looked round. 
 No sign of Burrows, but . . . Almost before he looked he 
 knew what awaited him. But the sense of finality had 
 kindly stunned him; he could suffer nothing more. 
 
 On the table lay a dog-whip. In the corner a belt had 
 been flung. Half across the greasy couch lay White Blos- 
 som. A few rags of clothing were about her pale, slim 
 body; her hair hung limp as her limbs; her eyes were 
 closed. As Cheng drew nearer and saw the savage red 
 rails that ran across and across the beloved body, he could 
 not scream he could not think. , He dropped beside the 
 couch. He laid gentle hands upon her, and called soft 
 names. She was warm to the touch. The pulse was still. 
 
 Softly, oh, so softly, he bent over the little frame that 
 had enclosed his friend-spirit, and his light kisses fell all 
 about her. Then, with the undirected movements of a sleep- 
 walker, he bestowed the rags decently about her, clasped her 
 in strong arms, and crept silently into the night. 
 
 From Pekin Street to Penny fields it is but a turn or two, 
 and again he passed unobserved as he bore his tired bird 
 back to her nest. He laid her upon the bed, and covered 
 the lily limbs with the blue and yellow silks and strewed 
 upon her a few of the trampled flowers. Then, with more 
 kisses and prayers, he crouched beside her. 
 
 So, in the ghastly Limehouse morning, they were found 
 the dead child, and the Chink, kneeling beside herewith 
 a sharp knife gripped in a vise-like hand, its blade far 
 between his ribs. 
 
 Meantime, having vented his wrath on his prodigal daugh- 
 ter, Battling, still cross, had returned to the Blue Lantern, 
 and there he stayed with a brandy tumbler in his fist, for- 
 
262 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 getful of an appointment at Premierland, whereby he should 
 have been in the ring at ten o'clock sharp. For the space 
 of an hour Chuck Lightfoot was going blasphemously to and 
 fro in Poplar, seeking Battling and not finding him, and 
 murmuring, in tearful tones: "Battling you damman- 
 blasted Battling where are yeh?" 
 
 His opponent was in his corner sure enough, but there 
 was no fight. For Battling lurched from the Blue Lan- 
 tern to Pekin Street. He lurched into his happy home, and 
 he cursed Lucy, and called for her. And finding no matches, 
 he lurched to where he knew the couch should be, and 
 flopped heavily down. 
 
 Now it is a peculiarity of the reptile tribe that its mem- 
 bers are impatient of being flopped on without warning. 
 So, when Battling flopped, eighteen inches of writhing gristle 
 upreared itself on the couch, and got home on him as Bud 
 Tuffit had done the night before one to the ear, one to 
 the throat, and another to the forearm. 
 
 Battling went down and out. 
 
 And he, too, was found in the morning, with Cheng 
 Huan's love-gift coiled about his neck. 
 
MONSIEUR FELICITE 
 
 BY HUGH WALPOLE 
 
 OF all French towns Villeton is least touched by modern 
 influences; it lies (like a pearl-grey shell) between the 
 arms of a brown round-backed hill over it the sky is, 
 during most of the year, a burning blue, and out of it rise, 
 like hands stretched out to bless, the two white towers of the 
 cathedral. 
 
 It had remained altogether mediaeval in spite of its rail- 
 way, for its tower and its cathedral have kept it so; the 
 tower is the "Tour du Prince Noir," but nobody knows why 
 it is called that it is grey and tumbling and stands on a 
 little green hill where daffodils and snowdrops blow white 
 and yellow in the spring. 
 
 A steep hill and every little crooked street in the town 
 leads up to the old church. It fills one side of the market- 
 place and from its great carved door and its myriad-coloured 
 windows looks down on all the busy clattering life of the 
 place. 
 
 Monsieur Felicite lived on the other side of the square 
 opposite the cathedral. 
 
 If you were to go and stay at Villeton nowadays in 
 the summer it is very hot, but in the spring there is no 
 place pleasanter you will hear them refer to him con- 
 tinually. He ruled like a little king there in his day, and 
 yet he was one of the gentlest and mildest of men, and 
 never quarrelled with anybody except on the one great oc- 
 casion about which I am going to tell you. 
 
 There are pictures of him scattered about, and one rather 
 fine painting in the big salle of the "Soleil Rouge" much 
 the best inn in the place. The work is amateurishly done, 
 
 263 
 
264 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 .but something of the vitality and humour of the man is 
 caught by it. He is wearing the faded brown tail-coat that 
 he always had, light at the waist, with round shiny buttons 
 at the back; brown velveteen trousers, very wide and baggy; 
 and a great brown bow of a tie falling over his white frilled 
 shirt. But the face is irresistible. I never knew him per- 
 sonally, but I have sat gazing at that picture for I'm 
 ashamed to say how long, loving those brown eyes twinkling 
 with good humour and that fine strong mouth just turning 
 up at the corners into a little ghost of a smile. His hair was 
 white when the picture was painted curly and cropped 
 close to his head. 
 
 He was short and a little stout and he always carried a 
 black silver- topped stick with which he tapped, like a cheer- 
 ful robin, about the streets. Give him a soft hat, large and 
 shady, but of no particular shape, and you have him com- 
 plete Monsieur Bonaparte Felicite! 
 
 I know nothing about his earlier history it is better to 
 leave that alone; to think of him as young and stern and 
 perhaps impetuous and callous is to think of some one else, 
 altogether. For the town he is always that little round 
 merry figure with his white hair and brown tie they re- 
 fuse to believe that he was ever anything else. His rooms 
 are still very much as he left them dark and low-roofed 
 with a wide, open fireplace with little brown tiles and a 
 faded green carpet sprinkled with red roses. There used to 
 be an ancient brown cabinet in the corner, and the old piano 
 was against the wall by the door those things have gone. 
 
 He was always to be seen drinking his tea in the window 
 as the evening began to enfold the little town and the 
 shadows crept like ghosts across the market-place. His 
 lamp would burn like a beacon there as he watched the 
 stars come out one by one over the towers of the cathedral. 
 People would wish him a "Bonsoir, monsieu?" as they 
 passed, but he had no relations of his own; there was only 
 Madame Bette, who looked after him, and, of course, his 
 great friend Andre. 
 
 It is about Monsieur Andr6 and the quarrel that he had 
 with Monsieur Felicite that I am going to tell you, for it is 
 
MONSIEUR FELICITE 265 
 
 always the story that they will tell you first about him. 
 Monsieur Andre was an enormous giant of a man. There 
 is still a rough little sketch of him at the house of Monsieur 
 Raguilleau, the notary, and it is, they say, a good likeness. 
 He was as broad as he was tall, and extraordinary stories 
 were told of his strength, but his eyes were kind and his 
 mouth smiled. He served in '70 against the Prussians, and 
 to the intimate circle at the "Soleil Rouge" in the evening 
 he would tell the most wonderful stories about those days 
 and the things that he had seen and done. 
 
 He was very proud and curiously shy unless you knew 
 him well, and he was a very difficult man to know. He 
 was hopelessly unpractical and had no common sense at all, 
 and his rooms were always dreadfully untidy and his clothes 
 uncared for until he became intimate with Monsieur Felicite. 
 He used to forget his meals and go wandering out into the 
 fields and woods, cutting off the heads of the poppies as 
 though they had been so many Prussians and muttering to 
 himself all the time. 
 
 He was a very affectionate man, but before he met Mon- 
 sieur Felicite he had no one to whom to give it all save a 
 kind of mongrel dog called "Boule de Suif" because of its 
 round "podgy" shape, like the poor lady in Maupassant's 
 story. The dog was always with him, and an unpleasant 
 kind of dog it was to every one except its master. Then 
 he met Monsieur Felicite and the dog had to take second 
 place. 
 
 Their meeting was under the wide arch of Madame Per- 
 mon's door in the Rue des Ecoliers in a shower of rain, and 
 afterwards they shared an umbrella. Monsieur Felicite was 
 always charming to every one, but, on this occasion, he had 
 to do most of the talking, and Monsieur Andre came in, 
 every now and again, with a "Ha!" or a "Mais, oui!" and 
 at times a surly "Mais, nonf" from the back of his throat* 
 It must have been amusing to watch them because Mon- 
 sieur Andre refused to hold the umbrella and Monsieur 
 Felicite had to stand on the edge of his toes to keep it high 
 enough. Outside Monsieur Felicite's door they stopped, 
 and for a moment nothing was said; then suddenly Mon- 
 
266 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 sieur Andre shot out his hand and gripped the handle of the 
 umbrella and Monsieur Felicite's fingers so fiercely that the 
 little man winced. 
 
 Then the giant turned hurriedly away and, with "Boule 
 de Suif " at his heels, sped round the corner. 
 
 After that, Monsieur Andre was often to be seen in the 
 square; sometimes he would walk round and round, his 
 head down, his arms folded behind his back, his dog at his 
 heels, and not a word would he say to any one. His visit 
 had, apparently, no relation at all to Monsieur Felicite, for 
 he never went near his door nor did he glance up at his 
 window. Once the little man watched him, and at last 
 came out of his house, intending to speak to him, but Mon- 
 sieur Andre was round the corner in a moment. 
 ' At last he was caught leaning against the wall looking 
 vacantly into space, and, shamefaced and reluctant, he was 
 made to climb the stairs to the room with the green car- 
 pet and the brown cabinet. He stared in amazement at the 
 neatness of it and sat down suddenly, without a word 
 like the Queen of Sheba, " there was no more spirit in him." 
 Monsieur Felicite made tea and talked all the time in the 
 charming, graceful way that he had. He was so humbla 
 and tender-hearted a little man that he flung a beautiful 
 light over everything. "Boule de Suif" loved him at once 
 as indeed did all children and animals and soon Monsieur 
 Andre, being nothing more than a child himself, followed 
 his dog's example. 
 
 Then Monsieur Andre began to talk, and soon his stories 
 were pouring out in a great, tempestuous stream. I don't 
 think that Monsieur Felicite believed it all, even from the 
 first, and, after a time, he misdoubted it altogether, but 
 he would sit in the corner by the fire, smiling, his little hands 
 folded, and every now and again a "Mais, oui/" or "Cer- 
 tainenient!" or "Mon Dieu!" shot out like little bullets. I 
 think he took the stories as part of his friend and never 
 minded their impossibility. Sometimes Monsieur Andre 
 himself wondered whether some especially daring statement 
 could really be true, and he would pause for a moment and 
 look sharply at his friend but, after an instant's hesitation, 
 
MONSIEUR FELICITE 267 
 
 conviction would be back again and with a satisfied "Mot 
 j'etais la!" he would go on again. 
 
 Soon they were inseparable, and all the town knew that 
 it was so. There must have been some jealousy about it, for 
 Monsieur Felicite was the idol of the town and the others 
 did not see why Monsieur Andre should appropriate him so 
 entirely. They liked the man well enough, and they treated 
 his stories respectfully, although they laughed behind his 
 back. He certainly had the grand manner, and he piled 
 Pelion on Ossa with a gesture and a gusto that covered a 
 multitude of untruths. Besides, after all, the people of 
 Villeton were not so very truthful themselves, and a story 
 was always to be saved by its interest rather than its ac- 
 curacy. 
 
 Once a week, on Friday evenings, they went down to the 
 Rue Soleil and smoked with their friends. Monsieur Felicite 
 had never joined these assemblies before; he had gone out 
 very little in the evening, but now Monsieur Andre brought 
 him with him and of course he was given the warmest of 
 welcomes. Those Friday gatherings still go on and you 
 can see the very corner in which Monsieur Felicite used to 
 sit at the back, to the right, under the painting of Mon- 
 sieur Soul, fat and red-faced, onetime Mayor of Villeton. 
 The room is charming with its low smoke-stained roof, its 
 oak panelling and red-brick floor. An old oak partition ris- 
 ing half-way to the ceiling cuts the room into two, and it 
 was behind this, in the most delicious and intimate privacy, 
 round a large and shining table, that they sat. 
 
 There were ten of them at that time the most celebrated 
 being young Jacques Paturot, poet and pastry-cook; Mon- 
 sieur Marteau, the bookseller, and Monsieur Raguilleau, the 
 notary, who was responsible for most of the quarrelling. 
 
 Monsieur Andre sat on his friend's right with "Boule de 
 Suif" at his feet and an enormous pipe in his mouth. He 
 was generally silent until he considered that the crucial mo- 
 ment had come, then he would cough, lean forward over the 
 table and begin. The rest of the company listened some- 
 what phlegmatically, but they never interrupted, and mur- 
 mured at times to show that they were attending. Then, 
 
268 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 his story over, Monsieur Andre would sink back into his seat 
 again and listen to other people. 
 
 After a while Monsieur Felicite began to be worried. He 
 had, by this time, a great affection for his friend and he 
 was very jealous of everything that concerned his reputation. 
 Once he had overheard Monsieur Permon and Monsieur 
 Raguilleau laughing at the stories; they had mocked at Mon- 
 sieur Andre in a way that hurt the little man dreadfully. 
 He went back to his room and pondered over the mat- 
 ter. 
 
 He knew that, in the future, every story that his friend 
 told would torture him; those nights at the club, hitherto 
 so gay and delightful, would now be impossible. He could 
 not sit there and listen to his friend and know that those 
 others were laughing to themselves. He had not minded 
 the stories when they were told in his room with no other 
 person there then it was for himself alone to judge, and he 
 had loved the great rambling boaster far too dearly to judge 
 him severely. It had, indeed, puzzled him a little. Mon- 
 sieur Andre, on all other occasions, was modest and retiring, 
 and indeed agreed with his friend in any proposal that was 
 made, but, so soon as '70 was mentioned, the head was 
 raised, the chest swelled, and "Moi, j'etais la!" came burst- 
 ing forth for a moment cannons roared, corpses lay strewn 
 about the dark little streets of Villeton, and Monsieur Andre 
 was a hero indeed even "Boule de Suif" took on a new and 
 splendid grandeur. It was all rather ridiculous perhaps, but 
 so long as there was no audience it mattered nothing at all 
 the maddening thought was that the whole town should 
 laugh and jeer. Monsieur Felicite was furious at the 
 thought. He thought and thought about it, but could come 
 to no definite conclusion. He realised that his friend was a 
 very sensitive person and that the whole matter was one of 
 extreme delicacy. To tell him publicly would be impossible 
 from every point of view he could see the startled looks of 
 his friends and he could hear the chatter pass round the 
 room. No, whatever happened, it must be quietly done. 
 At the next meeting in the Rue Soleil it chanced that Mon- 
 sieur Andre was more talkative than ever. The stories 
 
MONSIEUR F ELI CITE 269 
 
 burst from him as lava from a volcano. It was in Paris 
 and he had rescued a girl, a beautiful girl; he had had to 
 climb with her on to roofs and then there had been only a 
 telegraph-wire between them and death. He wiped his brow 
 with an enormous red handkerchief at the recollection. 
 
 Monsieur Felicite's cheeks burned as he listened. This 
 was the kind of thing at which they all laughed. He watched 
 his friend so pleased and proud, his hand in the air, his 
 eyes twinkling, and at last that triumphant "Eh! Moi, 
 j'etais Id!" then his eyes turned slowly to Monsieur Per- 
 mon, Monsieur Raguilleau, Monsieur Marteau, Jacques Pa- 
 turot and the rest; they were sitting there quietly, gravely, 
 sucking solemnly at their pipes, nodding approvingly as the 
 climax was reached. He could fancy what they were think- 
 ing, what they would say afterwards to their wives, even 
 young Paturot "That old Andre and his stories!" 
 
 He went back to his rooms very sad at heart, and as he 
 sat gloomily by his fire he made up his mind to speak to his 
 friend. 
 
 On the next evening Monsieur Andre came in to see Mon- 
 sieur Felicite. He was happy and pleased it seemed a 
 good moment in which to say something. Monsieur Andre" 
 talked on things that he had seen in the town: Madame 
 Permon with her green umbrella and her pug; young Patu- 
 rot making verses behind the counter and so mixing the 
 parcels, which only proved that it was better to do one thing 
 at a time; funny and perplexing things that most intelligent 
 of all dogs, "Boule de Suif," had seen fit to do. He rambled 
 on. Monsieur Felicite sat awkwardly in his chair and said 
 nothing he was wondering how he ought to begin. 
 
 The light from the candles mingled with the firelight on 
 the ceiling in little pools and whirling, twisting shadows it 
 caught the old twisted chairs, the brown cabinet, and at 
 last danced on Monsieur Andre's nose. 
 
 Monsieur Felicite plunged. 
 
 "Mon ami " he said, and paused. 
 
 "Yes," said Monsieur Andre, pulling "Boule de Suifs" 
 ears and looking at the fire. 
 
 "There, is a thing that I would like to say." Monsieur 
 
270 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 Felicite cleared his throat. "I have been wondering a little 
 lately only a little about well, about your stories; the 
 histories, you know, of the war and the things that you have 
 done." 
 
 "Yes," said Monsieur Andre, apparently gratified. "They 
 are good stones." 
 
 "Well," said Monsieur Felicite, stammering in his agita- 
 tion, "they are good stories splendid stories I like to 
 listen, above all things. But there are the others " 
 
 "What others?" said Monsieur Andre, looking at his 
 friend in a puzzled way. 
 
 "Well, Messieurs Permon, Raguilleau, Marteau . . . 
 and others, our friends . . . they don't believe them, 
 they laugh, they mock and it hurts me, your friend. They 
 think that there is too much that there is exaggera- 
 tion " 
 
 He paused. Monsieur Andre said nothing. 
 
 Monsieur Felicite went on desperately. "It is not I, you 
 understand, who say that. You are my friend and I hate 
 them to mock. They do it, perhaps, without thought. They 
 do not know. . . ." 
 
 There was a long silence. Monsieur Andre was sitting 
 very stiffly in his chair; the ball in his throat went up and 
 down, and he made little clucking noises like a her. 
 
 "You are my friend," he said at last, slowly, "and you 
 say these things." He spoke in a whisper. 
 
 "It is not I," said Monsieur Felicite, "but the others 
 they say things and laugh. And I love you and I would not 
 have you ridiculous." 
 
 At the word "ridiculous" Monsieur Andre, trembling with 
 anger, rose from his chair; he stood, an enormous figure, 
 in the firelight, one hand trembling in the air, the other 
 hand clenched. 
 
 "You say that you are my friend, that you love me," he 
 said, his voice shaking, "and you tell me that my stories are 
 lies, that " 
 
 "No," broke in Monsieur Felicite, "it is not I who say 
 
 "But it is you!" cried Monsieur Andre with furious 
 
MONSIEUR FELICITE 271 
 
 triumph. "You, my friend. Pah! take that for your friend- 
 ship!" and he wildly snapped his fingers. "And those 
 others! Did I not go to them long before you? Have 
 they not listened to my histories and am I such a fool, such 
 a cuckoo, such a stuttering simpleton, that I cannot tell 
 whether they believe them? Am I, indeed? No, it is you 
 who cannot believe what I, your friend, say. A pretty 
 friend! A liar, a knave, a teller of tales!" and Monsieur 
 Andre again snapped his fingers. 
 
 "No, please." Monsieur Felicite, his eyes full of tears, 
 rose from his seat and laid his hand on his friend's arm. 
 Monsieur Andre shook it off and walked towards the door. 
 
 "You have called me a liar! You, my friend!" he shouted. 
 "I have been called a liar and I will never forgive it! Never! 
 Here is an end, for ever, monsieur! Never speak to me 
 again! I know how to value your friendship. You have 
 used language to me that has never been used to an Andre-^ 
 it is enough I shall not forget " 
 
 He flung open the door and stamped furiously into the 
 passage, followed by "Boule de Suif." 
 
 Madame Bette heard most of this from the other side of 
 the keyhole, and that is how I know. Any one in Villeton 
 will tell you the same. 
 
 Monsieur Felicite sat miserably in front of his fire, hop- 
 ing that his friend would return. He knew his impetuous 
 temper and that he ever said more than he really meant, 
 and so he listened eagerly as the steps passed beneath his 
 window and voices echoed down the street but Monsieur 
 Andre did not come. The coals clicked in little golden cav- 
 erns, the light died, the grey ashes lay in little heaps where 
 the fire had been, the candles jumped wildly up and down as 
 they sank into their silver holders, little winds rose about the 
 house and whistled at the window, the clock in the market- 
 place struck one, and still Monsieur Felicite sat there. He 
 was gone, his friend, and all that had made those last months 
 so beautiful, so happy, had gone too. Whilst it had lasted 
 he had not realised the security of it, the happiness of 
 knowing that there was some one always there who cared 
 for him. ... He sat miserably reminiscent. In the 
 
272 THE GREAT MODERN, ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 morning it was all about the town. Madame Bette had 
 heard it, had seen Monsieur Andre leave the house. "Oh! 
 quel mauvais caractere . . . Mais, ouil tt etait en colere! 
 . . . C' etait ejfrayant!" They discussed it at every cor- 
 ner. 
 
 On the afternoon of the next day they met, and Madame 
 Permon, who saw them, said that it was pitiful. It was in 
 the Rue des Ecoliers at the narrow corner by the cathedral, 
 so that there was really no room at all and their coats 
 brushed as they passed. Monsieur Andre was walking, his 
 dog at his heels, with his head high and his moustaches 
 twirled to the utmost twist of ferocity. Monsieur Felicite's 
 head was down, and there were heavy lines under his eyes 
 that showed that he had not slept. He stopped and held out 
 his hand. Monsieur Andre pushed fiercely past him as 
 though he had not been there. 
 
 After that there could be no- question of compromise. 
 Monsieur Felicite had his pride. 
 
 Yes, he had his pride, but he suffered terribly. In the 
 first place he knew that the whole town would talk, was 
 indeed talking with all its might. Groups at corners of the 
 street; Madame Boileau's stall in the market-place, the 
 favourite point of gossip in the town; M. Carite, the tailor, 
 who, with his long nose and great spectacles, was always 
 standing in his door ready for a word with his neighbour 
 all these people seemed to him bursting with the news. And 
 they did talk of course. It was far too exciting a topic to 
 leave untouched. There was no question of sides; poor 
 Monsieur Felicite had been abominably treated, and that 
 wretched gawk of an Andre deserved nothing better than a 
 hanging Monsieur Felicite, who had never quarrelled with 
 any one in the whole of his life, to be pestered by such a 
 creature! They tried to make it up to him, the good 
 women, by little attentions and presents. On the morning 
 after the quarrel the little man found on his table an enor- 
 mous cucumber, half a ham, a red cotton handkerchief with 
 spots, a pair of carpet slippers, a pair of braces, and a china 
 vase. Madame Bette looked at these things contemptuously 
 and then left the room in a flood of tears, murmuring "Le 
 
MONSIEUR F ELICIT E 273 
 
 pauvre! Le pauvre!" all the way down to the kitchen. 
 But all this affection could in no way compensate for the 
 loss of his friend. A hundred times a day he felt that he 
 could bear it no longer and started out to make the peace 
 and then, on the way, his pride would return to him, he 
 would flush at the memory of the things that Monsieur 
 Andre had said, and he would slowly return. He went 
 out very little for fear lest they should meet in the street, 
 and he scarcely dared to sit at his window. 
 
 Friday evening was a time of torture, for they both con- 
 tinued to go to the meetings at the "Soleil Rouge/' because 
 I think they tried to show to the world that it did not mat- 
 ter, this quarrel. 
 
 So there they used to sit, both of them as unhappy as pos- 
 sible. 
 
 Monsieur Andre suffered too, I suppose, and he had the 
 execration of the whole town to bear. People would scarcely 
 speak to him, and women would shake their fists at his back 
 and little boys would throw stones at "Boule de Suif." And 
 he loved Monsieur Felicite with an absolutely undying de- 
 votion; the longer the quarrel lasted the more he knew 
 that he cared. But his pride was greater than Monsieur 
 Felicite's's and he would not give way. Poor Monsieur 
 Felicite grew quite thin and pale; his clothes hung loosely 
 about him, and try as Madame Bette would, she could not 
 keep him neat. He ate very little and slept badly at night. 
 Monsieur Andre grew so fierce that it was as much as any 
 one's life was worth to speak to him he was even unkind 
 to "Boule de Suif," and on one terrible occasion he kicked 
 him. 
 
 So matters went on for several months, and there seemed 
 to be no hope at all of any reconcilation. Then something 
 happened. 
 
 One Friday night at the "Soleil Rouge" Monsieur Raguil- 
 leau had news. When Monsieur Raguilleau had news there 
 was no mistaking it; he sat there with his eyes almost 
 closed, his mouth pursed, his nose in the air. One had often 
 to wait a considerable time before the news came he liked 
 to keep the sensation but it was generally worth having. 
 
274 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 He looked at his absinthe, tilted it for a moment in his 
 glass, and then said: 
 
 "Marie has returned." 
 
 Every one was excited and there were murmurs of "Mais 
 non!" and "Vraiment!" and "Mon Dieut" passing round 
 the table. Even Monsieur Felicite was moved; his cheeks 
 coloured and he leaned a little forward. Monsieur Andre 
 sat up straight in his chair and looked at Monsieur Raguil- 
 leau. "Marie!" he said with a gasp. Their minds flew 
 back to the time, not so very long ago, when Marie Blanche 
 had lightened the whole town with her smiles wonderful 
 hair, cheeks like roses, a laugh like a bell, and the temper of 
 an angel ! And then a man had come, a fellow from another 
 province, good-looking enough in a black, fierce kind of way, 
 but a scoundrel if ever there was one. She had loved him 
 and gone with him, and her mother had died of grief and 
 now she had come back alone. 
 
 "She is ill," said Monsieur Raguilleau. "She has a baby. 
 He did not marry her." 
 
 He brought his sentence out with a certain sharp satis- 
 faction. He was sorry for the girl of course, but it was 
 something to be able to create a sensation. 
 
 "Where is she?" said Monsieur Marteau. 
 
 "In a room, 5 Rue Napoleon the top floor I have not 
 seen her." This he added in vindication of his own moral 
 conduct. After all he had his character to think about. 
 Marie was no better than she ought to be, and it would not 
 do for respectable citizens . . . Nevertheless he shifted 
 a little, uncomfortably, in his chair. 
 
 "Well, well," said Monsieur Permon, also rather uneasy. 
 "Poor thing, poor thing! Still it's her own fault . . . 
 hum ... ha ... the brute . . . dear me! "and 
 so left it perfectly clear that he could have nothing to do 
 with the matter. This was the general attitude of the table. 
 We were very respectable in Villeton and it didn't do to be 
 mixed up with that sort of thing. 
 
 Monsieur Felicite went back to his rooms and summoned 
 Madame Bette. 
 
 "Voyez" he said, "I want things many things." 
 
MONSIEUR FELICITE 275 
 
 "Things, monsieur?" she said. 
 
 "Yes," he answered impatiently, "for one who is ill 
 nourishing things soups and puddings and fruit and 
 quickly." 
 
 Soon, carrying an enormous basket, he passed into the 
 dark street. He took unfrequented paths because he did not 
 wish to be met by any one. They did talk so in Viileton. 
 His thoughts were all with the girl poor Marie! She had 
 been the delight of the town in those earlier days, and now 
 that scoundrel ... He clenched his fist and made a 
 little noise in his throat. The Rue Napoleon was very dark, 
 being, indeed, only lighted by one very dismal lamp. No. $ 
 was a tall and gloomy house with shuttered windows on 
 the top floor a light was dimly burning. 
 
 Monsieur Felicite banged the knocker and the door was 
 opened by an old woman. 
 
 "Madame Perite? You have Marie here?" 
 
 "Ah! Monsieur!" The old woman burst into tears. "It 
 is pitiful. Until just now no one had come, and it is ter- 
 rible. She has no money . . . and she suffers. Mon 
 Dieu! how she suffers! Ah! they are hard, these peo- 
 ple." 
 
 She held a candle above her head and led the way up the 
 dark stairs. On the top landing she turned and pushed 
 open the door. 
 
 "Take the candle, monsieur," she said. 
 
 He stepped into the room. It was a large attic the roof 
 slanted to either side; there was little furniture. A bed 
 against the farther wall, two rickety chairs, a table, and on 
 the chimney-piece a guttering candle. 
 
 In the waving light the girl's head lay dark against the 
 white of the pillows; by the bedside a man was kneeling, 
 and at the sound of his voice Monsieur Felicite started, the 
 candle shook in his hand, and he stayed motionless by the 
 door. 
 
 "Nay, but Marie, poor little Marie. ... I will look 
 after the babe. I will see to it that you do not suffer " 
 
 The girl laughed. "Why, Monsieur Andre you and the 
 baby! that would be truly droll. Why, you would not 
 
276 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 know what to do. But, indeed, monsieur, I am better al- 
 ready now that you have come. There was no one and 
 I was afraid. ... I knew what they would say " 
 
 She turned her head on the pillow and began to cry 
 softly. 
 
 That was too much for Monsieur Felicite. He crossed the 
 room with his basket. He had, for the moment, forgotten 
 Monsieur Andre. 
 
 "Marie . . . little one. It is I, your old friend. Droll 
 Monsieur Felicite with whom you laughed. I had only just 
 heard and I hurried here. And see, here in a basket I have 
 brought things for you and the baby . . . beautiful 
 things." 
 
 He went down on his little fat knees by the bed and put 
 his arm round her. 
 
 "Ah, monsieur!" she said, and she fainted. At the same 
 moment the baby began to cry. 
 
 "Ah, mon Dieul She has fainted! Quick!" he cried to 
 Monsieur Andre. "Take the baby! I will see to her!" 
 
 Monsieur Andre clumsily picked the baby up and began 
 to hold it upside down. Its cries were redoubled. 
 
 "Mais, non! Pas comme ca!" Monsieur Felicite took it 
 for a moment and rocked it in his arms. "Like th?,t! Look 
 
 you " He gave the baby back, and for a moment their 
 
 hands touched. He bent over the girl. In a little while he 
 had brought her to. 
 
 "Oh! It was silly of me. But oh! monsieur, you are so- 
 good to me . . . it was too much !" 
 
 He knelt by the bed and whispered to her. 
 
 Monsieur Andre stood an enormous shape in the candle- 
 light, rocking the baby. 
 
 "Now," Marie said, turning her cheek on the pillows with 
 a smile. "I shall sleep. Ah! messieurs, how good you 
 both are to me." 
 
 Soon she slept. There was silence for some time. Then 
 Monsieur Felicite got up from his knees and crossed over to 
 Monsieur Andre. He put his hand on the other's shoulder; 
 Monsieur Andre did not look up. His hand passed over his 
 shoulder around his neck; he had to stand on tip- toe. 
 
MONSIEUR FELICITE 277 
 
 "Mon ami, I am sorry. It is I who have been wrong. 
 I have been lonely I have been miserable " 
 
 Monsieur Andre rocked the baby furiously. 
 
 "No, but forgive me. I should not have spoken as I did. 
 Carefully, you will wake the baby " 
 
 Monsieur Andre turned and laid it on the bed. 
 
 "No, it is I," he said fiercely, glaring at Monsieur Felicite. 
 "What you have said is true. It is I who have done this. 
 I am a liar, a pig, a scoundrel. . . . It is all true." 
 
 "No, no," said Monsieur Felicite. 
 
 "But it is true. It is not good for you to have such a man 
 for your friend you who are so good, a hero. But I will 
 try ... I will tell no more stories. ... I cannot be 
 without you." He turned and clutched his friend by the 
 coat. "I am very unhappy," he said. 
 
 They slowly and solemnly embraced; then, with one last 
 look at the two asleep on the bed, they crept from the 
 room. 
 
RED AND WHITE 1 
 
 BY ROLAND PERTWEE 
 
 If we could but forget by heart 
 The many things we never knew, 
 
 Should we not give a greater part 
 To what is fanciful and true? 
 
 1AM sixteen and a half and quite old enough to know 
 better. That's what uncle said, and I hate him, yes, I 
 do, even though I believe it was aunt who made him say 
 it, and of course I never could stand her. If they went 
 down on their knees and begged me to forgive them, it 
 wouldn't be any use. 
 
 Between them they spoiled 4he most beautiful thing that 
 ever happened and made it look all horrid and wrong and 
 I can't think of the word. And I know now that if I 
 met Mooly I should go all red, and she'd go all white, and 
 we'd talk some nonsense about bicycles or whether it was 
 fine or not, and try and get away from each other as quickly 
 as we could. We shall feel we ought to be ashamed of 
 something there was no shame in, but the heavenliest time 
 two people ever spent together. 
 
 When we grow up, I often wonder, do we all grow beastly? 
 Do we all see things wrong and twisted, and miss the best 
 every time? It seems to me we do, and so I hate all grown- 
 ups as much as I hate uncle and aunt. I think I shall go 
 away somewhere and hide, or be a hermit and spend the rest 
 of my days remembering Mooly and trying to forget all 
 the rest. 
 
 But before I go I want to make a clean breast of every- 
 
 1 Copyright, 1917, by The Century Company. By permission 
 of the Century Magazine and the author. 
 
 278 
 
RED AND WHITE 279 
 
 thing in the hope that there is at least some one who will 
 see it just as it really and truly is. 
 
 My name is Dorian Festubert, and my mother died 
 when I was born, so she never had the chance to be as 
 lovely to me as I know she would have been. When my 
 father heard that she was dead he went up to the bedroom 
 and kissed her and said "What a happy time we've missed, 
 my dear!" Then he went into the garden and shot himself. 
 
 I have always been awfully proud of my father for that, 
 and one day when I heard aunt telling seme one the story, 
 and saying, "They were a very hysterical family," I flew into 
 a fearful rage, and said all sorts of things I shouldn't have 
 said about her mothers' meeting and the rotten presents of 
 vegetables she gave to the parish poor. There was no end 
 of a scene, and uncle said I was an ill-conditioned young 
 pup and didn't know what respect meant. 
 
 "Well," said I, "you don't know what love means and 
 never will." 
 
 After that I had a hiding, four with the back and two 
 with the bristles; but I wasn't a bit sorry, because what I 
 had said was true. 
 
 They wouldn't let me go to a decent public school, like 
 any other boy, because of its "polluting influences," what- 
 ever they mry be. I should think uncle must have gone to, 
 a public school all right, and got properly polluted and 
 aunt, too. 
 
 I had governesses with spectacles until I was twelve 
 years old. They wore dresses that buttoned down the 
 front because none of the servants would ever do anything 
 for them. They taught me grammar and arithmetic, and 
 read aloud from the New Testament and Thomas a Kern- 
 pis. 
 
 We lived in a big house with what might have been jolly 
 grounds. The reason why they weren't jolly was because 
 there were no wild parts. Every square inch was cultivated. 
 You know, close-cut grass, horrible cactus, carpet beds, very 
 tidy gravel paths, and rolls of wire netting round all the 
 little trees. 
 
 The inside of the house was just as bad. Everything had 
 
280 THE GREAT MODERN. ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 a place. If you moved an ornament half an inch, it was 
 always put back. When there was a spring cleaning on, 
 and the furniture was piled up in a heap, you could see 
 a map on, the pile of carpets showing where every single 
 chair or table had to go. There was nowhere where a 
 chap could make a good old mess. Even the outhouses 
 were the same nails in the beams to hang the bass brooms 
 on, and all that kind 6f thing. 
 
 Uncle and aunt were crazy about orderliness and method. 
 Never in my life did I hear either of them say they had 
 lost anything. They were frightfully punctual, too^ Old 
 aunt used to bend her knees before sitting on the church 
 pew at exactly the same second every Sunday in the year. 
 I am sure she believed that if she had been a moment late 
 Peter would have bolted the gates of heaven on her for 
 good and all. 
 
 We never knew anybody worth knowing; all their friends 
 were frightfully plain, and the servants were simply chronic. 
 They were the "Now, Master Dorian, you mustn't do 
 that" kind of servants. 
 
 How I longed for a decent pal, some chap I could talk 
 to or go strodding with! A strod is a catapult, you know. 
 I invented the word myself; I had to keep it jolly dark 
 that I had a strod. Sometimes I used to steal out early 
 in the morning and go and smash bottles on the big rub- 
 bish heap a quarter of a mile away. But it wasn't much 
 fun when there was no one to sing out, "Good shot!" or, 
 "Bossed!" and that sort of thing. Things weren't much 
 better when the last governess went and I was "put with" 
 the vicar's class. 
 
 There were about five other boys there, rotten, swotting 
 chaps with round spectacles and pimples. I think they 
 hated me because I was tall and had wavy hair and 
 well, my pater was jolly good-looking, and people used to 
 say I was very like him. , Then, again, they were fed up with 
 me because I used to say potty things about how stunning 
 the rhododendrons looked and how the water seemed to 
 laugh in the mill brook. They said I was putting on side, 
 but I wasn't really. I couldn't help noticing all the jolly 
 
RED AND WHITE 281 
 
 | 
 
 colours and sounds in the country, and I don't see any 
 reason why a chap shouldn't talk about 'em. They are 
 much more interesting than pencil-boxes or nibs. 
 
 From the way they mugged at their lessons they ought 
 to have been awfully clever. They hadn't eyes or ears for 
 anything else. I remember once, after I had seen a croc- 
 odile of girls from the high school go by, one or two were 
 so pretty that I'd have liked to speak to them; I have 
 hardly ever spoken to a girl, I asked one of these chaps 
 his name was Clumber; a hideous sort of name, which 
 just suited him if he had ever kissed a girl, and what it 
 was like. 
 
 "Don't be beastly," he said. 
 
 I said that I couldn't see anything beastly in it, and 
 thought it would be jolly nice, if she was pretty. 
 
 "It's beastly to talk about those things," was all he 
 answered. 
 
 I am sure, if uncle and aunt had had a son, he'd have 
 been just like old Clumber. But whoever it is who ar- 
 ranges these things knew, I expect, that it would be a 
 rotten scrt of family for a boy, and so they never sent one 
 along. 
 
 Orderliness, method, and routine are things that any de- 
 cent boy properly hates. What he wants is plenty of 
 fun and some one to be jolly sympathetic with him when 
 he feels down. 
 
 There was no sympathy with uncle and aunt. It was 
 what I should call a no-kissing household. Uncle didn't 
 approve of kissing, and aunt kissed people only after they 
 were dead. They wouldn't have let her do it if they had 
 been alive. 
 
 The only person who ever kissed me was the old doctor 
 who had attended my mother. 
 
 Uncle used to spend the entire day in his study, and 
 aunt, when she had finished her orders and had a good 
 pry round for dust, did parish calls, or knitting with grey 
 wool. They never spent much time together. 
 
 The most exciting thing that ever happened was when 
 uncle bought the motor-car. He used it for visiting some 
 
282 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 of his property, and as he was too mean to keep a chauffeur 
 and in a blue funk of driving himself, he had me taught. 
 
 Once a year their niece Elizabeth came down to spend 
 a few days. I never took much notice of her because aunt 
 trotted her round all day. Besides, she wasn't my sort. 
 She was a flat little thing, and I always suspected her of 
 telling tales; so her visits were hardly an event. Never- 
 theless, it was through her that the wonderful day came 
 about. 
 
 At the end of the summer term, a few days before she 
 was expected, aunt had a letter at breakfast and said: 
 
 "Jane asks if Elizabeth may bring a school friend with 
 her on Friday. Apparently she is staying with them for the 
 holidays, and as Jane wants to shut up house for a few 
 weeks, it will be awkward if we can't have her." 
 
 "Can't she go to her own people?" said uncle. 
 
 "Apparently she is an orphan. Jane took it for granted 
 we would not refuse, because she says here that Miss Muriel 
 O'Reagh has some relatives at Felton who want her and 
 Elizabeth to go over there on Friday night." 
 
 "Oh, well, if you can arrange it," said uncle. 
 
 "Dorian could drive them there in the car and see that 
 they come home in good time." 
 
 "So long as I'm not bothered with a whole lot of de- 
 tails," said uncle. 
 
 I felt rather a thrill at the idea of this strange girl coming 
 to stay with us, but my spirits fell a bit when I thought 
 she would most likely turn out a second Elizabeth, only 
 more so. 
 
 Well, on Friday, about midday, I started up the car and 
 went off to the station. Aunt would have come, but as it 
 was only a two-seater, with a dicky behind, and I had to 
 collect two people, she stayed at home. 
 
 It was a simply lovely morning, birds singing like blazes 
 and the sun shining like old fits. I felt in no end of a jolly 
 state of mind, and I took some of the corners on the way 
 in fine style. I arrived at the station ten minutes too soon, 
 so I walked up and down the platform waiting for the 
 train. Presently I heard it in the distance, and knew in 
 
RED AND WHITE 283 
 
 another few minutes Elizabeth's face would be at a car- 
 riage window, in an awful stew for fear there would be no 
 one to meet her. When the train pulled in there was no 
 sign of Elizabeth, however, but looking out of one of the 
 carriage windows was the loveliest girl I had ever seen. 
 ! She had a little, white, oval face, and her hair was the 
 colour of old copper the day before it's cleaned. Reddy 
 gold, you know, with bluey lights on it. Her eyes were 
 green tha cert of green turquoises get if you wash them. I 
 don't know how to describe these things; I only know that 
 nothing in heaven could hold a candle to her. 
 
 I forgot all about Elizabeth, and ran to the place op- 
 posite which her carriage had stopped just to have another 
 look. It seemed pretty certain she wouldn't get out at 
 our potty little station, so I had to make the most of her 
 while she lasted. 
 
 Then the most extrordinary thing happened. She opened 
 the carriage door and stepped out, and there behind her, sit- 
 ting on the seat and looking very strange, was Elizabeth. 
 
 Of course, when I saw that, I made a dash for the car- 
 riage door, and she the she, not Elizabeth asked: 
 
 "Are you Dorian Festubert?" 
 
 Although I could scarcely speak, I managed to say I was. 
 
 "But you are not Muriel O'Reagh, are you?" I said. 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "I I didn't think you possibly could be." 
 
 "Elizabeth has been taken ill," she said, as if she had 
 suddenly remembered her, "with a most dreadful headache." 
 
 Well, I pulled myself together at that, and pretended to 
 be awfully bucked to see Elizabeth. She certainly did look 
 jolly ill. Her face was a sort of pasty white, with red 
 blotches on it. It was simply frightful to look at her after 
 Muriel O'Reagh; so I just turned and looked the right way. 
 
 Then Muriel said: 
 
 "Hadn't you better get out our bags? The train'll be 
 moving in a minute." 
 
 It sounded ripping as she said it, though it doesn't "look 
 up to" much written down. 
 
 I managed to hitch old Elizabeth on to the platform, 
 
284 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 where she tottered about like one o'clock; and to show 
 how strong I was, I got hold of all their luggage, and por- 
 tered it myself to the car in one go. I never felt prouder 
 than while I was carrying Muriel's bag. As a matter of 
 fact, she didn't notice me much, because she was aiding 
 old Elizabeth's faltering footsteps. 
 
 It was rather jolly being in sole charge of the car, but 
 unfortunately, Elizabeth being ill, I had to ask her to sit 
 beside me. Muriel was on the dicky-seat behind, and as 
 it was not too safe, I drove home pretty carefully for me. 
 Just once I brought off rather a showy bit of steering be- 
 tween a dog-cart and a hay-wain. Elizabeth let go a 
 scream, but Muriel didn't; so I knew she was plucky as 
 well as perfectly lovely. 
 
 When we arrived at the house, aunt came out, and made 
 no end of a fuss at the sight of Elizabeth and declared she 
 must go straight to bed; she took scarcely any notice of 
 Muriel. 
 
 It had been arranged that they were to share a room, but 
 aunt said, as Elizabeth might have something catching, 
 Muriel must sleep in another, which was down the same 
 corridor as mine. 
 
 I carried up her things, and loosened the straps so she 
 wouldn't have to bother. There was a jolly spray of tea- 
 roses growing outside the window, and I cut it off, and put 
 it in the water- jug to make things look cheerful. I was 
 going to wait for her to come up; but just then I heard 
 aunt calling, so I had to chuck that scheme. 
 
 I was to go and fetch the doctor at once, said aunt, be- 
 cause "Miss O'Reagh" thought it was measles Elizabeth 
 had got. They had had it badly at school, and Elizabeth 
 was the only one who had escaped. 
 
 I was pretty fed up at having to go out, especially as the 
 doctor lived five miles away; so I suggested that Muriel 
 might enjoy the ride. But aunt said certainly not; that 
 she would be busy putting away her things until lunch- 
 time. 
 
 Then I remembered how aunt always inspected visitors* 
 rooms to see that they had arranged everything as she 
 
RED AND WHITE 285 
 
 thought proper. I sort of guessed Muriel would fling her 
 clothes about a bit, so I pretended I had left my cap on 
 the bed, and slipped up-stairs to give her the tip. 
 
 The door of her room was open. She had taken off her 
 hat, and the sun was shining on her head. Then I noticed 
 that she seemed to have two sorts of hair, the smooth sort 
 that went all over her head like a little, wavy cap, and just 
 above that a kind of dancy fluff that reminded me of halos 
 in Bible pictures. 
 
 I must have looked rather a fool standing there staring, 
 but she didn't seem to mind. She looked at me, too, with 
 her sad, green eyes, and presently she said: 
 
 "You are tall, Dorian." 
 
 I didn't know what to answer, so I just blurted out about 
 aunt's fussings around. 
 
 "Thank you," she said. "I should have thrown every- 
 thing about if you hadn't warned me." 
 
 "I have to fetch the doctor," I told her. "Would you 
 like to have a walk this afternoon?" 
 
 "Rather!" 
 
 "Right-o. After lunch, then." 
 
 When I brought back the doctor, and he said there was 
 no doubt Elizabeth had the measles, uncle got into an awful 
 stew, because he couldn't remember if he had ever had it 
 or not. 
 
 He wouldn't let aunt go near the room, for fear she 
 would "take it," so he said; but as a matter of fact it was 
 because he was frightened of catching it from her if she 
 did. 
 
 The conversation at lunch was simply awful. I felt 
 frightfully ashamed of both of them. They made it quite 
 plain that Muriel's being there was, "under the circum- 
 stances, most unfortunate." As usual they jumped down 
 my throat every time I spoke a word, and, what was worse, 
 uncle corrected me twice for table manners. 
 
 "I shall be out this afternoon," said aunt, "and Mr. 
 Ransart will be busy in his study [Asleep, that meant]. 
 I hope you are interested in reading, for there will be little 
 else for you to do." 
 
286 THE GREAT MODERN, ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 "Thank you," said Muriel. "Perhaps if I might sit in 
 the garden with a book " 
 
 Then aunt fetched a bound copy of "The Churchman," 
 and went off to her meeting. Uncle went to his study, and 
 Muriel, looking very crestfallen, sat under the shade of a 
 tidy little tree and pretended to read. 
 
 After giving aunt and uncle about twenty minutes to get 
 off, I slipped out into the garden and joined her. 
 
 "Are you enjoying that book?" I asked. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Did you like uncle and aunt?" 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "It must be awful to live with them," she said. 
 
 "I should think it is!" I answered. 
 
 "Have you always?" 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 "Ever since I was a baby. My mother died when I was 
 born, and so my father shot himself." 
 
 "How splendid!" she said, with her eyes very wide open. 
 "My mother and father were like that, too. They lived 
 in India, I came home when I was five, you know, and 
 he got cholera. Mother would nurse him, although they 
 begged her not to. She knew he was going to die, and 
 she didn't want to be left behind." 
 
 "That's what I call love," said I, "but it's a little sad 
 for us. Who looks after you now?" 
 
 "School-mistresses in the term-time, and in the holidays 
 generally some one is hired by my guardian." 
 
 "Who's your guardian? Is he nice?" 
 
 "He's a firm of solicitors; that's all." 
 
 I waited for a minute before saying: 
 
 "I wish they'd engage me." 
 
 "I wish they would. I'd like that." 
 
 "Would you?" 
 
 "U-m." 
 
 "Do you like me, then?" 
 
 "Yes, awfully." 
 
 "How lovely! I don't think anybody ever has before." 
 
 "Why not? I shouldn't have thought they could help it." 
 
RED AND WHITE 287 
 
 "Uncle and aunt seem to help it all right," I said. 
 
 "Poor you!" 
 
 Then I asked: 
 
 "Haven't you any one, either, who makes a fuss over 
 you?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Isn't it funny? We are just alike." 
 
 "I suppose a boy doesn't mind so much." 
 
 "Doesn't he, just? I can tell you he does. It's awful 
 sometimes. I used to think it was bad when I was little, but 
 it's much worse now. Often I lie in bed and long and 
 long i don't rightly know what I long for. Perhaps it's 
 my mother, or, at any rate, somebody to love me. Do you 
 know?" 
 
 "U-m. I feel like that often. It's horrid to be lonely, 
 and to know you just must be lonely and there's no help 
 for it." 
 
 She had the sweetest way of saying things I ever heard. 
 
 "I have never talked to a girl before," I told her "not 
 really talked." 
 
 "I've never really talked to a boy, but I've often wanted 
 to. Do you mind being called a boy?" 
 
 "No; I'd rather. Aunt speaks of me as a 'youth,' and 
 uncle as a 'growing lad.' Don't you think that they are 
 horrible words?" 
 
 "Almost as bad as a young lady." 
 
 "That's bad enough. How old are you?" 
 
 "Sixteen." 
 
 "I'm that, too sixteen and a bit. It's a jolly age. I don't 
 want to grow much older. Did you hear aunt correct 
 me for calling you Muriel? You didn't mind, did you?" 
 
 "I'd sooner you called me Mooly." 
 
 "Would you really?" 
 
 "Yes; because nobody ever has." 
 
 I can't tell you what it was like calling her Mooly for 
 the first time, and when she decided that I should be Dory 
 instead of Dorian, I wanted to hug her. 
 
 "Mooly," I said, "you are the most loveliest and dearestest 
 girl in all the world, and I love you always and absolutely." 
 
288 THE GREAT MODERN, ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 "Oh, I'm glad you do," she said, "because I do you, too; 
 and if you hadn't, I should have been as miserable as 
 wretched could be." 
 
 "Then you needn't," I cried out, "because I adore you 
 twice as much as I did a minute ago." And I took her 
 hand, which was little and pink and warm, and held it in 
 mine for simply ages, and neither of us said a word. 
 
 It seems funny, but being frightfully happy makes one 
 stop talking. All sorts of glorious thoughts pour into your 
 head; but when you try and put them into words, they 
 won't come good enough. They stop at the back of your 
 throat and make you gulp. But every time a thought comes 
 you know and she knows, because you hold each other's 
 hands a wee bit tighter, and all the unsaid words thrill 
 backward and forward through your fingers. 
 
 When I spoke at last it wasn't in the least the sort of 
 thing you'd have expected. 
 
 "I was going to drive you over to Felton to-night in 
 the car." 
 
 "Yes. Won't it be nice?" 
 
 "I expect, now Elizabeth's ill, aunt'll try and stop us 
 going. It wouldn't be a bad idea to ask her to come, 
 too." 
 
 "But s'pose she says 'Yes'?" 
 
 "She won't. But perhaps she wouldn't stop us going if 
 you asked her. D'you see?" 
 
 "I'll ask her, then." 
 
 After that we went for a walk round the grounds, and 
 I showed her all the hiding-places I had made when I 
 was a kid. There was one in the middle of some rhodo- 
 dendron-bushes where I had plaited branches and made a 
 secret wigwam. In one corner was a tiny cemetery of pets 
 I had had who died: a bullfinch, two white mice, and a 
 little robin that was half tame and used to eat crumbs out 
 of my hand. There was an oyster-shell at the head of 
 each grave, and on the anniversaries of their deaths I used 
 to put down very small wreaths of lawn daisies. It seemed 
 so strange to be telling any one about these things, which 
 I had never spoken of before; but somehow, once I was 
 
RED AND WHITE 289 
 
 started, I could say anything I liked to Mooly, and she 
 could do just the same with me. 
 
 By the time tea came we hadn't any secrets left at 
 all. 
 
 "About this visit to your friends at Felton," said aunt. 
 
 "Yes," said Mooly; "I was going to ask if you could 
 come, too, Mrs. Ransart." 
 
 "That would be impossible," she answered; but what 
 Mooly said had saved the situation, for I know she was 
 going to stop us. As it was, she let us go, after giving us all 
 sorts of instructions, and insisting we should not be later 
 than nine-thirty. 
 
 At six o'clock I started up the car, and away we drove. 
 And what a drive it was! We just whizzed along, and 
 there was Mooly close beside me, with her lovely red hair 
 blowing across my face. I felt I wanted to sing ; I did sing, 
 and all the woods and the fields seemed to be singing, too. 
 Of course, I went miles out of the way, and we didn't turn 
 up until quarter to eight. 
 
 They were real nice people, those friends of Mooly's 
 father and mother. They gave us a top-hole dinner, and 
 actually had the decency to chuck me over a case of ciga- 
 rettes. 
 
 There was a sort of ripping disorder about the house. 
 Not untidy, you know, but homish, as if people kept every- 
 thing where they liked it best. I saw a pair of slippers 
 under an easy-chair, and when one of the sons, who was 
 a bit late for dinner, came in, he kicked off his shoes in the 
 hall and yelled to one of the servants to sling him down 
 a pair of pumps. That's what I call living. I tried to pic- 
 ture aunt's face if I were to have done the same. 
 
 It was simply rotten having to leave at nine o'clock, and 
 if it hadn't been that Mooly and I were to be together, I 
 should have chanced the row and stayed a bit longer. 
 
 After saying good-by about twice all round, we hopped 
 into the car and started for home. The moon was out, and 
 the stars looked bright and winky, and there was a husky 
 sort of feeling in the air. It was a wee bit cold, so Mooly 
 nestled up very close, and as there was a foot-accelerator, 
 
290 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 I drove with one hand, and put my other arm round her 
 shoulder. 
 
 "I am happy, Dory," she said. 
 
 And I whispered: 
 
 "So am I. I feel as if we are all alone in the world." 
 
 "Wouldn't it be lovely if we could drive on like this until 
 the dawn comes." 
 
 "I wish we could forever," I said. 
 
 Then for nearly two miles we said nothing, and I thought 
 of the glorious week we would spend together. 
 
 "I don't know what I shall do when you go, Mooly," 
 I said at last. 
 
 "We mustn't even think of that. You look so big and 
 splendid in the moonlight, Dory." 
 
 "Shall I tell you how beautiful you are?" I asked; and 
 when she said "Yes," I turned my head to look down on 
 her, so that I could see every little feature that I wanted 
 to praise, and the car ran into a heap of stones and burst 
 the front tire. 
 
 We had a very narrow squeak of being tipped into the 
 road. I got out at once to see what had happened. The 
 old tire had gone badly. 
 
 "There's a spare tube in the back," I said. "Ill whip 
 this off and put it on." 
 
 So I got a jack and some levers from under the seat, and 
 after about ten minutes had the burst tube out, 
 
 Mooly sat on the stone heap and watched while I worked, 
 and I told her she was like a fairy on a toadstool. 
 
 Of course, when I opened the box at the back of the 
 car, I found the other tube had been left at home. 
 
 "Isn't it there?" she asked. 
 
 I shook my head. 
 
 "I say, I'm awfully sorry, but we shall have to walk. It 
 won't take long across the fields; then I can fetch a step- 
 ney wheel and come back for the car. I was a fool to run 
 into those stones." 
 
 "You couldn't help it," she said. 
 
 Then I took her hand, and we started off along a little 
 path through the green wheat. 
 
RED AND WHITE 291 
 
 "I like this best, Dory," she said. "It's just as if we 
 were Adam and Eve." 
 
 "Just," I answered; "only I'm sure Eve wasn't half so 
 lovely as you are." 
 
 "Do you love me a lot, Dory?" 
 
 "If I were to try and tell you how much, Mooly, you'd 
 never believe." 
 
 "But I should like you to try." 
 
 So I tried, and told her that I loved her like two look- 
 ing-glasses opposite each other which reflected backward 
 and forward, forward and backward, until at last they came 
 to a tiny grey point no bigger than a midge's eye and too 
 small for any one to see. 
 
 "And that's forever, Mooly," I said, and looking up, I 
 found we'd arrived home, and there was a light in the din- 
 ing-room window, where aunt was sitting waiting for us. 
 
 When I saw it I turned to Mooly. 
 
 "We had better say good night now, because when I've 
 taken you in I must go back for the car." 
 
 "You promise to take great, great care of yourself?" 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 "I sha'n't go to sleep until I know you are safely back, 
 and I shall be thinking about tramps all the time." 
 
 "I'll just tap at your door to show I'm all right. Shall 
 I?" 
 
 "Yes, please." 
 
 "Then good night, now." 
 
 "Goo' night, Dory." 
 
 "Mooly, I I want to kiss you awfully. May I?" 
 
 "I want you to." 
 
 And I did, and it was like oh, I don't know what it was 
 like, but never anything so sweet had ever happened to 
 me before. It was the first time I had ever felt happy 
 all over so happy that I wanted to cry. 
 
 We went in and explained to aunt what had happened. 
 It was half-past ten, and although she was better about it 
 than I expected, she was pretty shirty. 
 
 "Go to bed as quickly as you can," she told Mooly. "And 
 you, Dorian, must lose no time in bringing back the car. 
 
292 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 When you do come in don't make a noise and disturb your 
 uncle. " 
 
 As I was crossing the hall I heard her saying: 
 
 "Mr. Ransart and I have decided, in the circumstances, 
 it will be best fof you to return to my sister in the morning." 
 
 I spun round as if I had been shot, and walked back to 
 the room. 
 
 "What is it, Dorian?" 
 
 "I I thought you called me," I lied. 
 
 "I did nothing of the kind. Please hurry. We don't want 
 to be up all night." 
 
 And as there was nothing I could say I just went. In 
 a kind of a dream I got that beastly stepney wheel, and 
 tramped back over those hateful fields. 
 
 Mooly was going to-morrow my Mooly. She was go- 
 ing away, and perhaps I should never see her again. 
 
 I think I felt then as my father felt when mother died. 
 I just banged the old stepney on anyhow, chucked the 
 tools into the car, jerked up the starting-handle, and flung 
 myself into the driver's seat. 
 
 It was about two miles by road and I went as recklessly 
 as I could, and didn't care. I only just missed hitting the 
 parapet of the little bridge and landing in the stream be- 
 low. I was sorry I had missed. I wished I 'could drive 
 over a precipice or fling myself under a train. 
 
 Then I remembered my promise to Mooly to be careful, 
 and slowed up a bit. 
 
 Did she mind as much as I was minding? Was she as 
 miserable as I was? No one could be. 
 
 Up the drive I went, skidded into the garage, kicked up 
 the switch of the headlight, and walked into the house. 
 
 How vile it looked, the tidy umbrella-stand, the silly 
 plate with the visiting-cards, and the row of brushes hang- 
 ing on brass hooks! I loathed it all; I would like to have 
 set the whole place on fire. 
 
 I went to my bedroom and dragged off my clothes. In the 
 looking-glass I saw that my face was filthy with smears of 
 oil on it that made me furious. So I shoved on a dressing- 
 gown and, collaring my pajamas, went off to have a bath. 
 
RED AND WHITE 293 
 
 I honestly believe that bath saved me from doing some- 
 thing violent, for under the warm water I lost my horrible 
 resentfulness and could think only of what a wonderful day 
 it had been and remember that never-to-be-forgotten good 
 night in the garden. Then I dried myself, put on my 
 pajamas and dressing-gown, brushed my hair, and turned 
 off the light. 
 
 As I passed down the passage I could hear uncle and 
 aunt having their snoring competition. Aunt's was the 
 worse by a long chalk. She had a frantic habit of leaving 
 off for a second or two, then giving a kind of "snork" like 
 a pig. Often I thanked Heaven my room was a long way 
 from theirs, because once, when there was a spring cleaning 
 and I moved to one next door, I couldn't sleep all night 
 for the vile row they made. 
 
 I blew out the candle at the top of the stairs and turned 
 down the passage leading to my room. 
 
 Outside Mooly's door I stopped. The moon was shining 
 on her two little shoes put out to be cleaned. I picked 
 them up and kissed them. 
 
 "She's asleep by now," I thought. "It would wake her 
 up if I kept my promise and knocked. " Oh, how I longed 
 to hear her voice just once more! But I was very strong- 
 minded, and, so as not to make a sound, I stooped down ( 
 and put the shoes back in their place as quietly as a mouse. 
 And then I saw that there was a wee flicker of light com- 
 ing ^hrough the crack under the door. My heart gave a big 
 thump. She wasn't asleep, then, or perhaps she had fallen 
 asleep and left the candle burning. That thought made 
 me awfully panicky. Suppose the candle fell over and set 
 fire to the bed. 
 
 I stood a long time biting my nails and wondering what 
 to do. At last I made up my mind. I would knock ever 
 so softly, and if she didn't answer, I would steal into the 
 room and blow out the light. 
 
 Taking a deep breath, I tapped just once, and in an in- 
 stant I heard: 
 
 "That you, Dory?," 
 
 "Yes " 
 
294 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 "Oh, I've been so frightened. I thought you'd had an 
 accident. I never heard you come back." 
 
 "I'm all right, Mooly. Good night, dear." 
 
 "Won't you come and kiss me good night?" 
 
 And that ws what I had prayed and prayed she would 
 say. 
 
 She was sitting up in bed when I stole in, and her lovely 
 hair was on her shoulders like a shawl; but I saw that her 
 eyes were all wet and dim. 
 
 "Have you been crying?" 
 
 "Yes; because I was afraid, and because " 
 
 "Because you are going away from me to-morrow?" 
 
 She bit her lower lip and nodded, and I broke out with: 
 
 "O Mooly, Mooly, when I 'think of it I want to cry, too!" 
 
 And I sat down by the bed, and I kissed her, and she 
 kissed me, and we clung to each other so tightly that we 
 could hardly breathe. 
 
 "This is like years ago, when I was five," she said at last. 
 
 "It's like never before with me," I answered; "but I 
 know now that what I've always longed for was this." 
 
 After a while she dropped her head on the pillow and 
 my arm was round her neck and my head beside hers. 
 
 "Isn't this lovely?" she what is the word? Is it 
 "crooned?" I don't think there is a right one. I only 
 know I could scarcely hear what she said, but I could feel 
 it against my cheek. 
 
 And so we remained for ever so long, and both my slip- 
 pers fell off to the floor, and the candle burned very low. 
 
 "It's worth having been lonely for years not to be lonely 
 now," I whispered. "Did two people ever before love each 
 other as much as we do?" 
 
 I felt her shake her head in the dark, for the candle 
 flickered and went out as I spoke. I held her a little tighter 
 then, because I couldn't see her any longer, and she sighed 
 in a way that sounded happier than anything in the world. 
 
 It's hard to talk in the dark, so we didn't try, and the 
 time stole on; after a long, long while I knew that she was 
 asleep. Then, oh, more gently than you would believe, I 
 put my cheek against hers and closed my eyes. 
 
RED AND WHITE 295 
 
 It was broad daylight when I was wakened by a hand 
 shaking my shoulder. Looking up, I saw uncle standing 
 by the bed. A little way off was aunt, and her mouth was 
 dosed so tight that it had almost disappeared. I could see 
 uncle was furious; but before he could speak I said: 
 
 "Hush! Don't wake her up! " 
 
 "Take him away," said aunt; "I'll remain here." 
 
 I was going to flare up at that, but uncle, who was very 
 strong when he liked, clapped a hand over my mouth and, 
 gripping me by the collar of my dressing-gown, dragged 
 me from the room. 
 
 I am not going to tell any more of this story. I wouldn't 
 repeat a word uncle said to me if you paid me a hundred 
 million pounds. And all the vile time he was talking I knew 
 that aunt was saying the same hateful, wicked things to 
 Mooly. 
 
 When he had finished he locked me in his dressing-room. 
 He might have saved himself the trouble, for I shouldn't 
 have come out until she had gone. He had just spoiled 
 everything. 
 
 And now you know why if I met Mooly I should go all 
 red and she'd go all white and we'd talk about bicycles or 
 rubbish. 
 
 I heard the cab that took her away soon after nine, and 
 I just stood in a corner and choked and wished I'd never 
 been born. It's a horrible, hateful world, and all the people 
 in it excepting Mooly are beastly, beastly, beastly. 
 
MAN AND BRUTE 
 
 BY E. L. GRANT WATSON 
 
 DOWN the long white road that leads to Armadale a 
 horseman cantered at a slow and regular pace. On 
 either side of him stretched the limitless scrub of 
 slender eucalyptus saplings. The green and pink leaves of 
 the trees blended to a delicate mauve in the evening light. 
 Overhead, the sky flushed from crimson to orange-yellow 
 as the sun sank behind the bleak and rugged contour of an 
 upstanding hill. That day the horseman had ridden some 
 forty miles across open country, and both he and his beast 
 were tired. Now that he saw the white roofs of Armadale 
 lying clustered together in the valley below him, he urged 
 forward his horse over the soft, sandy road. He had reck- 
 oned on reaching the town earlier in the afternoon, but 
 had been delayed on the journey and was now anxious to 
 make up for lost time. Behind him a cloud of dust hung in 
 the still air. The thud of his horse's hoofs and the occa- 
 sional whistle of a bird were the only sounds that broke 
 the stillness. 
 
 When he entered the town he found few people moving 
 in the street, but he shouted to the first man that he met 
 and asked his way to the doctor's house. He reined up 
 for a few moments while the man gave him his directions, 
 then hurried on again. 
 
 Half an hour later the doctor drove his sulky at a fast 
 trot over the dusty road. By that time darkness was set- 
 tling upon the land, night-moving animals were stirring in 
 the bush on either side, and the doctor could see as he 
 drove by the dark forms of wallabies crouching in the grass. 
 
 296 
 
MAN AND BRUTE 297 
 
 The first miles, over the made road, were easy going, but 
 then difficulties arose. The track into the bush on the 
 right was hard to find, and when found was not easy to 
 follow. 
 
 Dr. Laurence was a man unused to the wild life of bush 
 country. He had only lately come from Sydney and he 
 was always a little nervous of crossing open scrub after 
 dark. To his unaccustomed eyes, bushtracks were diffi- 
 cult to follow at the best of times, and now, when he turned 
 off the road, he had to keep all his wits about him and 
 not let his hors stray into the open spaces of the bush, 
 which stretched out in grey glades and avenues on either 
 side. Often he had to climb down from his seat and make 
 sure of the track by the light of his side lanterns. It 
 was necessary here to go at a slow pace, for the ground 
 was uneven and the way was often blocked by dead tim- 
 ber that lay rotting where it had fallen. At one time he 
 was even minded to turn back, but being a kindhearted 
 and generous man, he pushed on in spite of difficulties. The 
 thought of the disabled shepherd, solitary and suffering, 
 kept him to his resolution. 
 
 After a laborious hour of slow travelling he came to 
 the wire fence of which the horseman had spoken. In 
 front of him he could see an open stretch of salt-bush 
 country bare, open ground covered by stunted whitei 
 leaved bushes. Away- on the left he could see the dark line 
 of the trees. They looked massive enough in the darkness, 
 but he knew that, like most of the Australian bush, they 
 grew sparse and feathery on the dry soil. 
 
 While he was tying up his horse he became conscious of 
 the extreme stillness of the night. Now that the wheels 
 of the sulky no longer crunched their way over dead 
 branches, he suddenly felt the silence as if it were a con- 
 crete and tangible thing. The trees around him were very 
 still; they seemed to wait in suspense as if afraid of rustling 
 their leaves. His horse breathed long, hot breaths. There 
 was no other sound but the cracking of a twig under his 
 own foot. As he lifted down his bag he had a slight re- 
 gret that he must leave the friendly companionshop of 
 
298 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 his horse. In that wild, uncultivated land they both seemed 
 such insignificant and lonely creatures that he felt it im- 
 provident that they should separate. 
 
 The night was cloudless, and overhead the sky was rich 
 with glittering stars. No moon shone, but in the starlight 
 the stunted salt-bushes looked like a sea of grey wool which 
 spread flat to the far horizon, where it mingled with the 
 darker tinted depths of the sky. As the doctor forced his 
 way forward he disturbed numberless bandicoots and wall- 
 abies, which scuttled or leapt hurriedly away. The earth 
 underfoot seemed to be swarming with life, and this he 
 felt to be strange, for often in the daytime had he ridden 
 across such open stretches of country and had been sur- 
 prised at the absence of animal life. But now, at night, 
 everything was changed life was more vigorous and more 
 potent. He was conscious of an all-pervading power that 
 brooded over the land and which lent to it a quality of 
 poignancy and sweetness that he had never before tasted. 
 He was glad then that he had come; not only glad to be 
 on an errand of mercy and performing his duty, but glad 
 also to flavour in this unexpected way the rich sweetness 
 of the hushed and vigorous earth. 
 
 For some distance he walked on, keeping always in sight 
 of the line of trees on the left. Then he stood still and 
 shouted. His voice sounded for a moment very resonant 
 and strong in the night air. The sound died abruptly 
 as if lost in the silence. He listened for an answering 
 shout, but heard nothing. Perhaps he had kept too far 
 out in the open. He struck in towards the trees, and walked 
 half a mile further; again he shouted, but got no answer. 
 
 Again he walked on a short distance, then suddenly he 
 saw the shepherd's hut quite close to him. He was sur- 
 prised at finding it so close and was alarmed that there 
 should have been no answer to his call. He hurried for- 
 ward, and as he approached saw that the door was standing 
 ajar. He could see that inside the hut a light was burning. 
 
 The silence, which at first had awed him, but which 
 later had seemed invigorating and refreshing, was again 
 touched with fear. The small building, surrounded as it 
 
MAN AND BRUTE 299 
 
 was by low bushes and the flat expanse of desolate plain, 
 looked strangely insignificant. So small an evidence of 
 man's energy in the face of Nature's greatness was, in 
 the all-enfolding silence of the night, disheartening and al- 
 most pathetic. The doctor wondered what had happened 
 in the last few hours in that tiny space why had he re- 
 ceived no answer to his call, which at that distance must 
 have been clearly audible? Had he, perhaps, come too 
 late? He hurried anxiously forward and laid his hand 
 upon the door. 
 
 II 
 
 Five hours previously the horseman, who was to fetch 
 relief to the sick man, had galloped away and the old shep- 
 herd and his dog had looked at one another as they lis- 
 tened to the sound of his departing horse's hoofs. As 
 their eyes met they were both conscious of their sudden 
 loneliness. The dog shifted his gaze uneasily and looked 
 round the hut; it was a small protection indeed, a tiny 
 island of man's foothold in the midst of the wide expanse 
 of bush that stretched in all directions. On the ceiling 
 of the hut numberless flies were crawling; others made a 
 monotonous buzzing in the hot air. The shepherd lay still 
 upon his bed, crippled by his sudden illness. After a while 
 he stretched out his left hand, which he could still use, and 
 rested it awkwardly upon the dog's head. 
 ; "Rover," he muttered, "you'll stay with me. You'll stay 
 with me till help comes. I'm ill, boy. Maybe I'm dying. 
 I can't be left alone." 
 
 The dog thrust his nose into the man's hand and whined. 
 Then he jumped up, putting his forepaws on the bed ancf 
 licked at his master's face. 
 
 > The man moved with difficulty to hold him off; then 
 groaned at a stab of pain. 
 , "Get down! Get down!" he said gently. 
 
 For more than an hour the old shepherd lay still, and 
 the dog rested his shaggy head against his hand. The light 
 slowly died out of the sky and the silence became complete 
 
300 THE GREAT MODERN^ ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 as the flies gathered upon the walls and ceiling of the hut 
 and ceased to buzz. The sick man lay awkwardly upon one 
 side as if twisted by pain. Half his body was paralysed, 
 and the features on the right side of his face were drawn 
 and motionless. From time to time he would give a low 
 groan, and the dog, as if understanding his master's dis- 
 tress, would thrust his nose forward and give a whine of 
 sympathy. 
 
 When it became dark, the shepherd with some difficulty 
 managed to light the lantern that the horseman had placed 
 by his bed. Then he reached for water, drank a little and 
 offered some to the dog, who licked intelligently and gently 
 at the rim of the cup. Then, exhausted by this effort, the 
 man lay back with a sigh. For a while he watched the 
 flickering shadows that the lantern cast on wall and ceil- 
 ing, and all the while he spoke incessantly to the dog. He 
 repeated himself, saying over the same thing again and 
 again. 
 
 "You must stay with me, Rover. You must stay with 
 me." 
 
 He spoke quickly and incoherently, and as he spoke 
 the muscles of the left side of his face moved nervously. 
 To go on speaking had now become a necessity. The idea 
 obsessed him that he must not be silent, for a new-awak- 
 ened fear was pressing upon his heart. He felt one side of 
 his tongue and mouth to be becoming stiff, and he found 
 it difficult to articulate. What if he should lose his power 
 of speech? 
 
 That thought was terrible, and he babbled on, glad to 
 assure himself that he still had the power of forming words. 
 
 The dog beside him whined in response and seemed to 
 understand the fear which engendered that meaningless 
 stream of sound. He jumped up and licked the man's 
 face. 
 
 The shepherd muttered incessantly and watched the dog 
 with eyes overflowing with tears. The dog, as if in ar 
 ecstasy of sympathy, raised himself and put his great paws 
 on his master's chest. Then he howled, a long, sustainec 
 howl expressive of all that sorrow which can witness the suf- 
 
MAN AND BRUTE 301 
 
 fering of another but does not know how to lessen or al- 
 leviate that suffering. 
 
 After that, there was silence in the hut and the hours 
 crept slowly by. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The man lay helpless, watching the great beast that 
 loved him and suffered for him. Often their eyes met, but 
 never for more than an instant, and then, as if embarrassed 
 and ashamed at his master's weakness, the dog would look 
 away, gaze uneasily into the corners of the hut and then 
 hurriedly glance back again. 
 
 Then, as the shepherd watched his old friend and com- 
 panion of many years, he saw a strange change come over 
 him. He saw him stiffen his paws, saw the hair on his 
 back rise up and bristle and saw his lips twitch and the 
 whites of his eyes roll and shine. He remembered how he 
 had once before seen him like that. It was years ago, 
 when the dog was young. They had been together on a 
 hillside and there was mist rising from the valley. He 
 had been sitting by his sheep when the dog had suddenly 
 bayed and had stood in just such an attitude gazing out 
 over the valley and growling. Step by step he had come 
 i back to his master and then crouched against his legs shiver- 
 i ing with terror. That was the coming of fear. 
 
 The two occasions were similar. Fear like a gust had 
 struck the dog's heart, fear of the abnormal, fear, per- 
 ihaps, of the hidden and inexorable cruelty of life. And 
 the man, as he lay there helpless, understood and remem- 
 bered, and he also became afraid. 
 
 To both man and dog something malevolent had been 
 revealed. Inside that small hut life had suddenly shown 
 itself naked and ruthless. Outside, where the grey salt- 
 bushes afforded cover to wallabies and night birds, existence 
 was still, no doubt, the same, was still covered by that 
 opaque veil that blinds and deceives; but within those 
 walls there was madness, the madness of sudden under- 
 standing, the madness of fear. 
 
302 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 The dog was now very still; he crouched close to his 
 master, occasionally giving low growls. As the old shep- 
 herd watched him he felt the presence of something un- 
 canny and distasteful. Now that his body was powerless, 
 his mind swarmed with disquieting recollections of his earlier 
 life, and particularly he remembered an incident that had 
 happened in the hot months of a dry-season. The bush 
 was parched with thirst and dead animals were a com- 
 mon sight. He had come one day upon a round mouse's 
 nest, which lay exposed among the withered grass. On 
 opening it he had found two starved mice. They were 
 alive, but horribly thin; they moved their limbs slowly and 
 senselessly; on their fur were patches of the yellow eggs 
 of flies. He remembered how he had killed them and was 
 horrified at his task. Now his dog reminded him of those 
 mice. He remembered the pathetic savagery of their ex- 
 posed yellow teeth. 
 
 Suddenly a cry sounded not very far distant. 
 
 To the man it was a message of hope. Help was com- 
 ing! This nightmare of terror and isolation might pass! 
 
 He tried hard to articulate, to shout, but the cry that 
 came from his lips was hardly audible. 
 
 He tried to raise himself, but failed and fell back, his 
 muscles twitching uncontrollably. 
 
 In one leap the dog was on his feet. And now he was 
 rigid, each foot seemed stiffly rooted to the ground. His 
 back was arched, the hairs bristling and upright. His 
 teeth were bared. All his savagery and fear showed in 
 his eyes. If in the close confines of the hut there had been 
 engendered madness and fear, savagery now came, to join 
 them. The ugliness of brute ferocity stood hunched upon 
 four legs, rooted to the earth, bristling with terror. 
 
 Another shout sounded, this time nearer; then light foot- 
 steps were to be heard approaching. The dog quivered 
 through his whole body. His lips, drawn back, exposed the 
 long canine teeth. The door creaked on its hinges and 
 was pushed slowly open. The doctor, fresh from all the 
 mysterious beauty of a summer's night, stepped into the hut. 
 
 With stiff movements, like those of the starving mice, 
 
MAN AND BRUTE 303 
 
 the dog arched himself, lowered his head and tail and took 
 short, cringing steps sideways and forward. Then with a 
 snarl of fear and rage he leapt at the man's throat. 
 
 Dr. Laurence, who was for the moment slightly blinded 
 by the lantern light, threw up his arm to guard his face* 
 The dog's jaws fastened above his wrist and the strong 
 teeth pressed their way through his coat and pierced the 
 flesh. The first impact of the attack knocked him back- 
 wards and he was pinned against the wall of the hut. 
 The sudden shock scattered for a moment all his thoughts, 
 and for just a small fraction of time he was bewildered 
 and almost helpless beneath the weight of the dog. The 
 action of throwing up his arm to guard his throat had been 
 instinctive rather than purposed. In the next instant, how- 
 ever, all his senses rallied and his mind was quick to take 
 in the situation. The dog was, of course, guarding his sick 
 master and his attack was not one of ignoble savagery, 
 but merely an over-zealous loyalty. 
 
 The man's reason was able, even in the shock of those 
 first few seconds, to take in the facts of the case. He could 
 see that the shepherd was lying powerless on his bed; 
 he could hear his hoarse and inarticulate whispers, and 
 realised that the sick man could give no help and that he 
 must cope with the dog singlehanded. He must struggle 
 with him and throttle him off; and he would do so as hu- 
 manely as possible, understanding as he did the loyal na- 
 ture that prompted that mistaken savagery. 
 
 Steadying himself against the wall, he forced his adver- 
 sary further from him and gripped at his shaggy throat 
 with his left hand. He -had to set his teeth hard against the 
 pain which shot up his arm as the dog savagely shook his 
 head from side to side. 
 
 With great difficulty he struggled and fought his way 
 across the room. His purpose was to get the dog against 
 the wall and there throttle him from his hold. This was 
 difficult to accomplish, as the great beast struck out with 
 his forefeet at the doctor's face. The man had to bend his 
 head forward and duck it to one side to avoid these swift, 
 savage strokes. It was thus that his face came close to 
 
304 THE GREAT MODERN. ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 his enemy's. He saw the rolling whites of the dog's eyes, 
 the bare pink gums and the writhing lips. The intense 
 savagery of that expression was in some way strangely fa- 
 miliar and the light in the dog's eyes kindled the man's ex- 
 citement, made his heart beat faster, and roused him to 
 the highest animation of nervous force. He was by this 
 time taking deep, short breaths through his nostrils, his 
 lips were tight shut and his teeth locked. He was begin-, 
 ning to get angry at the sharp wrenches of pain that shot 
 up his arm as the dog flung his weight from side to side. 
 
 At length he won his way to the opposite wall ; his fingers 
 were strongly gripped about the hot, pulsing throat. In 
 spite of the pain in his arm, he held it high, and thrust with 
 all his force against the wall. He watched the eyes of the 
 dog open and shut in quick succession and heard his breath 
 come in long, irregular gasps. He felt the grip on his arm 
 relaxing, but just when he thought he had the beast pow- 
 erless there was a sudden spasmodic movement, the dog 
 struck upward with his hind legs, and, with a quick jerk, 
 shook himself freee. 
 
 The doctor turned quickly to face him and at the same 
 time looked round for a weapon. He saw the shepherd's 
 staff standing in a far comer. The dog at once anticipated 
 his thought and leapt between. They faced each other 
 wary and alert. The man's former attitude of calm de- 
 liberation had left him. His activities were now all involved 
 in the fierce struggle. 
 
 The eyes of both man and brute shone with anger and 
 the muscles of the man's face twitched. Behind him he 
 was vaguely conscious of the crippled shepherd blinking 
 and inarticulate; round about him were the narrow walls 
 of the hut which shut him in with that snarling grey devil. 
 He stepped back towards the bed, hoping to lure the dogf 
 from his position and thus be able to reach the shepherd's 
 staff. In an instant the dog was upon him, this time 
 leaping for his thigh. Agam they locked, but the dog's 
 hold was not so tenacious. He bit and leapt free. The 
 man cursed at the pain and ran in fiercely, striking with 
 his fists. 
 
MAN AND BRUTE 305 
 
 The shepherd, who lay helpless on his bed, watched with 
 horror the progress of the fight. 
 
 When, at first, he had seen the dog spring and the doctor 
 ward off the attack, he had been filled with a pathetic and 
 helpless distress. He was horrified that the man who had 
 come those many miles to his aid should be thus outraged; 
 and yet, though one word from him was all that was needed, 
 he was powerless. He had struggled with all his failing 
 powers to speak the necessary words, but all that he 
 could do .was to form an inarticulate and choking sound, 
 which seemed to urge the dog to keener fury. That the 
 doctor had so calmly withstood the first attack had given 
 him some assurance; but now as they faced each otfier, 
 angry man and angry brute in that small space, his spirit 
 was touched with a new fear a fear that was even stronger 
 than the dread of his growing helplessness. He felt de- 
 spair at the sudden revelation of the untamed fierceness of 
 life, a fierceness that could even stretch out and envelop 
 man himself, could strip from him his reason and could turn 
 to frenzied cruelty the calm glance of his eye, and reveal 
 the brute from which he was evolved. 
 
 The two creatures that in the small, dimly lighted room 
 fought with such ferocity and cruelty were strangely sim- 
 ilar in their movements and expression. Savagery, an in- 
 tense interest and even a delight in the struggle, showed 
 in every pose of the body, in every nervous contraction of 
 the face. In the numbing terror of his own infirmity, the 
 shepherd saw that they gloried in and enjoyed the naked 
 fierceness of the fight. While he had lain there helplessly 
 watching he had seen how the doctor's expression had 
 changed from calm and manly determination to aroused, 
 though controlled, anger; from anger to exasperation and 
 rage; and then he had seen how rage had grown into the 
 whining hysterical joy of conflict. 
 
 Two brutes fought in that room beside the crippled man. 
 Motives of loyalty, generosity and mercy had prepared the 
 way for the contest. Hidden and unsuspected forces, blind 
 and cruel, had stripped first one, then the other of reason; 
 and the mind, that had the knowledge and power to avert 
 
306 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 that loosing of the bestial which lurks in all nature, was 
 held ironically dumb. Man and dog, each in the grip of 
 the mad excitement of killing, bit and struck at one another. 
 Both were cunning at attack and parry. The dog, after 
 the first furious onslaught, contented himself with sudden 
 rushes, snapping bites and quick retreats; the man tried 
 always to drive his adversary to some corner, where, grip- 
 ping at his throat, he would be able to strangle him, crush- 
 ing him with his greater weight. For what seemed an 
 interminable time the dog was able- to escape' the swift, 
 downward strokes of the man's fists or the sudden lift of 
 his boots, and on each occasion that he sprang free he 
 snapped fiercely at hands or legs, leaving the doctor bloody 
 and torn, but in no way checked in that deliberate and re- 
 lentless pursuit. 
 
 The shepherd's eyes, filled with his speechless fear, fol- 
 lowed always the quick dash of onslaught and recovery. 
 He had seen the human reason of the man's face shrink 
 and become replaced by the passion of a brute. He was 
 strangely affected by the sight; affected, too, by the knowl- 
 edge that both of the combatants were now oblivious of 
 his existence. He was cut off and alone; and all that was 
 left of human dignity and restraint had found refuge in 
 his powerless body and there hid in fear, unable to show 
 themselves. 
 
 With an effort of mind, he could imagine the hushed 
 stillness of the bush, that he knew so well, which stretched, 
 grey and tranquil, in all directions. He could picture the 
 outside view of his own hut. How often had he seen it as 
 a small dark speck in the evening light? It had been full 
 of pleasant associations and surrounded by recollections of 
 comfortable evenings and meals hungrily enjoyed. But 
 now within those walls raged a pandemonium of savagery 
 and hate. They were filled by the abnormal, by such a 
 ferocity as even beasts feared. For what beast of prey 
 even does not look up full of shame after a savage act? It 
 looks fearfully around and hurries away with its kill. 
 
 The sick man as he watched saw that a sudden change 
 came over the fight, and instead of the quick movements 
 
MAN AND BRUTE 307 
 
 from side to side he could see that the doctor had caught 
 the dog in a corner, had his hands at its throat and was 
 crushing it under his weight. The shepherd watched with 
 horror the look on the man's face. Exuberant, triumphant 
 beast was there written large. There was cruel joy, the 
 joy of mastery, the joy of killing. He looked at the dog's 
 face and saw fear gleam in those fierce eyes. The eyes 
 rolled from side to side, blinked horridly and then, with a 
 despairing glance, looked at him. In them there was an 
 appeal for help; and in that despairing look he recognised 
 his friend and companion of many days and nights. His 
 dog, his friend, was there helpless and dying. If he could 
 speak he might wake the doctor from that horrid seizure of 
 atrocious joy. If that were once broken the man would 
 see there was no need to kill the dog was done, played 
 out. 
 
 With all his ebbing strength the shepherd lifted himself 
 on his left elbow and with a desperate effort tried to shout. 
 His heart seemed to be beating in his throat so that no 
 breath could come, his tongue clicked helplessly, his eyes 
 rolled, and, exhausted, he fell back. 
 
 As the doctor's fingers tightened in that final grip he 
 understood for the first time in his life the joy of killing, 
 the frank and shameless joy of the stronger which throttles 
 what is weaker and less able to live a sensation compelling 
 and primitive. It was with supreme elation that he saw 
 fear and defeat creep into the dog's eyes, and not till long 
 after the breath had ceased to be drawn through the ex- 
 panded nostrils did he relinquish his hold. That joy of 
 killing as it died down gave place to a sudden knowledge 
 of the surrounding quietness. 
 
 In spite of the hammering of his own blood in his ears 
 and the short gasps of his own breath, he became con- 
 scious of a great stillness. And as the hammering became 
 less insistent, the surrounding quiet seemed to creep in from 
 the untamed, peaceful expanse of the Australian bush. It 
 invaded the small dimensions of the hut and even seemed 
 to force its way into his own brain. He loosed his grip 
 and raised his hands to his face. The body of the dog fell 
 
308 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 back with a thud. The man muttered something under 
 his breath about having done for the brute, and was sur- 
 prised at the sound of his own voice. 
 
 He looked round, again listening to the stillness. On 
 the ground near the door he saw his bag of doctor's instru- 
 ments. On the bed the shepherd lay very still. At that 
 sight the doctor remembered the whole circumstance of 
 his visit; how that the poor fellow had been paralysed, 
 and he recollected with a shudder the look of agony in his 
 eyes. That was when that damned brute had flown at him. 
 
 He shakily rose to his feet and again looked round. His 
 arms and even his body were much bitten and he became 
 conscious of pain. 
 
 He sucked at his torn hands, then for a time was mo- 
 tionless as if enchanted by the quiet of the night. He 
 felt he must break that spell. 
 
 Deliberately and with conscious effort he walked across 
 to the bed where the sick man lay. The shepherd's eyes, 
 filled with horror and despair, stared glassily into his own. 
 The doctor, as if to protect himself from that glance, cov- 
 ered them quickly with his hand. They did not flinch 
 at his sudden movement. Mechanically, as if compelled by 
 Jong habit, he bent his head to the man's chest, listening 
 for the heartbeats. He could hear no sound. Tne silence 
 of that desolate land was all-pervading. 
 
THE LOST SUBURB 
 
 BY J. D. BERESFORD 
 
 SO brilliant a memory must surely be that of a thing 
 seen, and seen in a moment of tense emotion. Other 
 memories of childhood are almost equally clear; 
 little, bright pictures that present themselves without 
 mental effort and awaken curious happiness for which 
 I cannot account. In all these memories there is a sense of 
 unreal reality that has a quality of ecstasy; I do so very 
 truly live in those scenes, yet my body is apart from them;; 
 I am there unhampered by any weight of flesh. I can e- 
 perience, but I am free. This past is new to me as no com- 
 mon sight or feeling of hitherto unknown life is ever new;; 
 unless it comes strangely, as a thing remembered. 
 
 The great difference between this and other memories is 
 that this one I cannot place. The others, I know, are cer- 
 tainly of scenes and acts in which I played long ago. In 
 the almost unbroken monotony of the long reasoning hours, 
 when the dull machinery of the mind works with its usual 
 recognition of faint or laboured effort, I can recall the 
 plain, stupid facts. I know what took place before and 
 after those scenes; I could write their history. The kind 
 of history that is written: what people said or did, what 
 they wore or how they looked. There is no ecstasy in that, 
 only the repulsiveness of facts, and again facts, and of a 
 landscape or a human being reasonably analysed. 
 
 To such commonplaces I, too, must descend in order to 
 set out the story of my unplaced memory that story which 
 I cherish as a record of my soul's experience, however 
 banal. Not that this is apparent, superficial banality is 
 of the least account. The glorious truth for me is in the 
 
 309 
 
3 io THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 knowledge that I have trespassed among the mysteries of 
 the outer world, that I have crept through the interstices of 
 matter and walked in the spaceless, timeless present of the 
 universe. My soul has returned to me and said, " I am 
 thyself." 
 
 All this is proof to me and will be proof to none but me, 
 but I put forward my three phases in order, ranging them 
 in succession, at once chronological and logically sequen- 
 tial. So I come by way of memory and dream to the 
 bald evidence of what we call reality. 
 
 /. Memory 
 
 It is so slight a thing, and yet to me so full of an inex- 
 plicable joy. I must have been absurdly young, so young 
 that only this one emotional picture impressed me, and 
 all the business of movement, purpose, and sequence of 
 life that should circumscribe the vision is forgotten. 
 
 I was looking out from a moving window, and reason 
 tells me that it was probably the window of a four-wheeled 
 cab. My mother was frightened to death of hansoms. 
 
 I think it must have been my first visit to London, 
 though no record of such a visit remains, and doubtless my 
 childish mind was thrilled with the joy of adventure into 
 the untraversed mysteries of the suburbs about the great city. 
 Yet one wonders why the things that must have appeared 
 so bizarre to me have been forgotten; the first impression 
 of streets and traffic, of great shop-windows, or the vastness 
 of titanic buildings, while this one scene, less unfamiliar, 
 should be so vividly remembered. 
 
 It may be that my exhilaration had reached some climax, 
 and that for a moment I was one with life ; or it may be that 
 that spot held some definite relation to myself, a relation 
 imperfectly traced, which cannot be explained. 
 
 I hesitated on the verge of attempted description, know- 
 ing the inner joy to be indescribable. To me the old magic 
 returns, but the place to all others must appear as a hun- 
 dred other places. 
 
 I saw the right side of the road more clearly, but I must 
 
THE LOST SUBURB 3H 
 
 have danced across the floor of the cab and seen a little, 
 of the left side, for I know something of that also, though 
 less definitely. We were on the slope of a hill, and the 
 houses on the right side stood above the level of the road. 
 I could see little of the houses, however, for at the foot of 
 their gardens was planted a thick row of balsam poplars 
 strong, healthy trees that were just come to full leaf and 
 filled the air with their heavy-sweet perfume. The dusk 
 was falling, and under the trees the shadows were so heavy 
 that I could see nothing but the flicker of some white gate 
 here and there. Then there was a break in the poplars. 
 For ten yards, perhaps, came a low brick wall, coped with 
 thin stone, and crowned with a poor iron rail carried on 
 low cast-iron standards set far apart. The standards were 
 cast in an ornamental shape, capped by a fleur-de-lys or 
 some other misconception of the Early Victorian founders. 
 A broken shrubbery of variegated laurel pushed discoloured 
 leaves over and through the iron-work. The house I hardly 
 saw; only one fact remains, it was chocolate-coloured. 
 Perhaps I conceived that it was certainly built of choco- 
 late. Then we were passing the poplars again, the heavily 
 fragrant poplars that threw such deep shadows. 
 
 On the other side was a great wood, shut away from all 
 discovery by a cliff of black fence incredibly high higher 
 than the roof of our monumental cab and defended at the 
 top by a row of vicious little crooked spikes, like capital 
 T's with one arm broken away. In one place a pear- 
 shaped bench of lilac overhung the fence. And all my 
 memory of the picture goes to the sound of the crunch of 
 new gravel and the rattling of a loose window. 
 
 That is all; little enough, and filled with no more ro- 
 mance than can be found in any other new suburb, spread- 
 ing out to encroach later on the old estate which fronted 
 and repelled it on the left side of my road. But to me it 
 has some special quality that mountain, cliff, or sea can 
 never hold ; and when : probably twenty years later, I came 
 to live in London, I set myself to find that spot which had 
 left so deep an impression on me. 
 
 I was tireless in those days, and I explored the suburbs 
 
3i2 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 from Catford to Barnet, from Leytonstone to Putney. In- 
 numerable summer evenings I have spent in wandering hap- 
 pily through the wilderness of streets, bright and dull, that 
 encircle the gloom of the essential London. And always 
 as I went I was on the verge of the great discovery; the 
 great hope was ever present with me that at the next turn- 
 ing I might find again my wonderland. 
 
 II. Dream 
 
 In another twenty years I had failed to find it, and then 
 for the first time my soul went there in a dream. 
 
 The dream began with confusion and foolishness. I was 
 making my way, absurdly, through houses and enclosed 
 places, passing through rooms full of people, down passages, 
 across yards and over walls, seeking some plain, open 
 street where I might walk unharassed by fears of intru- 
 sion and trespass. Quite suddenly I found myself flying;' 
 and then, the confusion vanished, the dream steadied, I 
 came into reality. 
 
 I was walking in a familiar place, under the shadow of 
 balsam poplars the bright new flags of the pavement were 
 sticky in places with the varnish of spilled gum from the 
 trees, and daintily littered with shed catkins. The road 
 was spotlessly neat, as a toy road, its red gravel freshly 
 rolled and unmarked by a single wheel-track. Across the 
 way a high tarred fence ran unbroken up the hill, and be- 
 hind the fence were tall forest trees, elm, oak, and beech, 
 their little newly-green leaves in brilliant contrast with the 
 blackness of an occasional fir. 
 
 A familiar place indeed to me; but in my dream I had 
 no recollection of my childish visit. My associations were 
 older than that. 
 
 Thus I came by unrealised steps to the break in the pop- 
 lars. 
 
 The house that lay back behind the waist-high wall, with 
 its useless iron railing, was grotesquely out of place. On 
 either side of it were detached surburban villas, big, high- 
 shouldered houses of red brick with stone dressings and 
 
THE LOST SUBURB 313 
 
 plain stone string courses "blood bandages" we used to 
 call the style in my architectural days. 
 
 The house behind the dwarf wall was an anachronism, a 
 square box, flat-roofed and stumpy; and some fool had 
 painted its stuccoed straightness a dark chocolate. The 
 plainness of its dingy front was relieved only by the pro- 
 jection of a porch, equally dour and squat, with two dumpy, 
 bulging columns supporting a weak entablature; some hor- 
 rible Georgian conception of the Doric order. All the face 
 of that stucco box was leprous as the trunk of a plane-tree, 
 the little bow-legged columns were nearly bare. 
 
 The scrubby patch of grass and dandelions hardly dis- 
 tinguishable from the weed-covered path that lay be- 
 tween me and the house, contrasted no less sharply with 
 the smooth lawns and bright flower-beds of its neigh- 
 bours. 
 
 The road ran in a curve, the gardens tapered back from 
 the pavement, the face of every house was set parallel with 
 the tangent; and it seemed as if those ambitious villas on 
 either hand turned a contemptuous shoulder to this square- 
 browed little anachronism. 
 
 Square-browed and sulky it was, ashamed yet obstinately 
 defiant, staring a resolute-eyed challenge at the prim os- 
 tentation of that smooth road of red gravel. 
 
 I was glad for the little house. 
 
 The road was deserted, the whole place silent as if one 
 looked at the pictured thing rather than walked among 
 the substance. But I was expecting some one, and pres- 
 ently he came, slinking furtive and apologetic from under 
 the shadow of the scented poplars. 
 
 He wore a top-hat that showed in its weakest places a 
 foundation of cardboard. His rusty frock-coat fitted him 
 like a jersey, and the thick-soled boots below the fringe of 
 his too-short grey trousers were the boots of a workman. 
 
 He nodded to me with a jerk of his head as he came out' 
 into the daylight, and fumbled with one dirty hand at his 
 untidy beard. 
 
 "Still 'ere," he remarked. "We're clean forgot, that's 
 what we are." 
 
3 i4 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 "No one comes along this road!" I said. 
 
 "Not with all the big 'ouses frontin' the other way," he 
 added. 
 
 It was true. I had not noticed that, or I had forgotten, 
 it. One only saw the backs of those high-shouldered villas, 
 ornamented though they were to turn some kind of a face 
 to either road. Only my little house showed a front to 
 this bright new gravel and the tall trees of the boarded es- 
 tate. 
 
 And as the shabby man spoke to me, I heard for the 
 first time a sound, very thin and far away, that came from 
 the other side of the houses, the delicate, distant ring of 
 voices and the tinkle of tiny laughter but so remote, so 
 infinitely removed from us. 
 
 " J E's still alive," continued the shabby man, pointing to 
 the chocolate house. "I seen 'im a few days since lookin' 
 out o' window 'e was. . . ." 
 
 Again my mind took up the idea submitted. I could 
 recover nothing for myself, but every least suggestion en- 
 abled me to gather up again some lost thread. 
 
 He was still alive, the figure of mystery and terror, fit 
 occupant for that strange house. Yet I had never been 
 afraid of that apparition which appeared sometimes at 
 the window, the man who wore some repulsive, disfiguring 
 mask across his face. I had had confidence in him. But if 
 I felt thus, why did I call him a figure of terror? I listened 
 again to the shabby man. He had been rambling on while 
 my thoughts were building. 
 
 He said something about the "children always peerin' and 
 pryin' up the lane. . . ." 
 
 I smiled, and turned slightly away from him. I saw them 
 coming now. The road was waking slowly to life. I saw 
 a little huddled group, the familiar group of children com- 
 ing slowly towards us, keeping close under the shadow of 
 the poplars. A little girl of nine or ten was playing mother 
 to them, keeping them back, spreading out her skirts, like 
 a little hen to guard her inquisitive, peeping chickens. She 
 wore sandals, and little frilled white trousers that came 
 down to her ankles. As they drew timorously nearer, creep- 
 
THE LOST SUBURB 315 
 
 ing along the palings inch by inch, I could hear their sibilant 
 whisperings, little duckings and chirps of laughter, and half- 
 smothered cries of affected terror. 
 
 Ah! to them he had been a figure of terror, though they 
 could not restrain their curiosity, and, after all, they were 
 safe. No one had ever known him to come out of the 
 house. 
 
 As I watched the children, now drawing so near to us, I 
 was on the verge of apprehension. Surely I knew that tall, 
 thin child. I stared, and as I stared she and the others 
 faded, and slipped from my comprehension. I knew they 
 were still there, but I could no longer see or hear them. The 
 whole scene about me had grown suddenly stiff and arti- 
 ficial, frozen and soundless; I had a sense of unreality and 
 doubt. For one moment I fancied that I was flying again, 
 and then I heard the thin, whining voice of the little shabby 
 man, and came back to intensest realisation of my surround- 
 ings. The children had gone, but I could hear once more 
 the tinkle of voices and little laughter beyond the houses. 
 
 "Over fifteen year, now, since he first come . . ." the 
 little man was saying. 
 
 I had heard some one say that before. The memory of 
 it was associated quite distinctly with the smell of the 
 balsam poplars. But I dared not attempt to recall the cir- 
 cumstances. The shock I had just received had left me 
 with the knowledge of my double consciousness. I must 
 remain placed in the sense of my happiness; any effort of 
 mind or conscious stimulation of idea would drag me back 
 to my other life. I looked down at the pavement and 
 gently rolled a green catkin to and fro under my foot, 
 listened attentively once more to the garrulous little man. I 
 understood that he was glad to have some one to talk to. 
 This was a lonely, unused road. 
 
 "... 'Aven't seen the little chap for the past day or 
 two," he rambled on; "laid up again very like. . ." 
 
 My heart leapt, and I repeated to myself, "calm, tranquil 
 happiness." I rolled the catkin backwards and forwards 
 under my foot. I knew of whom he was speaking now, and 
 for an instant I had the sense of looking up to the face 
 
316 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 of the little man before me I, who was nearly a foot taller 
 than he. 
 
 "Very delicate," I suggested. 
 
 The little man shook his head sadly. "Can't live," he 
 said, paused, and then repeated with morbid enjoyment, 
 "Can't live. 'E's got the look." 
 
 I could not compose myself. The struggle had begun 
 again, the effort to recall the past. I looked down at the 
 catkin I had released, and saw that my leg was bare and 
 that I had on my foot a white sock and a black round-toed 
 slipper; across the instep was a strap that fastened with a 
 little round black button. I looked up quickly, and the 
 shabby man had vanished. I was not afraid, but I was 
 desperately eager to stay where I was. I reached up and 
 grasped the iron rail on the low wall. I had to stand on tip- 
 toe to reach the rail, and even as I grasped it, it rose high 
 in the air, carrying me with it. I swung at giddy heights, 
 and once looking down, I saw that the whole sky was ablaze 
 with sunset. I could not bear to look down into that hot 
 flame, and swung over on my back, still holding tight to the 
 rail. Something was remorselessly calling me out of the 
 depths of time, and I began to fall through enormous spaces. 
 Gradually I lost all sense of movement. I was lying on 
 my back staring at some huge white expanse. My arms 
 were still above my head, gripping the iron rail that crowned 
 the wall of the chocolate house. I was, in fact, in bed star- 
 ing at the ceiling, and the rail was the rail of my bed. I 
 knew that I had been lying intensely still. Even now I 
 could not move. 
 
 The door opened, and an untidy head was pushed in. 
 
 "I've called yer three times a'ready," said the lodging- 
 house servant. "It's past nine o'clock." 
 
 ///. Reality. 
 
 I did not go to the office that morning. I was too excited 
 and too contemptuous of the meanness of life. I had had 
 transcendental experience. I was exalted, superbly stirred 
 and proud. 
 
THE LOST SUBURB 317 
 
 The glamour of that wonderful vision was still upon me, 
 and I went out to find my lost suburb. I knew that I 
 should find it that morning. 
 
 And to me, as I have said, the evidence is convincing, de- 
 spite certain aggravating discrepancies which must, in- 
 evitably, I am afraid, induce doubt in other minds. 
 
 It was in southwest London, but I shall not indicate the 
 precise locality. What use is it for people to go and stare at 
 the outside of commonplace houses, as if some murder had 
 been committed or some ghost seen there? 
 
 Even I had no thrill when I found the place; it was all 
 so changed. The estate behind the tall black fence has all 
 been cut up into trim streets of villas, of meaner pretension 
 than that one crescent of comparatively large houses, which, 
 by the way, are not letting well, although they are not nearly 
 so large and imposing as I had imagined. The chocolate 
 house has disappeared, but I can mark the place where it 
 stood, because there is one house in the crescent which is 
 narrower and smaller than the others. It matches the 
 others in style and faces the same way, turning its white- 
 streaked back to the meaner villas on the estate, but it 
 has no poplars in its garden. The other poplars, however, 
 were disappointing. They were thinner, many of them 
 have died, no doubt; and those that remain have been 
 pollarded and formalised. Moreover, it was late summer 
 when I went, and they had lost their fragrance. 
 
 I shall not gp there again; my suburb is lost, now, for- 
 ever. 
 
 If this were all, I should have a poor case, I admit; but 
 I have better evidence than this, although there is some 
 confusion of time which I cannot explain. 
 
 I had little difficulty in finding the house-agents, their 
 boards leaned disreputably over many of the palings, thrust- 
 ing their statements of eligibility at the road. 
 
 The young man in the spruce, bare office, however, was no 
 use to me directly. His memory carried him back no further 
 than a paltry three years, and his firm had only been estab- 
 lished for seven. 
 
 He offered me keys and orders to view, and plainly re- 
 
3i8 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 garded me with suspicion when I told him that I wanted to 
 find out when one of the houses in the crescent was built. 
 
 "All modern requirements," he said, "bath, hot 
 water. . . ." 
 
 "But surely," I interrupted him, "the houses in the cres- 
 cent are not quite modern. They must have been there," I 
 hesitated and then plunged, "at least seventy years." I 
 thought of the little girl in the Early Victorian trousers and 
 sandals. 
 
 The clerk pursed his mouth and shook his head. "Well, I 
 can't say for certain," he said, "but I shouldn't think they'd 
 been up as long as that. Anyway, they're all fitted with 
 bath-rooms now, hot water upstairs, and every . . ." 
 
 "I don't want to take a house," I protested. "I'm sorry 
 if I'm wasting your time, but I have a particular interest in 
 one house, 'The Limes, 7 I think you called it. I I knew 
 some one who lived there once." 
 
 "Sorry I can't be of any assistance," returned the clerk- 
 coldly. He had plainly lost any interest in me, and he had 
 never had much. 
 
 But as I turned to go out of the office he became human 
 for a moment. "You're sure you don't want to take a 
 house in the crescent?" he asked. "The Limes," it seemed, 
 was not to be let. 
 
 "Quite sure," I said, convincingly. 
 
 He hesitated, and then said: "Because if it's only infor- 
 mation you want, there's old Hankin in the High Street, No. 
 69, a rival firm, of course, and if you were thinking of taking 
 a house, you'd better come to us, but . . ." 
 
 I thanked him, and hurried away to find old Hankin. 
 
 His office was a small and dingy place, and old Hankin 
 was a man of fifty-five or so; he wore a grey beard and 
 spectacles. He was evidently not busy, but he regarded me 
 with the professional distrust of the house-agent. I had 
 some difficulty in breaking through his suspicion of the po- 
 tential leaseholder. 
 
 " 'The Limes,' " he said at last, looking at me over his 
 spectacles, "was built about thirty years ago, just before 
 I came into the business." 
 
THE LOST SUBURB 319, 
 
 "You don't remember the house that stood there before?" 
 I asked. 
 
 He pinched up his under lip between his finger and 
 thumb, and continued to regard me very earnestly above 
 his spectacles. "Making inquiries?" he asked, and his tone 
 gave the phrase a technical savour. 
 
 "Only on my own behalf," I said. "I have heard rather 
 a curious story of the place." I wished I could tell him the 
 truth, but it was impossible. He, most assuredly, would 
 never have believed me ; so unreal is the world of fact. 
 
 He dropped quite unexpectedly into the confidential. 
 "You see," he said, "I left 'ome when I was fifteen ran 
 away to sea." The ghost of a smile came into IT'S eyes at 
 the amazing thought that once he, old Hankin, the house- 
 agent, had run away to sea. 
 
 I curbed my impatience it was the only way. I allowed 
 him to ramble on, pricking him with assumed interest and 
 an occasional question, till I brought him home at the age 
 of twenty-seven, to a forgiving father in the house and estate 
 agency business. 
 
 "And I suppose your father would remember the old house 
 that stood in the crescent before The Limes' was built?" I 
 prompted him. 
 
 He nodded. "He had some story about that 'ouse, if I 
 remember right," said old Hankin. 
 
 I waited, breathless. 
 
 "It was an old 'ouse as was burnt down," he went on, 
 "but the story was about some queer customer as used to 
 live there, back in the 'forties before I was born, that was." 
 He took off his spectacles and made a business of wiping 
 them and peering at the glasses. 
 
 I looked my interest. 
 
 "I dunno whether the old man dreamt it or not, but he 
 used to tell as the occupier was a hermit or a miser or what 
 not, and was wanted for some old debt. Shut hisself up in 
 the 'ouse, so the old man used to say, and never put his 
 'ead out o' doors by daylight for fear of distraint. Free'old, 
 the 'ouse was. There wasn't no road at the back then 
 what's now the front, of course and only the lane. 
 
320 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 Granger's Lane, on the other side. The 'ouses in the cres- 
 cent was built in 'seventy-nine." 
 
 "You're sure of that?" I asked. 
 
 He nodded. "We got the plans in the office somewhere," 
 he said, and looked round at the muddle about him a little 
 helplessly. 
 
 "Never mind about the plans," I soothed him. "Was 
 there any more about that miser in the old house?" 
 
 He wrinkled his forehead. "There was something amusin' 
 about him," he answered, "but I forget the rights of it. To 
 the best o y my recollection, the old debt as I was referring 
 to had been given up long ago by the creditors, but there 
 was some old bailiff or debt collector who'd been offered a 
 commission on recovery, and he was the only one who re- 
 membered it. Used to hang about the place in the evenin's 
 sometimes after his ordinary work. Something o' that kind. 
 The old man used to make a story of it, I know, but 'e's 
 been dead this twenty year." 
 
 That was all I could get out of old Hankin, and so far 
 I have not been able to corroborate a single other detail. 
 
 Now that all the essential facts have been put on paper, 
 I am moved by a sense of impatience. I lived for a time on 
 such a high plane of emotion, I was so sure that inspiration 
 had been given to me; but now, as I examine the evidence, 
 coldly and reasonably, a doubt insinuates itself, some reflex 
 of the doubt that I anticipated in other minds before I be- 
 gan to write. 
 
 There was certainly some confusion of time in my dream. 
 Those large villas were not built, nor the ground cleared 
 when that odd little speculating bailiff used to take his 
 evening patrol in the hope of one day being able to serve the 
 writ he doubtless carried in the breast-pocket of that tightly- 
 fitting frock-coat. They were not built when those children 
 crer5t, giggling and half-scared, under the shadow of the 
 poplars, nor when that one little boy, who was not afraid 
 and who was so sure to die, walked who knows? into the 
 very garden, perhaps even into the house itself. That 
 
 
THE LOST SUBURB 321 
 
 thought sets me trembling with wonder and eagerness again. 
 If I could but dream once more, and remember if I was 
 ever inside the house. . . . 
 
 I grant the confusion, but on that plane of being, after 
 all, time is not, and my own childish vision of the place in 
 this life the houses were newly-built then may have 
 created on that other plane a setting which, according to our 
 measure, was an anachronism. 
 
 One further point I am very loth to cede: the question of 
 my fragrant poplars. According to Aiton, P. balsamifera 
 was introduced into England at the end of the seventeenth 
 century, and it is now commonly grown in suburbs; but is 
 it likely to have been found on waste ground in 1840? I 
 can only say that it is not impossible. I do not know that 
 there may not have been older houses fronting Granger's 
 Lane, before the villas came. 
 
 I end where I began by saying that the memory, the 
 dream, and my subsequent investigations are evidence to 
 me, if they carry no weight with others. The vision has 
 come to me and left me changed. I have touched a higher 
 plane of being, and all my old materialistic doubts are gone, 
 never to return. This one thing I have learned, and to that 
 I shall always be able to hold : Reality lies within ourselves, 
 not in the things about us. 
 
THE BIRTH OF AN ARTIST 1 
 
 BY HUGH DE SELINCOURT 
 
 A VERY old man, a Mr. Venables, sat with some 
 friends who were talking together, a Mr. and Mrs. 
 Plurnmer, their daughter and two men. Mrs. Plum- 
 mer was a very kind-hearted woman and made a point of 
 asking Mr. Venables to dinner at least once every month 
 quite informally. One of the men had been at an aviation 
 meeting and had seen a fatal accident. He described a thrill 
 that was visible through the whole crowd as the monstrous 
 machine started off along the ground and rose into the 
 air, bearing a man up into the sunshine. 
 
 The old man was listening, but leaned forward to listen 
 when the narrator said: "He was making a huge circle in 
 the air. An exhibition flight, you know. In following him 
 with my glasses, I covered some swallows flying too. It 
 somehow made me laugh." In the remainder of the story 
 Mr. Venables did not seem to take so much interest as he 
 had taken in the swallows. 
 
 After the hush which followed the tragic end, Mrs. Plum- 
 mer said: "Oh! why do they do it?" And the other man 
 said: "What a splendid death to die." And the old man 
 said to himself, "Death is always splendid." 
 
 But the narrator heard him and objected: "That de- 
 pends when you die and how you die." To which Mr. Ven- 
 ables answered: "Oh yes, sad, distressing, and all that 
 but the fact of death is splendid," and he settled in his 
 chair, declining argument. 
 
 1 From "Nine Tales." By permission of Dodd, Mead and 
 Company. 
 
 322 
 
THE BIRTH OF AN ARTIST 323 
 
 It passed through the girl's mind that perhaps it was well 
 such a very old man did think so, under the circumstances. 
 And the thought appearing horrid to her, she hurried across 
 the room to put a cushion behind his back. He smiled 
 thanks and took hold of her wrists. When he smiled you 
 saw the meaning of the deep wrinkles round his eyes and 
 mouth: a frown puts the finish to some faces, a smile to 
 others. 
 
 "At my age," he said softly, "I ought to be friends with 
 death, eh?" 
 
 The girl flushed. The old man said in a louder voice: 
 "Hoo, I'd be friends with age if I could make you young 
 beggars feel the truth of what I know." 
 
 He withdrew again into his arm-chair and the girl sat 
 down, frightened to think how awful it must be to grow 
 old, and glad to think that that misfortune was still remote 
 from her. Mr. Venables started forward. "If only when 
 one was young one could bravely grasp the fact of age and 
 death or of death without age instead of shrinking and 
 shrinking and shelving the idea as morbid or horrid or . . ." 
 The pendulous skin on his face trembled with his keenness. 
 One hand was clenched so that the veins on the back of it 
 stood out like blue silk cords of various thickness. But he 
 noticed the polite patience of his listeners, and pushed him- 
 self back into his chair. "Well, there'd be no more slack- 
 ness or indifference," he wound up, rubbing his hands 
 apologetically. 
 
 "Si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse pouvait," commented the 
 other man. He was good-looking, with a neat moustache. 
 The old man pouted out his lips. 
 
 "It's all in trim enough little mottoes," he grumbled. 
 "Saving your presence, dear, I should be inclined to add: 
 Damn them: the glib little mottoes, the trim little dogmas. 
 They're conductors to prevent people feeling the shock of 
 great unpleasant burning truths. The shock would be the 
 making of most people." 
 
 "You ought not to excite yourself, now, Mr. Venables, 
 really you oughtn't," said Mrs. Plummer. She was natu- 
 rally rather nervous about him after what the doctor had 
 
324 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 said, and relieved every time she saw him drive safely away 
 in his four-wheeler. The old fellow thrust out his lips again. 
 He looked at the clock. It was a quarter to ten. He never 
 left till ten. Habits like that were dear to him. He was 
 conscious that he had overweighted the conversation and 
 was sorry. He remembered that he often did now and was 
 sorrier. 
 
 "Go on about the swallows/' he growled, smiling. 
 
 "Oh, the swallows. Yes." 
 
 "Takes an aeroplane to make 'em realise the wonder of 
 flight," he continued jovially to growl. "And a smash be- 
 fore a gaping crowd the wonder of death." 
 
 "To think that little birds can fly and we can't," said Mrs. 
 Plummer kindly, to fill in the pause. "Like little people fly- 
 ing, if one only knew." 
 
 What she wished to know remained vague. 
 
 "Little people flying. Hoo! I often see 'em." He looked 
 mischievously round. He would have given a great deal to 
 make them pay him less courtesy and more attention. That 
 look of kindly patience was the worst penalty his age ex- 
 acted. "I constantly see 'em. They just stop to tell me to 
 mind my own business and be jolly. And they're off." 
 
 No one spoke. He got only the indulgent smile which 
 sent the years closing down over his head. He stood up, 
 trying to stoop as little as his back and neck would let 
 him. 
 
 "Oh, you're not going?" someone said. Of which he took 
 no notice. 
 
 "I still like bread and dripping," he announced. "And 
 what's more, I still insist on having bread and dripping for 
 lunch, as I used to when I ate slices of it under the nursery 
 table. Then I howled for it. Now I ask for it. That's 
 the main difference between a baby and an old man. That 
 and a little knowledge I've picked up between-whiles, and 
 the fact that I'm friends with death now and I wasn't 
 then. Until you're friends with death, young people, you 
 can never love or live. You can only maunder. I don't 
 blame you for disliking old age. It's uncomfortable. Be- 
 tween me and you the connection's cut, as it usually is 
 
THE BIRTH OF AN ARTIST 325 
 
 with your preposterous telephones. Never mind. I'm off 
 now." 
 
 And he wrapped himself up and went away. The others, 
 immediately after his going, produced the bridge table, and 
 cut for partners and the deal. The man who won the deal 
 said, as he dealt, "Poor old chap: he addresses each one of 
 us as though we were mankind." Another said: "An amus- 
 ing old bird." The third said: "Rather a trial, I should 
 think, to his family." And the fourth said: "Oh, he has 
 none now." The dealer, looking keenly at his cards, re- 
 marked: "He always goes at ten." He frowned harder 
 over his cards and, with a sigh, said: "Yes. I'll do it. 
 Hearts." 
 
 "Shall I play to hearts, partner?" 
 
 "Please." 
 
 And silence reigned for the game. The girl had gone to 
 bed. 
 
 II 
 
 Old Mr. Venables lived on the first floor of a house in 
 Upper Baker Street. Mrs. Gorton, the landlady, was the 
 widow of a man who had been Mr. Venable's foreman in the 
 printing business he had sold nearly twenty years ago. She 
 met him in the hall. 
 
 "Not out with your son, then?" he said. 
 
 "No, sir, they dined here and went alone. At my age 
 I like serious plays where it's all talking, not these musical 
 plays." 
 
 "Fifth anniversary of his wedding?" 
 
 "No, sir, sixth." ' 
 
 "Dear me! The years pass, Mrs. Gorton, the years pass." 
 
 "They do, sir," Mrs. Gorton cheerfully acquiesced. "Good 
 night." 
 
 He went upstairs slowly. Stairs tried his knees, now. 
 
 He remembered how Gorton dead now came to him, 
 blushing and grinning, to speak about an order, and turned 
 back at the door to touch his forehead with his forefinger 
 and say, "It's a boy, sir. Six-thirty this morning." He 
 
326 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 remembered his own marriage, the birth of his two children, 
 their death, his wife's death; and then suddenly all the 
 years since his schooldays were wiped from his mind. He 
 so vividly remembered his first school cricket match that 
 it seemed impossible he should be finding it arduous just 
 to walk up a fe\tf stairs. When he was eighteen, people 
 used to think it marvellous how fast he ran. Now that he 
 was eighty people thought it marvellous how well he got 
 about at all. At the top of the stairs he stopped a few 
 moments to rest his knees. They were aching. He pushed 
 his hat on the back of his head and shook himself. Then 
 he went into his room. His room was full of books. The 
 lamp stood lighted on the table. He put his hat and stick 
 on the table and began to pull off his overccat, which he 
 threw on the sofa a lodging-house scfa on which he used 
 to put anything, but himself. He looked rcund at his books 
 and rubbed his hands. There was a gleam in his eyes as he 
 leaned against his bookcase, and, lifting first one foot, then 
 the other, pushed off his boots from the heel. His boots were 
 specially designed for their ease of assumption and with- 
 drawal. They were shelters. Everything about him no 
 longer typified attack, but resistance. 
 
 However, he smiled round on his books as on great 
 friends, and trod gently into his slippers. He loved fat 
 folios. His eye lingered on North's Plutarch, Don Quixote, 
 Tristram Shandy, The Faerie Queene he must read a 
 special favourite that evening. He suspected it would be 
 The Faerie Queene, but chose to delay the final choice. 
 
 "Eh! old lads," he said: he often talked and chuckled to 
 himself. "I'm myself with you. With others, somehow 
 . . . Hoo! there's always been an */. Eh, you catch on? 
 If she didn't do this or if he didn't do that, what friends I'd 
 have been with 'em." 
 
 He was turning the pages of his Plutarch, almost fondling 
 them as he smoothed out the leaves. 
 
 "They know how to fly and rush about in motors: they've 
 telephones and telegraphs. They know about so many things. 
 But about the thing. About life. I could teach 'em a bit. 
 I haven't tho', I haven't. A dumb man. Cantankerous be- 
 
THE BIRTH OF AN ARTIST 327 
 
 cause I couldn't even amuse 'em. Just to make 'em realise 
 death, say. You'd send 'em spinning on towards life and 
 love and things that matter. Exploiting their own natures 
 towards kindness. With proper values. Heigh hoi I'd 
 like to start again and do a little better." 
 
 He put his North back into the shelf. 
 
 "Is it just those good Plummers, do you think, I'm ill 
 at ease with, or everyone? It's they who ought, you know, 
 to be eager to reform the world. Not me. I ought to be 
 playing my quiet game of whist. Not them. Like some 
 growth in me, this desire to say things. A late growth. 
 Too late a growth. Hair grows on a dead man's face. This 
 shoots up in my mind." 
 
 He did not know, being alone, whether he was speaking 
 or whether he was thinking. Often, too, he didn't know 
 whether he was thinking or dreaming. He passed from one 
 state to the other too easily for the transition to be re- 
 markable. He took down his Spenser, a heavy volume, and 
 carried it in his arms across the room to his chair. 
 
 "For the last time. Each act of mine may be. Who 
 knows? Just got a bit level with all you great fellows, just 
 wanting to start a little on my own. Time's up. The whistle 
 goes. Time's up. You've been too slow in starting, my 
 boy. That's all. A little too slow in starting." 
 
 He began to read the Faerie Queene in the middle of the 
 page at which the book opened. The words and rhythm, to 
 whose influence he was more sensitive than he had ever been, 
 took him away where the Faerie Queene always took him, 
 and his spirits responded to the springy moss of an enormous 
 forest. His feet, too, almost, though he kept shuffling them 
 more comfortably back into his slippers. The weight of the 
 book on his knees pressed his toes forward. He read on 
 until he began to doze. His head nodded and he caught 
 himself dozing. 
 
 "Now, then," he said, "no time to lose, you've not," and 
 he hitched the book up on his knee and sat as upright as he 
 could. 
 
 "Sleep. You'll have your fill of that, my boy. Soon 
 enough," he growled, as he arranged himself. 
 
328 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 But his head began to nod again. His back relaxed into 
 the chair. The book lowered on his knee; the hand that 
 held it loosened. He must have fallen asleep. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The lamp still burned. It was his own familiar chair. The 
 Faerie Queene was on his knee. All his surroundings were 
 unchanged. And yet . . . She was still there. So he 
 repeated his question. 
 
 "My sweet little Miss, who are you?" 
 
 And the same thing happened again. The strange little 
 child spirit-person sent his last word back on him like an 
 echo. "You." 
 
 The extraordinary clearness of her face its gravity and 
 roundness fought the extraordinary fact of her presence 
 and easily won. The little fear there was just spiced his 
 pleasure. His first astonishment yielded, and he looked at 
 her more carefully. "I couldn't be frightened," he thought, 
 "even if I wasn't asleep." 
 
 What he chiefly wondered was how she could possibly 
 look so strong and substantial as she did, when quite ob- 
 viously her body was not fashioned of flesh, but of some stuff 
 like that from which primrose leaves are made. 
 
 "Where do you come from?" he asked vaguely. 
 
 "From the open," came the answer. 
 
 "Well, it's very nice of you to have come. But you stand 
 there. Troubled? What can I do?" His words made no 
 impression on her grave steady look. "Heavenly to see you. 
 But you see, it's nice for people to feel at home with one. 
 However they come." 
 
 "Here?" He wasn't sure whether she spoke in pretty 
 scorn or whether it was his own thought, become articulate, 
 of the unfitness of the dingy room to be a home for a little 
 person of her build and beauty. 
 
 She continued to look at him. She was evidently as per- 
 plexed at seeing him as he was at seeing her. Her perplexity 
 tickled him. So he said: 
 
 "It's all very well, you know, but this is my room and 
 
THE BIRTH OF AN ARTIST 329 
 
 I am just a very old man, a Mr. Venables; whereas you 
 what are you?" 
 
 And again the word came back on him from her. "You." 
 But this time there was a frown on her face and a tremble. 
 The same look comes on the face of a small child about to 
 cry. She didn't cry, however, and still searched into him 
 with her round grey eyes. Then suddenly they brightened. 
 Have you ever been looking at roses when the sun had 
 gleamed out on them? It was like that. Only the light 
 came from within and glowed deeplier. 
 
 "It's all right," she said. "I've not made a mistake. I 
 see you at last inside all that stuffy covering. Come on!" 
 
 Her voice was like the music of a stream which took on 
 meaning a little after the first sound touched him. Its beauty 
 seemed to set something in him struggling to be free, like a 
 child in its mother's womb. And as though she saw this, 
 the little spirit-person laughed and said, "Come on!" 
 
 "Diaphenia like the daffadowndilly, do tell me who you 
 are." 
 
 "I didn't know it would be so difficult. How am I to get 
 you free from all that rubbish?" 
 
 "Tell me. Perhaps I could help you. Tell me who you 
 are, for instance/'" 
 
 "I've told you. I'm you. All the kind living thoughts 
 from you have become me, of course. And I've been sent 
 to fetch you." 
 
 The old man shook his head. "That couldn't be. The 
 unkind living thoughts. There'd be a black monster com- 
 ing. I suspect you're just the Faerie Queene." 
 
 "There's me and there are things that smell like dead 
 leaves and make rubbish. Brains like brambles in a thicket. 
 Do come! I can't take all that. And we've got to pass on." 
 
 "How and where?" 
 
 "Come, and you'll see." 
 
 The something in him stirred more resolutely at the ap- 
 peal in her voice. 
 
 "Oh! you are getting free," she cried. 
 
 "Anywhere with you." 
 
 It struggled and tore within the old man, so that he was 
 
330 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 frightened and could hardly speak. He tried to smile. The 
 little spirit-person moved upon him. Delight shone from 
 her face. "You're mine," she cried. He no longer saw 
 her. She was so near him. She was a part of him. He 
 thought she must have kissed his soul. 
 
 "Ha! Ha! we're free of the ugly rubbish. Whole and 
 free." 
 
 The voice sang within him. 
 
 IV 
 
 Agony was on the face of the very old man, Mr. Venables, 
 as he sat in his chair, his eyes unshut the agony of the 
 last effort. He sprang to his feet and stood more erect than 
 he had for many years. There were drops of sweat on his 
 forehead. He fell on his knees. His hands were clenched. 
 He tried to raise 'them and cry out: 
 
 "And men fear death! " 
 
 He felt that the sound of his words crashed through the 
 room and out into the world, so that all men must surely 
 hear and heed their meaning: words written in a flame on 
 the sky, and shouted in a laugh of thunder. 
 
 But as a matter of fact his voice only whispered, the 
 corners of his mouth only twitched, and he fell forward in a 
 heap on the floor. His arm fell on the fire-irons, and they 
 made such a clatter that Mrs. Gorton, who never went to 
 bed early, came up to see what was the matter. She tapped, 
 and receiving no response to her tapping, opened the door 
 and came in. She hurried towards him: then stopped mid- 
 way with a gasp and hurried back. Six doors up the street 
 a doctor lived. She fetched him. 
 
 The doctor straightened Mr. yenables out on the floor, 
 and felt his pulse: then he put his hand on Mr. Venables's 
 heart. 
 
 "Poor old gentleman," he said. "Quite dead." 
 
 They stood looking very solemnly, first at each other, 
 then at the body. The doctor said: "Not heavy. I think 
 we can manage it." 
 
 So they carried it into the bedroom and laid it on Mr. 
 
THE BIRTH OP AN ARTIST 331 
 
 Venables's bed. The doctor helped Mrs. Gorton undress it 
 and put on it a clean nightshirt. They left it between the 
 sheets of the bed. 
 
 After the doctor went, Mrs. Gorton drank a glass of 
 cold water, because she felt rather sick, and telephoned to 
 Mr. Plummer. 
 
 Mr. Plummer was just finishing his rubber, and thought 
 it advisable not to shock his wife with the sad news that 
 night. But he was quite as kind-hearted as his wife, and 
 cheerfully undertook all the trouble of the body's disposal, 
 though he knew that the money left him would be hardly 
 sufficient to cover his last year's losses at cards, of which 
 he kept careful note. 
 
 Mrs. Gorton did not like to be alone in the house with 
 a corpse. She found there was ample time to meet her 
 son and his wife at the station and go with them to their flat 
 in Balham to sleep. So she left the gas on the glimmer in 
 the bedroom, where the very old body lay stiffening be- 
 tween the white sheets, and very wisely went. 
 
A SICK COLLIER 1 
 
 BY D. H. LAWRENCE 
 
 SHE was too good for him, everybody said. Yet still 
 she did not regret marrying him. He had come court- 
 ing her when he was only nineteen, and she twenty. 
 He was in build what they call a tight little fellow; short, 
 dark, with a warm colour, and that upright set of the head 
 and chest, that flaunting way in movement recalling a mat- 
 ing bird, which denotes a body taut and compact with life. 
 Being a good worker he had earned decent money in the 
 mine, and having a good home had saved a little. 
 
 She was a cook at "Uplands," a tall, fair girl, very quiet. 
 Having seen her walk down the street, Horsepool had fol- 
 lowed her from a distance. He was taken with her, he did 
 not drink, and he was not lazy. So, although he seemed a 
 bit simple, without much intelligence, but having a sort of 
 physical brightness, she considered, and accepted him. 
 
 When they were married they went to live in Scargill 
 Street, in a highly respectable six-roomed house which they 
 had furnished between them. The street was built up the 
 side of a long, steep hill. It was narrow and rather tunnel- 
 like. Nevertheless, the back looked out over the adjoining 
 pasture, across a wide valley of fields and woods, in the 
 bottom of which the mine lay snugly. 
 
 He made himself gaffer in his own house. She was un- 
 acquainted with a collier's mode of life. They were married 
 on a Saturday. On the Sunday night he said: 
 
 "Set th' table for my breakfast, an' put my pit-things 
 
 'From 'The Prussian Officer." By permission of B. W. 
 Huebsch. 
 
 332 
 
A SICK COLLIER 333 
 
 afront o' th' fire. I s'll be gettin' up at ha'ef pas' five. Tha 
 nedna shift thysen not till when ter likes." 
 
 He showed her how to put a newspaper on the table for a 
 cloth. When she demurred: 
 
 "I want none o' your white cloths i' th' mornin'. I like 
 ter be able to slobber if I feel like it," he said. 
 
 He put before the fire his moleskin trousers, a clean sing- 
 let, or sleeveless vest of thick flannel, a pair of stockings 
 and his pit boots, arranging them all to be warm and ready 
 for morning. 
 
 "Now tha sees. That wants doin' ivery night." 
 
 Punctually at half-past five he left her, without any form' 
 of leave-taking, going downstairs in his shirt. 
 
 When he arrived home at four o'clock in the afternoon 
 his dinner was ready to be dished up. She was startled 
 when he came in, a short, sturdy figure, with a face in- 
 describably black and streaked. She stood before the fire 
 in her white blouse and white apron, a fair girl, the picture 
 of beautiful cleanliness. He "clommaxed" in, in his heavy 
 boots. 
 
 "Well, how 'as ter gone on?" he asked. 
 
 "I was ready for you to come home," she replied tenderly. 
 In his black face the whites of his brown eyes flashed 
 at her. 
 
 "An' I wor ready for comin'," he said. He planked his 
 tin bottle and snap-bag on the dresser, took off his coat and 
 scarf and waistcoat, dragged his arm-chair nearer the fire 
 and sat down. 
 
 "Let's ha'e a bit o' dinner, then I'm about clammed," 
 he sai'd. 
 
 "Aren't you goin' to wash yourself first?" 
 
 "What am I to wesh mysen for?" 
 
 "Well, you can't eat your dinner " 
 
 "Oh, strike a daisy, Missis! Dunna I eat my snap i' th' 
 pit wi'out weshin'? forced to." 
 
 She served the dinner and sat opposite him. His small 
 bullet head was quite black, save for the whites of his eyes 
 and his scarlet lips. It gave her a queer sensation to see 
 him open his red mouth and bare his white teeth as he ate. 
 
334 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 His arms and hands were mottled black; his bare, strong 
 neck got a little fairer as it settled towards his shoulders, 
 reassuring her. There was the faint indescribable odour 
 of the pit in the room, an odour of damp, exhausted air. 
 
 "Why is your vest so black on the shoulders?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "My singlet? That's wi' th> watter droppin' on us from 
 th' roof. This is a dry un as I put on afore I come up. 
 They ha'e gre't clothes- 'osses, an' as we change us things, 
 we put 'em on theer ter dry." 
 
 When he washed himself, kneeling on the hearth-rug 
 stripped to the waist, she felt afraid of him again. He was 
 so muscular, he seemed so intent on what he was doing, so 
 intensely himself, like a vigorous animal. And as he stood 
 wiping himself, with his naked breast towards her, she felt 
 rather sick, seeing his thick arms bulge their muscles. 
 
 They were nevertheless very happy. He was at a great 
 pitch of pride because of her. The men in the pit might 
 chaff him, they might try to entice him away, but nothing 
 could reduce his self-assured pride because of her, nothing 
 could unsettle his almost infantile satisfaction. In the even- 
 ing he sat in his arm-chair chattering to her, or listening as^ 
 she read the newspaper to him. When it was fine, he would 
 go into the street, squat on his heels as colliers do, with his 
 back against the wall of his parlour, and call to the passers- 
 by, in greeting, one after another. If no one were passing, 
 he was content just to squat and smoke, having such a fund 
 of sufficiency and satisfaction in his heart. He was well 
 married. 
 
 They had not been wed a year when all Brent and Well- 
 wood's men came out on strike. Willy was in the Union, 
 so with a pinch they scrambled through. The furniture 
 was not all paid for, and other debts were incurred. She 
 worried and contrived, he left it to her. But he was a good 1 
 husband ; he gave her all he had. 
 
 The men were out fifteen weeks. They had been back 
 just over a year when Willy had an accident in the mine, 
 tearing his bladder. At the pit head the doctor talked of 
 the hospital. Losing his head entirely, the young collier 
 
A SICK COLLIER 335 
 
 raved like a madman, what with pain and fear of hospital. 
 
 "Tha s'lt go whoam, Willy, tha s'lt go.whoam," the deputy 
 said. 
 
 A lad warned the wife to have the bed ready. Without 
 speaking or hesitating she prepared. But when the ambu- 
 lance came, and she heard him shout with pain at being 
 moved, she was afraid lest she should sink down. They 
 carried him in. 
 
 "Yo' should 'a' had a bed i' th' parlour, Missis," said the 
 deputy, "then we shouldna ha' had to hawkse 'im upstairs, 
 an' it 'ud 'a' saved your legs." 
 
 But it was too late now. They got him upstairs. 
 
 "They let me lie, Lucy," he was crying, "they let me lie 
 two mortal hours on th' sleek afore they took me outer th' 
 stall. Th' peen, Lucy, th' peen; oh, Lucy, th' peen, th' 
 peenl" 
 
 "I know th' pain's bad, Willy, I know. But you must 
 try an' bear it a bit." 
 
 "Tha munna carry on in that form, lad, thy missis'll 
 niver be able ter stan' it," said the deputy. 
 
 "I canna 'elp it, it's th' peen, it's th' peen," he cried 
 again. He had never been ill in his life. When he had 
 smashed a finger he could look at the wound. But this 
 pain came from inside, and terrified him. At last he was 
 soothed and exhausted. 
 
 It was some time before she could undress him and wash 
 him. He would let no other woman do for him, having 
 that savage modesty usual in such men. 
 
 For six weeks he was in bed, suffering much pain. The 
 doctors were not quite sure what was the matter with him, 
 and scarcely knew what to do. He could eat, he did not 
 lose flesh, nor strength, yet the pain continued, and he 
 could hardly walk at all. 
 
 In the sixth week the men came out in the national 
 strike. He would get UD quite early in the morning and 
 sit by the window. On Wednesday, the second week of the 
 strike, he sat gazing out on the street as usual, a bullet- 
 headed young man, still vigorous-looking, but with a peculiar 
 expression of hunted fear in his face. 
 
336 THE GREAT MODERN, ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 "Lucy," he called, "Lucy!" 
 
 She, pale and worn, ran upstairs at his bidding. 
 
 "Gi'e me a han'kercher," he said. 
 
 "Why, you've got one," she replied, coming near. 
 
 "Tha nedna touch me," he cried. Feeling his pocket, he 
 produced a white handkerchief. 
 
 "I non want a white un, gi'e me a red un," he said. 
 
 "An' if anybody comes to see you," she answered, giving 
 him a red handkerchief. 
 
 "Besides," she continued, "you needn't ha' brought me 
 upstairs for that." , 
 
 "I b'lieve th' peen's commin' on again," he said, with a 
 little horror in his voice. 
 
 "It isn't, you know it isn't," she replied. "The doctor 
 says you imagine it's there when it isn't." 
 
 "Canna I feel what's inside me?" he shouted. 
 
 "There's a traction-engine coming downhill," she said. 
 "That'll scatter them. I'll just go an' finish your pud- 
 ding." 
 
 She left him. The traction-engine went by, shaking the 
 houses. Then the street was quiet, save for the men. A 
 gang of youths from fifteen to twenty-five years old were 
 playing marbles in the middle of the road. Other little 
 groups of men were playing on the pavement. The street 
 .was gloomy. Willy could hear the endless calling and 
 shouting of men's voices. 
 
 "Tha'rt skinchin'!" 
 
 "I arena!" 
 
 "Come 'ere with that blood-alley." 
 
 "Swop us four for't." 
 
 "Shonna, gie's hold on't." 
 
 He wanted to be out, he wanted to be playing marbles. 
 The pain had weakened his mind, so that he hardly knew 
 any self-control. 
 
 Presently another gang of men lounged up the street. It 
 was pay morning. The Union was paying the men in the 
 Primitive Chapel. They were returning with their half- 
 sovereigns. 
 
 "Sorry!" bawled a voice. "Sorry!" 
 
 
A SICK COLLIER 337 
 
 The word is a form of address, corruption probably of 
 "Sirrah." Willy started almost out of his chair. 
 
 "Sorry!" again bawled a great voice. "Art goin' wi' me 
 to see Notts play Villa?" 
 
 Many of the marble players started up. 
 
 "What time is it? There's no treens, we sll ha'e ter 
 walk." 
 
 The street was alive with men. 
 
 "Who's goin' ter Nottingham ter see th' match?" shouted 
 the same big voice. A very large, tipsy man, with his cap 
 over his eye, was calling. 
 
 "Com' on aye, com' on!" came many voices. The street 
 was full of the shouting of men. They split up in excited 
 cliques and groups. 
 
 "Play up, Notts!" the big man shouted. 
 
 "Plee up, Notts!" shouted the youths and men. They 
 were at kindling pitch. It only needed a shout to rouse 
 them. Of this the careful authorities were aware. 
 
 "I'm goin', I'm goin'!" shouted the sick man at his 
 window. 
 
 Lucy came running upstairs. 
 
 "I'm goin' ter see Notts play Villa on th' Meadows 
 ground," he declared. 
 
 "You you can't go. There are no trains. You can't 
 walk nine miles." 
 
 "I'm goin' ter see th' match," he declared, rising. 
 
 "You know you can't. Sit down now'an' be quiet" 
 
 She put her hand on him. He shook it off. 
 
 "Leave me alone, leave me alone. It's thee as ma'es th' 
 peen come, it's thee. I'm goin' ter Nottingham to see th' 
 football match." 
 
 "Sit down folks'll hear you, and what will they think?" 
 
 "Come off'n me. Com' off. It's her, it's her as does it. 
 Com' off." 
 
 He seized hold of her. His little head was bristling with 
 madness, and he was strong as a lion. 
 
 "Oh, Willy!" she cried. 
 
 "It's 'er, it's 'er. Kill her! " he shouted, "kill her." 
 
 "Willy, folks'll hear you." 
 
338 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 "Th' peen's commin* on again, I tell yer. Ill kill her 
 for it." 
 
 He was completely out of his mind. She struggled with 
 him to prevent his going to the stairs. When she escaped 
 from him, who was shouting and raving, she beckoned to her 
 neighbour, a girl of twenty-four, who was cleaning the win- 
 dow across the road. 
 
 Ethel Mellor was the daughter of a well-to-do check- 
 weighman. She ran across in fear to Mrs. Horsepool. Hear- 
 ing the man raving, people were running out in the street 
 and listening. Ethel hurried upstairs. Everything was 
 clean and pretty in the young home. 
 
 Willy was staggering round the room, after the slowly 
 retreating Lucy, shouting: 
 
 "Kill her! Kill her!" 
 
 "Mr. Horsepool!" cried Ethel, leaning against the bed, 
 white as the sheets, and trembling. "Whatever are you 
 saying?" 
 
 "I tell yer it's 'er fault as th' pain comes on I tell yer 
 it is! Kill 'er kill 'erl" 
 
 "Kill Mrs. Horsepool!" cried the trembling girl. "Why, 
 you're ever so fond of her, you know you are." 
 
 "The peen I ha'e such a lot o' peen I want to kill 'er." 
 
 He was subsiding. When he sat down his wife collapsed 
 in a chair, weeping noiselessly. The tears ran dowr Ethel's 
 face. He sat staring out of the window; then the old, hurt 
 look came on his face. 
 
 "What 'ave I been sayin?" he asked, looking piteously 
 at his wife. 
 
 "Why!" said Ethel, "youVe been carrying on something 
 awful, saying, 'Kill her, kill herl'" 
 
 "Have I, Lucy?" he faltered. 
 
 "You didn't know what you was saying/' said his young 
 wife gently but coldly. 
 
 His face puckered up. He bit his lip, then broke into 
 tears, sobbing uncontrollably, with his face to the window. 
 
 There was no sound in the room but of three people cry- 
 ing bitterly, breath caught in sobs. Suddenly Lucy put 
 away her tears and went over to him. 
 
A SICK COLLIER 339 
 
 "You didn't know what you was saying Willy, I know 
 you didn't. I knew you didn't all the time. It doesn't 
 matter, Willy. Only don't do it again." 
 
 In a little while, when they were calmer, she went down- 
 stairs with Ethel. 
 
 "See if anybody is looking in the street," she said. 
 
 Ethel went into the parlour and peeped through the cur- 
 tains. 
 
 "Aye!" she said. "You may back your life Lena an' 
 Mrs. Severn'll be out gorping, and that clatfartin' Mrs, 
 Allsop." 
 
 "Oh, I hope they haven't heard anything! If it gets 
 about as he's out of his mind, they'll stop his compensation, 
 I know they will." 
 
 "They'd never stop his compensation for that' 9 protested 
 Ethel. 
 
 "Well, they have been stopping some " 
 
 "It'll not get about. I s'll tell nobody." 
 
 "Oh, but if it does, whatever shall we do? . . ." 
 
GREATER THAN LOVE 1 
 
 BY CARADOC EVANS 
 
 ESTHER knew the sun had risen because she could 
 number the ripening cheeses arrayed on the floor 
 against the wall. She threw back the shawl and sacks 
 that covered her, and descending by the ladder into the 
 kitchen, withdrew the bolt and opened the door. 
 
 "Goodness all! Late terrible am I," she said to the young 
 man who entered. "Bring you the cows in a hurry, boy 
 bach." 
 
 "Talk you like that, Esther, when the old animals are 
 in the close." 
 
 Esther knelt on the hearth and lit the dried furze thereon. 
 
 "The buckets are in the milk-house," she went on. "Boy 
 bach, hie you away off and make a start. Come I will as 
 soon as I am ready." 
 
 The young man shuffled across the floor into the dairy. 
 He came back with two buckets and a wooden tub, and he 
 placed the tub on the ground'and sat on its edge. 
 
 "This is the day of the seaside," he said. 
 
 Esther turned her face away from the smoke that 
 ascended from the fire. 
 
 "Indeed, indeed, now, Sam bach!" she cried, "and you 
 don't say so then!" 
 
 "Esther fach, vexful the move of your tongue. Say to me 
 whose cart is carting you?" 
 
 "Who speeched that I was going, Sam the son of Ginni?" 
 
 "Don't you be laughing, Esther. Tell me now whose 
 cart is carting you." 
 
 1 From "My People." Published by Boni and Liveright, Inc. 
 
 340 
 
GREATER THAN LOVE 341 
 
 "Go I would for sure into Morfa, but, dear me, no one 
 will have me," said Esther. 
 
 "What for you cry mischief when there's no mischief to 
 be?" said Sam. 
 
 Esther tore off pieces of peat and arranged them lightly 
 on the furze. 
 
 "Nice place is Morfa," she observed. 
 
 "Girl fach, iss," Sam said. "Nice will be to go out in 
 Twmmi's boat. Speak you that you will spend the day with 
 me." 
 
 "How say Catrin! Sober serious! How will Catrin the 
 daughter of Rachel speak if you don't go with her?" 
 
 "Mention you Catrin, Esther fach, what for?" 
 
 "Is there not loud speakings that you have courted Catrin 
 in bed? Very full is her belly." 
 
 "Esther! Esther! Why you make me savage like an 
 old rabbit? Why for play old pranks? Wrench fach, 
 others have been into Catrin. If I die, this is true. Do you 
 believe me now?" 
 
 Esther plagued him, saying: 
 
 "Bring me small fairings home, Sam bach. Did I not 
 give you a knife when I went to the Fair of the Month of 
 April?" 
 
 Sam took out his knife, and sharpened the blade on the 
 leather of his clog. 
 
 "Grateful was I for the nice knife," he said. "Did I not 
 stick Old Shemmi's pig with it, Esther fach?" 
 
 "Well well, then?" 
 
 "Look you, there's old murmuring that you were taken in 
 mischief with the Schoolin' in Abram's hen loft," said Sam. 
 
 Esther rose to her feet and looked upon him. This is the 
 manner of man she saw: a short, bent-shouldered, stunted 
 youth; his face had never been shaved and was covered with 
 tawny hair, and his eyes were sluggish. 
 
 Esther laughed. 
 
 "Boy bach, unfamiliar you are," she said. 
 
 "Mam did say," Sam proceeded, "that I ought not to wed 
 a shiftless female who doesn't take Communion in Capel 
 Sion." 
 
342 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 "Your mother Old Ginni is right," said Esther. "Keep 
 you on with Catrin. Ugly is Catrin with bad pimples in her 
 face. But listen you, Sam; a large ladi I will be. I don't 
 want louts like you." 
 
 The fire was under way; Esther rolled up to her waist her 
 outer petticoat and she put on an apron. 
 
 "Why sit you there like a donkey?" she cried. "Away 
 you and do the milking." 
 
 "Esther fach, come you to Morfa," Sam pleaded. 
 
 "For sure I'm coming to Morfa," Esther answered. "But 
 not with you. Am I not going to find a love there?" 
 
 Then they went forth into the close to milk Old Shem- 
 mi's cows, and while they did so each chanted: 
 
 "There's a nice cow is Gwen! 
 
 Milk she gives indeed ! 
 More milk, little Gwen ; more milk ! 
 A cow fach is Gwen," 
 
 thereby coaxing the animals to give their full yield. 
 
 When the milk was separated Esther put on her Sabbath 
 garments and drew her red hair tightly over her forehead, 
 and she took her place in Shemmi's hay- waggon. There 
 were many in the waggon other than Esther and Sam, for 
 the custom is that the farmer takes his servants and those 
 who have helped him without payment in the hayfieid freely 
 on a set day to the Sea of Morfa. 
 
 Shemmi's waggon reached Morfa before the dew had 
 lifted, and towards the heat of the day (after they had 
 eaten) the people of Manteg gathered together. One said: 
 "Come you down to the brim now, and let us wash our little 
 bodies." The men bathed nakedly: the women had brought 
 spare petticoats with them, and these they wore when they 
 were in the water. 
 
 Esther changed her behaviour when she got to Morfa, and 
 she feigned herself above all who had come from Manteg, 
 and while she sat alone in the shadow of a cliff there came to 
 her Hws Morris, a young man who was in training to be a 
 minister. Mishtir Morris was elegant: his clothes were 
 black and he had a white collar around his neck and wh ; te 
 
GREATER THAN LOVE 343 
 
 cuffs at the ends of his sleeves, and on his feet he had 
 brown shoes of canvas. 
 
 Hws Morris took off from his head his black hat, which 
 was of straw, and said to Esther: 
 
 "Sure now, come you from Squire Pryce's household? 
 You are his daughter indeed?" 
 
 "Stranger bach," answered Esther, "say you like that, 
 what for?" 
 
 "A ladi you seem," said Hws Morris. 
 
 Esther was vain, and she did not perceive through the 
 man's artifice. 
 
 "Indeed, indeed, then," said Hws Morris, "speak from 
 where you are." 
 
 "Did you not say I was Squire Pryce's daughter?" said 
 Esther. 
 
 "Ho, ho, old boy wise is Squire Pryce." 
 
 Esther turned her eyes upon the bathers. Catrin and 
 another woman were knee-deep in the water ; between them, 
 their hands linked, Sam. She heard Bertha Daviss crying 
 from the shore: "Don't you wet it, Sam bach." 
 
 Hws Morris placed the tips of his fingers into his ears. 
 
 "This," he mourned, "after two thousands years of re- 
 ligion. They need the little Gospel." 
 
 "Very respectable to be a preacher it is," said Esther. 
 
 "And to be a preacher's mistress," said Hws Morris. 
 "Great is the work the Big Man has called me to do." 
 
 A murmuring came from the women on the beach: Sam 
 was struggling in the water. Esther moved a little nearer 
 the sea. 
 
 "Where was you going to, then?" asked Hws Morris. 
 "You was not going to bathe with them?" 
 
 "Why for no?" 
 
 "See you how immodest they are. Girl fach, stay you 
 here. If you need to wash your body, go you round to the 
 backhead of the old stones and take off your clothes and 
 bathe where no eyes will gaze on you." 
 
 The murmuring now sounded violent: Lloyd the Schoolin' 
 was swimming towards Sam. 
 
 Esther passed beyond the stones, and in a cave she cast 
 
344 THE GREAT MODERN^ ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 off her clothes and walked into the sea; and having cleansed 
 herself, she dried her skin in the heat of the sun. When 
 she got out from the cave, Hws Morris came up to her. 
 
 "Hungry you are," he said to her. "Return you into the 
 cave and eat a little of this cake." 
 
 He led her far inside, so far that they could not see 
 anything that was outside. Hws Morris placed his arm over 
 Esther's shoulders, and his white fingers moved lightly over 
 her breast to her thigh. He stole her heart. 
 
 Esther heard a voice crying her name. 
 
 "Wench fach," said Hws Morris to her, "let none know 
 of our business." 
 
 Sam shouted her name against the rocks and over the 
 sea; he cried it in the ears of strange people and at the 
 doors of strange houses. Towards dusk he said to the 
 women who were waiting for Shemmi's hay waggon to start 
 home: "Little females, why is Esther not here?" 
 
 Catrin jeered at him: "Filling her belly is Esther." 
 
 "'But say you've seen Esther fach!" Sam cried. 
 
 "Twt, twt!" said Bertha Daviss. "What's the matter 
 with the boy? Take him in your arms, Catrin, and take him 
 to your bed." 
 
 "Speak you Esther is not drowned," Sam urged. 
 
 "Drowned!" Catrin repeated loudly. "Good if the bad 
 concubine is." 
 
 "Evil is the wench," said Bertha Daviss. "Remember 
 how she tried to snare Rhys Shop." 
 
 "Fond little women," Sam cried, "say you that Esther 
 fach is not drowned." 
 
 "Sam, indeed to goodness," Bertha said to him, "trouble 
 not your mind about a harlot." 
 
 "Now, dear me," answered Sam, "foolish is your speech, 
 Bertha. How shall I come home without Esther?" 
 
 "There's Catrin, Sam bach. Owe you nothing to Catrin? 
 Is she not in child by you?" 
 
 Old Shemmi's hay waggon came into the roadway, and 
 Sam said to the man who drove the horse: 
 
 "Male bach nice, don't you begin before Esther comes, 
 and she will be soon. Maybe she's sleeping." 
 
GREATER THAN LOVE 345 
 
 "In the arms of a man," said Catrin. 
 
 Sam placed his hands around his mouth and shouted 
 Esther's name. 
 
 The people entered the waggon: Sam remained in the 
 road. 
 
 "Find you her, Sam bach!" Catrin cried. "Ask the Bad 
 Spirit if he has seen her." 
 
 Old Shemmi's mare began the way home. 
 
 Sam hastened back to the beach: the tide was coming in, 
 and he walked through tlie waters, shouting, moaning, and 
 lamenting. At last he beheld Esther, and an awful wrath 
 was kindled within him. As he had loved her, so he now 
 hated her: he hated even more than he had loved her. He 
 had gone on the highway that ends in Llanon. At a little 
 distance in front of him he saw her with a man, and he 
 crept close to them and he heard their voices. He heard 
 Esther saying: 
 
 "Don't you send me away now. Let me stay with you." 
 
 The man answered: "Shut your throat, you temptress. 
 For why did you flaunt your body before my religious 
 eyes?" 
 
 "Did you not make fair speeches to me?" said Esther. 
 
 "Terrible is your sin," said the man. "Turn away from 
 me. Little Big Man bach, forgive me for eating of the 
 wench's fruit." 
 
 Sam came up to them by stealth. 
 
 "Out of your head you must be, boy bach, to make sin 
 with Esther," he said. 
 
 Hws Morris looked into Sam's face, and a horrid fear 
 struck him, and he ran: and Sam opened his knife and 
 running after him, caught him and killed him. He had diffi- 
 culty in drawing away the blade, because it had entered into 
 the man's skull. Then he returned to the place where 
 Esther was, and her he killed also. 
 
BIRTH 
 
 BY GILBERT CANNAN 
 
 TWO young men lay in a punt by a wide meadow be- 
 tween Godstow and Eynsham. They were dressed in 
 flannels and their hair was wet from bathing in the 
 river. They were about the same age, anything between 
 twenty-five and thirty-three. One of them wore a happy, 
 pleased expression, the other seemed much older, more 
 thoughtful and preoccupied. They were having tea. 
 
 Martin raised his cup to his lips, put it down again, and a 
 serious expression came across his happy face. 
 
 "Life is so grey," he said. 
 
 His friend looked up from lighting his pipe, and his ex- 
 pression of preternatural gravity changed to a look almost 
 quizzical. 
 
 "For you?" he said. 
 
 "No, Ray. I mean for all the other poor devils/' 
 
 He turned lazily over on his side, and looked out over 
 the edge of the punt, reached out his hand and plucked a 
 water-fly from the surface of the water where it was skim- 
 ming in circles. 
 
 "Oh! poor beast! I've broken its wing! . . . that's 
 what I mean. . . . That's how so many of them go 
 through life, with their wings broken . . . right from the 
 very beginning. What chance do they have?" 
 
 "They're alive." 
 
 "Are they? You don't see what I see." 
 
 "I should have more sympathy with them than you, if 
 I did." 
 
 "What do you mean? D'you think I don't pity them? 
 That's what I meant when I said 'Life is so grey!' " 
 
 346 
 
BIRTH 
 
 347 
 
 "And that's what I meant when I said you don't sym- 
 pathise with them." 
 
 "Please explain." 
 
 "I don't think you'd understand." 
 
 "I admit I haven't your perception or your intellect, or I 
 should be you instead of being what I am." 
 
 "Did you or did you not dive into the water just now?" 
 
 "I did." 
 
 "And did you or did you not ride over the meadow bare- 
 backed with that friendly horse?" 
 
 "I did." 
 
 "And after that you can say that life is grey?" 
 
 "Well it is." 
 
 "You're incorrigible." 
 
 "My dear man, in my work in hospital I come across such 
 hopeless misery. I tell you, you have no idea. You can't 
 imagine . . ." 
 
 I can imagine anything." 
 
 "It is you who are arrogant." 
 
 "I said you were unsympathetic. You know much, but 
 you understand nothing at all, and, therefore, you have no 
 business to be a doctor." 
 
 "Indeed? I can be what I choose." 
 
 'There are some things which should not be done except 
 by the people who understand doctoring is one of them." 
 
 "I don't know what you mean." 
 
 "What I say You say 'Life is so grey/ That means 
 that though in your work you come in contact, as you say, 
 with hopeless, ghastly misery, it has taught you nothing. I 
 could tell you a great deal, but it wouldn't be any use, 
 simply because you would not understand . . ." 
 
 Braithwaite's pipe went out. He stopped to clean it 
 with a reed which he plucked with a lazy hand. 
 
 "Try . . . 
 
 "Women understand more often than men, by sheer in- 
 stinct and perception. That is why in the under classes the 
 women are so often superior to the men, even for bare me- 
 chanical purposes. . . . Women know the joy that lies 
 behind great misery. . . . They know that the force of 
 
348 THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 the world, or the life force, or whatever you like to call it, 
 is a thing which laughs and cries at the same time and 
 and I tell you, that so far as a man is sufficiently and truly 
 himself to laugh and cry at the same time, so far is he a 
 master of life, and mastery of life is the true aim and end 
 of all human endeavour . . ." 
 
 "I don't see what you mean; but go on." 
 
 "The perfect man, the master of life, is he in whom 
 thought and instinct are most absolutely balanced, but there 
 is no perfect man which is just as well, for he would die 
 at once from sheer acceptance of things. But the balance is 
 not in one man, never can be it was in the legendary 
 Christ, I suppose but in all men, in the whole world. In 
 spite of all the waste, and friction, hideous distortion and 
 terror, it is there; if it weren't there, the world would burst. 
 Though a man may be mad, the world is sane. Now do you 
 see what I mean?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "You look puzzled, and I believe that I could make you 
 see. The germ of understanding is in all of us. ... 
 Well, do you still say that 'Life is so grey'?" 
 
 "Yes. . . . You simply don't know what I know. You 
 theorise about life and work yourself into an exalted state 
 of optimism. Come with me some night and I'll make you 
 see." 
 
 "I think I shall make you see." 
 
 "You will come?" 
 
 "Very well. When?" 
 
 "Next Tuesday?" 
 
 "Dine with me. Or call for me at the hospital and we'll 
 go down. I'm on maternity cases." 
 
 "Maternity! By God! You shall see." 
 
 Braithwaite rose, took the punt pole and pushed out from 
 the bank. His friend, Martin, restored the water-fly with 
 its broken wing to its natural element, waved an elaborate 
 farewell to the friendly horse with whom he had galloped 
 over the golden meadow, and they returned up-stream to 
 Eynsham, and thence back to London . . . 
 
 On the following Tuesday Braithwaite called for Martin 
 
BIRTH 349 
 
 at the hospital. Martin's pleasant face wore the worried ex- 
 pression which he considered professional, and he was rather 
 cross and officious, which he also considered professional. 
 Braithwaite was moody and silent. He had been among the 
 very poor before, but always alone and as a "sympathetic," 
 as he was pleased to call himself, and at the moment he was 
 bitterly resenting his friend's hard and purely professional 
 attitude of mind. 
 
 Martin, a little hurt by his silence, turned to him and 
 said: "Anything wrong?" 
 
 "No. I was thinking." 
 
 "You always are." 
 
 "I was thinking how perfectly intolerable the practice of 
 your profession would be to you, if you were me." 
 
 They walked swiftly through -^ell-lighted streets where 
 there were crowds of men and women, girls and young men, 
 strangely clad, many of them; and men with odd Eastern 
 faces; Semites and Slavs, contrasting vividly in their alert- 
 ness and swift change of expression with the slower, heavier, 
 narrow astuteness of the Cockney type. The life and move- 
 ment in the streets produced excitement in Braithwaite and 
 he returned the smile which a prostitute cast at him. Mar- 
 tin saw it, and misunderstood. 
 
 They turned out of the stream into a narrow lane, where 
 slatternly women were sitting gossiping on the doorsteps and 
 men in varying states of intoxication were reeling home. Of 
 the drunken men the majority were English, none were Jews. 
 At a corner of the lane was a little public house. Two men 
 were standing in the gutter. One played a whistle and 
 the other a guitar. They were low Italians. On the shoul- 
 der of one of them sat a small monkey, alert and bright, 
 combing its black little fingers through its master's^ greasy 
 hair. Braithwaite stopped to caress it. Martin hurried him 
 along. They turned the corner past the public house into 
 another lane, lower, narrower, more squalid than the first. 
 On the doorsteps sat women more slatternly than the others, 
 more heavy, less interested. In the gutter among orange- 
 peel, scraps of paper, and mud, lay a man. As they passed 
 him a little woman rushed out of a house, pounced on him, 
 
350 THE GREAT MODERN. ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 kicked him, beat him, screamed at him, and finally felt in his 
 pockets, and finding no money, left him. 
 
 Martin stopped a mean, mealy-faced little man and asked 
 him for the house of such and such a one. 
 
 "That's 'im," said the mealy-faced man, pointing to the 
 man in the gutter. 
 
 "That's the father," said Martin to Braithwaite. "Life 
 at its rottenest." 
 
 "Life still, it is life." 
 
 They came to the door of a house; a mean door, a bat- 
 tered, blistered door, that bore the marks of heavily shod 
 feet. There was neither bell nor knocker. Martin kicked. 
 There was no sign of life in the house. Martin kicked again 
 and they waited. 
 
 "How about your theories now?" 
 
 "Wait." 
 
 "There is nothing to hope for. Poor devils . . . what 
 you will see inside! . . ." 
 
 The door was opened by a woman stark naked except for 
 a dirty pink petticoat thrown hastily over her shoulders. 
 Braithwaite took cff his hat to her politely. She swore at 
 him cheerfully. Martin passed in and the woman asked 
 them to go upstairs. 
 
 "She's bad," she said. "Mind the stairs, there's a 'ole in 
 them. Wait while I get a light." 
 
 She disappeared into the darkness, to return in a moment 
 holding a tallow candle in her hand, over her head, so that 
 the grease dripped down every now and then on to her hair. 
 By the light of the candle they could see the stairs rising 
 steeply in front of them within a few feet of the door. The 
 banisters were gone and one or two stairs were broken. 
 There were great holes in the plaster of the wall, and part 
 of the ceiling of the passage bulged ominously. There was a 
 vile thickness in the air and a smell of garlic from the 
 ground floor room, from the door of which peered a thick- 
 * nosed Jew. They ascended the stairs, the woman first, 
 Martin next, and then Braithwaite, who kept wondering with 
 'amusement why the woman preferred not to wash her feet 
 and legs. At the top of the stairs they turned sharp to the 
 
 
BIRTH 351 
 
 left and entered a room, lit only by moonbeams struggling 
 through the little window, the panes of which were broken, 
 stuffed with rags, plastered, where cracked, with paper, or 
 grimily opaque. There were two beds in the room. In 
 one lay a man snoring and at the foot two children asleep. 
 It was a crazy iron bedstead and the bedclothes were stale 
 and frowsy. The woman jabbed with her thumb in the di- 
 rection of the opposite corner of the room, threw off her 
 petticoat, and prepared to slide into bed. She stopped, 
 however, with her knee on the edge of the mattress: 
 
 "Theer ain't nothin' I c'n dew?" 
 
 "You can help," said Martin. From the other corner of 
 the room there came moaning, moaning. 
 
 "Is there any brandy in the house?" said Martin. 
 
 "I got some this arternoon thinkhV it might be wanted. 
 I 'ad to 'ide it." 
 
 She rummaged under the mattress of the bed and pro- 
 duced a flat bottle of coarse green glass, filled with brown 
 liquor. 
 
 "She's not strong. . . . An* the last time nearly 
 killed 'er, she told me. She wasn't livin' 'ere then." 
 
 All the time she was dressing, getting into her clothes. 
 Braithwaite sat on the table, the chairs all looked too crazy 
 and perilous. 
 
 The woman in travail moaned, and moaned, and occa- 
 sionally cried in fear. She opened her eyelids and gazed 
 with heavy fevered eyes at Martin. Braithwaite moved and 
 stood by her side. She rolled her head on the hard dirty 
 pillow and tears streamed down her cheeks, but through her 
 tears she smiled at him, and reached out her thin arm. 
 He understood, and held out his hand which she clutched 
 tightly. He sat there holding her hand, and he looked up at 
 Martin, but quickly away again, for there was nothing but 
 disinterest in his eyes. 
 
 Presently the tears of the woman in travail ceased to flow, 
 as the pain grew in her, and her breathing came fast and 
 fast, and sanity left her eyes; they stared hard and glitter- 
 ing, senseless and yet questioning, in Braithwaite's direction, 
 and tightly she held his hand. Through this contact he 
 
352 THE GREAT MODERN, ENGLISH STORIES 
 
 could feel the warm life in her, the outgoing and the 
 struggle. In all his veins his blood boiled, and he could feel 
 a sort of faint echo in himself of her agony. Tightly she 
 held his hand. 
 
 Martin and the woman were busy fetching water, towels, 
 warm clothes, and the three of them were there, waiting 
 . . . waiting. In the other bed the man stirred, turned 
 in his sleep, cursed tranquilly in a gentle dreamy voice, and 
 kicked one of the children at the foot of the bed. It cried 
 out, then slept, and silence came again. 
 
 So they waited, and the woman moaned, twisted and 
 moaned, and a feeling surged in Braithwaite's body, so that 
 the veins in his temples swelled, and he choked. The woman 
 gathered strength, all her forces, and all the while she 
 clutched his hand tighter and tighter. . . . Agony grew. 
 . . . Unbearable. Braithwaite's eyes started from his 
 head; he found his tongue between his teeth and bit it. 
 . . . He saw Martin bend swiftly over the woman and 
 lay something white over her mouth. . . . Then his head 
 sank on his breast, he heard a buzzing, whispering voices, 
 and he knew no more. . . . 
 
 Far, far away, remote, distant, hazy, he heard a great 
 glad cry greeting the world. . . . Such a cry 
 
 When he came to himself he found Martin pouring brandy 
 down his throat, and the woman still holding his hand, and 
 he was glad oh! glad . . . 
 
 On a chair near the bed the other woman was holding a 
 white bundle in her arms, crooning over it, rocking to and 
 fro, and her eyes shone. . . . 
 
 He looked up into Martin's face and saw that there were 
 tears in his eyes. 
 
 They waited until the mother was restored to conscious- 
 ness. Braithwaite stooped and kissed her on the forehead. 
 She smiled tenderly at him, with a tenderness the greater 
 for her large weariness. For a moment he took the child 
 in his arms, then laid it by her side so that its head lay on 
 her arm. Again she smiled at him. 
 
 He laid two pieces of gold on the mantelpiece and to- 
 gether they went, he and Martin, down the crazy stairs, out 
 
BIRTH 353 
 
 into the squalid street, past the father who lay there still 
 in the gutter . . . 
 
 They spoke no word, not even when they separated, to 
 bid each other "Good-night." 
 
BIOGRAPHIES AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES 
 
 NOTE: Volumes of short stories are indicated by an as- 
 terisk. 
 
 BARRIE, SIR JAMES MATTHEW. 
 
 Born at Kirriemuir, Scotland, May 9, 1860. Educated at 
 Dumfries Academy and Edinburgh University. 
 
 Author of *"Better Dead," 1887. *"Auld Licht Idylls," 
 1888. "Edinburgh Eleven," 1888. "When a Man's Single," 
 1888. *" Window in Thrums," 1889. "My Lady Nicotine," 
 1890. "Little Minister," 1891. "Professor's Love Story," 
 
 1895. "Sentimental Tommy," 1896. "Margaret Ogilvy," 
 
 1896. "Tommy and Grizel," 1900. "Wedding Guest," 
 1900. "Little White Bird," 1902. "Quality Street," 1903. 
 "Admirable Crichton," 1903. "Little Mary," 1903. "Peter 
 Pan," 1904. "Alice Sit-by-the-Fire," 1905. "Peter Pan in 
 Kensington Gardens," 1906. "What Every Woman Knows," 
 1908. "Peter and Wendy," 1911. "Legend of Leonora," 
 1913. "Will," 1913. "Adored One," 1913. "Half-Hours," 
 1913. "Der Tag," 1914. "Rosy Rapture," 1915. "Kiss 
 for Cinderella," 1916. "Old Lady Shows Her Medals," 1917- 
 "Seven Women," 1917. "Echoes of the War," 1918. "Dear 
 Brutus," 1918. 
 
 BERESFORD, JOHN DAVYS. 
 
 Born March 7, 1873. Educated at Oundle and Peter- 
 borough. Practised architecture in London for many years. 
 
 Author of "Early History of Jacob Stahl," 1911. "Hamp- 
 denshire Wonder," 1911. "Candidate for Truth," 1912. 
 "Goslings," 1913. "House in Demetrius Road," 1914. "In- 
 
 355 
 
356 BIOGRAPHIES AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES 
 
 visible Event," 1915. "Mountains of the Moon," 1915. "H. 
 G. Wells," 1915. "Essays," 1915. "These Lynnekers," 
 
 1916. "House Mates," 1917. "W. E. Ford: A Biography" 
 (with Kenneth Richmond), 1917. "God's Counterpoint," 
 1918. 
 
 BLACKWOOD, ALGERNON. 
 
 Born 1869. Educated at a Moravian School in the Black 
 Forest, Wellington College, and Edinburgh University. Has 
 travelled widely. Farmed and mined in Canada, ran a 
 hotel, and was a reporter on New York newspapers. 
 
 Author of *"Empty House," 1906. ^"Listeners," 1907. 
 *"John Silence," 1908. "Education of Uncle Paul," 1909. 
 "Jimbo," 1909. "Human Chord," 1910. *"Lost Valley," 
 1910. "Centaur," 1911. *"Pan's Garden," 1912. "Pris- 
 oner in Fairyland," 1913. *"Ten Minute Stories," 1913. 
 *"Incredible Adventures," 1914. "Extra Day," 1915. "Star- 
 light Express" (with Violet Pearn), 1916. "Julius Le Val- 
 lon," 1916. "Wave," 1916. *"Day and Night Stories," 
 
 1917. "Promise of Air," 1918. "Karma" (with Violet 
 Pearn), 1918. "Garden of Survival," 1918. 
 
 CANNAN, GILBERT. 
 
 Born 1884. Educated at Manchester and Cambridge Uni- 
 versity. Has practised law and written dramatic criti- 
 cism. 
 
 Author of "Peter Homunculus," 1909. "Devious Ways," 
 1910. "Wedding Presents," 1912. "Perfect Widow," 1912. 
 "Little Brother," 1912. "Round the Corner," 1913. "Joy 
 of the Theatre," 1913. "Four Plays," 1913. "Old Mole," 
 
 1914. "Love," 1914. "Satire," 1914. "Young Earnest," 
 
 1915. "Samuel Butler," 1915. "Windmills," 1915. "Ad- 
 venturous Love," 1915. "Three Pretty Men," 1916. "Three 
 Sons and a Mother," 1916. "Mendel," 1916. "Everybody's 
 Husband," 1917. "Freedom," 1917. "Noel," 1917. "Stuc- 
 co House," 1918. "Mummery," 1918. 
 
BIOGRAPHIES AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES. 357 
 
 BURKE, THOMAS. 
 
 Born 1887. Lives in London. Contributor to English 
 Review, Pall Mall Gazette, Daily Chronicle, Book Monthly, 
 London Opinion, and many others. 
 
 Author of "Nights in Town," 1915. *"Limehouse Nights," 
 
 1916. "Twinkletoes," 1917. "London Lamps," 1917. 
 *"Out and About London," 1919. 
 
 CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM, ROBERT BONTINE. 
 
 Born in 1852. Educated at Harrow. In Parliament, 
 1886-92. 
 
 Author of "Notes on the District of Monteith," 1895. 
 "Father Archangel of Scotland" (with Mrs. Cunninghame 
 Graham), 1896. "Aurora la Cujini," 1898. "Mogreb el 
 Acksa," 1898. "Ipane," 1899. *"Thirteen Stories," 1900. 
 "Vanished Arcadia," 1901. *"Success," 1902. "Life of 
 Hernando de Soto," 1903. *"Progress," 1905. "His Peo- 
 ple," 1906. *"Faith," 1909. *"Hope," 1910. *"Charity," 
 1912. "Hatchment," 1913. "Life of Bernal Diaz del Cas- 
 tillo," 1915. *"Brought Forward," 1916. 
 
 DE SELINCOURT, HUGH. 
 
 Author of "Great Ralegh,"i9o8. "A Fair House," 1911. 
 "A Daughter of the Morning," 1912. "A Soldier of Life," 
 
 1917. *"Nine Tales," 1918. 
 
 DOWSON, ERNEST. 
 
 Born at Lea in Kent, 1867. Educated at Queen's Col- 
 lege, Oxford. He wrote much poetry between 1889 and 
 1899, mostly in France, where he spent much of his life. 
 He was the author of a dramatic phantasy in verse entitled 
 "The Pierrot of the Minute," in 1897. He also translated 
 many French and other works of literary value. He was 
 
358 BIOGRAPHIES AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES 
 
 a member of the famous Rhymers' Club of England. Died 
 of phthisis Feb. 21, 1900. 
 
 Author of "Souvenirs of an Egoist," 1888. "The Cult of 
 the Child," 1889. "The Diary of a Successful Man," 1890. 
 "The Story of a Violin," 1891. "The Statute of Limita- 
 tions," 1893. "A Comedy of Masks," 1893. "Apple Blos- 
 som in Brittany," 1894. *"Dilemmas," 1895. "The Eyes 
 of Pride," 1896. "Countess Marie of the Angels," 1896. 
 "The Dying of Francis Donne," 1896. "Adrian Rome" 
 (with Arthur Moore), 1899. 
 
 EGERTON, GEORGE (Mrs. GOLDING BRIGHT) 
 (MARY CHAVELITA). 
 
 Born at Melbourne, Australia, in camp at Tauranga dur- 
 ing Maori War; went in sailing vessel to Valparaiso and 
 arrived during bombardment; thence to Wales and Ireland; 
 since worked in America and London; been in most coun- 
 tries in Europe. Educated privately. Intended for an artist, 
 but family affairs prevented course of study as intended; 
 writing came as an afterthought. 
 
 Author of "Keynotes," 1893. "Discords," 1894. "Young 
 Ofeg's Ditties," 1895. "Symphonies," 1897. "Fantasias," 
 1898. "The Wheel of God," 1898. "Rosa Amorosa," 1901. 
 "Flies in Amber," 1905. "His Wife's Family" (Play), 1908. 
 "The Backsliders" (Play), 1910. "The Rafale" (Adapta- 
 tion), 1911. "The Daughter of Heaven" (Adaptation), 
 1912. "The Attack" (Adaptation), 1912. "Wild Thyme, 
 Flers et Caillavet" (Adaptation), 1914. 
 
 EVANS, CARADOC. 
 
 Novelist and journalist. Born Pantycroy, Llandyssul, 
 Wales. Educated Rhydlewis Board School, Cardiganshire; 
 Working Man's College, London. Apprenticed to a Carmar- 
 then draper at thirteen and employed for about twelve years 
 at various London and provincial drapery shops; later 
 
-BIOGRAPHIES AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES 359 
 
 joined editorial staffs of Everybody's Weekly, Harmsworth's 
 History of the World, etc. 
 
 Author of *"My People," 1915. *"Capel Sion " 1916. 
 *"My Neighbours," 1918. 
 
 HARDY, THOMAS. 
 
 Born in Dorsetshire, June 2, 1840. Educated at local 
 schools and privately. Practised architecture. 
 
 Author of novels, short stories, poems and plays: "Des- 
 perate Remedies," 1871. "Under the Greenwood Tree," 
 1872. "A Pair of Blue Eyes," 1873. "Far From the Mad- 
 ding Crowd," 1874. "Hand of Ethelberta," 1876. "Return 
 of the Native," 1878. "Trumpet-Major," 1879. "Laodi- 
 cean," 1881. "Two on a Tower," 1882. "Mayor of Cas- 
 terbridge," 1884. "Woodlanders," 1886. *"Wessex Tales," 
 1888. *"A Group of Noble Dames," 1891. "Tess of the 
 D'Urbervilles," 1891. ^"Life's Little Ironies," 1894. "Jude 
 the Obscure," 1895. "Well-Beloved," 1897. "Wessex 
 Poems," 1898. "Poems of the Past and the Present," 1901. 
 "Dynasts," 1903-1908. "Time's Laughing-Stocks," 1909. 
 *"A Changed Man," 1913. "Satires of Circumstance," 1914. 
 "Selected Poems," 1916. "Moments of Vision," 1918. 
 
 HEWLETT, MAURICE (HENRY). 
 
 Born Jan. 22, 1861. Educated at London International 
 College, Spring Grove, Islesworth. Practised law, and has 
 occupied government civil service position. 
 
 Author of *"Earthwork Out of Tuscany," 1895. "Masque 
 of Dead Florentines," 1895. "Songs and Meditations," 1897. 
 "Forest Lovers," 1898. "Pan and the Young Shepherd,"' 
 1898. *"Little Novels of Italy," 1899. "Richard Yea-and- 
 Nay," 1900. *"New Canterbury Tales," 1901. "Queen's 
 Quair," 1904. "Road in Tuscany," 1904. *"Fond Adven- 
 tures," 1905. "Fool Errant," 1905. "Stooping Lady," 1907. 
 "Half-way House," 1908. "Open Country," 1909. "Arte- 
 mision," 1909. "Rest Harrow," 1910. "Brazenhead the 
 
360 BIOGRAPHIES AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES 
 
 Great," 1911. "Agonists," 1911. "Song of Renny," 1911. 
 "Mrs. Lancelot," 1912. "Helen Redeemed," 1913. "Lore 
 of Proserpine," 1913. "Bendish," 1913. "Lover's Tale," 
 1915. "Little Iliad," 1916. "Frey and His Wife," 1916. 
 "Gai Saber," 1916. "Song of the Plow," 1916. "Thorgils," 
 1917. 
 
 HUDSON, W. H. 
 
 An Englishman born in South America, 1862; grew up 
 on a big ranch. He is shy and dislikes to give information 
 about himself. When asked for biographical data he says: 
 "All the interesting part of my life ended when I ceased 
 to be a boy, and my autobiography ends at fifteen." He 
 is a naturalist with ornithology his chief bent. Living in 
 England since the early eighties of last century. 
 
 Author of "The Purple Land," 1885. "Argentine Orni- 
 thology" (with P. L. Sclater), 1889. "Naturalist in La 
 Plata," 1892. "Birds in a Village," 1893. "Idle Days in 
 Patagonia," 1893. "British Birds," 1895. "Birds in Lon- 
 don," 1899. "Nature in Downland," 1900. "Birds and Man," 
 1901. *"E1 Ombu," 1902. "Hampshire Days," 1903. 
 "Green Mansions," 1904. "Crystal Age," 1906. "Lands 
 End," 1908. "Afoot in England," 1909. "Shepherd's Life," 
 1910. "Adventures Among Birds," 1913. *"Tales of the 
 Pampas," 1916. "A Little Boy Lost," 1918. "Far Away 
 and Long Ago," 1918. 
 
 KIPLING, RUDYARD 
 
 Born at Bombay, India, Dec. 30, 1865. Educated at 
 United Service College, Westward Ho, North Devon. As- 
 sistant editor, Civil and Military Gazette and Pioneer (In- 
 dia), 1882-89. Has travelled widely over the world. 
 
 Author of "Departmental Ditties," 1886. *"Plain Tales 
 from the Hills," 1887. *"Soldiers Three," 1888. *"In 
 Black and White," 1888. *"Story of the Gadsbys," 1888. 
 *"Under the Deodars," 1889. *"Phantom Rickshaw," 
 1889. *"Wee Willie Winkie," 1889. *"Life's Handicap," 
 
BIOGRAPHIES AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES 361 
 
 1890. *"Light That Failed," 1891. "Barrack-Room Bal- 
 lads," 1892. *"Many Inventions," 1893. *"Jungle Book," 
 1894. *"Second Jungle Book," 1895. "Seven Seas," 1896. 
 "Captains Courageous," 1897. *"Day's Work," 1898. 
 *"Stalky and Co.," 1899. "From Sea to Sea," 1899. "Kim," 
 1901. *"Just So Stories," 1902. "Five Nations," 1903. 
 ^Traffics and Discoveries," 1904. *"Puck of Pook's Hill," 
 1906. ^"Actions and Reactions," 1909. *"Rewards and 
 Fairies," 1910. "History of England" (with C. R. L. 
 Fletcher), 1911. "Songs from Books," 1913. "Harbour 
 Watch," 1913. "New Armies in Training," 1914. "France 
 at War," 1915. "Fringes of the Fleet," 1915. "Sea War- 
 fare," 1916. *"A Diversity of Creatures," 1917. "Eyes of 
 Asia," 1918. "Gethsemane," 1919. 
 
 LAWRENCE, DAVID HERBERT 
 
 Born 1885. 
 
 Author of "White Peacock," 1911. "Trespasser," 1912. 
 "Sons and Lovers," 1913. "Love Poems, and Others," 1913. 
 *"Prussian Officer," 1914. "Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd," 
 1914. "Rainbow," 1915. "Twilight in Italy," 1916. 
 "Amores," 1916. "Lookl We Have Come Through," 1917. 
 
 "MACLEOD, FIONA," See SHARP, WILLIAM 
 MIDDLETON; RICHARD 
 
 Born 1882. Died 1911. 
 
 Author of "Day Before Yesterday," 1912. "Ghost Ship," 
 1912. "Poems and Songs" (First and Second Series), 1912. 
 "Monologues," 1913. 
 
 NEVINSON, HENRY WOODD. 
 
 Born in 1852. Educated at Shrewsbury School, Christ 
 Church, Oxford. Correspondent of the Daily Chronicle 
 during Greek and Turkish War, 1897; in Crete, 1897; in 
 
362 BIOGRAPHIES AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES 
 
 Spain, 1898; and in Natal and Transvaal during the Boer 
 War. Was in Berlin for the Daily News at outbreak of war, 
 August, 1914; afterwards in Northern France. With Brit- 
 ish army at Salonika and Egypt, 1916. 
 
 Author of "Neighbors of Ours," 1895. "In the Valley 
 of Tophet," 1896. "The Thirty Days' War," 1898. "Lady- 
 smith," 1900. "The Plea of Pan," 1901. "Between the 
 Acts," 1903. Chapters on France in Mr. Hallam Murray's 
 "On the Old Road," 1904. "Books and Personalities," 
 
 1905. "A Modern Slavery," 1906. "The Dawn in Russia," 
 
 1906. Series of Articles on the Caucasus in "Harper's 
 Monthly," 1907. "The New Spirit in India," 1908. "Es- 
 says in Freedom," 1912. "Essays in Rebellion," 1913. 
 
 PERTWEE, ROLAND. 
 
 A young Englishman who has contributed many short 
 stories to American and English magazines. 
 
 Author of *"The Transactions of Lord Louis Lewis," 
 1918. "The Old Cord," 1918. 
 
 QUILLER-COUCH, SIR ARTHUR THOMAS. 
 
 Born in Cornwall, Nov. 21, 1863. Educated at Newton 
 Abbot College, Clifton College, and Oxford. Lecturer at 
 Trinity College, Oxford, 1886-87. Engaged in editorial 
 work 1887-1899. Professor of English Literature at Cam- 
 bridge University since 1912. 
 
 Author of "Dead Man's Rock," 1887. "Troy Town," 
 1888. "Splendid Spur," 1889. ^"Noughts and Crosses, 
 
 1891. "Blue Pavilions," 1891. *"I Saw Three Ships," 
 
 1892. "Warwickshire Avon," 1892. *"Delectable Duchy," 
 
 1893. "Green Bays," 1893. *"Wandering Heath," 1895. 
 "Golden Pomp," 1895. "la," 1896. "Adventures in Crit- 
 icism," 1896. "Poems and Ballads," 1896. "St. Ives," (with 
 R. L. Stevenson) 1897. "Ship of Stars," 1899. *"Old 
 Fires and Profitable Ghosts," 1900. "Oxford Book of Eng- 
 lish Verse," 1900. *"Laird's Luck," 1901. "Westcotes," 
 1902. *"White Wolf," 1902. "Adventures of Harry Revel," 
 
BIOGRAPHIES AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES 363 
 
 1903. "Hetty Wesley," 1903. *"Two Sides of the Face," 
 1903. "Fort Amity," 1904. "Shining Ferry," 1905. 
 *" Shakespeare's Christmas," 1905. "From a Cornish Win- 
 dow," 1906. "Sir John Constantine," 1906. "Poison Isl- 
 and," 1907. "Merry Garden," 1907. "Major Vigoureux," 
 1907. "True Tilda," 1909. "Lady Good-for-Nothing," 
 1910. ""Corporal Sam," 1910. "Oxford Book of Ballads," 
 1910. "Brother Copas," 1911. "Oxford Book of Victorian 
 Verse," 1912. "Hocken and Hunken," 1912. "Vigil of 
 Venus," 1912. *"News from the Duchy," 1915. "Nicky- 
 Nan, Reservist," 1915. "On the Art of Writing," 1916. 
 "Memoir of Arthur John Butler," 1917. *"Mortallone and 
 Aunt Trinidad," 1917. "Foe-Farrell," 1918. "Shakespeare's 
 Workmanship," 1918. "Studies in Literature," 1918. 
 
 SHARP, WILLIAM ("Fiona Macleod.") 
 
 Born 1856. Died 1905. 
 
 Principal works under pseudonym of "Fiona Macleod": 
 "Pharais," 1894. "The Mountain Lovers," 1895. *"The 
 Sin-Eater," 1895. *"The Washer of the Ford," 1896. "Green 
 Fire," 1896. "From the Hills of Dreams," 1896. *"Laugh- 
 ter of Peterkin," 1897. *"The Dominion of Dreams," 1899. 
 "The Divine Adventure," 1900. "The Immortal Hour," 
 1900. "Drostan and Iseult," 1902. *"The Winged Des- 
 tiny," 1904. "Through the Ivory Gate," "Where the Forest 
 Murmurs," 1906. 
 
 STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS (Balfour). 
 
 Born 1850. Educated at Edinburgh University. Studied 
 engineering and law. Literary career began in 1876. His 
 delicate health compelled him to travel widely abroad. He 
 settled in Samoa in 1889, where he resided until his death 
 in 1894. 
 
 Principal works: "An Island Voyage," 1878. "Deacon 
 Brodie," 1878. "Travels With a Donkey," 1879. "Vir- 
 ginibus Puerisque," 1881. "Familiar Studies of Men and 
 Books," 1882. "Treasure Island," 1882. *"New Arabian 
 
364 BIOGRAPHIES AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES 
 
 Nights," 1882. "Black Arrow," 1883. "Bean Austin" (with 
 W. E. Henley), 1884. "Macaire" (with W. E. Henley), 
 1884. "Admiral Guinea" (with W. E. Henley), 1885. 
 "Child's Garden of Verses," 1885. "Prince Otto," 1885. 
 *"More New Arabian Nights," 1885. "Kidnapped," 1886. 
 "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," 1886. "Mem- 
 ories and Portraits," 1887. "Underwood," 1887. "Wrong 
 Box" (with Lloyd Osbourne), 1888. "Master of Ballan- 
 trae," 1889. "David Balfour," 1893. *"Island Nights' En- 
 tertainments," 1893. "Ebb-Tide" (with Lloyd Osbourne), 
 1893. "Vailima Letters," 1893-1894. "St. Ives" (with A. 
 T. Quiller-Couch), 1895. "Weir of Hermiston," 1897. 
 
 TREVENA, JOHN (ERNEST G. HENTRAM). 
 
 Born in 1878. Lives a very secluded existence, leaving 
 Dartmoor not more than two or three weeks during the 
 year. 
 
 Author of "A Pixy in Petticoats," 1906. "Arminal of the 
 West," 1907. "Furze the Cruel," 1907. "Heather," 1908. 
 "The Dartmoor House that Jack Built," 1909. "Granite," 
 1909. *"Written in the Rain," 1910. "Bracken," 1910. 
 "The Reign of the Saints," 1911. "Wintering Hay," 1912. 
 "Sleeping Waters," 1913. "Adventures Among Wild 
 Flowers," 1914. "Moyle Church Town," 1915. "The Cap- 
 tain's Furniture," 1916. "A Drake by George!" 1916. 
 
 WALPOLE, HUGH SEYMOUR. 
 
 Born in 1884. Educated at King's College, Canterbury, 
 and Cambridge University. Served with Russian Red Cross, 
 1914-1916. 
 
 Author of "Wooden Horse," 1909. "Maradick at Forty," 
 1910. "Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill," 1911. "Prelude to Ad- 
 venture," 1912. "Fortitude," 1913. "Duchess of Wrexe," 
 1914. "Golden Scarecrow," 1915. "Dark Forest," 1916. 
 "Joseph Conrad," 1916. "Green Mirror," 1918. 
 
BIOGRAPHIES AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES 365 
 
 WATSON, E. L. GRANT. 
 
 Author of "Where Bonds Are Loosed," 1914. "Main- 
 land," 1917. 
 
 WEDMORE, SIR FREDERICK. 
 
 Bora at Richmond Hill, Clifton, July 9, 1844. Educated 
 at Weston-Super-Mare, Lausanne and Paris. Chiefly known 
 as a literary and art critic. 
 
 Author of "Studies in English Art," 1876. *"PastoraIs of 
 France," 1877. "Four Masters of Etching," 1883. "Meryon," 
 1889. "Life of Balzac," 1890. *" Renunciations," 1893. 
 *"English Episodes," 1895. "Etching in England," 1895. 
 "Fine Prints," 1896. *"Orgeas and Miradon,", 1896. "On 
 Books and Art," 1899. "The Collapse of the Penitent," 
 1900. *"To Nancy," 1903. "Whistler and Others," 1904. 
 "Some of the Moderns," 1909. "Etchings," 1911. "Mem- 
 ories." 1912. "Painters and Painting," 1913. "Brenda 
 Walks On," 1916. 
 
 WELLS, HERBERT GEORGE. 
 
 Born at Bromley, Kent, Sept. 21, 1866. Educated at 
 private school, Milhurst Grammar School, and Royal College 
 of Science. 
 
 Author of "Select Conversations With an Uncle," 1895. 
 *"Time Machine," 1895. *"Stolen Bacillus," 1895. "Won- 
 derful Visit," 1895. "Island of Doctor Moreau," 1896. 
 "Wheels of Chance," 1896. *"Plattner Story," 1897. "Cer- 
 tain Personal Matters," 1897. "Invisible Man," 1897. "War 
 of the Worlds," 1898. "When the Sleeper Wakes," 1899. 
 *"Tales of Space and Time," 1899. "Love and Mr. Lewis- 
 ham," 1900. "First Men in the Moon," 1901. "Anticipa- 
 tions," 1901. "Discovery of the Future," 1902. "Sea 
 Lady," 1902. "Mankind in the Making," 1903. *"Twelve 
 Stories and a Dream," 1903. "Food of the Gods," 1904. 
 
3 66 BIOGRAPHIES AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES 
 
 "A Modern Utopia," 1905. "Kipps," 1905. "In the Days 
 of the Comet," 1906. "Future in America," 1906. "This 
 Misery of Boots," 1907. "New Worlds for Old," 1908. 
 "First and Last Things," 1908. "War in the Air," 1908. 
 "Tono Bungay," 1909. "Ann Veronica," 1909. "History 
 of Mr. Polly," 1910. "New Machiavelli," 1911. "Floor 
 Games for Children," 1911. "Marriage," 1912. "Little 
 Wars," 1913. ^"Country of the Blind," 1913. "Passionate 
 Friends," 1913. "Wife of Sir Isaac Harmon," 1914. "An 
 Englishman Looks at the World," 1914. "World Set Free," 
 1914. "War That Will End War," 1914. "Peace of the 
 World," 1915. "Boon," 1915. "Bealby," 1915. "Research 
 Magnificent," 1915. "What Is Coming?" 1916. "Mr. 
 Britling Sees It Through," 1916. "Elements of Recon- 
 struction," 1916. "War and the Future," 1917. "God, the 
 Invisible King," 1917. "Soul of a Bishop," 1917. "Joan and 
 Peter," 1918. 
 
 "WILDE, OSCAR" (Fingal O'Flahertie Wills). 
 
 
 Born in Dublin, October 16, 1854. Travelled widely in 
 Europe in his youth. Graduated from Oxford, 1877. Went 
 to London and became active in literary circles. Visited 
 America in 1882 on a lecture tour. Returned to Europe 
 and settled in Paris. Married in 1884, after his return to 
 England. Engaged in literary work until 1895, when he 
 was sentenced to two years' imprisonment. Left England 
 upon his release, and died in penury at Paris, November 
 30, 1900. 
 
 Principal works: "Poems," 1 88 1. *"The Happy Prince," 
 1888. *"Lcrd Arthur Savile's Crime," 1891. "The Soul of 
 Man Under Socialism," 1891. "Picture of Dorian Gray," 
 1891. "Intentions," 1891. *"House of Pomegranates," 
 1891. "Lady Windermere's Fan," 1892. "A Woman of No 
 Importance," 1893. "Salome," 1893. "Ideal Husband," 
 1895. "Importance of Being Earnest," 1895. "Ballad ol 
 Reading Gaol," 1898. "De Profundis," 1905. "Duchess 
 of Padua," 1891. 
 
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