iss Arm si
and other-
Circumstances
\\\r
Ify
V
John Davidson
MISS ARMSTRONG'S
And Other Circumstances
MISS ARMSTRONG'S
And Other Circumstances
BY
JOHN DAVIDSON
NEW YORK
STONE & KIMBALL
M DCCC XCVI
COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY
STONE AND KIMBALL
CONTENTS
PAGE
Miss ARMSTRONG'S CIRCUMSTANCES . . i
A WOULD-BE LONDONER 32
SOME POOR FOLK 44
AN IDEAL SHOEBLACK 71
ALISON HEPBURN'S EXPLOIT .... 80
THE MEMBER FOR GOTHAM 164
TALKING AGAINST TIME 172
BANDEROLE'S ^ESTHETIC BILL .... 188
AMONG THE ANARCHISTS 198
THE INTERREGNUM IN FAIRYLAND 212
MISS ARMSTRONG'S CIRCUM-
STANCES
AFTER all, my friends have been mis-
taken ; my experiences are not nearly
so exciting as they appeared to be when I
saw them through their spectacles. They
insisted that I had only to write down an
exact chronicle of the days of the years of
my life to be the author of a record as inter-
esting as any novel. I was pretty well per-
suaded of the truth of their judgment when
I began to write my history ; but I had not
proceeded far when doubts began to spring
up, and by the time I had arrived at my
seventh chapter, and the end of my seven-
teenth year, I was so tired of writing, and of
my subject, that I threw my pen in the fire,
and stowed away my papers in an old band-
box, out of sight and out of mind.
I have read somewhere that if a woman
once falls in love, and then falls out of it,
i i
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
she has no peace until she is again swim-
ming for life in a high-sea of passion. (I had
better state here that I am just nineteen.
The English master used to object to my
figures of speech; but I am writing this
entirely for my own satisfaction, and mean
to give my imagination free scope.) It
seems to me that literary composition is like
love. When one has begun to write some-
thing of one's own, it doesn't matter how
disgusted one may become, one returns to
the ink-pot like a drunkard to his cups. So,
after three months, I unearthed the bandbox,
and read over my seven chapters. There
were only two interesting pages in the whole
manuscript, and those were the two last.
All the early incidents in my life which my
friends thought so wonderful were of no
moment to me. My birth in Paris during
the siege ; the death of my father, a Scotch
Socialist, on a barricade ; my French mother's
penniless journey to London ; our life as
beggars ; my mother's second marriage to a
philanthropic City man ; my running away
when I was seven, and my wanderings for a
fortnight; my attempt to poison my baby-
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
brother with matches ; my attack on my phil-
anthropic step-papa with a poker ; my exile
to a suburban boarding-school; my step-
papa's fraudulent bankruptcy and disappear-
ance, and the deaths of my poor mother and
her little boy all this was narrated in a
dull, frigid manner, quite up to the degree
of stupidity that would have registered < Ex-
cellent ' on Mr. Standard, the English master's
meter. (I wonder what he would think of
that metaphor !) A great deal, doubtless,
might be made out of my early life, and
when I am older I may be able to embody
it in some readable way ; but in the mean-
time it is impossible for me to put myself in the
place of the little girl I was. This is simply
because I did not begin to be self-conscious
until I was seventeen. When my life ceases
to be as full as it has been of late, I shall
doubtless be able to study myself from the
beginning. At present I am driven as if by
some power outside me to write an account of
a certain day in my life. I don't like writing,
so I am going to make it as short as I can.
First of all, I shall quote the last two pages
of my manuscript :
3
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
' It was at the age of seventeen, when I
found myself in a position of dependence in
the house of a relative of my stepfather's,
that I first began to look upon myself as a
circumstance. Doubtless this notion arose
from something I had read, but I have never
been able to trace its origin. One night
while I was sitting alone in my room, the
thought came to me that the whole world
was an experiment. Here was I, a tall,
handsome girl, already a woman in appear-
ance, thrust by circumstances into a family
that would have preferred to do without me.
Were circumstances playing off a serio-comic
practical joke on this family and me? But
my fancy took a higher flight. I saw cir-
cumstances in the shape of the professor of
chemistry and his lean assistant shaking up
folk and families, and towns and countries,
in bottles and beakers; braying stubborn
folks like me in mortars : precipitating, cal-
cining, sifting, subliming, filtering powers
and principalities, companies and corpora-
tions; conducting a stupendous qualitative
analysis of the world. I thought, " Since
it 's all an experiment, how can we help it if
4
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
we're miserable?" "By joining the ex-
perimenters," came the answer pat. This
warmed me, and I began to pace my room.
" I will be an experimenter," I said to my-
self. " I will be a circumstance, and cause
things." I marched up and down for awhile,
thinking how much greater I was than the
Prime Minister, who had simply been tossed
up there by circumstances; he was only a
bit of the experiment, but I was going to be
a circumstance. Suddenly I saw that my
metaphor had misled me. Circumstances,
I perceived, are the experiment ; everybody
and everything is a circumstance. " You
donkey!" I said to myself. "You don't
need to become a circumstance ; you are
one." Then I marched up and down the
room again, feeling very miserable indeed,
till I hit upon an epigram. " People are
divided into two classes," I said triumph-
antly, as I prepared for bed : " those who
are circumstances without knowing it, and
those who are conscious of the fact." I lay
awake for long, overpowered by the tre-
mendous responsibility which this discovery
had laid on me. The load was lifted, and I
5
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
fell asleep the moment I resolved not to
submit tamely like a solution or a salt, which
is boiled with this, and burned with that, but
to have a hand in my own experiment.'
Two remarks I must make with regard to
this paragraph. The first is about myself.
I say that I was ' a tall, handsome girl, al-
ready a woman in appearance.' A romantic
statement : the simple truth is that I was big,
and rather stout, with a lot of brown, curly
hair, pink cheeks, gray eyes, and generally
pleasant to look at at least, I know I liked
to look at myself. The second remark is
about the chemists who taught in the school
where I was done something to, not edu-
cated. I had, and have, no ill will to these
men ; it was simply impossible that I could
help thinking of them in the connection.
The only one of my teachers whom I dis-
liked, and of whom I still cherish hard
thoughts, is Mr. Standard, who condemned
my compositions, and objected strongly to
my metaphors.
Well, on the morning after my great dis-
covery, while I was engaged in a large half-
furnished room teaching the three little boys
6
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
of my stepfather's relative, a loud knock
came to the door, and was followed imme-
diately by the entrance of William Somers,
the eldest son. There had come between
him and the oldest of my charges three chil-
dren, but they were dead. I was much
astonished to see him, because, although we
were on the frankest terms, we seldom met.
My astonishment increased, I even felt in-
dignant at his masterful manner, as he gave
his little brothers sixpence each, and said :
' Be off with you ! They deserve a holi-
day, don't they, Miss Armstrong ? '
The three little scapegraces needed no
second bidding ; they were half-way down-
stairs before I had recovered my presence
of mind. William Somers closed the door,
and came up straight to me as if he had
been sent for on important business. I
stared at him blankly, and he stood dumb
and blushing within a yard of me. At last
he said :
'I have a holiday. Will you come with
me?'
It was evidently not the thing he had
intended to say.
7
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
'What have you a holiday for? ' I
asked.
'It's a Bank Holiday,' he said.
' A Bank Holiday ! ' I exclaimed with
scorn, determined to pay him off for his in-
trusion. ' What slaves you are, you and the
whole of this toiling London ! Your very
holidays you must take when they come.
You can't do anything else."
'What do you mean?' he said, crest-
fallen.
'Are you aware that you are a circum-
stance ? ' I asked severely.
I deeply resented the laugh, quickly
smothered as it was, with which he greeted
this question. I see now that it must have
sounded funny to him, although after my
meditation of the previous night it was a
natural thing for me to say in all sincerity.
'I see that you have never realised that
you are a circumstance,' I continued coldly.
' The best thing you can do with your holi-
day is to spend it, the whole of it, hour by
hour, minute by minute, in the intensest
contemplation possible to you of the fact
that you are a circumstance.'
8
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
He looked at my eyes for fully half a
minute, until I was forced to wink.
'You are not mad,' he said; 'and you
don't seem to be joking. Still, I mean to
say what I have come to say. Will you sit
down ? '
His coolness which was, however, as-
sumed and his determined tone aggra-
vated me.
' No,' I said ; ' I will not sit down. I
wish you to understand that 7 have fully
realised that / am a circumstance, and I am
not going to submit except to such other cir-
cumstances as please me. You are a cir-
cumstance, and don't know it. And what a
circumstance ! Something in the City a
broker's clerk, I suppose. You needn't tell
me ; I don't want to know. The prop and
stay of your widowed mother and your three
little brothers ! Did it never strike you what a
disagreeable circumstance you are ? A good,
respectable young man, who never misspends
a penny. The very thought of you is like
the taste of yarn.'
Now, I didn't mean all I said; I was
simply angry without a sufficient reason, as
9
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
girls and older people will sometimes be.
He changed colour at my tirade, and held up
his hand deprecatingly ; but I went on.
' Don't interrupt me ! ' I cried. * And
what is it all for, all your toiling and moiling ?
To feed the mouths of four other circum-
stances, as unconscious of what they are as if
they did n't exist. That 's all. You 're not
causing anything. You 're just doing exactly
as thousands of others are doing exactly
as circumstances will do with you, never
realising that, in all regarding yourself, you
are the main circumstance. An explorer, an
artist, a poet, even a prime minister, attempts
to cause something that is unnecessary, and
that he need n't do except of his own motion
but you !'
'Miss Armstrong,' he said steadily, as I
paused for breath, 'you are very excited.
Won't you sit down?'
' No,' I almost shouted. ' Don't you see
that I have made up my mind not to sub-
mit ! I won't be experimented on with
impunity. I should like to sit down, that 's
true ; but I refuse to yield to such a miser-
able circumstance. I won't be experimented
10
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
on with impunity,' I repeated, liking the
sound of the sentence, and thinking, with
what I suppose I must call feminine incon-
sistency, that it would have pleased Mr.
Standard.
William Somers looked very much an-
noyed grieved, even. I ought to say that
he was a tall man of twenty-three, with red-
dish beard and hair, and hazel eyes. I had not
paid much attention to men up to that time,
and did not know how handsome William
Somers was. The trouble in his face did put
me about; but, again, if paltry circumstances
were not to be combated, how was I to
challenge and overcome the great ones which
hemmed me in on all sides ?
'I see some meaning in what you say,
Miss Armstrong,' he said ; but I think it is
stated a little wildly.'
I felt on the point of crying, so I laughed.
He looked at me inquiringly.
' Do you know,' he said, ' I never heard
your age. How old are you ? '
' I was seventeen two months ago.' That
staggered him. ' I suppose you thought I
was thirty ? '
ii
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
' No ; but I thought you were twenty until
you laughed just now, and then I saw that
you must be younger. How precocious you
are ! ' he added.
I laughed again, and he saw what a stupid
remark he had made.
* I mean your figure ' he stammered
and stuck.
< Mr. Somers,' I said, being now mistress
of the situation, ' I will not go with you for
a holiday ; but you will come with me, and
escort me in my first assault on circum-
stances. Observe that I make a concession
in having a squire. It is a bad omen.'
' Your causing a bad omen is just another
circumstance for you to overcome,' he said,
yielding to my humour.
' I '11 be ready in ten minutes. Will you
please get a hansom ? ' I said, as we left the
room.
He had not succeeded in saying what he
came to say.
Mrs. Somers, a very bright, quiet little
lady, looked askance at the hansom, but
wished us a pleasant holiday as we drove
off.
12
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
It was my first ride in a hansom, a fact
which I concealed from William Somers as
long as I could about one minute, not any
more.
' You have never been in a hansom before,'
he said, looking at me in a quizzical way.
' How do you know? '
' At first I did n't know, you jumped in so
smartly, and told the driver where to go with
such aplomb ; but then, when we started, in
spite of yourself, a half-happy, half- frightened
look shot across your face, you sighed, and
sank back, and embraced yourself.'
' How dare you ! ' I said hotly.
My feelings had never been examined to
my face before, and I felt outraged, just as
I did once when I was posting a letter at a
druggist's, and a ruffian laid his dirty hand
on my shoulder, and turned me round, say-
ing, ' By Jove ! a strapper and a beauty.'
' I dare do all that may become a man,'
said William Somers priggishly.
' Don't talk to me any more just now,' I
said.
' Very well,' he replied ; and, leaning his
arms on the door, he tilted back his hat, and
'3
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
looked with unaffected interest at everybody
and everything we passed.
I have a great liking for mysteries, and
often stop people who begin to explain things
to me, because I really don't want to know.
A great London mystery of mine is that
smooth, elastic, carpet-like roadway along
which our hansom glided so stealthily. I
admit having thought about its composition,
but I have succeeded in overcoming the de-
sire to know of what ; it is made. It seemed
that when we jolted over the stones, we were
being wound up in some curious, uncomfort-
able sort of way ; and then, when we reached
a stretch of that London turf, I felt as if we
had been discharged, and were shooting
along through space. (I 'm thinking of a
crossbow, Mr. Standard.) Really, every-
thing appeared to me delightful and inter-
esting. I perceived for the first time what a
picturesque city London is all of it we saw
that morning. The fantastic stacks of chim-
neys, like hieroglyphics wrought in the air ;
the mellow, antique streets of dwelling-
houses; brick, and plaster, and paint;
umber, red, and dull gold, splashed with
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
creeping green; the squares, and grave-
yards, and crescents, with their trees, and
sunflowers, and fountains as if Nature
were elbowing a way through the crowded
buildings, Mr. Standard ; and the unknown
streets of shops and booths where, even on
a Bank Holiday, the butchers and the fish-
mongers cry their wares, and the little
children tumble about among mouldy old
furniture on the pavements, like dirty Cupids
in the lumber-room of Olympus, Mr. Stand-
ard ; and the parks, with their glades, and
avenues, and lakes, where Don Quixote and
Sancho Panza lurk, and Robin Hood and
Maid Marian, too, Mr. Standard, if you had
eyes to see ; and the Thames but we
did n't see the Thames that morning ; and
while my thoughts were still revelling in the
beauty of the City, we stopped, with a jerk
that dislocated my imagination, at the house
of Herr Herman Neunzehn, Wellpark Ter-
race, Bayswater. When I got out, and told
the driver to wait, Mr. Somers sat very still
and attentive. He said nothing to me, and
I said nothing to him ; but I turned on the
steps, and nodded my head encouragingly.
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
Herr Herman had been my music-master
in the boarding-school, and had always had
a word of praise for my efforts both in play-
ing and composing. He was dusting his
coat with his gloves preparatory to going
out when I entered his room, but he received
me kindly and said he could afford a few
minutes.
' I have come on business/ I said.
' Have you ? '
'Yes, Mr. Neunzehn. I wish to make a
start in life.'
Mr. Neunzehn's little bright eyes dashed
for a moment close up to his spectacles like
silver fish in a miniature aquarium, and then
became dim again in the depths as he pre-
pared a cigarette.
'I have brought with me,' I said, dis-
playing a roll I had in my hand, ' two songs,
the words and music both by myself.'
Mr. Neunzehn's fish darted past his peb-
bles, and he lit his cigarette.
' Will you oblige me by looking over them ?
and if you think them good enough, will
you give me an introduction to a music-
publisher ? '
16
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
' I will,' said Mr. Neunzehn, taking my
manuscripts, and opening them out with his
diabolical fingers. He was all diabolical,
but his fingers were the most diabolical
thing about him long, knotty, sinewy, as
if made for strangling.
'Thank you very much,' I said, moving
towards the door.
' Wait,' he replied. ' I will do it just now.'
I stood stock still and watched him as he
glanced rapidly through my scores. He was
much more expeditious than I liked. How
could he possibly comprehend in a few
seconds the full beauty of my melodies,
every ^individual note of which had been
chosen with such care out of the old cottage
piano's yellow keyboard, and thumped, and
stroked, and listened to, positively for hours,
alone, and in conjunction with the others of
its phase, until each separate sound had
become so charged with emotion that I
could n't hear one of them without quivering !
And my chords ! and the counterpoint in my
symphonies ! He could n't possibly grasp
the full harmony and subtlety of these with-
out at least playing the tunes over once.
2 i
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
The silver fish dashed to and fro behind
their glasses, and the smoke curled up
through a long, thick, gray moustache as if
to cure the fish ; but no change in the dia-
bolical expression hinted at a decision one
way or other. When he had turned over
the last page, he rolled up my manuscripts
and handed them back to me, rubbed his
shaved cheeks, blew a cloud of smoke that
hid his face, and said :
' No, my child.'
'Why?' I faltered.
' Because they are not good enough.'
Oh, but try them ! '
'I have read them through.'
' But let me play them to you ; ' and I
made a dash at the piano.
' No,' he said, closing the instrument. ' It
would be of no use. Your music is wrong,
and it would not make it right to play it.'
I said to myself : ' The battle has begun ;
here 's a circumstance with a vengeance :
don't give in.' Then aloud :
' If you show me the mistakes I will correct
them.'
' You could n't.'
18
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
' Will you correct them, then ? ' I sug-
gested faintly.
'I never correct music except for fools
whose money might get into worse pockets
than mine.'
I thought I understood now.
'But I will pay you, Mr. Neunzehn,' I
said sweetly, with a sudden burst of patron-
age, hope flaming up in my heart.
' You 're a stupid little girl ' I was a foot
taller than he. * Listen.' He seized a news-
paper and read : ' Some prank them up with
oaken leaves ; some small- pox hospitals, and
banished as far as pos-tribution of articles
of clothing to the heads of-pensations to
large cities.'
He read slowly, making pauses and inflec-
tions as if the matter had been important ;
then his cigarette glowed and crackled
faintly like a squib, and a cloud of smoke
enveloped him, from which he emitted
hoarsely the terrible sentence :
' That is your music.'
'How?' I whispered, stammering. 'I
do not understand. Will you read it again ? '
He showed me the newspaper, and with
19
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
his diabolical finger tracked a line of type,
straight across three columns and a half.
He read also, but without attempting to
make it sound like sense.
' That is your music,' he repeated. ' My
dear young lady, amateurs come to me every
week with things like that parts of remem-
bered words and phrases, correctly spelt as
a rule, and each phrase or sentence quite
grammatical, and sometimes containing bits
and bobs of the most unconnected mean-
ings ; and they think they have made music.
It just needs a little polishing, they know ;
and that is so easy for me. Look at these
words again. See : out of four columns on
four different subjects ! Would you take that
to Mr. Standard, and ask him to polish it
for you, to make it into one clear sentence?
Read it again. " Some prank them up with
oaken leaves ; some small-pox hospitals, and
banished as far as pos-tribution of articles of
clothing to the heads of-pensations to large
cities." You might by taking a few words
and rejecting all the others invent a sen-
tence. But that won't do for my amateurs.
They bring me notes, and I supply the
20
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
music, the meaning; but it must be with
their notes. They select nonsense, and I
must make it sense. I never can make it
sense ; but it pleases them, and I make them
pay for it, I can tell you. You are young
and sensible, and can learn a lesson.'
The cigarette had gone out ; the fish were
pressed close to the glasses, and there seemed
to be more water in the aquarium than usual.
The old man was pitying me, I had turned
so white.
' My dear child,' he continued, ' you must
not be downcast. I am like a surgeon.
You come to me and ask me if you have
a disease, and I tell you that you have not ;
that you are not a musician, and will never
be one. You ought to be very glad.'
Here he sighed, and I saw that he was
pitying himself. I pronounced with diffi-
culty a heartless ' Thank you,' for I felt he
was right. Then a new idea occurred to me
in a flash.
' Mr. Neunzehn,' I said, ' did you look at
the words of my songs ? '
* Here and there.'
' What do you think of them ? '
21
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
' Nothing ; I am no judge.'
'Will you look at them, and if you like
them set them to music and publish them ? '
' No. Look here.'
He opened a press and showed me a pile
of manuscript.
'There are fifty songs composed by me
the best music I have written ; and I cannot
get one of them published. It is not my
reputation. My reputation is that of a com-
poser of pianoforte pieces.'
But I did n 't give in. I said :
' Can you introduce me to any one who
might buy my songs ? '
* I can. Howard Dapper lives three doors
from here on the right.'
My heart bounded at the name of the
famous composer, and I could have kissed
old Neunzehn as he wrote me an introduction.
' My time is more than up,' he said, hand-
ing me the letter. ' We will go out together.'
He took no notice of the hansom, and
I gave Mr. Somers another encouraging
nod.
' Dapper may be stiff,' said Mr. Neunzehn
at the door of the great man's house ; ' but
22
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
never mind. If your songs please him he '11
buy them.'
Having knocked and rung, my old music-
master left me in a great hurry.
'Courage, you miserable, trembling cir-
cumstance ! ' I said to myself, kicking my
heels in the hall till Mr. Dapper should have
read the letter.
Again a little fellow, less than Mr. Neun-
zehn ! I thought of the tall, straight, au-
burn-haired man waiting in the hansom ;
but I plunged into business. Mr. Dapper
had received me stiffly, and I was just as
stiff.
'I have with me the songs to which Mr.
Neunzehn refers,' I said. ' May I read them
to you ? '
' I prefer to read them myself.'
' Unfortunately, I have them set to music
here, and as the music is bad, it might affect
your opinion of the verses.'
' It might.'
'I know the words by heart. Shall I
repeat them?'
Mr. Dapper bowed, and I recited my
songs very badly indeed. My auditor's pale,
23
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
oily face and purple eyes, like a plain suet-
pudding into which two raisins had got by
mistake, had a dispiriting effect. The songs,
which I still think fair productions for a girl
of seventeen, were both pathetic : in the one
a deserted maiden died ; in the other, a
mother's only child. When I had done,
Mr. Dapper coughed, puckered his dumpling
face, and delivered a short address in a juicy
voice.
' Miss Armstrong ' glancing at the let-
ter to make sure of my name ' your songs,
I am sorry to say, do not suit me. I will be
glad to look at any other verses you may
have, here or elsewhere, suitable for pathetic
ballads, with a little story ; but death I never
like introduced. If you have a sort of
musical duologue, say, to occupy about half
an hour, with a good, rather startling, plot,
and a little fun, I shall be glad to look at it.
Or if you have a cantata for female voices
only, I shall be glad to look at that ; but,
remember, I always like something with a
story in it ; and one thing I always object to
death, in the broad sense; that is, de-
scription.'
24
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
* But death is a circumstance,' I said, at
my wit's end. ' It happens always.'
' We will not argue the point,' he replied,
with a wave of his hand. ' If you are really
anxious to succeed as a writer of words for
music, you must be guided entirely by the
requirements of the composer; but and
you must not take it unkindly I do not
think you will ever succeed in that way. If
you wish to try, send me a cantata, or songs,
or a duologue to occupy half an hour
these are things I need immediately but
I advise you not to.'
' I will,' I cried ; ' I will go and write them
at once.'
' I advise you not to. I am almost cer-
tain that they would n't suit me.'
'Why?'
' I will tell you.'
Mr. Dapper had gradually dropped his
professional tone and air. Some humanity
had slipped into him covertly, wrinkling his
brow and softening his mouth. His face
looked liker a pudding than ever a pud-
ding that had been boiled in a cloth and
creased; but no longer a plain suet-pud-
25
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
ding ; rather a plum-pudding, with the gra-
ciousness and sweetness of that Christmas
delicacy. A light also shone in his eyes, as
if the cook had lit some brandy, and I ex-
pected every minute to see a sprig of holly
appear in his hair. His voice was still juicy,
not with the tallowy juiciness of a suet-dump-
ling, but with the rich and fragrant sap of
the Yule haggis for I must ' derange my
epitaphs,' Mr. Standard.
Miss Armstrong,' he said, ' however clever
you may be, you are much too young to suc-
ceed in this kind of work. It takes a very
practised writer to make a song, or else a
special talent, which I don't think you have.
I shall tell you how to graduate in the school
of song-making. Write a tragedy, and pub-
lish it ; write an epic in twelve books, and
publish it ; write a volume of miscellaneous
verse, and publish it; write a great novel,
and publish it. The sale of these remarka-
ble works will teach you what not to do;
and besides having acquired facility with
your pen, you will have expended all your
idealism. Then you will be in a condition
to write six original songs, which no com-
26
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
poser will take. Then you will write one
song about sitting by the river in the
moon, or walking in the wood when May is
young and a composer this composer,
possibly will give you a guinea for it ; and
while you are dying of consumption and
starvation your song will be sung at every
concert and in every drawing-room, and be
well forgotten before the dandelions have
grown on your grave. But ' and here, as
if he had been a conjurer who performed
culinary tricks with his own head, he shifted
his face back into a plain suet-pudding
' but if you have a cantata for female voices
only, or a duologue for a lady and gentleman
to occupy about half an hour, or songs for
pathetic ballads, I will be glad to look at
them; only, death I always object to
naked, absolute death, or even a broad hint.'
I don't remember getting out of Mr.
Dapper's house and getting into the hansom.
At seventeen hope is very fierce and reck-
less, and is always staking happiness against
some old song or other. I wakened up out
of a blank dream in the midst of the very
street where, an hour before, the picturesque-
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
ness of London had dawned on me. Prisons
the houses seemed, the leprous bricks stained
with blood, the scanty creepers striving piti-
fully to cover up the loathsomeness. The
fluent roll of the hansom was it a hansom,
or some dragon-car, sweeping along a pave-
ment of good intentions? ' FacilisJ I began
to myself, when Mr. Standard's face in
ebony, surmounted by ram's horns, flashed
in at the window. My own special, private
butt become a demon to torment me !
What a war he had waged against quotations
from pocket dictionaries ! ' Fortiter in re, 1
I said aloud, in frantic defiance of the fiend.
* Re spice finem, Ad libitum, Cuibono!' The
ebony visage vanished ; but another was
peering into mine a fresh face, with won-
dering hazel eyes. I was frightened at it,
and turned away to think about myself
again. Why, I had only had the opinion of
two men the one old and soured with his
half-success; the other middle-aged and
cynical from prosperity. My music was
doubtless as bad as Mr. Neunzehn said, and
my songs too maudlin for Mr. Dapper ; but
as meaningless music and more lachrymose
28
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
songs were bought and sold and sung every
day. I would visit all the music-publishers
in London. I laughed, and, stopping the
cab, told the driver to go to one of them.
* Closed, ma'am. Holiday.'
Then I burst into tears, and Mr. Somers
directed the driver to take us home.
I drew myself together and cried quietly.
The first comforting thought that came to
me was, that if this had not been a holiday
I would have kept William and myself on the
rack for hours yet. I had given in. I did
make an attempt to return to my own side.
' Circumstances,' I thought, ' are against you.
To-morrow is n't a holiday, and you can re-
sume the fight. You can even post your
music.' But, deep down in my own heart,
I knew I had made a mistake about myself;
and gradually that thought came up, and up,
and up, until I writhed and wriggled on it as if
I had been impaled. I then perceived this
was something very like remorse, and, feeling
how unworthy it was of one who had deter-
mined to fight circumstances to go on suffer-
ing when the thing was over, I looked up at
William. He was staring out of the window,
29
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
with his brows knotted and his mouth set.
There was pain in his eyes, and I thought at
first he was ill. As I watched him a new
idea came stealing on me like some melan-
choly music, unheard before, but strangely
familiar. It filled all my senses like the
smell of roses in the evening, and made my
body feel as light as my soul. This was the
new idea : he, here beside me, was not mis-
erable for himself; he was suffering for me.
A great desire seized me to lay my head
down on this man's shoulder, to feel his
arms about me, and sleep or faint away ; and
this desire would, I am afraid, have had its
course had we not arrived home before it
overpowered me.
That night, in the half-furnished room,
William said to me what he had failed to say
in the morning. How he said it, and how I
replied to him, shall never be written down.
We said things that men and women say to
each other only once things high and sweet
that ink would soil, and an eavesdropper
mock. . . .
' Ho-ho, boy ! '
30
Miss Armstrong's Circumstances
I must end now. A little circumstance for
which William and I are responsible I
have helped to cause something is shout-
ing in the next room for what nobody can
give him but me.
3 1
A WOULD-BE LONDONER
OANDRIDGE came to London too late
wj for what he wished to accomplish.
His ambition was to be a Londoner. It is
true the Londoner is made, not born ; but,
at the very latest, the process must begin at
twenty-five. Sandridge was two-and-thirty
when he left a North of England town, a
circle of interesting acquaintances, of which
he was the centre, and a roomy, old-fashioned
house of his own, for London solitude and a
modest apartment near Oxford Circus.
In the provincial bosom, faith, even at
thirty-two, meditates Metropolitan miracles.
Sandridge expected to have the London
mountains removed by a Member of Parlia-
ment who was his second cousin.
' Ah ! ' said the Member, ' you must begin
to learn the ropes at a club.'
Needing for himself all the influence he
could snatch, he resented Sandridge's uncon-
3 2
A Would-be Londoner
nected state, and refused him a single bone.
That is the use of the fable of ' knowing the
ropes ' ; nobody believes in it, but it is very
convenient to refer to when you are asked
for assistance.
' It 's a shame ! ' grumbled the Member.
' A man's relatives ought to be able to help
him, instead of requiring help.' So he put
up his cousin at an expensive new club.
* Let him find out the ropes there if he can,'
he snarled to an acquaintance. 'As well
there as anywhere, when you think of it,
though,' he continued, reconsidering. ' Have
you found out the ropes? Has any one ever
found out the ropes? No; there's no rig-
ging about it. It's simply a huge tumbling
coil of hemp and iron, all tarred with the
same stick ; and you get hold of a hawser-end
or a chain-cable, and hang on or drop off.'
In the smoking-room of the new club,
Sandridge made diffident remarks about the
young Disraeli, the young Bulwer; about
Count D'Orsay, about great talkers, about
personalities who had been powerful outside
of politics, literature, and art. These were
the Londoners he had talked of with such
3 33
A Would-be Londoner
confidence in the North. He and his friends
had discussed their waistcoats, their elo-
quence, their repartees; their influence on
fashions of dress, fashions of speech, fashions
of thought.
In a month's time Sandridge's diffidence
changed into taciturnity. The younger club-
men chaffed him, and called him ' the Dis-
raelian Johnny.' He withdrew into corners
and moped in anterooms. One afternoon
Lieutenant Hopeby, of the Purple Guards,
lounged in beside him. He was a very
exquisite giant, twenty-three years old, guile-
less, as certain about everything as a child
of seven ; and his forte was patronage. He
felt himself an amateur Providence, and was
always on the look-out for somebody to con-
sole. It was he, and Sandridge knew it,
who had struck out the phrase 'the Dis-
raelian Johnny ' ; but it was also he, and
he only, who had given any real attention
to Sandridge's remarks.
'Well, old chap,' began Hopeby, in his
paternal way. 'Let's have a comfortable
talk. How do you get on? Do you find
yourself becoming a regular Londoner?'
34
A Would-be Londoner
Sandridge blushed to the roots of his hair,
but he was quite powerless. He thought,
writhing mentally, how Disraeli would have
touched this youngster with a point of flame
able to drill a passage even through his
armour-plating of conceit, whereas he hadn 't
a leaden dart to throw.
' I am afraid,' he stammered, ' I am too
old. " Art is long, and life is short," you
know.'
'But you mustn't say that,' replied the
Purple Guard kindly. 'Look at what's
his name? the old Roman who began to
learn Greek on his deathbed. It 's never
too late to learn, as the penitent thief said.
But what 's your difficulty, Sandridge ? '
' Nobody ever asks me anywhere ; I never
have a chance to '
' To what ? Come, old chap.'
' Well,' said Sandridge, shifting uneasily in
his chair, 'it's not like me to talk in this
way ah Hopeby ; but I seldom have a
chance to talk to anybody now. I 'm awfully
ambitious.' He could have bitten his tongue
off at every word. ' You 've heard my idea
of the Londoner, his place and power. My
35
A Would-be Londoner
intention is to be a Londoner of that kind.
I have educated myself for such a position
by the study by many studies ; just as one
is educated to take Orders, or for the Army.
But I get no opportunity to to exercise
my functions.'
' Hard on you eh ? But I say, you
know, you 're quite an original, Sandridge.
It 's a new branch ; deportment 's nothing
to this. You should have a professorship,
my boy; teach them to be Londoners. I
saw an article in a paper the other day :
"Wanted a new occupation." Here you
have it : " The art of being a Londoner
in twenty lessons." You could charge
what you like ; and you 'd get it for a
time.'
' But I 'm demoralised,' rejoined Sandridge,
overlooking Hopeby's banter. ' The fellows
here don't understand me.' Then he added
very slowly, measuring his words that some-
times faltered, and with eyes that flickered
between confidence and timidity : ' I take it
that I have not yet met a foeman worthy of
my steel. At a dinner of celebrities I believe
I could at once make my mark.'
36
A Would-be Londoner
The Purple Guard sat up, and stared at
Sandridge for fully a minute.
'Yes,' continued Sandridge, misunder-
standing the other's silence, and feeling, to
his own surprise, as secure as a man who
had led the ace of trumps for the last trick
* yes, Hopeby ; my place is in those circles
where conversation is understood. Here
every man is full of himself and his own
little affairs. They talk of the club cuisine,
of their regiment, of an actress, or of a
billiard-player; a thought, an epigram, only
makes them raise their eyebrows. I feel
among you like an eagle in a dovecot.'
The Purple Guard sat back, and watched
Sandridge through his eyelashes.
' Conversation is like piano-playing,' went
on the would-be Londoner, ' and is not truly
valued except by virtuosos. Most of you
fellows, now, would as soon hear a piano-
organ as Paderewski. I have practised talk-
ing ; we used to practise it for hours daily in
the North the genial initiative, the sudden
digression, the calculated repartee, the retort
in ambush, the fitted apologue, the grooved
anecdote, the cascade of words, the slow sen-
37
A Would-be Londoner
tentious movement, the intolerant harangue ;
we had an art and practice of talk with a
terminology all our own. Yes, Hopeby; I
. have it in me to make a great name as a
conversationalist.'
The Purple Guard sat up again. His sur-
prise was over. It took this young man a
very short time to docket and dismiss any
revelation of character.
' You 're one of the queerest chaps I ever
met, Sandridge,' he cried ; ' and I '11 tell you
what I '11 do for you. You know my uncle,
the Pope.'
' Your uncle, the Pope ? '
' I see you don't. Major Hopeby-Bonner,
my uncle, is one of the best talkers in London
or has that reputation, which is better.
Somebody of consequence whom he snubbed
called him the Pope, and the name stuck.
Now, he's dining here with me to-night.
You come too, and the pair of you can talk
for a wager.'
Sandridge accepted in a faint voice. He
wished that it had been anybody but Major
Hopeby-Bonner' s nephew who had asked
him, because he would have preferred to
38
A Would-be Londoner
decline the invitation. He and his friends
had discussed the Major ; his novels, poems,
and essays had been declared inferior
the work of a callow amateur. Rumours of
his gifts as a talker had also reached the
North, and it had been decided that he was
a mere farceur, on a level with the jester of
antiquity. Sandridge had imagined himself
brushing off like flies such people as Major
Hopeby-Bonner ; to be asked to meet him as
a man of the first importance blew the foun-
dation-stone out of his aerial castle. But he
quickly built another one, told himself it would
be practice, went to his room, drank tea, and
dipped into lives of Carlyle, Beaconsfield,
Macaulay, and Houghton, till dinner-time.
The Purple Guard introduced Sandridge
to his uncle as ' a talking chap, too.' Sand-
ridge, perspiring, wondered what Carlyle
would have done in such a circumstance.
Major Hopeby-Bonner, like most garrulous
people, was a reticent, bashful man, who
plunged into speech because silence was ac-
companied with the discomfort of greater
self-consciousness.
'Talk,' said the Major, 'is diluted silence.
39
A Would-be Londoner
I confess I could never carry more than a
thimbleful of neat silence in an evening.'
'The idea', rejoined Sandridge, very white,
and in an unsteady voice, but wishing to say
something strong at once, 'is ah hardly
is not quite It might have been
phrased differently.'
He was thinking that Beaconsfield would
never have used such a commonplace image.
'It might,' assented the Major, much
amused. ' How would you phrase it ? '
'Well, I would have said,' stammered
Sandridge, ' that you remember Carlyle
Really, I think there is nothing to beat
the proverb, " Silence is golden." '
' A good proverb. But what is the con-
nection ? '
' The connection ? ' Eh we were talking
of silence ; at least, I think so.'
The Major smiled, and went on with his
soup ; and the Purple Guard said, half aside
to Sandridge :
' Bravo ! That must be the retort in
ambush eh ? You 've floored him ; he
has n 't a word to say, you see.' He added :
' What do you think of London, Sandridge ? '
40
A Would-be Londoner
'It's very big,' stammered Sandridge ;
'and enormous crowds and 'buses, and I
understand the fogs are dreadful.'
He had no idea of what he was saying ;
he was going over in his mind the sentences
that had passed between himself and the
Major, trying to improve or explain away
his own ineptitude.
' Ah ! the slow sententious movement,' mur-
mured the Purple Guard.
' I have been in London half my life,'
said the Major ; 'and yet the mere
speaking of the word " London," the over-
hearing it said casually, often thrills me
with a sense of terror, and wonder, and
delight.'
' Mesopotamia,' trolled the Purple Guard.
Sandridge, still several remarks behind
time, struck in :
'The connection, Major Hopeby-Bonner,
between what you said about silence and
what I said is perhaps, at first sight, not
very evident, but '
There he paused, and for the life of him
could not resume his sentence.
' We 're waiting for the " sudden digres-
41
A Would-be Londoner
sion," ' said the Guardsman ; and the Major
smiled encouragingly.
But it was all over with Sandridge; he
went hot and cold, turned ghastly pale,
pleaded illness, and withdrew.
That was his last appearance in a club or
any haunt of men for a long time. He ceased
all correspondence with his old friends; he
hid away his biographies and books of table-
talk, took all his food in his own room, walked
about the streets at night muttering to him-
self, grew gray and bent, and was watched
by the police. One autumn evening, feeling
that actual madness beset him in his solitude,
he slipped into the concert-room of the Cafe"
Cosmopolite. The band had just ceased play-
ing a selection from ' II Trovatore,' and the
crowd was somewhat subdued. Many noticed
Sandridge, and were moved by his appear-
ance. His furtive life had given him a stealthy,
gliding motion. His grizzled hair, which he
wore long, had gone off his forehead, and
showed a high brow ; his beard was also long
and wizard-like. His slender, stooping figure,
pale face, and deep-set, haunted eyes, in-
terested some spectators, and made others
42
A Would-be Londoner
uneasy. He felt the impression he created,
and was gratified. Next night he returned,
and soon formed a habit of dining at the
Cafe Cosmopolite every evening. He enters
a cold, self-centred figure, with wolfish, wan-
dering eyes, like those of one who had been
racked, and glides to his chosen seat. Women
catch their breath as he passes, and all who
see him for the first time ask who he is. Some
think him like a picture of Christ ; others, like
Mephistopheles. The waiters know nothing
of him, but tell country visitors that he is
this, that, or the other celebrity, according
to fancy. He must be served in silence;
points out on the card and the wine-list what
he requires, and eats ravenously. He is never
heard to utter a word except ' Go away ! ' if,
as sometimes happens, a waiter forgets and
addresses him.
He is the type of failure, and a legend be-
gins to grow round him. His ambition was
paltry, but he pursued it highly. Defeated in
his effort to be first, he refused any other place ;
and it is this element of greatness in his char-
acter which makes him now so impressive an
apparition in the Cafe Cosmopolite.
43
SOME POOR FOLK
IT was at Banning, on an Autumn after-
noon in 1893, that I lighted on a hop-
picker's encampment ; thirty - seven white
tents gleaming in a white field. Half the
people were in their tents, and the remainder
divided between the public-house and the
pay-office. The hop-pickers' day is a short
one from seven till four, with half an hour
or an hour's interval. The early stoppage is
necessary, because the day's picking has to
be measured, and that is a tedious process.
I went into the encampment and sat down
beside a man, apparently a little over middle-
age, who was lounging at the door of his
tent. A little fellow of three romped about
him, and a girl of fourteen was lighting a
fire of sticks. The man had a pleasant,
clean-shaven face, and dark, dancing eyes.
He replied bashfully to my salutation, but
seemed well pleased that I should speak to
44
Some Poor Folk
him. Hardly had we started a conversation
when a woman came up dressed in rusty
black. She said a few words aside to the
man, and was about to move away, but
remained when I asked her if she liked this
outdoor life.
' Well,' she said, ' I shall have a few shil-
lings over when the picking 's done, and I
had no money at all when I came.'
' She 's just out of hospital,' said the man.
' Yes, sir,' she went on ; * I had pleurisy,
and have been in hospital for months.'
' She was once better off,' interjected the
man in a half-aside. ' She kept a lodging-
house in Kensington.'
' A tent is hardly the place for a con-
valescent from pleurisy, too,' I said.
' That 's true,' she assented ; ' but when I
came out of hospital a fortnight ago I had
only two or three shillings in my pocket, and
no home, and no friends. I had been hop-
ping when I was a girl, and I knew if I could
get down here I would n't starve for a week
or two. My money brought me down and
no more. I have no bedding and no clothes
but what 's on me ; and I have got to keep
45
extraordinar' clean to be clean.' (She
looked very clean and tidy.) 'At night
without bedding it 's very cold in the tent,
and if he,' nodding to the man, ' did n't give
me two coats to put over me I would be
frozen. I 'm always glad when the morning
comes. Cold as I am, though, it's colder
still when I get up and out ; it 's like going
into the sea. It makes me nimble, I can tell
you. I light the fire and make the tea, and
then we all get up.'
' All ! ' I said. ' How many are there of
you?'
' Nine,' replied the man. ' There 's me
and the missus and the three children;
mother here, a young couple, and a lad.'
' Then you came down hi company ? '
' No ; we never saw each other till the
overseer put us together in this tent.'
'But I thought that hoppers travelled in
companies ? '
' Many of them do ; but there 's lots of
couples and families and singles that come
down independent.'
The convalescent left us on some errand,
and when she had gone the man said some
46
Some Poor Folk
things about her, chiefly in praise of her
spirit and her good-nature.
' She 's no home to go to, and I think
she '11 go back with us for the winter. My
daughter there, she 's fourteen and can go
out to service ; and the old lady would be
a great help in the house, and her meat
would n't be missed.'
I asked if I might be allowed to look into
the tent. The man laughingly permitted
me ; but there was nothing to see. A thick
carpet of clean dry straw, some bundles of
bedding, a perambulator, and a few metal
and earthenware plates constituted the en-
tire plenishing, the pots and pans being
outside. I asked him if he really liked
camping out.
' Yes,' he replied, ' I like it very well. I 've
always been a roving blade. I ran away
from home when I was fourteen, and have
turned my hand to many a thing. I 've been
a painter, a docker, a barber, a carpenter. I
was in a country post-office for three years,
and I was in the Customs on the hop-duty
before the tax was taken off. At home
I 'm a painter again, but I 'm too old to
47
Some Poor Folk
be on the market ; besides, my health 's
giving way, and I can do only half a man's
work.'
' How old are you ? You don't look over
fifty.'
' I 'm sixty-three, sir. I know I don't
look it in the face ; but my back 's giving
way.'
'Then this little three-year-older will be
your grandson? '
' No, my son ; and there 's a baby eight
months old. I 'm married to my second
wife, and she 's thirty years younger than
me. She was a cook in a good family. I
painted her kitchen once, and we made it
up. She 's a good wife, and a good cook, is
my missus. She makes sixpence go as far
as half-a-crown, and the Queen might eat the
dinners she turns out.'
During my talk with the hop-picker there
had been a constant coming and going
through the gap in the paling by which I
had entered the encampment. Those who
came were returning from the pay-office, and
those who went were mostly going away for
good.
48
Some Poor Folk
<Why do they give up,' I asked, 'when
there 's plenty of picking to be done yet? '
Well, you see,' the old man replied,
' they Ve just been paid ; they '11 have from
ten shillings to a pound in their pockets;
and they know that though they were to
stay here hop-picking for a year, they would
never have any more to go away with in the
end. They 're tired of it already, too, and
away back to Whitechapel or the Borough.'
1 How long have they been at it? '
' About a fortnight.'
'And could n't they have another ten shil-
lings or so to add to what they have saved
at the end of another fortnight ? '
' But they did n't save what they have, or
they would n't have it ; it was saved for
them. You see we 're allowed to draw small
sums as we need them while we 're working,
and when the job 's done we get the balance.
Most of the folks you see going away know
quite well that they 're sure to spend all they
have before they would think of working
again, and so they 're off home to take it out
in gin crawls. Some of them may come
back again and get another turn.'
4 49
Some Poor Folk
' Will you cut my hair to-day, then, old
un ? ' cried a gruff voice suddenly.
' I will,' said my new acquaintance, after
a moment's hesitation, springing up into a
long stooping figure that seemed hardly to
belong to his fresh face.
The new-comer sat on the ground, and
the old man cut his hair in a thoroughly
workman-like style.
'A soldier?' I queried, judging from the
manner of the man and his moustache.
' Yes, guv'nor,' he replied. ' All that.'
' Been in active service ? '
' Boer expedition.'
' Killed your man ? '
'That would be hard to tell. / got a
scratch on my arm.'
' Pension ? '
* Some coppers a day.'
When his elf-locks were trimmed the sol-
dier gave the barber threepence.
' Your charge is a penny,' he said ; ' but
if you had n't done it I 'd have had to
pay threepence in a shop. Good-day,
guv'nor.'
He was not at all a bad kind of man. He
50
Some Poor Folk
span no yarns, and the laconic bluster of his
speech was original.
Shortly after he was gone a shrill outcry
arose in the road, and in a second or two a
hale old woman of about seventy entered the
field by the gap in the paling. She was
alone, complaining aloud to the heavens and
the earth.
' He says he '11 keep my clothes,' she said.
' But he can't he can't do it. Seven shil-
lings ! I '11 give him no seven shillings.'
She was hobbling past the tent at which I
sat when she caught sight of me, an unusual
apparition in the encampment. She stopped
promptly, and came up. Her face, which
was still comely, was as white as paper, her
mouth worked, and her big, hard, blue eyes
had a steely light in them.
' Master,' she cried, clenching her hands,
he says he '11 keep my clothes the pole-
puller says he '11 keep my clothes if I don't
give him seven shillings. But he can't do
it ; there 's no law for it is there, master? '
' Surely not,' I said.
The woman was beside herself with fury ; it
would have been folly to ask what she meant.
Some Poor Folk
* No ; he can't keep my clothes ! ' she
shrieked ; and trudged away to her own tent.
The man beside me knew what was wrong ;
the explanation will be better understood
after a description of the method of hop-
gathering.
The hop-pickers work in what are called
'bins-companies.' The bin is a wooden
frame divided into two compartments lined
with sacking. One picker, who may have
as much help as he or she chooses, is respon-
sible for each compartment. Five bins are
counted to a company ; and a man, called a
pole-puller, is told off to keep each company
supplied with hops. This he does by uproot-
ing the pole on which the vine grows.
' And what claim can the pole-puller have
on this old woman ? ' I asked.
' He has none ; but he thinks he '11 get a
shilling or two out of her. She cooked his
dinner, and washed his shirt for him ; and in
order that she mightn't lose anything, he
picked for her every day while she was off
duty, as you might say. And now he wants
seven shillings.'
' But the arrangement was was n't it ?
5 2
Some Poor Folk
that he should pick for her in return for her
cookery ? '
' Yes ; but he thinks he '11 make more of
it, you see.'
'But that 's very unfair.'
' I say it 's damned scoundrelly, sir, to
keep the old woman's blankets.'
' Master, he can't keep my clothes can
he?' shrieked the old woman, reappearing
suddenly from behind the tent.
< Certainly not,' I said.
' No, sir ; he can't,' she continued. ' He
wants seven shillings, but I '11 not give him
a sixpence. I '11 get the policeman ; ' and
away she went to the village again, an em-
bodiment of concentrated rage, the con-
sciousness of the justice of her cause lighting
up her old worn face.
I have never seen a fiercer blaze of indig-
nation ; there was divinity in the clear fire
of wrath that burnt in her eyes against the
wrong-doer. She was not thinking of her
blankets; she was consumed with a great,
simple anger at dishonesty brought directly
home to her.
My companion and I sat silent for several
53
Some Poor Folk
minutes after the old woman was gone.
Two carriages rolled past on the highway,
above which the field of the encampment
ascended about twenty feet. Shouts and
laughter, oaths and screams, rose from most
of the tents behind us, and fainter cries
came from the village inn about a furlong
away. Couples and parties passed out and
in, discussing and quarrelling. I saw only
one amicable couple among those who left
the encampment an old soldier gave his
old wife his arm, and they smiled to each
other and talked quietly, walking sedately to
the station.
'They 're for Woolwich,' said my acquaint-
ance. *I shaved the man this morning.
He told me they 've made enough to lay in
a ton o' coal for the winter.'
The sloping sun got free of the clouds that
began to redden, and a ruddy tinge of even-
ing touched the trees and the distant smoke-
wreaths of the oasthouses. The fire which
the hop-picker's daughter had heaped up
with faggots hummed and sang softly all in
a clear flame, and a big pan of water above
it began to keep a low antiphone of liquid
54
Some Poor Folk
sounds. On the highway the shadows grew
long ; homing birds flew across the valley of
the Medway; far away on the undulating
horizon darkness flickered up faintly, the
early dawn of night.
' He can't keep my clothes ; the police-
man says I 'm not married to him ! ' cried
the wrathful old dame, once more appearing
through the gap in the paling. ' Master,'
she cried, for the third time stopping before
me, ' the policeman says I 'm not married to
him, so he can't keep my clothes. I '11 give
him no seven shillings.'
We heard her exclaiming triumphantly all
the way through the encampment, ' The
policeman says I 'm not married to him !
The policeman says I 'm not married to
him!'
In a few minutes she returned, exclaiming :
* I '11 bring the policeman I '11 go and
bring the policeman. He can't keep my
clothes ; I 'm not married to him.'
She stopped, however, at the paling, and
held on to it for a second or two. Then she
turned, and, gulping down a tempest of sobs,
muttered, ' I '11 give him half-a-crown.' This
55
Some Poor Folk
time she did not look near me ; she felt her-
self beaten that she was yielding to in-
justice. She slunk away at that moment,
one of the most wretched of all creatures
under the sun. She was a strong old
woman, in good health, and better dressed
than most of her companions ; but the poor-
est and most thriftless of them all was hap-
pier than she, with her divine sense of
justice unappeased, and forced to yield to
wrong. A compromise must have been
effected ; for I saw her later on with all
her belongings on the road to the station,
dejected but scornful.
' Here 's my missus,' said the man, smil-
ing to a comely dame, who came up and
clinked down beside us.
Her baby was at her breast a fine, fat
little fellow, fair, and already looking like his
mother. I asked if the child did not incom-
mode her much at her work.
' Oh, no ! ' she said, and showed me how
she fastened him in a shawl round her waist
while she picked the hops.
I remarked on his capital condition. She
rejoined that he was a lusty little chap, and
56
Some Poor Folk
added naively, ' This was my Christmas-box.'
She then produced her tally-book, and
counted out half a sovereign and some shil-
lings and coppers to her husband. He
counted them over, too, and returned them
to her.
' I 've had a bit o' luck, besides,' said the
woman. ' Two shillings for bin-money.'
Her husband congratulated her, and told
her of his earnings with his scissors and
razor. Bin-money, I learnt, was an extra
payment, sometimes given and sometimes
not, to those who looked after their own bin,
dragging it about from place to place as
required. I bought the woman's tally-book,
and have it before me now. Between August
21 and 29 the hop-harvest was most ex-
ceptionally early in 1893 she and her
step-daughter pulled 136 bushels of hops,
the greatest quantity on one day being 27
bushels, the least n. A shilling for 6 bush-
els gives 22S. 8d. From August 30 to Sep-
tember 4, they pulled 89 bushels, for which,
as the hops were of a better quality, they
were paid at the rate of is. for 5 bushels.
That gives roundly lys. \od. The fort-
57
Some Poor Folk
night's earnings of this family, exclusive of
what the father made by barbering, and
including the mother's bin-money, amounted
to 2 2s. 6d., to which must be added the
rent of the tent, and the cost of the straw,
firewood, and water provided gratis by the
hop-grower. During the fortnight they had
drawn 24-$-., so that they were 17^. 6d. to the
good.
' Not much for a family, is it ? ' asked the
goodwife; but she spoke with a cheerful
laugh, and told her daughter to bring the
tea, which had been infusing for some time.
A brown bowl and a tin mug was all the
tea-service they had. The ' tinny ' was given
to the three-year-older, as he was growing
fractious, and the brown bowl was handed
to me. I offered it to the woman, but she
rejected it peremptorily. She blushed, indeed,
and looked ill-pleased, as if she imagined that
I entertained some idea that she did not
know how to treat a guest. I drank the
whole bowlful, and it then went round ; the
woman first, then her husband, and lastly
the girl, who seemed to be on the best of
terms with her step-mother.
58
Some Poor Folk
When I left, the man said :
' I 'd be very glad to come across you again
some day.'
The words are not polished, but the tone
and manner were courtesy itself. They were
brave folk, that family of hop-pickers brave
and courteous.
II.
IN one of those old-fashioned third-class
carriages open from end to end, my sole
companion from Cannon Street in the 11.17
main-line Kent train was an odd-looking
little man with a weather-beaten face and a
twisted Roman nose. There was a compart-
ment between us, but he kept tossing in-
articulate remarks across it to me ; he was
quite cheerful, and apparently indifferent as
to whether I heeded or understood. At every
stoppage he thrust his head out of the window,
and hailed one or other of the railway officials,
who all seemed to know him. I changed at
Dunton Green for Brasted, and he changed,
too. From the luggage-van of the train we
came in, he received a large deep basket,
which he placed upon a form on the platform
59
Some Poor Folk
directly opposite the compartment of the local
train in which I had taken a seat. Having
lifted out of the deep basket a shallow tray-
basket, which fitted like a lid, he proceeded
to line the latter with an old Daily Telegraph.
Then from the bottom of the deep basket he
took several large brown-paper bags, and
emptied their contents into his tray shrimps
as pink as coral, and as fresh as the dawn.
The tray filled, he replaced it within the deep
basket, disposed neatly of the overlapping
newspaper, and got into the train with his
stock-in-trade. I left my compartment at
once, and went into his.
' What price shrimps ? ' I said.
' Thrippence a pynte,' he replied.
I gave him threepence for permission to
eat as many as I wanted between Dunton
Green and Brasted, a distance of about two
and a half miles.
' Where were they caught ? ' I asked.
' Mawgyte.' (Margate.)
' And where did you buy them ? '
' Billinsgyte.'
'And do you make a living by selling
shrimps in the country?"
60
Some Poor Folk
' I tries to.'
' I don't see how it can pay you. How
many have you here?'
' Four gallons.'
' What did you pay for them ? '
' A shillin' a gallon.'
' And then there 's the train ? '
' Yus ; abart siving shillin' I lays hout on.'
' And you sell at threepence a pint ? '
' Ho, well, you know, I suits my pryce to
my custermers. When I goes to a big
haowse I charges fo'pence ; and this little
measure has yer see, theer 's four on 'em to
the pynte ; but one 's a penn'orth, and I sell
lots o' penn'orths.'
' Then I suppose you can calculate on
having fourpence a pint over all ? '
' I dessay.'
' Well, then, your expenses are about seven
shillings, you sell four gallons let me see,
thirty-two pints, that is, at fourpence, and
thirty-two fourpences is barely eleven shil-
lings. Four shillings a day twenty-four
shillings a week?'
' Yus ; abart it. And I 've seen the tyme
when I made a quid a dye.'
61
Some Poor Folk
* Selling shrimps ? '
' Sellin 1 shrimps. And naow I would n't
complyne of a quid a week. It's just a
chawnse.'
* People don't buy shrimps as they used
to do, then?'
' I surppose so ; but I dun'no. I know I
does my best. Yer see me come in at Can-
non Street ? Well, I syve sixpence by comin'
in at Cannon Street. If I come in at Lon-
don Bridge I 'ev to pye fur my bawskitt.
Theer 's no squarin' of 'em theer ; sixpence
yer 'ev to pye. But at Cannon Street I give
'em an 'andful o' shrimps, and they tyke my
bawskitt fur nothin'.'
' I see. And do you live in London? '
'Yus; I live near the Elephant an'
Cawstle.'
' And sell shrimps all the year round ? '
' Ho no ; in the winter I sells muffins an'
crumpets, with a board an' a green cloth, an'
a bell yer know the sort.'
' Does it pay any better than the shrimps ? '
'Abart it. Whort I ses is this: let
hevery man myke a livin' in 'is own wye, and
don't be too bloomin' pertickler 'ow 'e does
62
Some Poor Folk
it. That 's squar' an' honest, an' no mistyke
abart it. Do yer own do, an' don't you be
too pertickler 'ow yer does it. Thet 's whort
mykes powperses bein' too pertickler.'
The shrimp-seller's advice was a little
ambiguous, but I am certain his meaning
was good. I left the train at Brasted, and
he went on to Westerham to rouse the sleepy
echoes with his Cockney cry, ' Shrimps, fresh
every dye ! Shrimps fresh to-dye ! ' His
shrimps were good. The few I ate had a
delicate briny flavour, and they melted in
the mouth like a curd, or some confection
of the foam of the sea.
In the afternoon of the same day, on the
slope of Ide Hill, I halted beside a big build-
ing like a factory, standing close to the road.
I found it to be the Sandridge Union, and I
copied the following :
' Notice to vagrants. Task of work for
casual paupers who are detained for more
than one night. Males : For each day of
detention the breaking of one ton of stone
shall be broken to such size as the Guar-
dians, having regard to the nature thereof,
may prescribe; or the picking of four
63
Some Poor Folk
pounds of unbeaten, or eight pounds of
beaten, oakum. As regards females, for the
day of detention the picking of two pounds
unbeaten, or four pounds of beaten, oakum ;
or nine hours' work in washing, scrubbing,
and cleaning, or needlework.'
Official writings have always interested
me, and I was still endeavouring to arrive
at the literary point of view of the composer
of this notice, when it occurred to me that
/ was a vagrant. I began immediately to
consider whether I should have my oakum
beaten or unbeaten, or whether it might not
be better to have the ton of stone. Oakum
I knew nothing about, but stone I had
once broken stone. It was on the low road
to Alloa, near Cambus, that I wielded the
stone-hammer for a quarter of an hour. The
old man was very dubious when I asked to
be allowed to try my hand, and not without
reason, for there is an art in stone-breaking ;
and although I followed the instructions
given as closely as I could, my quarter of an
hour's hard labour ended with the fracture
of the hammer-shaft. That was more than
twelve years ago, and I remembered how
64
Some Poor Folk
astonished I was when the old man told me
that he was paid half-a-crown the yard of
stone, and that able-bodied men could make,
and did make, sometimes ten or twelve
pounds a month.
While these reflections were passing
through my mind, I saw a young man ap-
proach the gate from the workhouse. He
was dressed in corduroys, with brass buttons
and a soft felt hat. I hailed him as he
passed through the gate, and asked if they
had many casuals. It was some little time
before he understood my question, and in
making him understand it I perceived that
his mind was somewhat alienated.
' Oh, yes,' he said at last. ' There be a
lot of them twenty or thirty of a night.'
'So many as that?' I said.
' As near as it might be. I don't know
as I know how many, but there 's always a
lot of them.'
I asked him if twopence would be of any
use to him, and he said very heartily that it
would.
' I can buy some sugar or a little tea,' he
said.
5 65
Some Poor Folk
' How can you do that ? '
* A gentleman brings us things. I don't
know what he is ; he 's a sort of postman, if
so be you understand, sir. He brings let-
ters, although he has n't signed any pledge
or written his name down, and he brings
things for us when we have money. This
will get me a pound of sugar, sir.'
' Don't they give you enough sugar? '
' Well, not to say enough, sir. I 'm in the
old men's ward through me taking fits. And
we have tea and bread and butter for break-
fast; in the young men's ward they have
only hot water.'
' How old are you ? '
' I 'm seventeen ; my father was an engine-
driver, and he was killed on the railway, and
I lived with my grandfather from the time I
was five. I 'm a bit of a blacksmith ; my
grandfather was a blacksmith, and a good
one, too, and I came on remarkable well. I
could make a clout-nail and an S hook and a
staple, when I had to come here because of
me taking fits. I 'm a very good boy for
work, but I fell down a well in a fit, and my
grandfather died, and they brought me here.'
66
Some Poor Folk
' Where did you live ? '
' In Seven Oaks Weald, not far from here,
and my grandmother lives there still. I
hope and trust I shall have a holiday soon.
I have n't had a fit for a month, and if I keep
well I shall have a holiday. If so be you
have clothes of your own to go away in you
can have as long a holiday as you like ; but
if so be you have only the workhouse clothes,
then you can have only '
I forget how long he said.
' Is your mother alive ? '
' Yes, sir, and I have n't seen her for three
years. She 's something in a waiting-room
in London no, Southampton she 's in
Southampton, and I do hope and trust to
see her this summer. She is coming to see
my grandmother. But my grandfather 's
dead. They said he cheated with picks, and
didn't steel them; but he did n't, sir he
would n't do such a thing.'
' What do you mean ? '
* Instead of steeling the picks proper, they
said he only cut a slot and pretended to;
but he did n't, sir, he did n't.'
I gave him a shilling, being much pleased
67
Some Poor Folk
with him ; but the effect on him was distress-
ing. He sidled up to me, laid his hand on
my arm, and spoke quite incoherently. In
a second or two he calmed down, however,
and told me that he would keep the shilling
until he got his holiday, and buy something
for his grandmother, ' as it might be a loaf,
or sugar, or some matches.'
When I shook hands with him, he said he
hoped to see me again, * and I '11 give you
something if so be I have it, sir.'
As soon as he had gone, another workhouse
inmate an old man this time came out
of a field and asked for tobacco. I gave
him twopence, which he took, and set off up
the road at a frantic pace. Then two little
boys of six or seven appeared, and two
women, one very old, the other middle-aged.
The elder had the bleached face of a washer-
woman ; toothless gums, heavy underlip, and
sunken eyes, with an unearthly leer in them.
* I 'm a poor orphan,' she said, ' and have
nobody to look after me or give me sugar.'
The other woman the middle-aged one
had coal-black eyes that seemed about to
dance out of her head, and she carried in her
68
Some Poor Folk
arms a large doll in the cap and long clothes
of a baby. She spoke, too, but it was im-
possible to make out what she said, as she
had no palate. She had lost also half the
teeth on the left side of the upper jaw, and
half the teeth on the right side of the lower
one. Those that remained were very large,
and as she opened her mouth wide in trying
to speak, the effect of her whole appearance
was grotesquely horrible. She also talked
of sugar ; I made out so much as that.
'Neither have I anybody to give me
sugar,' piped both the little boys.
I gave each of the boys a penny, and they
ran off at once with a hurried ' Thank you.'
The epileptic youth had been dazzled
with the present of a shilling, and so I ex-
perimented with one on each of the women.
The older of the two leered incredulously,
studied the shilling, lifted it to her lips as if
to bite it (forgetting that her teeth were
gone), then turned and scuttled away at the
top of her speed. The middle-aged woman
stared at the coin and me alternately, bobbed
a steep country curtsey, and went off slowly
and without a sound, rocking her doll. The
69
Some Poor Folk
idea of happiness, the delight of life, seemed
here to have dwindled down with young and
old, sane and insane, into a desire for a little
more sugar. This is the tragic farce that
puzzles, and will perhaps always puzzle : the
vicissitudes and fate of the paragon of
animals.
70
AN IDEAL SHOEBLACK
I THINK I could count the number of
times a shoeblack has operated on my
boots. Yet men who have had their boots
shoeblacked almost every day of their lives
have never encountered anything like a
certain experience of mine.
One afternoon I placed my foot on the
box of a particularly intelligent-looking shoe-
black a little way up a street on the north
side of the Strand. Wishing if possible to
find out what had brought a man with a
good forehead and a face of some refine-
ment so low in the social scale, I said :
' You look thoughtful. '
' Not thoughtful,' he replied. ' Melancholy.'
' Melancholy ! ' I echoed. ' Yes ; yours, I
should imagine, is a melancholy calling.'
'You imagine rightly,' said the shoeblack.
* Melancholy? I should think so ! You may
say, now, that policemen are melancholy.
An Ideal Shoeblack
Well, they have certainly a kind of melan-
choly, for there is no other word that can
rightly apply to the mental condition of
those knights of the street; but wherein
their melancholy differs from the true melan-
choly of three hundred years ago, it would
be hard to say.'
I was astonished, and, leaning forward,
rested my arms on my knee to obtain
a closer view of this extraordinary shoe-
black.
' What is the difference,' I asked, ' between
the policeman's melancholy, and the melan-
choly of the sixteenth century?'
< The difference, sir,' replied the shoeblack,
' lies deep enough, beyond a doubt. It may,
perhaps, be found in the fact that the mind
of the modern man is much more alert,
because more occupied about ways and
means than the ancestral minds could have
been. Inspector Bucket, for example in
"Bleak House," sir has a brilliant intellect
compared with Dogberry " Much Ado," sir ;
but however excellent in the quality he pro-
fessed Bucket may have been, he lacked the
gift of imagination. Dogberry, on the other
72
An Ideal Shoeblack
hand, was of imagination all compact ; so
imaginative was he that in the midst of all
the tediousness he found it in his heart to
bestow on Leonato, he was able in four
words to predict Sarah Gamp.'
' Sarah Gamp ! What do you mean ? '
' Yes, sir, Sarah Gamp. Lord Tennyson
was once detected in the act of divination.
In the " Ode on the Death of the Duke of
Wellington " occurs the line, " The last great
Englishman is low" which a certain writer
has indicated as a prediction of the greatness
of the late Lord Sherbrooke. That was very
good prophecy ; but it cannot be compared
with Dogberry's far-seeing vaticination. " It
shall be suffigance," he said. If in that
brief sentence Dogberry does not give a dis-
tinct hint of the deathless Sarah " deniging,"
"suppoging, " and using her soft "g " gene-
rally, where in profane literature is prophecy
to be found? You must accept it, sir,
without further proof, that the absence of
imagination in the modern constable accounts
in a measure for the inferiority of his melan-
choly.'
My amazement was so great on hearing
73
An Ideal Shoeblack
these extraordinary remarks from a shoe-
black, that I found myself without a reply for
a second or two. At last I said, wishing to
draw him out, ' Policemen are too harassed to
be melancholy, I suppose.'
' Right, sir,' replied the shoeblack. ' Like
most people, they are too busy to be melan-
choly. The fruity melancholy which a man
trod out of any profession or occupation long
ago was matured in the cool grotto of his
brain to such a crusted mellowness as would
have pleased the seasoned palate of old
Burton himself, only by the long leisure and
daily recurring ease of a time which knew
not post-cards, nor railways, nor telegrams ;
a time when an editor was rarer than a
bishop is now, and the printer's devil a
harmless imp renowned for his patience.
Still, it may be said that a policeman is
melancholy, and a postman, and a sandwich-
man, and a costermonger ; but it is an adust
forbidding melancholy. For, as I said before,
they are too busy; leisure is impossible to
them. Their occupations, with the excep-
tion of the costermonger's, are silent, but
their thoughts are never free. Their melan-
74
An Ideal Shoeblack
choly is to true melancholy what the crab-
apple is to the Newtown pippin.'
'Where now,' I asked, 'will you find any-
thing like the old-fashioned melancholy?'
* Why, sir,' replied this amazing shoeblack,
' if old Burton could take a walk to-day along
Oxford Street or the Strand, in search of
melancholy, he might for a moment be
inclined to stop at the policeman ; he might
cast a lingering look at the postman ; and
pause in doubt as there passed a sad pro-
cession of sandwich-men, who, having failed
to open Pistol's oyster, the world, are doomed
to get in between two shells themselves ; he
might, old Burton might, give a thought to
these. But, sir, he would sit down on the
curb, or on a window-ledge, to study every
shoeblack he came across. " Here, at last,"
he would sigh, " is something like the melan-
choly of my own time the melancholy which
Fracastorius knew, and which Aretaus per-
ceived to be a perpetual anguish of the soul."
And he would be right. The shoeblack has
leisure daily, hourly leisure. He makes a
small but certain living. His work, though
artistic in a low degree, requires no thought,
75
An Ideal Shoeblack
and the labour is not excessive ; brief periods
of idleness alternate with briefer periods of
brisk polishing. He has no need to solicit
custom except by a mechanical gesture. As
far as his occupation is concerned, he is a
living automaton ; and yet every boot planted
on his box performs a miracle, for it sets in
operation not only a pair of human hands
and arms, but brush-makers, and blacking-
factories, and carpenters, besides producing
the highest of all miracles, faith faith in the
owner of the boot, that his foot will not be
stabbed with knives or scalded with vitriol ;
and faith in the shoeblack, that when the
proper shining feat has been performed, a
penny will be punctually forthcoming.'
' But this is rather from the subject, you
know,' said I.
'Well, it is,' he rejoined. 'But what I
want to say is this : the shoeblack has
leisure ; he knows what on an average he
must earn ; he has no need to speculate ; his
thought is free ; his imagination roams high
and low, gathering from the stars and from
the mud amorphous fancies and half-elabo-
rated humours that develop into a dumb
melancholy.' 76
An Ideal Shoeblack
' Ha ! ' I exclaimed . ' Could n't you make the
shoeblack's melancholy articulate ? Could n't
his dull, moist soul be dried and struck like
a lucifer-match on his own box ? Could n't
he blaze out for an instant and illumine a
corner of the universe with his actual melan-
choly?'
Much struck with my metaphor, the shoe-
black sat back on the calves of his legs,
slapped his brushes together, and said :
'Well, sir, do you recognise in this any-
thing like the shoeblack's melancholy? Of
honest animals that work for their living by
having their throats cut or their heads
knocked in for the use of man, by common
consent the pig is considered morally and
intellectually to be at least below par. And
so of human beings who earn a livelihood,
the lowest in the scale is the shoeblack,
although the dustman may be said to run
him pretty close for the last place. Yet
mud in which he works is earth, and out of
earth was made man. Man in a wrong place,
like other matter so situated, may be called
dirt. The shoeblack dislodges matter wrongly
localised, replacing it by matter adjusted to
77
An Ideal Shoeblack
its environment. Government is the shoe.
black of society. It displaces rogues, who
are, by this image, the mud on the boots of
civilisation, and, by means of laws, keeps up
the polish to the best of its ability. There
are other shoeblacks besides Government.
The clergy, benevolent institutions, etc., en-
deavour to maintain the polish. Marriage is
the block on which the foot of Society rests,
and Education the Day and Martin that is
rubbed in to the due pitch of lustre. Rightly
considered, all business, all organisations,
except societies for the performance of three-
card tricks of every species, are simply
methods to remove dulness and substitute
brightness. It matters not, then, whether
the penny be paid into a horny, grimy hand
or be laid on a consecrated salver : the actual
shoeblack performs a service, lower in degree,
but of the same nature, as the highest arch-
bishop. Both are servants ministers and
both at the best can only do their duty.
That is something like the shoeblack's
melancholy, the perpetual anguish of the
soul in which he sees everything through a
medium of Day and Martin.'
78
An Ideal Shoeblack
When the shoeblack had finished his dis-
course, I noticed that both my boots, al-
though I had not seen the brushes employed
upon them, gleamed with a most lustrous
polish. I stooped down to examine them
more closely, and when I raised my head to
address the shoeblack again, I could see
him nowhere. I waited for several minutes,
expecting his return, but he and his box and
brushes had vanished like spectres. Deter-
mined to seek out the shoeblack on a future
occasion, I looked up as I turned into the
Strand to note the street in which our con-
versation had taken place. The name on
the wall Limbo Street I had never seen
before, nor have I seen it since ; for when I
returned some days later I could find no
street at all opening into that part of the
Strand.
79
ALISON HEPBURN'S EXPLOIT
ON a night in February, 1880, a tall,
unwomanly figure, thickly veiled, and
dressed in ill-fitting black, sped from the
booking-office to the bookstall, bought a
cheap edition of Byron, plunged through a
struggling crowd of passengers and porters,
and sprang into a third-class carriage, just
as the guard blew his whistle.
By the time the 10 p. m. train had puffed
out of the Waverley Station, Edinburgh, the
late passenger had recovered her breath and
lifted her veil. The face was that of a young
woman of not more than nineteen, and was
remarkable for its dark eyes, widely and
deeply set in a broad low brow. The mouth,
nose, and chin had a crude uncarved appear-
ance, which the yellow light of the carriage
lamp did nothing to dispel. A small black
hat sat among a loosely coiled mass of black
hair. The black silk gloves had been darned,
80
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
and the black dress and jacket were much
worn as well as badly made.
The girl glanced carelessly at the other
passengers, of whom there were three, and
then began to dip into Byron. She turned
over the pages, reading a line here and
there ; but shortly she laid the book aside,
and gave herself up to a furtive study of her
companions. Opposite her were two women,
with a large hamper on the seat between
them. The faces of these women had the
raw, florid hue of the porter-drinker; their
eyes bulged and their mouths were loose.
Wrapped in cloaks and shawls, their feet
tucked up on the seat and pressing either
side of the hamper, they had settled them-
selves in the corners for the night, appar-
ently. They stared at the girl out of their
lustreless, bulging eyes, blinked at the lamp,
dozed and stared, and blinked again. On
the same side of the compartment as the
girl sat the fourth passenger, a sailor, with a
big brown beard on a young face. He kept
clearing his throat and wetting his lips, as if
about to speak ; but whenever his eye caught
that of one of the others, he became sud-
6 81
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
denly interested in the knotting of a hand-
kerchief which covered a cage he had beside
him on the seat.
In the sailor the girl took little interest ;
but the women attracted and repelled her.
They were clearly professional people of
some kind. The girl's interest was expressed
very frankly in a rapid succession of glances.
At last, one of the women, more amused
than annoyed, smiled impudently at her.
A deep blush dyed the young woman's face
immediately; she picked up her book and
pressed back into her corner.
The volume opened at ' The Waltz,' and
she read the first lines :
' Muse of the many-twinkling feet ! whose charms
Are now extended up from legs to arms ;
Terpsichore 1 too long misdeem'd a maid
Reproachful term bestow'd but to upbraid
Henceforth in all the bronze of brightness shine,
The least a vestal of the virgin Nine.
Far be from thee and thine the name of prude ;
Mock'd, yet triumphant ; sneer'd at, unsubdued ;
Thy legs must move to conquer as they fly,
If but thy coats are reasonably high ;
Thy breast, if bare enough, requires no shield ;
Dance forth sans armour thou shalt take the field,
And own impregnable to most assaults,
Thy not too lawfully-begotten waltz.'
82
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
A smile of scorn curled her lip as she read.
She was thinking how strong it was, and how
very superior to Tennyson. Byron is still
the poet of the 'teens,' and this young
woman was a determined partisan. Although
she had read hardly any of Tennyson, she
had set up a Poet-Laureate of straw against
which she was constantly tilting. She knew
Tennyson had been dubbed 'Miss Alfred,'
and she relished calling him so with sarcastic
emphasis, and a deep satisfaction, as if she
had invented the phrase. She closed the
book over her finger, and lay back to enjoy
the feeling of power transferred to her senses
by the lines she had read. To be a rebel,
to do and say daring things that was her
ambition. And had she not begun her career
in a very signal manner ? To run away from
home at nineteen, with nothing but a copy
of Byron and some biscuits not even a
nightgown in a bag and no umbrella?
It was to beat the record, she thought. In
some future school history of literature, ad-
miring and envious girls should read how
Alison Hepburn that was her name took
her life into her own hands in her nineteenth
year. 83
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
She took from her pocket a dumpy roll of
manuscript. Undoing the ribbon with which
it was tied, she glanced over the pages to see
that they were all there and in their right
order ; she also looked lovingly at the small
clear writing, and the old English letters of
the title-page 'A Godless Universe, and
other Poems,' by Alison Hepburn. It would
make a sensation, she had no doubt of that.
There could be no difficulty. A publisher
would buy the copyright from her for a good
sum, or she would have to wait for her for-
tune until the book had been brought out.
She would be quite satisfied with either
alternative. Had she not nine pounds in
Scotch notes in her bosom ? She blushed a
little at the fancy picture of herself setting
out to conquer the world, with nothing but
biscuits- and a copy of Byron. She really
could make no claim to be considered a wild
romantic person, possessed as she was of a
small capital and a valuable manuscript.
The blood mounted to her head, and a feel-
ing of security, which even she perceived to
be extraordinary, overcame her. She closed
her eyes, and, broad awake, dreamt for an
84
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
hour of a fabulous income from ' A Godless
Universe ' ; of marriages with handsome
young noblemen ; and of unexampled world-
wide fame. As her brain cooled, she thought :
' At any rate, I won't fare any worse than
Campbell; he got half a crown a line for
"The Pleasures of Hope." That would
make I have two thousand five hundred
lines. Eight half-crowns to a pound ; eights
in twenty-five three. That would make
over three hundred pounds. That would
keep me for three years ; so it 's all right.'
She picked up Byron again, for her spirits
were falling rapidly, and selected a passage
in 'Cain,' which she read with muttering
lips.
'Souls who dare use their immortality
Souls who dare look the Omnipotent tyrant in
His everlasting face, and tell him that
His evil is not good.'
The impulse of these verses, if they can be
called so, was enough, in her overwrought
condition, to send up the mercury. She laid
aside the book, and sat erect, her head poised
defiantly.
' Souls who dare use their immortality.'
85
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
That 's what she was doing. Her brief
life came before her, and she seemed to look
down on her past from a high pinnacle. It
was all a mystery. How had she come to
be born the daughter of a small stationer
in a street off Leith Walk ? The force that
was she might have been Sappho, might
have been Mary, Queen of Scots. A little
dingy house with close, low-ceilinged rooms,
and a mixed odour of 'the wood of lead-
pencils and the lamp-black of newspapers ;
the gray stone hill of houses between Leith
and Edinburgh, the very special haunt of
mist and east wind, and noisy all day and
half the night with cars and waggons; a
locality and condition upon which even
shabby-genteel people looked down into
this, of all environments, she, Alison Hep-
burn, had been born. It was injurious and
insulting. And yet that was n't half the
enormity of her circumstances. Her father
was a solemn, rigid, Scotch Puritan, sincerely
devout, she knew, upright, and of some
dignity of character; but on that account
all the more unworthy to be her father. For
what had he done? He had married a
86
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
woman unfit to be the mother of anybody.
Her face grew dark at this thought. Her
mother had been chosen by her father be-
cause of her strength of mind, her managing
power, and her religious disposition. Beauty
and temperament she had none. She was ill-
made, and her bones were disproportionately
small. ' Visiting the iniquity of the fathers
upon the children? Yes,' she thought; 'it
is iniquitous in a common-looking, common-
place man to marry an ugly, weak-bodied
woman. My father believes that the heathen
will be damned, even although they have
never heard of the Gospel. Well, then,
although he had never heard of the proper
conditions of marriage, he deserves to be
damned for having perpetuated ugliness, ill-
shaped bones, and ill-conditioned blood.
Oh ! I would give every pinch of brain I
have to be sweet and beautiful, with rounded,
warm-tinted flesh, drawing all men's eyes !
But I shall make men adore me for my
poetry, or, at least, for the fame and money
my poetry shall bring.'
Again she made her calculations, con-
cluding this time with the assurance that,
8?
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
even if she got only one hundred pounds, the
price Alexander Smith had received for ' A
Life Drama,' she would still be able to over-
come the world. A hundred pounds would
give her a year. In that time, and in London,
she could write a great poem ; and in that
time, also, her fame would have spread, and
she would receive a very much larger sum
for her second venture.
'And if,' she thought, as her depression
deepened ' if the publisher will not give me
anything, and I have to wait, or if I have
difficulty in finding a publisher, I have these
nine pounds, which will keep me easily for
three months, and during that time I can
get an engagement at a theatre.'
Yes, of course, she was forgetting about
that, the second string in her bow. Why
hadn't she brought her prize for elocution
with her? It would be certain to influ-
ence a manager. Then her spirits leapt up
again, and she went over to herself her
two best recitations, Scott's ' Battle of
Flodden ' from ' Marmion,' and Aytoun's
' Death of Montrose.' With these she elec-
trified herself, and before the excitement
88
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
caused by them had passed, she fell into a
doze.
Something tugging at her dress wakened
her. Opening her eyes, and remembering at
once where she was, she was amazed to find
on the seat beside her, and with two paws
on her skirt, a white dog, long-nosed and
woolly, munching her biscuits. First of all,
she picked up her manuscript, fastened it,
and replaced it in her pocket. Perhaps it
had been looked at while she dozed ; the idea
hurt her. She thought not, however ; for the
other three passengers were all sound asleep.
She felt a little afraid of the dog, who kept
a sharp eye on her while he continued eating
her biscuits ; but before she could make up
her mind how to deal with him, a harsh,
sharp cry, very audible even Xbove the clank-
ing of the train, went off in {he compartment :
' Heave away ! '
The dog, frightened out of his wits, sprang
on to the hamper, and began to whine. Again
the shriek was heard louder and harsher than
before, and the dog leapt, yelping, at one of
the women, who started up in alarm.
'Oh,' she said, looking about the carriage
89
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
suspiciously, 'it's only you, is it? You
naughty, naughty Lou-lou ! '
The woman cuffed the dog, not very
severely, and then placed him in the hamper.
' I hope,' she said, with her impudent
smile, as she fastened the lid securely, ' the
dog did n't frighten you ? '
' Oh, no ! ' said Alison, flushing. "
' Heave away 1 '
* What can that be ! ' exclaimed the woman
who had spoken already.
By this time the commotion in the com-
partment had awakened the other woman
and the sailor. The latter, looking very
shamefaced, wetted his lips, and said :
* I 'm very sorry, ladies. It 's only Jugger-
naut. I meant to tell you that he might
start paying out language ; but I could n't
somehow get the anchor up. Juggernaut 's
cut the cable, as it were. I 'm not naturally
backward, but just come off a two years'
voyage, and wondering to see ladies. That 's
all. Why, ma 'am, for four months we never
touched port ; and we used to lower a boat
in a calm, and pull round to have a look
at the figurehead the Aurora, a fine bust
90
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
of a woman, but nothing like real flesh and
blood.'
' Heave away ! Tumble up ! '
' He 's very angry,' said the sailor, ' at
being kept in the dark so long. I thought
he might sleep ; but the motion of the train 's
new to him, as he never was in one before.
He 'd better have it out ; so, asking your
pardon, here 's Juggernaut.'
Whisking the handkerchief from the cage,
the sailor displayed an Amazon green parrot.
' I got him in Rio, quite a youngster, and
christened him in Calcutta. He christened
himself, you may say; for Juggernaut was
the first word he said.'
' Juggernaut ! Now, Renzo was no sailor.
The cook 's a blooming Chinaman ! ' said the
parrot.
' He 's got a lot to say. I think missy
had better put her fingers in her ears,'
said the sailor, looking apologetically at
Alison.
The girl moved uneasily, but kept her eyes
on the parrot, who glared about with an un-
changing look of clownish surprise the stage
surprise of the low comedian.
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
'Damn .her eyes!' went on the parrot.
'Splice! Aurora Auro-ra ! Beautiful Jug-
gernaut ! Keel-haul the cook ! Keel-haul the
cook ! The cook 's a blooming Chinaman ! '
' He 's going to say all he knows,' said the
sailor, looking again towards Alison. 'Wal-
nuts would n't stop him.'
Shrieking maledictions, the bird hopped
to the lowest bar in its cage. After a few
moments' silence, it lowered its head,
stretched out its neck, and, fixing Alison
with one of its astonished eyes, uttered very
distinctly a string of oaths, scraps of prayers,
and tags of songs. The women laughed,
and Alison hid her face behind Byron.
' I 'm Juggernaut beautiful Juggernaut !
The cook 's a blooming Chinaman ! '
Having wound up its oration with these
words, the parrot resumed its night perch,
picked three feathers in slow succession from
one of its wings, yawned, and disposed itself
to sleep.
' He has what you call a vocabulary,' said
the sailor, readjusting his handkerchief about
the cage. ' Where are we ? ' he added, as
the train began to slacken.
92
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
Alison looked out, and saw empty rainy
streets shining darkly in the many-shadowed
lights of the gas-lamps ; below the level of
the railway, and also sloping above it, long
undulations and precipitous hills of houses
wheeled past the slowing train.
' Why, it 's Newcastle already ! ' exclaimed
the sailor. ' Well, good night, asking your
pardon for Juggernaut.'
Five minutes after the departure of the
sailor, the train moved out of the station.
Alison thought they were going back to be
shunted; but as the speed increased, she
imagined that perhaps there had been some
mistake.
* Am I all right for London ? ' she asked.
' All right,' answered one of the women.
'We seem to be going back,' rejoined
Alison.
' We go out of Newcastle as we go in,'
said the woman.
'Couldn't we go right through?' asked
Alison.
' How should I know? ' retorted the woman,
tucking herself up in her corner as her com-
panion had already done in hers.
93
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
Alison was hurt a little by the rebuff; but
one thing pleased her her fellow-travellers
were not in the least concerned and curious
about her. She had been apprehensive of
inquisitive companions on her journey, and
had meant to talk of going to see an aunt
and of luggage in the van. It was now
evident that there was nothing unusual in
her appearance or her mode of travelling,
and she took her present experience as a
prophecy of exemption from molestation in
her enterprise. Nevertheless, she felt very
wretched. The awkward sailor, the foul-
mouthed parrot, the two sordid women
grunting and snoring beside her, the cold
raw night, and the monotonous rush and
jangle of the train, oppressed her like a
nightmare. The intolerance with which she
regarded everything that disturbed her in-
tense self-preoccupation found vent in scowls
and muttered execrations : ' What a beastly
train ! These dirty old hags ! ' She closed
her eyes tightly, and endeavoured to compel
her thoughts into the desired track ; but her
efforts were in vain, her immediate surround-
ings having gradually filled her nerves as a
94
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
coil of wire is charged with electricity. At
last she had recourse to Byron. She read
here and there feverishly, and then searched
out the passage in ' Cain ' that had helped her
already :
' Souls who dare use their immortality.'
She kept to that line ; she struck it over
and over as a piano-tuner strikes a note ;
she twisted and turned its meaning about
until it said again the thing she wanted.
She was, indeed, daring to use her immor-
tality. She was immortal not, she thought,
with a curl of her lip, in the old ridiculous
sense ; she carried her immortality in her
pocket. This that she had written could never
die ; it would go sounding on in hearts and
brains, echoing through the ages. Being an
immortal, she had a right to behave at once
as an immortal ; therefore she freed herself
from parental control, and, a phrase she loved,
took her life into her own hands. In thought
she had been free for years, and now she
must have perfect freedom. She had done,
and was now going to London to do more
effectually, what she had been sent into
95
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
the world for : sent by Nature, by some-
thing; certainly not by God oh, not by
God in any understanding of the word.
Alison Hepburn was rabid with Theophobia,
a disease of young minds not uncommon in
countries where religious bigotry prevails.
She was flying from what was to her a hateful
idea of God, represented by strict parents,
and by a wretched Sabbath of three long
services. She was flying from John Knox.
Of her poetry no specimen shall be given ; it
was written, some in blank verse, some in bal-
lad measure, and some in the manner of the
rhymed version of the Psalms used in Scotland.
Between Newcastle and Doncaster, Alison's
spirits fell far below zero. She began to
realise how much she was depending on the
immediate receipt of a large sum for her
manuscript, and what a forlorn hope it was.
She saw that she had been imagining, not
believing, herself successful. She thought
for the first time of the consternation at
home, and for a brief moment realised that
she cared a little for her father and mother,
and that they loved her. She peered out of
the window, but saw on the black screen of
96
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
night what she wished to forget. She re-
turned to Byron, but the famous verse was
ineffective :
'Souls who dare use their immortality. '
It was nonsense ; life consisted of an hour,
a moment at a time. She read the next line
scornfully :
' Souls who dare look the Omnipotent tyrant in.'
Some of her lines had weak ending, but
none so weak as that. Besides, ' It 's just
havers,' she thought ; ' because it was only
when people began to disbelieve in an
Omnipotent tyrant that they began to be
cheeky to Him.' Was the Venice butcher's
wife omnipotent ? No ; yet she had been
Byron's mistress. Were her father and mother
omnipotent ? No ; and yet her head swam.
Before they arrived at Doncaster her
travelling companions, the women with the
bulging eyes, produced sandwiches and
bottles of stout, and liberated their poodle.
Alison ate some of her biscuits and gave
some to the dog.
' You must n't deprive yourself,' said one
7 97
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
of the women, offering her a sandwich,
which she took.
' Won't you have a drop of stout ? ' asked
the other.
She swallowed half a tumblerful eagerly
It was the first alcoholic liquor she had ever
drunk, having been brought up a total
abstainer. She found the taste nauseous, but
the effect amazed her, and she began to talk.
* I 'm running away from home,' she said,
with a cheerful smile, persuading herself that
she felt nice and comfortable.
' We know that, my dear,' said one of the
women.
' How do you know ? ' she asked, startled.
' Everything about you tells us.'
' Do girls often run away from home ? '
' Half of them do. We did.'
' It 's quite common, then,' said Alison,
with an air of disgust.
'And stupid,' added one of the women,
' unless you 're very good-looking. If I 'd
stayed at home and kept straight, I 'd have
had a house of my own and a decent shop-
keeper for a husband, and ease and plenty.
Instead of which '
98
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
She shrugged her shoulders.
' The Sisters Tomboy with their wonderful
poodle Lou-lou,' said the other. ' Have
some more stout.'
Alison hesitated, but drank off another
half-tumblerful.
' Do you know,' she said, ' this is the first
intoxicating liquor I have ever tasted? I
was made to join a Band of Hope when I was
eight, and ever since I was twelve I have
wanted to break the pledge, but couldn't
think of going into a public-house. Thank
you very much.'
The Sisters Tomboy grinned at each other
and said nothing.
' I 'm going on to London,' said Alison.
' We go out at Doncaster.'
Alison stretched herself on the seat, feeling
in the humour for a good talk; but while
she was still considering how far she might
consult the Sisters Tomboy regarding her
procedure in London, she fell asleep, and
so soundly that the stoppage at Doncaster
failed to waken her, although the shock of
the train starting again did. She rubbed
her eyes. The Sisters Tomboy had gone,
99
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
and two men were in the carriage. They
sat opposite each other, bent forward and
absorbed in conversation. One of them was
old and heavily built ; his eyes were small,
gray, and dull; he had a dirty-white beard
and moustache; his puffed cheeks and
drooping nose were brick- red. She noted
his silk hat, brown and rough with age, and
broken-brimmed; his frayed and greasy
clothes, and thick watch-chain of brass.
The other, a younger man, was better
dressed : his silk hat was new and glossy ;
he had sparkling rings on his fingers, and
his watch-chain seemed to be of gold. But
the man himself was uglier even than his
companion. His black eyes, protruding and
bloodshot, seemed about to blaze up and
burst out of his head. His shaved chin,
puckered like a many-eyed potato, receded
among coarse black whiskers ; his nose was
swollen and red, his cheeks blotched, and
his brow of a sickly white. This loathsome
creature had no voice; with swollen veins
and continuous restrained gesture he emitted
husky, staccato whispers, to which the other
replied in soft, oily tones. Neither paid any
100
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
heed to Alison, but she watched them, fasci-
nated. The sailor, with his parrot, belonged
to a world she understood in some degree ;
so did the Sisters Tomboy; but what were
these ? From what rookery had these night-
birds issued, and on what mission ?
At last the two men, having settled the
point in dispute, lounged back into their
corners. The younger one looked at him-
self in the window and rubbed his nose
fiercely. Suddenly remembering, he sat up,
and produced from behind him a half- bottle
of port wine ; a tumbler ; and a white hand-
kerchief in which were wrapped two sponge-
cakes. He filled the tumbler, and handed
it with one of the cakes to his companion,
who drank off the wine slowly, but without
a pause. The younger man took the rest of
the wine ; then both ate their sponge-cakes.
There was no pledging each other; noth-
ing at all was said about what they were
doing; some common object preoccupied
them intensely.
When the sponge-cakes were finished, the
younger man took from his pocket a flat
bottle containing whisky. This having been
101
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
emptied, the tumbler and both bottles were
flung out of the window, and the conversa-
tion resumed. The two men talked all the
way to York, the elder rolling out long
sentences, soft and oily, the younger growing
huskier in his whispers, and less restrained
in gesture. Alison could not make out a
single word, but she watched them, hardly
conscious of thought or feeling. As the
train stopped at York Station both men
became silent, and the younger stared at
Alison.
* By God ! ' she heard him croak in the
lessening noise of the slowing train, ' she 's
uglier awake than asleep.'
'So much the better for her,' said the
other.
She wondered vaguely for a moment if
she had been the subject of their whole con-
versation. But that was impossible, for both
resumed their look of intense preoccupation
the moment they had uttered their rude
remarks, and before the train stopped they
jumped out and walked away quickly in a
purposeful manner.
All the way from Doncaster to York these
102
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
men had seemed like a hideous vision, utterly
unreal and impossible. At the last moment,
in their entire loathsomeness and brutality,
they had trampled straight across her heart ;
and they had done it with the utmost indif-
ference, as she herself in a preoccupied mood
might crush a worm visible in her path, but
unperceived by her inner sense. She had
often told herself she was plain, but nobody
had ever called her ugly before. She had
understood the absence of comment or
had she not? Perhaps people would have
talked to her of her appearance had .she
been only plain-looking. Had she heard
the truth for the first time? Was she ugly?
She began to pace the compartment,
impatient till the train should start. There
was suspense in the stoppage an added
misery. The guard, passing, saw her.
'Twenty minutes here,' he said, opening
the door.
' Oh ! ' she exclaimed, and got out.
She was very stiff and very cold, and
walked about the platform to warm herself.
She thought how comfortable a bed is to
lie down secure, with no concern for the
103
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
morrow, in her father's house. She walked
more quickly; she ran as if to escape her
thoughts. She searched about for a clock.
A few minutes to four ! How had her father
and mother spent the night ?
The platform was almost deserted. One
or two groups of men in caps and heavy
overcoats stood at the doors of smoking
compartments. Where had the passengers
gone to? To her surprise, never having
travelled at night before, she saw that the
refreshment- room was open. She went in
and. drank some coffee. There were over a
score of people eating and drinking at the
bar. The rattle of cups and saucers, the
steaming tea and coifee, the sharp orders,
chatter, an occasional spluttering laugh, and
the bright light, soothed her, and then made
her heart ache again. She remained in the
refreshment-room until a porter announced
that the train was on the point of departure.
In the rush, she made up her mind to get
into a compartment with some cheerful
people if she could; but her heart failed
her as she ran along the platform, and saw
the others jumping in among their snug
104
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
wraps, newspapers, books, open bags the
encampments of expert travellers. She got
into an empty compartment, probably she
could n 't be sure the one she had left ;
and from York to Grantham, from Grantham
to Peterborough, she had it to herself.
Her dream was ended her mad folly
had run its course ; but the train went on.
The rattling glass in either end of the com-
partment reflected her ugly, haggard face.
She felt as if the universe were one immense
block of adamant, through which the train
was gnawing and drilling a way for itself like
a fierce, instinctive worm. Half choked, she
let down one of the sashes, and looked out.
The cold wind rushed at her throat ; but the
world was there still a drifting blackness
above, a rushing blackness below, the lower
blackness branded blacker in spots and
stripes where trees and hedges clustered
and stretched. She leaned out of the window
until she was chilled to the bone ; then she
raised the sash, and lay down on the seat
with her back to the engine.
' By God ! she 's uglier awake than asleep.'
* So much the better for her.'
105
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
These words kept burning into her brain.
Plain she had guessed herself to be, but with
wonderful eyes and an irresistible expression
when she chose ; and then her cloud of hair,
on which she could sit ! She rose up, tore
off her hat, uncoiled her hair, shook it about
her shoulders, and looked in the window ;
looked her sweetest, smiled her teeth were
good and said soft nothings to an imaginary
lover. She coiled and uncoiled her hair,
pressed her face to the window to stare into
the depths of her eyes, started back at arm's
length to the middle of the compartment,
to the opposite end and looked at her-
self from every point of view and possible dis-
tance. She was angular, pale, and her
features were very irregular ; but surely she
was not ugly ! She assured herself that, over
certain temperaments, she was bound to
exercise an irresistible fascination. She
recited, she sang, she danced; she grew
warm, her courage rose, and she laughed
aloud. Hastily doing up her hair, and put-
ting on her hat again, she picked up Byron,
and sat down in the middle of one seat with
her feet on the other. She read a piece of
106
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
' Manfred,' a piece of ' Childe Harold,' a piece
of ' Don Juan,' but without pleasure, without
a transference of energy. She grew drowsy,
and had to close the book. Soon, however,
as she shut her eyes and tried to sleep, her
fancy was on the alert. She saw her father's
stern but not unkindly face ; and her mother's,
worn and deeply lined, with all the hardness
gone out of it. That was unendurable. She
sat up again. She stamped up and down the
compartment to keep herself warm. She set
her teeth ; she grew dogged. The train was
going on ; she must go on. She would find
a publisher ; she would go on the stage ; she
would make money ; she would grow famous,
and have men at her feet. The blood
mounted to her head, and the dream of suc-
cess held her again, although with no firm
grip, till the train stopped at Grantham. As
soon as it resumed its journey, the memory
of her last travelling companions returned.
' By God ! she 's uglier awake than asleep.'
' So much the better for her.'
All the way to Peterborough, her sense of
her own lack of physical charm filled her with
dull pain. Why was she not beautiful, with
107
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
rich blood and a gracious body? Why was
she not as beautiful as she often felt as she
always felt in the presence of beautiful things,
visible or heard : paintings, or sunsets, or
music, or the sound of waters ? Wrath pos-
sessed her again ; her father and mother, and
all the unlovely circumstances of her life, were
severally indicted and condemned.
Day had broken for some time before she
took note of it. Veils and scraps of mist
hung about the leafless woods; rags and
tufts had caught in the hedges, and widths
and stretches of it lay on the fields like
immense webs wringing wet, and spread out
to bleach. The gray dawn, labouring with
clouds and the stubborn wintry night, got
into the sky by stealth. Her compartment
appeared like a world within a world, lit by
the ghastly twilight of the yellow gas-lamp
and the dull beams of morning. Sick with
cold, hunger, and discomfort, and exhausted
by an emotional conflict of nearly eight hours,
she felt her spirits, like the yellow gas-lamp,
grow pale in the new day. She suffered
passively for a time, till her misery became
unbearable. Then she let down one of the
108
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
sashes, and flung Byron out of the window.
The relief this action brought was of short
duration; but while she was still fingering
her manuscript in her pocket with thoughts
of tearing it up, the train stopped at Peter-
borough. A countryman and some business
men came into the compartment beside her.
They seemed to her to bring with them a
pleasant odour of breakfast, of cheerful par-
lours, and warm kitchens, where the ruddy
firelight shone on gleaming dish-covers. She
thought of breakfast at home hot rolls and
the fragrance of coffee in the sitting-room ;
hot-pressed newspapers in the shop. She
shuddered, and shut her eyes tight. For
several minutes she sat quivering like a
creature bound and gagged, and in the grip
of some torture engine. At last, quite worn
out, she fell into a half-doze, half-swoon,
which continued until the ticket-collector
aroused her at Finsbury Park.
' Is this London ? ' she said.
* Yes,' replied the collector.
' Do I get out here, then ? '
' What part of London do you want ? '
' Does the train go on ? '
109
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
' Yes ; to the terminus.'
' Ah, yes, the terminus. I '11 go to the
terminus.'
In her abject state the mere word 'ter-
minus ' did her good. Here was something
that had an end. Probably, if the means
had been to her hand when she stepped out
of the train at King's Cross, she would have
killed herself.
There were not very many passengers.
Two or three of these were met by friends,
and formed little glowing knots, with hearty
hand-shakings and kisses. Bustle about
luggage, the getting into cabs, and the giv-
ing of addresses, had never before seemed
to Alison significant of anything except the
pettiness of life. Now her feeling was that
no possible detail of interest that attaches
one to life can be petty. She saw a well-
dressed girl, not much older than herself,
step into a hansom, and tip the porter who
handed up her portmanteau and told the
driver where to go. To possess luggage and
to drive to an address was to be acquainted,
and to have affairs of business or pleasure.
She, Alison Hepburn, was utterly alone, the
no
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
victim of a mad dream that had swallowed
her and cast her up again, a half- digested
morsel. Her soul would bear the marks of
the eating acid forever. It was clear to her
as she stood, forlorn and shivering, on the
platform at King's Cross, that there were
hardly a dozen passable lines in her whole
manuscript. A crimson flame lit her face as
she thought of her confident expectations a
few hours back if not at the rate of Camp-
bell's ' Pleasures of Hope,' then surely at the
rate of Smith's ' Life Drama ! ' She walked
quickly down the platform, pulling her nine
greasy Scotch notes out of her bodice ; but
she did not leave the station.
It was one of the most dismal parts of
London on which she looked out the
junction of Euston Road, Gray's Inn Road,
Pentonville Road, and York Road and
there was a fog. Two men looked out with
her ; they were about to separate, and they
spoke for a minute.
' Then, you '11 have that stuff ready for me
by half-past twelve ? ' said one, who was tall,
well dressed, and well looking, and who
spoke very pleasantly.
in
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
'Yes,' said the other, short, shabby,
husky ; ' between that and one.'
' Oh, I must have it by one. You must
bring it to me not later than twelve-fifty. 1
' That 's impossible,' said the other dog-
gedly. ' Send or come at half-past twelve.
If it 's ready then, you '11 have it. If not, you
or your messenger must wait.'
' Where will you be ? '
' I '11 be in the Manuscript Room.'
' Very well.'
What a beastly fog ! '
' I always like a fog,' said the well-dressed
man.
'Manuscript Room.'
'Manuscript Room.'
She knew she had overheard the talk of
two men in some literary by-path some
lion and his jackal. The jackal stepped
into a green 'bus that drifted into sight and
was gone ; for during the few seconds she
had stood at the exit of the station the fog
had become a dense sooty cloud. She had
been aware of a tumult of 'busses, cars,
waggons, and cabs, and had noticed the four
cross-roads when she first looked out. Now
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
she felt as if she were occupying a hole in an
immense dripping, dirty sponge. Some yel-
low dregs of light were suspended in the filthy
moisture, and there was a muffled sound in
her ears. She looked after the lion, who
had returned into the station. He went to
the cab-rank, walking with such ease and
firmness, she thought. She had not seen
the kind of man before not among the
Edinburgh lawyers, or the actors, whom she
had watched at the theatre doors; not in
Princes Street, and not at Aberdour in the
summer holidays. He looked to her a high
creature from a different sphere. She saw
his face distinctly, in spite of the fog, when
the cab passed out of the station, for she
bent forward and stared. He noticed her,
and looked back, with a mixed expression of
surprise and amusement, a touch of scorn,
an affectation of indifference. It was a
quaint, wild face he saw ; pale, begrimed ;
glaring, fiery-eyed, out of a tangle of black
hair. She saw a strong chin, a small firm
mouth, a straight nose, and black-blue eyes ;
she saw yellow hair and a smooth fair face,
and she hungered for them.
8 113
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
As soon as the fog had engulfed the cab,
she replaced seven of her notes in her bosom,
and turned back into the station. A porter
directed her to the booking-office.
' When is there a train for Edinburgh ? '
she asked of the clerk.
' In five minutes.'
' Oh ! Give me a third single, then.'
She laid down the two notes she had in
her hand, and the clerk paused in the act of
stamping the ticket. He picked up the
notes, and held them close to the gas. She
wondered what was to happen. Was she to
be arrested for something?
' These are only worth nineteen and six-
pence here,' he said.
' Oh ! I '11 give you another, then,' she
rejoined, relieved, and not thinking what she
was saying.
' You don't need. Instead of thirty-two
and eightpence, it will cost you thirty-three
and eightpence, as it were.'
' I see,' she said.
When she had received the ticket and her
change, she walked about the departure
platform in an aimless way. The porter who
114
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
had shown her to the booking-office, having
heard her destination, said to her :
1 Beg pardon, lady, but you '11 miss your
train if you don't mind.'
' Oh, where is it ? '
' This,' he said, opening a third-class car-
riage at her side.
She gave the porter half a crown and went
in. Hardly had she seated herself, when the
train started.
Her journey back to Edinburgh was one
long blank misery, with here and there a
vivid flash of pain. Worn out with excite-
ment, and weak with cold and lack of food
and lack of sleep, she sat motionless in
a corner of the compartment. Passengers
came and went at the various stations.
Sometimes she was alone, sometimes the
compartment was full; it was all alike to
her. She slept no part of the way, but a
kind of trance held her, in which she was
conscious only of defeat and self-contempt,
except at intervals, when she heard inhuman
voices say, ' By God ! she 's uglier awake
than asleep ! ' 'So much the better for her ; '
when she thought of her father and mother ;
"5
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
when the face of the lion mocked her out of
the fog ; or when she turned and stung her-
self with the taunt that her flight was a piece
of mad folly, because she was weak and ugly
beauty and strength would have gone on
undismayed. Her mind had been so fully
occupied, and her thoughts had wandered so
far back and so far forward during the up-
journey, that on arriving at London it had
seemed as if she had been travelling for
weeks. But at the end of the way back,
when she heard one of the passengers say,
'Yes, this is Edinburgh,' she could scarcely
believe her ears. Physically and mentally
exhausted, for her the hours and the miles
had slipped past like minutes and footsteps,
uncounted and unnoted.
She came out at the Haymarket instead
of going on to the Waverley Station, because
the former was further from her home. She
had determined suddenly that her brother and
sister ought to be asleep before she returned,
and it was still nearly two hours to their bed-
time. At the Haymarket Station she was
half an hour from home, and so that disposed
of a quarter of the time she had to wait.
116
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
She took a seat on a bench on the plat-
form. Her mind was a blank numb, like a
bloodless finger. After a few minutes she
went to the refreshment-room, hardly know-
ing what she was doing, and drank some tea.
As she had eaten very little for twenty-four
hours, the tea, inferior station infusion as it
was, had a powerful effect. Her nerves grew
tense at once ; she felt light-headed, and
went out into the street like one walking
on air, as the saying is. The raw east wind
was grateful to her senses ; it smelt of home,
and carried also the fragrance of the romantic
dreams and high thoughts she had been ac-
customed to weave as she walked in the
windy evenings. Breathing hard and step-
ping quickly, she soon reached the west end
of Princes Street. The mass of the castle
and the castle rock, faintly but firmly out-
lined against the night sky, like a piece of
ancient darkness that had grown solid and
taken shape, seemed about to overwhelm
her. Her eye wavered along the ridge of
the High Street; the tall dark houses
trembled and grew steady; ghostly lights
flickered up behind them from shop-windows
117
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
and lurked about the shadowy crown of
St. Giles. Then she remembered Jenny
Macintosh for the first time during her
unfortunate exploit. Near the top of one
of these high houses Jenny Macintosh lived
alone in one little room, and three or four
times a week, often every night in the week,
Alison was in the habit of visiting her.
This Jenny Macintosh was an old woman
near her hundredth year, and belonged to
a type now almost extinct. Her stepmother
had sent her from home to be a cowgirl in
her eighth year. After a number of years in
the country she had come to Edinburgh as a
domestic servant, and had in course of time
married, borne children, and been left a child-
less widow. At sixty she had had to begin
the world over again. Tireless and honest,
she obtained plenty of work as a charwoman,
and it was in that capacity that she became
associated with the Hepburns. She had
worked for Mr. Hepburn's mother, and
when he married she stepped into the position
of what is now called a mother's help.
From her seventy- fifth to her eighty-
second year she had cleaned several offices
118
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
before nine every morning, and had then
gone for the rest of the day to assist Mrs.
Hepburn with her children, always retaining
a room of her own in the High Street. In
her eighty-second year she was disabled by
an accident to her arm, and inquiries having
been made about her in hospital, and her
great age discovered, a small pension from
an old bequest had been settled on her for
the rest of her life.
In the parish school and in the communi-
cants' class, Jenny, although scarcely able to
read, had learned by heart the Shorter Cate-
chism, several passages of Scripture, and
the Psalms in the rhymed version used in
Scotland. Thus equipped, she had faced
unflinchingly her long hard battle. One of
her chief delights had been, and still was, to
repeat the questions, or ' carritches.' She
had employed them as lullabies, and had
found them peculiarly efficacious in quieting
Alison; and now Alison still came to hear
her say them. It was not conscious affec-
tion that had led Alison to call regularly on
her old nurse ; the visit to Jenny, a valid
reason with her parents, enabled her to go
119
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
out every night if she chose; there was
always the walk through the crowded streets,
up Leith Walk and over the North Bridge,
and sometimes she went aside along Princes
Street.
With the remembrance of Jenny Macin-
tosh, Alison became at once, and for the
first time, acutely sensible of what she had
done ; she had cut all the cords that bound
her to her past life. That these could be
reunited and the wound healed, she hoped
she knew, indeed; but the severance had
taken place.
In a moment it flashed on her that perhaps
Jenny Macintosh knew nothing about her
exploit. She breathed a little more freely.
She had paid her regular visit to Jenny the
night before at eight; had reached home
again about nine ; had found at half-past
nine when she went to set the supper she
had planned it so that there was no butter
in the house, and, going out professedly to
buy some, had taken the train to London.
Had she not returned from Jenny's, her
father or her mother would, doubtless, have
gone there at once ; as it was, possibly
120
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
neither of them had gone. She would begin,
then, in the High Street; or, rather, she
hoped to find that there was no need to
begin again with Jenny at least, so far as
Jenny was concerned.
She found the old charwoman sitting as
usual in a low arm-chair beside the fire,
dressed in her gray wincey gown and blue
checked apron, with a white cap, or ' mutch,'
on her head. She was now a very small
woman. Her left arm, the disabled one,
rested on a Bible and a Shorter Catechism
lying on her lap, and with her right hand
she kept polishing the arm of her chair. As
for her face, it consisted of wrinkles, a large
Roman nose, and sharp blue eyes. The
furniture in her room comprised a chest of
drawers, a bed, a trunk, a shelf with dishes,
a cupboard, a table, and three chairs. A
faded carpet covered the floor. There was
nothing in the shape of a picture to be seen,
and no ornament anywhere. In the centre
of the stone mantelpiece stood a candlestick;
at one end was a salt-box, at the other a
wooden bowl containing some coppers.
As Alison entered the little room, she felt
121
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
very safe ; she had come out of a wild en-
chanted land of storms and spectres into an
accustomed quiet place.
' Is that you, Elison ? ' said Jenny, looking
round with her sharp blue eyes that saw very
little.
'Yes, Jenny,' replied Alison tranquilly.
' How are you to-night ? '
' Juist aboot it. Yer faither was here this
mornin'. I could na male' oot juist what he
wantit. He seem't concerned aboot ye, lassie.
He speired if ye aye cam' here still. What
for wad he be thinkin" ye gaed other gates,
noo? '
' I 'm sure I don't know,' said Alison.
' Ye 're sune the nicht, lassie,' said Jenny,
after a pause.
' Ay,' said Alison. ' How 's your rheuma-
tism, Jenny ? '
'Juist aboot it. But I dinna compleen.
It 's a' tae remind me that I didna come here
tae bide, though I think sometimes the boat-
man 's forgotten me. We '11 hae the carritches
noo.'
The old woman handed Alison the Shorter
Catechism.
122
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
4 Where did we leave off ? ' asked Alison.
* The twentieth carritch the estate of
sin and misery.'
' " Who is the Redeemer of God's elect ? " '
Jenny clasped her hands, closed her eyes,
and gave the answer. She spoke correctly,
except for some vowels ; very slowly, very
reverently, and in a kind of rhythm, to which
she kept time with sweeping inclinations of
her whole body.
' " The onnly Redeemer of Goad's elect is
the Loard Jesus Christ, who, being the Eter-
nal Son of Goad, became man, and so was,
and continueth to be, Goad and man in two
distinct natures and waun person for iver." '
' " How did Christ, being the Son of God,
become man?" '
This, the twenty-second ' carritch,' was a
special favourite of Jenny's. She became
excited ; her whole body trembled, her voice
rose, and she delivered the answer triumph-
antly in a passion of belief and wonder.
' " Christ, the Son of Goad, became man
by taking to Himself a true body and a
reasonable soul, being conceived by the
power of the Holy Ghost in the woamb
123
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
of the Virgin Mary and born of her,
yet without sin ! " '
Alison went on mechanically :
' " What offices doth Christ " '
' Bide a wee ! ' cried Jenny, still shak-
ing with excitement. ' Aye ! Umphumph !
Marvellous ! How excellent in all the earth,
Loard, our Loard, is Thy name ! Bide a
wee ! ' she repeated, when Alison was about
to resume. After a minute, Jenny said :
' That '11 dae for carritches. Read the four-
teenth o' John.'
Alison took the Bible from Jenny's knee,
and replaced the Catechism.
'"Let not your heart be troubled,'" she
read. ' " Ye believe in God, believe also in
Me. In My Father's house are many man-
sions : if it were not so, I would have told
you; for I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I
will come again, and receive you unto My-
self; that where I am, there ye may be
also." '
' Ay ! ' said Jenny. * That was written for
me even for me. Ye needna read ony
mair.'
124
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
' Good-night, then, Jenny,' said Alison.
' Gude-nicht. Ye '11 be lookin' in the
morn's nicht ? '
' Maybe.'
' If we 're spar't. Gude-nicht.'
Without either kiss or clasp Alison came
and went. Jenny, indeed, would have mis-
understood any show of affection ; the com-
mon hand-shake itself was employed by her
only on very rare occasions.
Mechanically, Alison turned towards home
on leaving Jenny's. She recognised at once
that she was obeying a habit, and that she
would be home sooner than she had intended
if she went in the direction her steps had
chosen. Nevertheless, she let herself go.
She had come back to the native ground
from which she had wrenched herself; one
fibre had taken root again at once, and the
others were stretching instinctively towards
their old grooves. Yet when she arrived at
the street in which she lived, her first impulse
was to turn and run. The light from her
father's shop streamed across the dreary way ;
the shop was always open late, as penny
packets of paper and envelopes were re-
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
quired by the people in the neighbourhood
till after ten o'clock. She saw the school-
bags hanging at the door, and the tissue-
paper chimney ornaments in the window. It
was this mean life she had run away from,
and to it she was returning, a convicted fool
and coward. Leaning against a lamp-post,
she began to defend herself. The long,
cold, miserable railway journey was the cause
of her defeat. If London were an hour
away, and she could have started in the
morning ! But this was no preparation for
what she was about to do. She would not
be irresolute now. Lifting her dress, she
ran along the street and into the shop.
Her father, who was arranging some new
goods on his shelves, knew at once, although
his back was to the door, that his daughter
had come back. He turned round slowly ;
his face was white, and working; his large
dark eyes lightened and clouded with emo-
tion.
'Well, Alison? ' he said, in a judicial tone,
through which a tremor shot.
' I Ve been very bad,' said Alison sheepishly.
Mr. Hepburn finished what he had been
126
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
about. Alison clasped and unclasped her
hands, and then pulled off her gloves as if
they had been burning her.
' You had better go to your mother,' said
Mr. Hepburn.
Alison passed through the shop into the
parlour, where her mother was sewing.
' Oh ! ' cried Mrs. Hepburn, rising. ' Where
have you been?'
'Nowhere,' replied Alison. 'In a train.
I went to London, and came back.'
' London ! ' said Mrs. Hepburn, sitting
again.
Mrs. Hepburn was older- looking than her
years a tall, scraggy woman, with a sallow
complexion. Alison had inherited her broad
brow and wide, deep- set eyes, but the facial
resemblance ended there ; the daughter's
irregular features were in marked contrast
with Mrs. Hepburn's straight nose and large,
firm mouth and chin.
The parlour, a small square room with a
moderately high ceiling, was lit by a single
gas jet from a chimney bracket. On the
walls were several illuminated texts, and two
engravings one of the Royal Family, the
127
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
other a bird's-eye view of Edinburgh. The
furniture consisted of a Pembroke table,
chairs, and a sofa of mahogany upholstered
in horsehair, a small glazed bookcase, and a
cheap inlaid whatnot.
' Are you tired ? You must be tired,' said
Mrs. Hepburn. ' You 'd better go to bed.'
Alison stood still, staring at her mother,
who had resumed her sewing.
' Where are Tom and Katey ? ' she asked
at length.
* In bed. I sent them sooner than usual.'
' I am tired,' said Alison. ' Good -night.'
' Good-night,' said her mother.
Alison went upstairs to her room, placed
her pound notes in a drawer, washed her
hands and face, undressed quickly, and lay
down. She had never in her life before felt
so completely at rest ; and the repose of her
mind was rather deepened than disturbed by
a vague wonder.
Before she fell asleep her mother came in
and lit the gas. She had brought a tray,
with tea and bread-and-butter.
*You must be hungry, Alison,' she said.
' Sit up and take this.'
128
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
Alison obeyed. While she ate, her mother,
in a nervous manner, lifted and laid things
on the mantelshelf and the toilet-table.
Then she made an orderly disposition of
the clothes which Alison had thrown off in a
heap, and this actual employment restored
in a measure her self-control.
When Alison had finished, Mrs. Hepburn
took the tray, and said, with a return of her
nervous manner :
'Where did you get the money, Alison? '
' It was my own money,' said Alison ; ' I
saved it from the wages father gives me. It
took me three years to save it.'
'I see,' rejoined Mrs. Hepburn, trying to
hide her relief.
She tucked in the bed-clothes, seemed
about to speak again, but said only ' Good-
night.' Then she put out the gas, and
pulled open the door, which had been ajar.
Instead of leaving the room, however, she
stood suddenly stock still. Alison heard
her give up the tray, and come back to her
bedside.
' Alison,' she said, whispering, ' were you
alone ? '
9 129
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
' Quite alone.'
' Well, good-night again.'
Mrs. Hepburn raised her voice, but not
loud enough to prevent her daughter from
hearing a deep long-drawn sigh at the
door.
The most prominent among the ideas that
came dimly before Alison's mind as she fell
asleep was a sense of power acquired over
her father and mother by her exploit. She
had expected to be at their mercy, but found
herself, in a way, mistress of the situation.
In the morning her mother advised her
not to rise until her brother and sister had
gone to school. She had breakfast in bed,
and then slept again for two hours. At
eleven she rose and went to the parlour,
where her father awaited her. Mrs. Hepburn
attended to the shop that forenoon.
Alison blushed fiery red as she entered the
parlour, for on the table lay her manuscript.
< 1 have been glancing through this,' said
Mr. Hepburn, lifting and dropping ' A God-
less Universe.' ' I 'm no great judge of
poetry, but some of it seems not badly
written. I think it 's nonsense, of course,
130
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
too nonsensical to be blasphemous. Was it
this took you to London, Alison ? '
' Yes.'
A subtle smile softened Mr. Hepburn's
face and flickered about the corners of his
dark eyes.
' You had plenty of money with you, your
mother tells me. Why did you come back? '
Alison said nothing.
'I believe it was really at bottom some
affection for your father and mother that
brought you back. Was it, Alison ?'
' Yes, yes,' replied Alison, conscious of an
attempt to appear more deeply stirred than
she was.
* Well, what do you want to do ? ' asked
her father, an anxious look coming into his
face.
' I want to write ; I feel that I have some-
thing to say.'
'How can you have anything to say?
You 're only a lassie yet.'
' Well, then, I have a need to say some-
thing.'
* Yes ; but how are you going to live ? If
you leave the shop, I shall have to hire
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
an assistant, and shall have nothing to give
you.'
' I '11 stay in the shop,' said Alison, ' though
I hate it.'
'I hate it, too. I may tell you, Alison,
that it was just such restlessness as is now
appearing in you that stranded me here. I
know how difficult it is to learn from the
experience of others ; but it is as sure as you
are sitting there, that if you don't stick to
the shop your life will be one of misery.
That I can foresee.'
' What did you want to be, father ? ' asked
Alison, forgetting herself in the new light
thrown on her father's character.
< I shall tell you of my foolish days. My
father wished me to be a lawyer, and I
studied law for several years. When he
died, I persuaded my mother to enter me for
the Church; then I shifted to medicine;
then I wished to be a medical missionary ;
but, instead of studying, I wasted my time
at revival meetings. I spent about eight
years at the University altogether, eating up
my father's savings. My mother had carried
on my father's business a very good
132
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
stationery and fancy business in Princes
Street but her employes cheated her, and
we were bankrupt before I had acquired
even the rudiments of a profession. It was
then we came here, and it was then I learned
that religion is more than sentiment, that
without works faith is a mere prurience, that
love for God without duty to God is an illicit
love.' Here Mr. Hepburn, whose speech
had grown fervid, paused abruptly. ' In the
circumstances,' he said, resuming, ' it is odd
that I should be explaining myself to you.
I am afraid you have a very hard heart,
Alison. But I shall never urge religion upon
you. Well, then, my lass, are you quite
prepared to go on as before ? '
' Yes,' said Alison, as heartily as she
could. ' Oh, father ! ' she exclaimed, sud-
denly understanding, although scarcely feel-
ing at all, how gentle he was with her.
She had never really had a talk with her
father before. His hard life had made him out-
wardly stern, and his children shunned him.
' I hope,' he said, laying his hand on his
daughter's head, as h left the room, ' this
will work for good to us all.'
133
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
It was said and done conventionally, and
spoilt entirely the effect of the interview.
When her father had gone, Alison picked
up her manuscript and turned to her favourite
pieces.
' I 'm damned if they are n't good,' she
said hotly.
She put some dozen pages in her pocket
and thrust the rest in the fire. She then
went to the bookcase to select a book, but
her mother entered from the shop.
' Now, Alison,' Mrs. Hepburn said, I
hope you are going to do what your father
wants. He is very stern-like. You 've not
been thwarting him ? '
' Oh, no ! '
' You '11 be wise not to. You '11 find it
impossible to live at loggerheads with your
father, his sense of duty is so strong. If
you please him, you may be certain you are
doing what 's right, Alison. Go into the shop
and see if he wants you. I must look after
the dinner.'
* Oh ! ' said Mr. Hepburn when his daugh-
ter appeared. ' I forgot to say to you to try
and be more agreeable with your mother
134
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
more of a help to her. Your mother has a
very strong sense of duty, and you may think
her exacting sometimes, but she will never
ask you to do what you can't or oughtn't
to do.'
' A strong sense of whose duty ? ' asked
Alison. ' And what is duty ? '
' These are childish questions, Alison,' said
her father.
But Alison grinned, thinking what simple,
grotesque people her father and mother were.
What had duty to do with shop-keeping, and
cooking, and the making of beds ? All those
things, and all other things, became so utterly
insignificant when she put the question :
Could it ever have been anybody's duty to
bring into the world such an ugly, ill-condi-
tioned creature as Alison Hepburn? She
picked up a toy hand-mirror, and looked at
herself in it, and then at her father. Mr.
Hepburn, half divining something ; dreadful
in her mind, left the shop quickly.
Shortly after, Tom and Kate came home
from school for dinner. They had clearly
been cautioned about their first meeting with
Alison, for they looked very conscious when
135
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
they saw her. Tom, a lanky, ill-thriven boy
of twelve, turned round as he was about to
pass into the parlour, and stuck his tongue
in his cheek. Kate, a lanky, ill-thriven girl
of ten, blushed and looked sideways at her
sister.
Alison kept the shop while the rest were
at dinner. She sold some copy-books, some
pencils, some note-paper, and thought how
wretched it was to be depending for a liveli-
hood on such petty wants. How ineffably
weak and foolish she had been to come
back ! She said nothing to Tom and Kate
when they passed through the shop again on
their return to school ; and they, quarrelling
hotly about a piece of slate-pencil, gave their
sister neither word nor look.
After dinner she read listlessly in several
books. In the evening she visited Jenny
Macintosh, and walked along Princes Street
eating her heart out. She was so utterly
unequipped for the battle of life that there
could never be any need for her to choose
between shame and starvation. For a mo-
ment she envied the furred and scented
women she passed.
136
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
* By God ! she 's uglier awake than asleep.'
' So much the better for her.'
If somebody would only put an iron mask
on her and shut her up in a cage ! If
' Oh, Miss Hepburn ! How do you do ? '
It was James Williamson, the son of a
wholesale stationer, with whom her father
dealt. The Williamsons were members of
the same church as the Hepburns. James,
a loutish, red-haired lad of twenty, travelled
for his father ; an adept at business, he was
regarded by his friends and by himself as
a social failure. Alison flushed when he
stopped her ; he and his attentions had not
once crossed her memory during her journey.
She never had thought of him at all. He
had been to her a mere detail common to
the nuisances of business and church-going,
an odd creature who generally succeeded in
shaking hands with her on Sunday in a
bashful, surprised way, turning up in un-
expected corners with his ' Oh, Miss Hep-
burn ! How do you do ? ' It occurred to
her for the first time that this man was
wooing her, that here was a lover ! She
remembered in the instant of shaking hands
137
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
how his business visits were generally paid
in the evening when her father was at tea,
and she alone behind the counter ; and how
he never would hear of her summoning her
father, but stood looking at her and trying
to talk until Mr. Hepburn returned to the
shop.
She gave him her hand and burst out
laughing; it was such an odd sensation.
Here was a man who desired her, wanted
her, thought he needed her. She laughed
again.
' Oh,' said young Williamson, much dis-
concerted, ' I see you 're quite well ! I
thought you weren't. Good-bye.'
' But why did you think I was ill ? \ asked
Alison, becoming serious.
* You looked so white,'
Alison said nothing. She was wondering
what attraction she could have for this stupid
red-headed fellow.
'Well, good-bye,' he said.
'Won't you walk back with me? ' she
asked.
James rubbed his hands, and stared.
Then, with a gurgling laugh, he placed him-
138
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
self at her side, and assumed the position of
escort in a very self-conscious manner.
They walked on in silence for several
minutes.
'I say,' said James, after clearing his
throat repeatedly, ' what a good reciter you
are!'
' Do you think so ? '
* Yes, you do it splendid. But you 're
awfully clever.'
' How do you know I 'm clever ? '
' Everybody says you are.'
' Everybody ! '
' In the church, you know.'
* What else do they say about me ? '
James looked askance at her.
' Then, they do say other things about me.
Tell me.'
' Well mind you, it 's only what they
say.'
'Of course.'
' Well, you 're conceited and stuck-up.'
'And what do you think? '
'Me!'
<Yes.'
' Oh, I don't mind if you are.'
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
'Do you think me conceited and stuck-
up?'
' I can't express myself. You know I 'm
not clever. It 's like this : I would like you
to be conceited and stuck-up, but not with
me.'
James, alarmed at what he had said,
moved a little away, and fell half a step
behind ; but Alison turned towards him,
laughing, and he pulled himself together
immediately.
' Do you read much ? ' asked Alison.
' I have n f t time, and I don't care for it. I
suppose you 're an awful reader.'
' I have n 't time, either, but I read as much
as I can.'
' Shakespeare and Scott and Carlyle, and
all those old buffers, I suppose ? '
' I don't care much for Scott. He 's no
psychologist.'
' Ah ! ' exclaimed James admiringly.
' Who 's your favourite poet ? '
' Byron, I think.'
' Ah ! Byron ! Ay. I say, do you know
I 'm going into partnership in a month ? '
'With your father?'
140
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
' Yes. I '11 have two hundred and fifty per
ann.'
He watched her closely out of the tail of
his eyes to note the effect of this announce-
ment ; but it was not visible, which was dis-
appointing. If he had no learning, he was
about to have an income; and that was
something to set off against the reading of
Byron.
* I suppose a man can live on two hundred
and fifty a year? ' said Alison.
' Rather ! Why, a man can marry on two
hundred and fifty a year ! '
' Into misery,' said Alison, looking him
square in the face.
' Misery ! ' he exclaimed, standing still
abruptly, while she half halted and moved
on more slowly. 'But do you know what
you're saying?' he cried, getting into line
again. ' Plenty of people marry on a hun-
dred.'
* I don't call that marriage.'
' Oh, you don't call it marriage ? ' he said,
not knowing whether to be perplexed or
amused. 'What would you call marriage,
now? '
141
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
' I don't know. Are you coming in ? '
They had arrived at the shop.
' May I ? ' he said eagerly. < Do you think
I should?'
' Father will be glad to see you.'
' I Ve no business, you know.'
' Never mind.'
Mr. Hepburn, surprised but not ill pleased,
shook hands cordially, and asked the young
man to go into the parlour. There the table
was set for supper, and Mrs. Hepburn was
busy at the fire.
' This is a surprise ! ' she said.
' Oh ! ' said James. ' I was coming down,
at any rate, and met Miss Hepburn on the
way.'
' Well, you '11 stay and have a bite of sup-
per now you 're here ? '
' Oh, thank you ! '
' We 're very homely people, you know,'
continued Mrs. Hepburn. ' But you won't
object to take pot- luck? We have no ser-
vant, so we let the kitchen fire out after
tea, and if there 's any supper to cook, do
it here.'
' And a very good plan, too/ said James,
142
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
beside himself with delight at the cordiality
of his reception.
Alison began to assist her mother, but
Mrs. Hepburn declined her help.
' Show Mr. Williamson the album,' she
said.
Seated together on the sofa, they looked
over the album, holding it between them.
Young Mr. Williamson's eager interest in
every photograph of which Alison chose
to speak was very marked. Mrs. Hepburn
noticed it, and cast an intelligent glance at
the couple.
* Oh, this is yourself, Miss Hepburn ! '
cried James, seizing the album, and holding
it close to his face. ' It 's like you,' he con-
tinued, * and yet it 's not like you. It does n't
do you justice. It does n 't bring out your
expression, or your eh wonderful eyes.'
' Don't be stupid ! ' said Alison.
When the album was finished, James
turned to the bookcase. A shelf of red and
blue books, with heavily-gilt backs which no
one could mistake, attracted his attention.
He took down one and opened it.
' Ah ! ' he exclaimed, with lifted eyebrows.
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
' Your prizes, Miss Hepburn ! ' He went
over several of them quickly. ' Arithmetic,
history, geography, English literature, elocu-
tion, French, general excellence first prizes
in everything,' he said. 'It's too terrible.
I never got a prize in my life.'
' Oh, that does n 't mean anything, or, if it
does, it means the opposite of what you
think. Scott never got a prize, nor Shakes-
peare, I should think.'
' No,' said James, perspiring with pleasure,
his resemblance to Scott and Shakespeare
never having struck him before.
' It was the merest accident that I got all
these prizes. There was nobody cleverer
than me in the school, or I should n 't have
had them.'
Apart from its modesty, which he adored,
this was, in James's estimation, a most origi-
nal way of looking at things.
' Nobody cleverer ! If there had been
anybody cleverer ! Well, that 's a good one ! '
he said.
' I mean,' explained Alison, ' that if there
had been anybody at all clever in the
school, I should n 't have had them ; I 'm not
144
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
clever. Scott and Shakespeare were n 't clever.
Women, as a rule, are cleverer than men.
Mrs. Browning and George Eliot, for example,
were far cleverer than Scott and Shakespeare.
I mean, that these two women were given to
sitting down doggedly and acquiring things,
whereas Scott and Shakespeare let things
come as they would. Mrs. Browning and
George Eliot hunted out their mental food
killed it, skinned it, cooked it, ate it and it
was always tough to them ; while Scott and
Shakespeare why, they just drank it in
without knowing it.'
* Oh, Mr. Williamson,' said Mrs. Hepburn,
' she talks such nonsense ! never mind her.'
'Oh, it's not nonsense, Mrs. Hepburn,'
James retorted. ' I never heard such things.
Why, it 's quite wonderful ! You ought to
have a class in the Sunday-school, Miss
Hepburn. And Byron was Byron clever ? '
' No ; he was a dunce all his life.'
James chuckled and spluttered at this.
Then he said, radiant at the idea of coming
out with something critical :
' By-the-by, Miss Hepburn, I thought you
did n't like Scott ? Now, you know, you
10 145
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
placed him along with Shakespeare just
now.'
' Oh, yes ! But I know how great he was,
although I don't quite like him in the mean-
time. After awhile I '11 like him again. It's
children and old people who read Scott,
most, they say.'
Mr. Hepburn came in from the shop, and
they sat down to the table. To the fried
potatoes, which was the usual supper twice
or thrice a week, Mrs. Hepburn had added
a hash of the cold meat originally intended
for next day's dinner ; and there was coffee,
bread-and-butter, oatcake, and raspberry
jam.
James found everything very good indeed,
and chatted with Mr. Hepburn about busi-
ness and church matters.
Immediately after supper Mr. Hepburn
rose.
' I have some accounts to finish,' he said.
' I wish you would come and help me, Annie '
his wife's name.
' Let me clear the table first.'
' No ; I '11 do that,' said Alison.
' Well, I must go now,' said James.
146
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
' Must you ? ' queried Mr. Hepburn, in a
disappointed tone.
' There 's no hurry, Mr. Williamson,' said
Mrs. Hepburn reproachfully.
' They '11 be wondering what 's come over
me at home. I had no intention of being
so late.'
'In that case, we won't press you, Mr.
Williamson,' said Mr. Hepburn.
James reached for his hat.
'Mr. Williamson's going to help me to
clear away the dishes,' said Alison, with
a heightened colour and a catch in her
voice.
' Oh, of course, with pleasure,' said James,
upsetting a coffee-cup.
' Alison ! ' exclaimed Mrs. Hepburn. ' For
shame ! Do you know what you are saying ? '
' But I want to,' said James.
' You two old fogeys go away,' said Alison,
with unusual briskness, and taking a liberty
with her father and mother, the like of which
she had never used before. ' Mr. Williamson
and I '11 manage all right.'
' Alison,' said Mrs. Hepburn, ' you 're for-
getting yourself entirely.'
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
But her husband pulled her skirt, and they
left the parlour together.
Two cups were washed and dried in
silence Alison very grave, James grinning
from ear to ear.
'Well, but,' stammered James at last,
resuming the conversation that had been
interrupted on entering the house, while he
polished the third cup vigorously, 'if you
can't marry on two hundred and fifty per
ann., the world would begin to stop.'
' But what could a husband and wife do
on two hundred and fifty per ann., as you
call it?'
' Why, they could have a nice little house
and a piano and a good general servant, and
they could ask their friends to little parties ;
and when they came home from church-
meetings and soirees and things, there 's their
cosy parlour all to themselves, a fine fire, and
a bit of supper laid. And they could practise
the hymns. Oh, you 've no idea how com-
fortable it would be ! '
'I see.'
'Well?'
' But you could n't go to a good seat in the
148
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
theatre whenever you wanted to, or visit
London and Paris now and again.'
'No,' said James, in dull amazement.
'No.'
' Do you go to the theatre often ? '
' Me ! I never was in a theatre in my life.
Were you?"
' I only went once for half an hour on
the sly, of course. I saw the first act of
"Othello" it made me quite giddy.
Then the orchestra began after the curtain
fell, and I felt like to cry out with anger. I
wanted the play to go on, on, on. And I
came away. But I mean to go now openly.'
'Oh ! ' said James at a loss. ' Of course,'
he went on stammering, ' you being such a
good elocutionist ! '
' Yes,' said Alison, draining a saucer into
the slop-basin in which she was washing the
dishes. ' Would n't you like to go to the
theatre?'
' Well is n't it wrong ? Of course,
you 're not a member of the church, and '
' No ; but I can easily join it, can't I ? '
' Oh ! ' said James, twisting his face in a
perplexed grin.
149
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
'Do you know what I did the other
night?'
'No.'
' I went to London.'
'To London? 1
' Yes ; but I hear father and mother
coming. Don't say anything about this
before them.'
' No, no, I won't,' said James, gratified
by this secret understanding. 'But you
must tell me all about it.'
' So I will some day.'
' Oh, but soon ! '
'Well, to-morrow night? Half-past eight
on the North Bridge.'
Alison remained in the parlour after her
father and mother had gone to bed. Having
read a little in an anthology of verse, she
took from her pocket the few pages of ' A
Godless Universe ' which she had preserved.
She went over them carefully, and without
excitement.
' What paltry trash ! ' she said, blushing
deeply.
The fire was almost out, but she gathered
the embers together, and blew them into a
150
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
blaze. Then she lit her manuscript, and,
with a sick smile, watched it burn.
' That 's done,' she said, poking the charred
pieces of paper into the glowing ash. ' We
can practise the hymns ! ' she muttered, as
she went upstairs to bed.
Next morning she professed to be too ill
to rise. She refused to eat anything, and
lay in bed all day. When she came into the
parlour at tea-time, her father and mother
looked very gloomy ; but nothing was said
in the presence of Tom and Kate. At half-
past seven she visited Jenny Macintosh, who
was in a reminiscent mood, and talked, now
to herself, now to Alison.
' Naething but taties and rye-bread, lassie,
and sometimes nae saut at a', it was that
dear. But there was nae puir folk then:
a' body helped their neebour; an' beggars
was better aff than mony hard-wrocht folk
are the noo. It was the Jubilee year that I
cam' to Embro' George the Third's Jubilee.
Lod, lassie, there was them, an ' I kent them,
that lived for weeks on what they got that
day. They had nae system ava, I 'm
thinkin' ; their richt haun' kent naething
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
aboot their left ; they gied in thae days wi'
baith nieves. And then I merrit. You 're
gettin' a lump o' a lassie, noo, Elison. Hae
ye ever a jo ? But you '11 dae brawly for twa
year yet. I was auchteen when I merrit.
Aye ! then I kent I was in the warl', wi' a
growin' fem'ly, an' wark at ither hooses
forbye my ain ! But he was a guid man a
guid man was Macintosh. Had it no been for
the carritches, though, I wad niver hae warstled
through. There 's an awfu' poo'r o' help in
the Shorter Catechism. We '11 hae it noo.'
Alison took the Catechism.
' " What offices doth Christ execute as our
Redeemer ? " ' she asked, remembering where
they had left off the night before.
' " Christ as our Redeemer," ' replied
Jenny in a high-pitched voice, swaying her
body to the curious, careful, childish rhythm
in which she delivered the answer, " ex-
ecuted the offices of a Prophet, of a Priest,
and of a King, both in His estate of humilia-
tion and exaltation." '
Jenny said five questions, finishing up
triumphantly with ' Christ's exaltation ' a
great favourite.
152
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
' " Christ's exaltation consisteth in His
rising again from the dead on the third day,
in ascending up into heaven, in sitting at the
right hand of Goad the Father, and in
coming to judge the world at the last
day." The last day the last day,' she re-
peated several times. ' Noo, read the ninth
o' the Romans. Begin aye, begin at the
fourteenth verse.'
Alison turned up the place in Jenny's
Bible, and read :
* " What shall we say, then ? Is there un-
righteousness with God ? God forbid. For
He saith to Moses, I will have mercy on
whom I will have mercy, and I will have
compassion on whom I will have compassion.
So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of
him that runneth, but of God that hath mercy.
For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even
for this same purpose have I raised thee up,
that I might show My power in thee, and
that My name might be declared through-
out all the earth. Therefore hath He mercy
on whom He will have mercy, and whom He
will He hardeneth." '
'Aye,' interjected Jenny. 'Bide a wee.
153
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
" Therefore hath He mercy on whom He will
have mercy, and whom He will He har-
deneth." Aye ! Umphumph ! Marvellous !
That's Goad! Weel?'
'"Thou wilt say then unto Me,"' con-
tinued Alison. ' " Why doth He yet find
fault ? For who hath resisted His will ? Nay,
but, O man, who art thou that repliest against
God? Shall the thing formed say to him
that formed it, Why hast thou made me
thus ? Hath not the potter power over the
clay, of the same lump to make one vessel
unto honour, and another unto dishonour?" '
Alison paused. She heard a husky, re-
laxed throat say, ' By God, she 's uglier
awake than asleep ! ' and an old slippery
voice reply, ' So much the better for her.'
' Aye ! ' said Jenny. * Weel, yes, ye may
juist stop there. That 's the teuchest ane
that was ever written in the Bible, or oot o' 't,
lassie. And there cam 1 a Salvationist the
ither day speirin' if I was saved ! A piece o'
damned impidence ! What div I ken? I
tell't her it was nane o' her business : an'
says she, speakin' far ben in her coal-scuttle
bannet, " But it 's everybody's business,
154
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
Missis Macintosh." " We el," says I, " what 's
iverybody's business is naebody's business,"
an' she smilt a kin' o' a weak smile. "Gae
wa'," says I; "we've naething tae dae wi'
that; it's only Goad kens that." "But,"
says she, " you surely hope you won't go to
hell?" "Why sud I hope onything o' the
sort, if it's Goad's wull?" says I. "Oh,
Missis Macintosh," quo' she, "you must
surely be lookin' for some reward after all
these toilsome years?" "An' what for sud
I?" says I. "There's them that's been as
sair trauch'lt as me, starvin' in the puirs-
hoose, or begging their bread frae door tae
door the noo, an' me sittin' here as crouse
as ye like wi' a pension an' naething tae dae
but twiddle my thoombs. It 's gey like I
hae gotten my reward in this warl' a'ready;
an' it 's maybe juist because Goad kens what
I '11 hae tae thole in the neist. I ken my
ain ken," says I, and sent her awa* wi' a
flea in her lug. Set them up, wi' their
tambourines ! I 'se warrant there 's no ane
o' them could say as muckle as "Man's
chief en'." '
' Well, good-night, Jenny.'
155
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
' Gude-nicht, Elison. You "11 be up by the
morn if we 're spar't ? '
' Ay, Jenny.'
Although she had ten minutes to come
and go on, Alison hurried to the North
Bridge. James was there before her had
been for fully a quarter of an hour.
' Oh ! Miss Hepburn ! How do you
do?'
' How tiresome you are ! ' said Alison.
' Can't you say, " Good- evening, Miss Hep-
burn," or "Alison"?'
' Can I may I call you Alison ? '
' Don't get excited.'
James chuckled, enraptured with this con-
tinuance of the familiar manner Alison had
adopted the night before.
' Where shall we go ? ' he said.
' Let us take a walk along Princes Street.'
Along Princes Street they went.
* You were never in a theatre,' said Alison.
' But were you ever with one of these ? '
'What? One of what?' exclaimed James,
looking about him distractedly.
Alison nodded her head in the direction of
some furs and feathers that passed.
'56
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
' God forbid ! ' said James, aghast. ' Why !
Miss Hepburn ! '
' But are n't you courting me ? ' said Ali-
son.
' I am,' said James. ' I am.'
' And you want to marry me ? '
' Yes,' gasped James.
' Well, then, have n't I a right to know if
you 've led a pure life ? '
* Oh ! I was n't looking at it in that light.
Of course you have, Miss Alison. I Ve
led a very pure life, I assure you.'
' What an awful cad you are ? ' cried Ali-
son, stopping short, and looking him up and
down scornfully.
* Well I never ! You 're a most tantalis-
ing, fascignating thing.'
' It 's " fascinating, " ' said Alison fiercely.
' Fas-cin-at-ing ! And don't call me a
" thing." '
' Well,' rejoined James sheepishly, ' I '11
remember. Fas-cig Every one I know,
Alison, says " fascignating " as far as I can
remember, that is.'
She replied with a look.
' Fas-cin-at-ing. I '11 remember,' he said.
157
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
They walked side by side, but with fully
two feet between for a minute.
' It 's it 's like crossing the Rubicon,' said
James, sidling up awkwardly. 'I'm very sorry
for having offended you. I hope '
' Oh, don't be stupid,' said Alison, taking
his arm.
' Ha ! ' exclaimed James, and chuckled.
' And why did you go to London, then ? ' he
asked.
' Oh, just to see it,' she answered.
* Just to see it?'
' Yes : I took a run up to have a look at
the place. I suppose you 've often been in
London ? '
' Yes ; I Ve been once or twice on busi-
ness.'
* I want to live in London.'
' But you '11 marry me all the same, Alison? '
' You 've never asked me yet.'
' Never ? No ! Well, will you ? '
' Yes.'
' And I wonder if it could be soon ? '
' Of course it could.'
' Could we get married next month, just as
soon as I 'm made a partner ? '
158
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
'Yes, James.'
James laughed a little uncomfortably.
' Ah ! ' he said, after a minute's silence,
' you must come right away and see my
father and mother.'
' I can't,' said Alison ; ' I 'm not dressed.
Rutyvu must come and see my father and
mother.'
James kissed her quickly on the mouth as
they turned back towards Leith Walk.
' Don't ! you must n't ! You must never
do that ! '
It was almost a scream ; her face glowed
dusky-red in the dim lamplight, and her
eyes glared on him.
* I beg your pardon,' he said. ' I should n't
have done it in the street ; but nobody
noticed.'
' But you must never do it anywhere till
we 're married.'
' Not kiss you ! '
'No.'
' Do you love me, Alison ? ' he asked, with
a gasp.
' Oh, how can you ask that ? Have I not
promised to marry you ? '
159
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
' Yes, yes. Well, then, and what did you
think of London? '
'Oh, I never saw it just some 'busses
and a fog.'
' How long were you there ? '
' About seven minutes. For a minute and
a half I looked at the 'busses and the fog,
for the other five and a half minutes I walked
about the Great Northern Station.'
' Well, I never ! What on earth did you
do it for?'
'I was wearied and sick of everything,
and there was no help anywhere, and no-
body to Oh, and I could n't endure it
any longer.'
' Nobody to nobody to love you? '
* How could I tell ? You never said any-
thing but " Oh, Miss Hepburn, how do you
do?" And I I did n't know what I was
doing, I was so desperate.'
' Oh, Alison ! You loving me all the time
like that, and me not knowing it ! '
' Hush ! people are looking at us.'
Mr. and Mrs. Hepburn, genuinely devout
and dutiful people, felt that their daughter's
160
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
marriage with young Williamson would open
a miraculous door of deliverance. They saw
in it God's hand preparing a means for
Alison's regeneration, and also preparing a
path whereby they themselves, in their de-
clining years, might be led by quiet waters.
'James Williamson,' said Mr. Hepburn,
'is really a religiously- inclined young man.
There is nothing of the tinkling cymbal about
him. He is respected by everybody in the
church, and, young as he is, I should n't be
at all surprised to find him appointed an
elder in a year or two.'
' What I admire about him,' said Mrs.
Hepburn, 'is his carrying his religion into
his business. He is so upright in all his
dealings, and no conceit ; that 's what I like
about him. Of course Alison 's as good as
he ; but nobody could have blamed him if
he had gone where there was money.'
' No,' rejoined Mr. Hepburn ; ' the great
matter is that she will be the wife of a
religious man, and must soon be brought
into the fold. She has been led, poor lassie !
by strange ways.'
* Yes,' said Mrs. Hepburn. * I should
u 161
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
think marriage '11 knock the nonsense out of
her, and open her eyes to her duty. It is
almost a pity that her life will not be a little
harder to begin with, at least. With two
hundred and fifty a year she will hardly ever
need to soil her fingers ! '
Mrs. Hepburn changed a sigh into a cough
as she looked at her own horny hands.
But Mr. and Mrs. Williamson were not
particularly pleased with their son's choice.
'Well, what do you think of it all?' said
Mr. Williamson.
' I think,' said Mrs. Williamson, that it 's
rather a pity. But there 's this to be said for
James ; he has not been led off his feet by
a pretty face. There must be something
attractive in her character.'
' I dare say. She is pleasant enough, too.
There 's one thing : she 's been brought up
frugally ; she '11 take care of his money for
him.'
< And that 's something,' assented Mrs.
Williamson, heartily. 'I was always afraid
lest he should make up with one of those
Dickson girls. And they don't dress well,
either ; they were perfect frights last Sunday.
162
Alison Hepburn's Exploit
Oh, James might have done worse, I believe.
And let us hope that it 's His guidance.'
' She 's not a member, I understand ? '
' No, not yet ; but of course she '11 join the
church at once.'
' I suppose so. Hepburn 's a decent fel-
low. He 's in pretty shallow water, though.
His wife's rather a hard-mouthed woman,
isn't she? How many other children have
they?'
' Only two. I know what you 're think-
ing : you 're afraid James may be marrying
a family. You needn't; I'll take care of
that.'
163
,THE MEMBER FOR GOTHAM
< /"* OOD-MORNING,' said the Member
V_T for Gotham the moment the inter-
viewer entered his sanctum. 'Whatever
your business may be, I hope you will state
it as briefly as possible. I am very busy
preparing a programme for my Premiership
in 1900.'
An epigrammatic reply in commendation
of his own brevity was on the interviewer's
lips, but he improved on it, brilliant as it
was, by putting his first question :
' Will you allow me to interview you ? '
' There is as yet no law against interview-
ing,' said the Member for Gotham thought-
fully, as he made a memorandum.
You think there ought to be ? ' the inter-
viewer suggested.
' I don 't think about it,' said the Member
for Gotham.
' Well, then, since the subject is started, will
you give me your opinion of interviewing ? '
164
The Member for Gotham
* Is it worth a thought ? It is one of the
recognised forms of advertisement; the
interviewer is paid for his work ; and since
there is no law against it, as long as two
parties are served it will continue. Where
is the use of having an opinion about it?
That won't change it, or do away with it.'
'Where is the use of having an opinion
about anything, then ? '
' Quite so ! ' said the Member for Gotham,
lighting a cigarette.
* Then, have you no opinions ? '
' Humph ! It 's too difficult ! Ask me
another.'
'What do you think of '
'Don't ask me what I think. Ask me
something I know.'
'But that'll never do. That's not how
an interview is conducted. If people only
said what they knew, interviewing would be
asphyxiated. You must express opinions
whether you have them or not ; you must
make guesses, hint scandals ; you must colour
everything you say with '
' I understand with falsehood.'
' No ; with your individuality.'
165
The Member for Gotham
'The distinction escapes me.'
' You are not very complimentary to your-
self. But I must get on. You wish me to
ask you something you know. Now, what
do you know ? '
'I know,' said the Member for Gotham,
' what I mean to do when I 'm Premier.'
'Then, you know that you will be Premier? '
' It is the only thing that can be predicted
with certainty.'
' Well, then, when you are Premier, what
will you do with the House of Commons?
How will you manage it ? '
' You do not seem to me quite to under-
stand your business. You should put ques-
tions hi detail. Give me a cue.'
' I see. How would you do away with the
present waste of time in Parliament ? '
' I would begin by raising the standard of
membership.'
' How would you do that ? '
'I would make Parliament a branch of
the Civil Service.'
'Again how?'
' First of all, no man should be eligible for
election under thirty years of age. Once
166
The Member for Gotham
elected, he would be allowed to remain in
Parliament as long as he could find a con-
stituency, and meet certain requirements. '
' Certain requirements ? '
' Yes. Let me see, now. I would estab-
lish seminaries of politics and statesmanship
in which intending M. P.'s, having graduated
at a University, would study for three years.
The ordinary Master of Arts degree would
do, but there would be only one degree in
Politics and Government. When a man is
going to help to govern the British Empire,
he should take his degree in Statesmanship
with first-class honours.'
'Do you think, then, that competitive
examination selects the best men ? '
' I do not ; but my examination would not
be competitive. The actual competition
would take place, as now, on the platform.'
' I understand. But how would this plan
save time in Parliament? It is your best
educated men, as education- goes, who talk
the most there.'
'And necessarily. The rank and file
require to have the meaning of the various
measures driven into them by debate. But
167
The Member for Gotham
don't you see that if every man were gifted
with the power of understanding a Bill inde-
pendently of the exposition of others, there
would be no need for discussion ? '
' But is it not the case that many of the
best educated men in the House of Com-
mons study very few of the Bills ? '
' That is so ; but I have a plan to meet
that difficulty.'
'What is that?'
'I would simply abolish debate. In the
House of Commons during my Premiership,
not a sound shall be heard from year's end
to year's end, except the tread of states-
men.'
' And a cough occasionally.'
' Quite so.'
'But how how?'
'The Crystal Palace shall be the House
of Commons in my time. There the
Speaker and I shall preside, and there the
members of Parliament shall write examina-
tion-papers on each Bill. There is space
enough at Sydenham for the six hundred
odd members to sit at such distances from
each other that neither a whispered nor a
168
The Member for Gotham
written word could pass unobserved. The
questions shall be exhaustive, and the Oppo-
sition shall examine the papers of the party
in power, and the party in power the papers
of the Opposition.'
* And what would constitute a failure ? '
' Anything short of seventy per cent.'
' And the penalty ? '
' The plucked member would be disabled
from voting for the measure he had failed to
comprehend. If any man failed three times,
he would be sent down to his constituency.'
'Would he go?'
' He would more likely apply for the
Chiltern Hundreds. But if a thrice-plucked
man had the hardihood to face his constitu-
ents, and could show such a plausible case
that they were willing to give him another
chance, he would be allowed to keep his
seat; but on the first failure after that, a
new writ would be issued for the borough he
represented.'
'What an overwhelming amount of work
would be inflicted on members by this
scheme ! '
' Let me see,' said the Member for Gotham,
169
The Member for Gotham
rubbing his nose. ' I have computed that
my system would reduce a country squire
from sixteen stone to a living skeleton in six
months; and the strongest men, physically
and intellectually, would be killed off or in-
capacitated, on an average, in three years.
A Gladstone might last you some seven or
eight.'
' Would that not be a wanton sacrifice?'
' I don't see it. Every year two or three
hundred men are sacrificed in providing
coal ; hundreds are offered up to Mammon
on railways and the high seas, and three
millions, we are told, are starving in order
that I may smoke cigarettes, and you waste
your time hearing me talk. Don't make any
mistake. You 're a luxury, Mr. Interviewer.
If a House-of-Commons-full of men were to
work themselves to death every three years
in an endeavour at last to govern the British
Empire rationally, it seems to me that it
would simply be the performance of a duty.
It would, besides, provide naturally for trien-
nial Parliaments. If Tom, Dick, and Harry,
to the number of six hundred, plunged into
the mouth of Hell at a wrong order in 1854,
170
The Member for Gotham
and are ready, as we know they are, in the
name of duty to do the same to-day to the
number of six hundred hundred, we can
surely find a House of Commons willing to
die in harness every three years ! '
' But is it necessary ? '
' Something 's necessary, and I 'm going to
try it when I 'm Premier.'
Having said that with great emphasis, the
Member for Gotham picked up his pro-
gramme to signify that the interview was
over, and the interviewer took his leave.
171
TALKING AGAINST TIME
THE world shall now know under what
extraordinary circumstances Onesi-
mus Iremonger withdrew from the contest
in the by-election at Belminster, Kent.
Until the moment of his retiral, he was on
the best of terms with his committee. Even
old Jasper Snoxell, the chairman, and the
wealthiest and most ill-natured man in Bel-
minster, had whispered to the secretary,
loud enough for Iremonger to hear, that he
was, on the whole, not altogether dissatisfied
with his attitude towards one or two
questions, at any rate. On the eve of the
nomination-day, a meeting of the committee,
at which Iremonger was present, lasted till
nearly midnight. It was on the point of
breaking up, when the following letter was
handed to the candidate :
' DEAR IREMONGER, Snoxell will get a letter
at the same time as you get this, or shortly after.
172
Talking Against Time
He will want to rush out immediately. Don't
let him. Keep him in the committee-room till
after twelve, by fair means or foul. Get him
into an argument. That 's the best plan. He
would sacrifice his chance of salvation any day
to have the last word. My happiness, my life,
and the happiness and life of another, depend on
your keeping Snoxell prisoner till twelve o'clock
has rung.
' Yours ever,
'ARTHUR ARMSTEAD.'
* Armstead ! ' said Iremonger to himself
' He has come back, then, after all ! '
Armstead had bullied him at school, beaten
him at college, been in and out of Parlia-
ment twice before Iremonger had delivered
his first electioneering speech, and had left
Britain in high dudgeon over something or
other almost a year before the date of the
Belminster by-election. They had always
been warm friends in the remarkable un-
sentimental manner of the modern British
Damon and Pythias. Iremonger would have
done anything for Armstead, and Armstead
would have done a good many things for
Iremonger.
' By the way,' said Iremonger to his com-
173
Talking Against Time
mittee, as the old habit of doing whatever
Armstead asked him revived at once, ' there
are one or two points which I should like to
discuss very briefly before we go.'
The committee looked bored, and Snoxell,
who prided himself on his management of
affairs, and was certain that he had omitted
no detail, prepared to be offended. Before
Iremonger could proceed, however, a letter
marked ' Immediate ' was handed to Snoxell.
As soon as he had read it he turned pale,
and, forgetting his hat, made a dash for the
door.
Iremonger was subject to occasional fits
of vertigo. That day he had addressed three
meetings in the open air, had spoken for an
hour and a half in the town-hall at night,
and had been with his committee since ten.
He was now quite worn out. He staggered
and nearly fell ; a red-hot poker seemed to
pass through his head ; the room swam about
him ; his committee looked like creatures in
an aquarium. Then he felt as if he were
being swept down by a whirlpool, while he
heard Armstead crying for help far out at
sea. He must get up and save him. Old
174
Talking Against Time
Armstead ! who had beaten him in every-
thing. Ha ! Except he had nearly for-
gotten that Armstead had never been able
to compete with him in the comic paper of
their college. Poor old Armstead !
Suddenly he saw the room as it was the
door open, and Snoxell in the act of leaving.
' Snoxell ! ' roared Iremonger.
The committee stared with open mouth.
To address a chairman, and, above all, that
particular chairman, without the ' Mr. ! '
They had never heard of such a thing.
' Come back, Snoxell : I want to talk to
you,' said Iremonger at the pitch of his voice.
Some-thing was whirring in his brain, but he
felt now in perfect possession of his faculties,
and was much charmed with himself.
Livid and breathing hard, Snoxell re-en-
tered the room.
' What 's the exact time ? ' he said to the
secretary, his lip curling up and showing his
set teeth.
' Ten minutes to twelve.'
'Does the west entrance to the station
keep open till the express leaves ? '
' Always.'
175
Talking Against Time
' And I can go from here to the station in
two minutes ? '
' Easily.'
' Now, Mister Iremonger. Sir to you ! '
cried Snoxell, opening and shutting his teeth
with every word. He held his watch in one
hand, and his hat, which the secretary had
reached him, in the other.
' Keep your temper, old man,' said Ire-
monger, pale but radiant. 'We are all
yeomen of Kent here, you know. Ten min-
utes to twelve ? Yes, all yeomen of Kent ;
and there 's not one of us that could n't
talk straight on for ten minutes if we
were put to it, eh ? Snoxell, Kinson,
Bentlif, Walloond, Morling, Edmett, Arvad,
Axelrad good old Kentish names and
Iremonger, by Jove ! There is no older
family in England than the Iremongers of
Kent, and no family more remarkable in its
descent. The blood of Roman, Celt, Saxon,
and Norman circulates in my veins. "Ire,"
you know, from "ira," anger; and "mon-
ger," pure Saxon. Therefore, a Saxon must
have married the offspring of a union be-
tween a Roman and a Celt. That is mainly
176
Talking Against Time
tradition, but the Norman blood is in the
family tree. Give me a Kentish man give
me an Iremonger and give me Kent.'
' Why do you live in London, then ? '
asked Snoxell quickly.
Although always ready for a fray, he had
been quite at a loss to understand why Ire-
monger should have turned on him. Now
he saw that it was something else than a
sudden heat against him, and he determined
to give Iremonger as much rope as he could
pay out in ten minutes.
' London ! ' rejoined Iremonger ; ' why,
London is the only safe place in Britain !
And even there I never go further west than
Queen's Gate, and further east than Picca-
dilly Circus south to the House, and north
to the Zoo.'
' You think, then, that it 's safe between
these points? ' interjected Snoxell, paying out
rope.
' Pretty safe ! You see, London is so im-
mense that I should be bound to hear of the
invasion long before the army could reach
Piccadilly.'
' The invasion ? '
12 177
Talking Against Time
'Yes. You seem a little surprised; and
there are, indeed, many people to whom the
idea of the coming invasion is of little
moment. To me it is of the first import-
ance.'
'You think, then, that there will be an
invasion. By the French ? '
' By Europe.'
'Europe?'
' Yes. Europe is angry at Britain with an
anger that has been growing for fifty years
for a hundred and fifty years ever since
Culloden. I should say ever since the
Dutch war, in Charles II. 's time ; for Hum-
bert's abortive attempt in Ireland does n't
count.'
'Doesn't count? '
' No. Indeed, we may go back to the
Spanish Armada, because no projected in-
vasion of consequence has come up to the
scratch since.'
' Ah ! And the impending invasion is
certain to come up to the scratch ? '
' Rather ! You see, every country in
Europe has been overrun by alien armies,
and drenched in native blood shed by
178
Talking Against Time
swords of foreigners again and again, while
positively the last parallel instance in the
history of England is the battle of Hastings.
Now, Europe is not going to stand that any
longer. Except for civil wars I count the
invasion by the Dauphin in John's time
civil war England has had peace within her
own borders for seven hundred years. It 's
absurd, gentlemen ; Europe can't and won't
stand it. I assure you, at any moment a
million soldiers may march on London,
levied by a Continental coalition. I have
calculated, however, that it is more likely
that the invasion will leave London to the
last, in order that the whole wealth of the
country may be collected there. Europe 's
exasperated, and means to do the thing
thoroughly when it comes over. London is
therefore the only place from which one is
reasonably certain of being able to escape,
and so I prefer to live there.'
' But the signs of the times point to war
among the European Powers themselves,
rather than to an invasion of Britain,' said
Snoxell.
' All in the plan all in the plan ! ' re-
179
Talking Against Time
plied Iremonger. 'They keep threatening
each other, advancing troops, and exhibiting
ships in order to have a pretext for increas-
ing and perfecting their armies and navies.
I tell you it is impossible to conceive the
rancour of the Powers against Britain.
When they think that this cold, wet, disa-
greeable little island, inhabited by stupid
people, has steadily increased in wealth, and
managed to lay hold of the best parts of the
world while they have been chewing each
other up like rats in a cage, they foam at the
mouth and gnash their teeth. Britain is
doomed; Europe will kick it into the sea
before twenty years are over that is to
say, if there is anything left to kick.'
'Anything left?'
' Yes. Have you paid no attention to the
development of the woman question ? Mar-
riage, once a lottery, is now a certainty.
Hitherto, the husband was occasionally
mate, and more frequently master; now
he is an anachronism which woman puts up
with, just as we have beefeaters in the
Tower. Britain is doomed either way. If
it escapes the Scylla of invasion, it falls into
180
Talking Against Time
the Charybdis of the " monstrous regiment of
women." I could almost welcome the in-
vasion. It is the only thing that would put
back the tyranny of women for another half-
century. I venture to prophesy that within
twenty years there will be a general exodus
of men from these islands.'
'And the women?'
'Will pursue the men.'
' There seems to be no door of hope.'
* None. Britain is practically done for ! '
' Well, then, Mr. Iremonger,' said Snoxell,
pocketing his watch and putting on his hat,
' the best thing you can do is to withdraw from
the election, die, and be cremated at your
earliest convenience.'
' Cremated ! ' cried Iremonger. There
again ! If everything else fails, in cremation
you have the surest if the slowest means of
extinguishing the world. For everybody
burnt, so much of earth is lost. In the
course of ages you will gradually deplete the
soil and destroy all organic matter. Don't
you see? By cremation you make, as it
were, the fire of doomsday chronic. No, I
shall never be cremated. Earth to earth,
181
Talking Against Time
and dust to dust. We can all be benefactors
to the world at large, and at last, by paying
into the great bank of life the soil our
bill at threescore years and ten, or whenever
it is due. I have thought over all these
matters. I have considered everything.'
Here Iremonger began to speak with great
rapidity and very loud, Snoxell having
stepped towards the door. 'The world is
as transparent to me as a crystal globe.
Although no single one of all the contin-
gencies that threaten it volcanic rupture,
comets, the attraction of the sun should find
an opportunity, the world, in the ordinary
course of Nature, must come to an end. It
is so to an end. But I have a stupendous
idea for the extension of the ordinary course
of Nature. Whether we bury or cremate, the
soil will ultimately lose its virtue. But if we
could call up virgin soil from the deep ! Yes,
I shall write to the Times to-morrow. We
must take a lesson from the coral insect,
and, by means of ocean burials, create new
continents. I shall work it out. I see it !
Let us talk it over.'
At this point the town clock began to
182
Talking Against Time
strike twelve. With an oath Snoxell started
to run, but Iremonger seized him by the
coat-collar, and held him while he shouted
in his ear, nodding his head emphatically as
he counted the strokes :
'Two first of all, we three should
have to start with four the bodies of
criminals five use up human waste
six with the bodies of criminals seven
we could settle the hash of the Goodwin
Sands eight an island in place of the
Goodwin Sands nine on a foundation of
French ten and British criminals
eleven with a middle stratum of twelve
Hurrah for old Armstead ! '
' Confound you ! ' cried Snoxell, as a
rumbling shook the room. 'The London
express has gone ; and what do you know
of Armstead ? '
Iremonger, breathless, perspiring, and with
a sickly smile on his face, had thrown him-
self down at full length on a sofa.
' Armstead ? ' he replied. ' My oldest friend.'
' Your oldest friend ! ' echoed Snoxell,
falling into a chair. ' Then I 'm the dupe of
a pair of shameless adventurers.'
183
Talking Against Time
* Gentlemen,' said Iremonger quickly, ' I
have no explanation to offer, and neither,
I think, has the chairman in the mean-
time.'
Snoxell nodded.
' One thing I wish to say, Mr. Snoxell : I
had no idea Armstead was in England,
and have neither seen nor heard anything of
him for a year, until I got his letter ten
minutes ago.'
' What the But it does n't matter/ re-
joined Snoxell. ' You have one other thing
to say, I think, Mr. Iremonger,' he added
significantly.
' Yes,' rejoined Iremonger. ' Believe me,
gentlemen, I have no distinct I have
really no recollection at all of what I said.
I deeply regret what has happened ; it was,
however, unavoidable so far as I am con-
cerned. I must, of course, retire from the
contest, and I shall now write at once a
formal resignation of my candidature on the
score of sudden illness an attack, gentle-
men, to the reality of which you can witness.
Two days after, Iremonger, breakfasting
184
Talking Against Time
late in his rooms in King's Bench Walk, was
surprised by visitors.
' Mr. and Mrs. Armstead.'
' What ridiculous news is this ? ' cried
Armstead.
' My retiral, you mean ? Well Hea-
vens, Miss Snoxell ! '
' Mrs. Armstead now, old fellow.'
' I begin to understand. Perhaps it was
on her account you left England a year ago ? '
' It was, Mr. Iremonger,' said Mrs. Arm-
stead, in a fine tremor. * But what a dread-
ful thing I have done ! Can you ever
forgive me ? '
'For making Armstead happy? '
' Oh, no ! For causing you to lose the
election.'
' I 'm rather thankful than otherwise. I
lost my head, and said things my committee
could never forgive. It is better to make a
fool of one's self privately in Belminster than
publicly in the House of Commons, as I
should infallibly have done sooner or later.
Pray consider that you have rendered me a
service, my dear Mrs. Armstead. Have
some tea, and tell me all about it.'
185
Talking Against Time
' Act first,' said Armstead : ' I fall in love
with the orphan lady. Uncle Snoxell, who
has managed his niece's money for fifteen
years, insists on a marriage with his own son.
Lady of age, but dare not run counter to her
guardian, a strong old fellow you know
him. Act second : I leave England in de-
spair. No sooner have I sailed than the
lady acquires courage to brave her uncle,
and sends a letter which follows me half
round the world. Act third : Letter re-
ceived. I hasten home. Interview with
lady easy on account of election bustle.
Flight arranged. Suborned maid betrays
at last moment to Snoxell's son, my rival, a
foolish youth; then repents and confesses
betrayal to me. Act fourth : Brilliant idea
employ Iremonger as deus ex machina.
No sooner thought than done. Works like
magic. Young Snoxell loiters feebly about
the station awaiting his father. I hail him
from the carriage and offer him a cigar,
which he takes feebly. " I say, you
know," he says, " you 've got Maud hi there.
It '11 never do. My father 's coming." I
bet him ten to one that his father won't
186
Talking Against Time
come. He accepts, and tosses feebly
a sovereign at the carriage window as the
train moves off. Act fifth : Marriage. The
bride and bridegroom visit the good Ire-
monger.'
' Epilogue : " Bless you, my children." '
187
BANDEROLE'S AESTHETIC BILL
' \7"OU 'RE gloomy, Banderole.'
X ' I always am in March.'
'How's that?'
' Because in March I mourn for my ^Es-
thetic Bill.'
' Your ^Esthetic Bill?'
' Yes ; have you never heard of it ? '
' Never. Tell me about it, Banderole.'
' Shall I ? Well, I suppose I may. But
I must premise. Look at me, Magsworth.
If you were to characterise me, you would
say that I am a man of a passable appear-
ance, with ah a certain undignified
frankness shall we call it ? and a pleas-
ant voice. Come, now, we 've known each
other for about a week ; and that 's your
opinion, isn't it? Well-spoken, well-look-
ing, carelessly frank, and shrewd withal ? '
' Yes ; I may think that you are perhaps a
little partial to yourself; but that's about
my opinion.'
188
Banderole's Esthetic Bill
' Quite so. That is the opinion I have of
myself; that is the opinion all my new ac-
quaintances form of me; but it is not the
opinion of my old friends ; and in six months
it will cease to be yours if you continue
knowing me.'
'I shall continue knowing you if for no
other reason than to test the truth of what
you say.'
' Very well. It was not until I was forty
that I discovered what my intimates thought
of me. Until my fortieth year, the good-
natured, undemonstrative deference with
which those who knew me best treated me
appeared to me a tribute to my shrewdness.
I use the word " shrewdness " now ; six years
ago I should have employed some such
phrase as " great talents," " indisputable
capacity," or " remarkable gifts " ; but I have
had a lesson.'
* Lessons are learnt occasionally even in
these days, when people are afraid to ac-
knowledge that they were ever taken in
even by themselves.'
' Quite true. One day, a propos of some-
thing I had said, an acquaintance exclaimed,
189
Banderole's ^Esthetic Bill
" You can't mean that ! It 's not in keeping
with the transparent simplicity of your char-
acter." I forget what it was I had said, but
that remark about myself was a revelation to
me. I went home with it, and sat down and
thought it out. Clearly my intimates con-
sidered me a merely ingenuous person;
brusque people took the edge off their man-
ners in dealing with me, not because they
feared me, but because they looked upon me
as a child ; and the wind was tempered for
me generally. It was a painful process, I
can tell you, having my eyes couched of the
self-complacent belief that others thought
me a thorough man of the world. Then for
a while I liked my being misunderstood. To
have the reputation of a simpleton and to
be a Macchiavelli is to enjoy a position of
great power; and I went about for weeks
revelling in a perfect analysis of the motives
of all my acquaintances. I saw how they
wanted to protect me, to aid me, to save me ;
I had only to ask for a thing to have it;
everybody wished to be able to say, " I, too,
did something for that dear fellow Bande-
role." I tired of that, however, and deter-
190
Banderole's ./Esthetic Bill
mined at last to appear in ray true colours ;
but it was a most hopeless undertaking.'
'It has been said that there is nothing
more difficult to live down than a good
reputation.'
' And well said ; I found it so. When I
did anything in the rdle of Macchiavelli,
people took it as a joke, and it was decided
that my simplicity of character grew daily
more transparent. It was to no purpose
that I said the bitterest things about all my
friends; they simply quoted them to each
other as Banderole's latest, and agreed that
none but a man of the most ingenuous nature
could have detected and characterised their
faults and foibles so unerringly. I despaired
of ever appearing as I really am in the ordi-
nary walks of life ; so after much cogitation
I hit upon a distinctly original idea. Did
you ever have a distinctly original idea ? '
'I'm not sure.'
' Well, if you ever have one, you will enjoy
it, at first ; and then you will be in an agony
till you make up your mind what to do with
it. One's first penny in one's first breeches '
pocket is an icicle compared to one's first
191
Banderole's Esthetic Bill
original idea. There are so many things you
can do with an original idea. You may
exemplify it in your life '
' And get run in.'
'You may put it into a magazine
article '
'And be snubbed for a plagiarist. You
may imbed it in a play, or bury it in three
volumes ; you may paint it, or carve it, or
sing it, and nobody will look at it or listen
to it.'
'You understand the matter. But if you
put it into a Bill and get it passed, why,
there you are for ever and ever with the
British Constitution. So I drew up a Bill
incorporating my original idea. By that
Bill I expected at one stride to step upon a
pedestal, and exhibit once for all that breadth
and subtlety which, as long as I was only
one man more in the street, escaped the ob-
servation even of those who knew me best.'
' But you were never in Parliament ? '
'No, but the Marquis of WagstafPs son
promised to get his father to introduce the
Bill into the House of Lords. You see, it
was really a sort of sumptuary Bill, and the
192
Banderole's ./Esthetic Bill
Lords was the proper place for it, I was told.
I called it a "Bill for the Beautifying of
Britain," or, briefly, an " ^Esthetic Bill." '
'Umph! Goon.'
'The Bill arranged for externals only.'
' Right. If the outside of the platter be
clean, it follows that the inside will also be
clean.'
'I am glad you think so. It was my
opinion. I have found that the best shops
make the finest show, in spite of proverbs to
the contrary. I made no attempt to be com-
prehensive, believing that, if in one or two
vast concerns an sesthetic reformation were
effected, the details would practically work
out themselves. I began with railways.
My Bill provided that railways should be
bordered all their length by gardens, and so
become, as it were, rivers of flowers flowing
across and along the whole land. The lines
themselves were to be made of steel, damas-
cened with arabesques in brass and silver.
The stations were all to be castles, kiosks,
pavilions, with drawing-rooms, dining-rooms,
smoking-rooms, upholstered artistically. I
worked out a new type of carriage superior
13 J 93
Banderole's ^Esthetic Bill
to anything that has ever been seen before ;
and I introduced a clause requiring all
electricians, under a heavy penalty, to labour
at the development of electro-motion. I
made it penal to advertise in railway-stations ;
but that was covered by a general clause, for-
biding all mural and open-air advertisement.
It seems to be so simple. Stop advertising,
and nobody would be a penny the worse.
On the contrary, a great many people would
be infinitely better in temper and digestion,
for you would reduce measurably the worry
of competition.'
' And what about those whose occupations
would be gone advertising- agents and bill-
stickers?'
' My dear Magsworth, my ^Esthetic Bill
provided occupation for more people than
are ever likely to want work. Consider the
immense army of gardeners required for the
railway-borders, of skilled craftsmen to keep
my damascened lines in order. In every-
thing I touched I provided work artistic
work for thousands.'
' Yes ; but about this advertising. There
are many miles of dead wall in suburban
194
Banderole's ./Esthetic Bill
lines that would be even more sombre and
depressing were it not for the enamel and
colour of wines, perfumery, etc.'
' I would have the bill-stickers taught
fresco-painting they can already wield a
brush; and they should then cover these
walls with designs and pictures.'
And the economy of it ? How, for
example, would your railways pay?'
'The simplest thing in the world. The
Government would, of course, take them all
over ; there would be only one class, and
one fare a penny ; you would stick a stamp
in your hat and go anywhere from Charing
Cross to Westminster or Wick. What
would be the result of such an arrange-
ment ? Why, Britain would practically re-
side on its railways ; and you would have
on every line, not a constant succession of
trains, but one long unbroken train, going
and coming, all day, all night. And the in-
come I 've worked it out. Suppose twenty
million people travelled a day and 1 con-
sider that below the average you would
have, at a penny a head, considerably over
^30,000,000 per annum ; but at least two-
Banderole's Esthetic Bill
thirds of the passengers would return the
same day, which would give you a gross
income of ^50,000,000.'
' Figures like these speak for themselves.
And how did you get on with Lord Wag-
staff ? '
' Well, when I had the Bill drafted, I read
it to Wagstaff's son. He was in a hurry at
the time, but promised to tell his father
about it. I offered to send him a copy, but
he said he must speak about it first. Next
week he went off for a two-years' tour round
the world, and I don't believe he said a word
to his father, for I wrote the Marquis three
times and received no reply. It was in
March I drew up my Bill. I have never
had such a time of pleasurable excitement
since : hence my gloom.'
' And you never got on the pedestal ? '
' No. Yet I expounded my Bill to all my
friends. It is my unfortunate reputation as
a merely ingenuous person that stands in
the way. I have overheard people, after the
most eloquent exposition, saying, "Sweet
soul, Banderole ! " " Delightful creature ! "
" So simple and confiding ! " Now, Mags-
196
Banderole's /Esthetic Bill
worth, honestly, tell me your opinion of my
Bill.'
' I really have n't time. I have to go
I 'm afraid I 'm off on a two-years' tour round
the world. 1
197
AMONG THE ANARCHISTS
' "\ T 7E can't go in there,' I said to the
V V acquaintance who had persuaded
me to visit a foreign club in Whitechapel.
It was cold ; we were in a dark, narrow
street; a drunken sailor lounged past us,
grumbling at the universe ; my companion
had knocked at a low door, and upon its
being opened I had recoiled from the noi-
some-looking entry ; the physical discomfort
of dirt and evil smells seemed a price too
dear for the new experience I had agreed to
undergo.
' You can't go back now ; it 's quite clean
inside,' replied my companion; he had vis-
ited the club more than once.
In we went, through an open court, and
along a narrow, ill-lit passage I shudder-
ing and holding my breath, my companion
whistling and unbuttoning his overcoat
and up some wooden steps to a landing,
198
Among the Anarchists
where a man, like an Italian, met us at the
door of a little room. To him my compan-
ion said something, which he afterwards as-
sured me was a greeting in Yeddish, the
Hebrew-German patois. He also nodded
to a woman who was selling ginger-beer to
two fur-capped men ; she was a blonde Jew-
ess, stout, pleasant-looking, neatly dressed,
with a cigarette between her lips. Some
more steps brought us into a small well-lit
hall with a stage and curtain at one end.
It was quite clean, the plain deal benches
bearing still the marks of a recent scouring.
On the walls were inscriptions in Hebrew
letters ; a large cartoon of the Chicago anar-
chists, Spies, Parsons, Linggard, Engel, and
Fischer, who were executed a few years ago ;
and an engraving of Lassalle coarse ; al-
most a caricature ; like a composite photo-
graph of Peace, the murderer, and Lord
Randolph Churchill. Some half-dozen men
were hanging about the door Polish Jews,
my companion said.
We took seats near the middle of the
room, and had not long to wait before it
filled up. It was about five minutes to eight
199
Among the Anarchists
when we entered, and by eight o'clock there
were nearly two hundred people assembled,
men, women, and children; all of them
clean, and tidily dressed; most of them
remarkably contented and cheerful-looking ;
many of them with fresh complexions and
bright eyes; handsome faces among both
the men and the women. In height, the
majority were under the average. They
were nearly all Jews, I was told; dark,
blonde, auburn; Russian, German, Polish,
Italian ; by trade, mostly tailors and tailor-
esses. Conventional Jewish features were
rare, however; among the men, not more
than every sixth face could have been at
once identified as Israelitish ; there was less
deviation in the women from the ordinary
type.
They were all Nihilists, Anarchists, the
extreme of social rebels. It was a club, but
there was no smoking or beer-drinking ; they
all seemed to know each other; families,
groups of intimates, sat together talking and
laughing ; people moved about from seat to
seat, or addressed each other across the
room.
200
Among the Anarchists
'Why, this is very tame,' I said to my
companion. ' Where are your conspirators,
your incendiaries, your regicides ? '
He laughed, and bade me wait a little.
Shortly a bell rang, and the curtain went
up, discovering a chairman seated at a table.
Behind him was a painted scene, and on
either hand imitations of pillars and trees.
He had a large brow, gray eyes, shaved
cheeks, and a slight moustache. He was
nattily dressed, authoritative-looking, evi-
dently of more than average intelligence ;
only slightly Jewish in the cast of his fea-
tures ; liker an English than a foreign Jew.
A carafe with water, a tumbler, and a hand-
bell were on the table.
The chairman said a few words in Yed-
dish, which made his hearers laugh; then
he announced a speaker and sat down.
A man left the audience, and entered on
the scene from the right. He was rather
tall, with very fair hair and fairer beard;
mild, blue eyes ; black clothes fitting him
loosely ; dishevelled, uplifted, the type of an
enthusiast; not a Jew. He spoke in Ger-
man, very rapidly. Only part of the audi-
201
Among the Anarchists
ence understood him, but all were attentive.
The speaker had no gesture, little motion of
any kind, was diffident, self-conscious, but
impressive. When he had spoken for a
quarter of an hour, the chairman rang his
bell. In less than five minutes the speaker
wound up his address, and was at once ques-
tioned by two or three people successively.
He gave satisfactory answers, and resumed
his seat among the audience.
Then came a tall, chubby lad of seventeen
or eighteen, whose appearance on the plat-
form was hailed with cheers and laughter.
He was not a buffoon, however ; the audience
were laughing'at the recollection of humorous
sayings of the youthful orator and in antici-
pation of fresh witticisms. He spoke slowly,
smoothly, without effort, and the Yeddish had
a mellow sound in his clear rich voice. Soon
he had everybody shaking with laughter ; they
laughed quietly lest they should miss a single
point. Suddenly the mirth died down, faces
grew pale, and tears came into the eyes of
women. As suddenly the laughter burst out
again, unrestrained this time, crackling and
spluttering among the tears. The speaker
202
Among the Anarchists
alone seemed unmoved. It was a most
remarkable display in a mere boy of the
highest oratorical power.
The third and last speaker was a Polish
Jew a little dark man with a thin, pleasant
enough face, and burning black eyes. He
was received demonstratively, and plunged at
once into a tirade an indictment of Capi-
talism, or of Society in general, doubtless.
He drove his charges home with clenched
hands and a pouring delivery, which had the
effect of a shower-bath on the audience, leav-
ing them breathless and glowing all over.
After the speeches the chairman stepped
down from the platform, and a conversazione
began, everybody smiling and in the best of
humour. Cigarettes, cigars, and a few pipes
were now lit ; and the women and children
ate cakes and drank lemonade.
' Well ? ' queried my companion.
' I am much amazed and amused,' I said.
' Do you know what it reminds me of ? '
'A Young Men's Mutual Improvement
Society?'
'Very nearly. To me this meeting of
Anarchists is exactly like a church soiree.
203
Among the Anarchists
There is, apparently, the same respectability,
the same easy, simmering excitement, the
same perfect confidence in the absolute
uprightness of their purpose in meeting to-
gether. I should say that this club is no
more dangerous to the State than a Mission-
hall.'
' I am not so sure about the danger,'
replied my companion, ' but I agree with the
rest of what you say. Their political creed
is the religion of these people ; and as human
nature is identical everywhere, their weekly
meetings present the same phenomena as the
weekly meetings of any other body of people
united in doctrine. I confess [that it has
been somewhat tame to-night. I have seen
hot debates, heard hoarse cries, and watched
stealthy hands groping for revolvers and
knives.'
'What ! to fight among themselves? '
' Oh, no ! Excited almost to the point of
running amuck.'
'Come, now,' I said, 'how do you know
that there are revolvers and knives here ? '
My companion answered rather evasively.
He had interpreted certain actions to mean
204
Among the Anarchists
the clutching of weapons; but I gathered
that he had never seen either a knife or a
revolver within the walls of this club.
Families, groups, sweethearts, and indi-
viduals began to leave; by half-past nine
the hall was cleared. My companion intro-
duced me, in the anteroom, to the chairman,
the speakers, and several other Anarchists ;
and I started a conversation with the crude
announcement ' that popular common- sense
which regards Anarchism as synonymous with
violence and dynamite is as right as ever it
was.'
' Ah ! ' said the enthusiast, who spoke
English correctly, and with little accent,
* that is just what Society says, " No com-
promise;" and that is what we say.'
* But dynamite is a compromise,' I re-
joined. 'War in any form is, and always
has been, a compromise : both parties, afraid
of being put in the wrong by the " no com-
promise" of impartial arbitration, fly to
arms.'
A tolerant smile was the only reply the
enthusiast deigned to give to my paradox.
' Everyting,' said the fiery Polish Jew, ' ees
205
Among the Anarchists
gompromyce. Ze woarld ees a gompromyce
between ze inanity and someting.'
The enthusiast rejoined in Yeddish. It
seemed to me that he was explaining to the
Polish Jew his own meaning : I wish he had
explained it to me. Then he went on in
English, 'Yes, everything is a compromise.
Life itself is the only evil, and all our organi-
zations and schemes are a compromise, or
an attempted compromise, with it. I refer
everything to the two poles, positive and
negative. The negative is the supreme un-
attainable good ; the positive is the supreme
ever-present evil. If we live we compro-
mise; "no compromise" would be a de-
struction of all life in order to attain the
unattainable.'
'Then you admit that the true doctrine
of the Anarchists is one of destruction?'
' I do. Hegel marks the culminating point
of the purely theoretic side of modern culture ;
therefore we have arrived precisely at the
point where the necessary dissolution of that
culture ought to begin.'
' Why, then, you are a Nihilist,' said my
companion.
206
Among the Anarchists
1 If you like. I would prefer, however, to
be called an ^nihilist. I have never quite
understood how the word Nihilist got its
vogue. We don't believe in nothing ; on
the contrary, we are intoxicated with belief
in everything conceivable, and wish to
annihilate it.'
This the enthusiast said with nonchalant
gravity, as if it were even simpler to organise
a revolution for the annihilation of humanity
than for the overthrow of a government.
* But would you not be content with
change ? ' I asked.
'For my part, I believe change is im-
possible. The form may alter, has altered,
again and again; but you will always have
dominant and serving classes, always rich
and poor.'
At this a tall, red-bearded German, who
spoke good English, burst in with a dis-
claimer.
' No, no ! ' he cried ; ' you misrepresent
Anarchism or, at least, you may cause this
gentleman to misunderstand it. Anarchism
is the individual revolution as distinct from
the collective revolution. The collective
207
Among the Anarchists
revolution is impossible, because we exist,
not as a community, but only as individuals.
You see? There is nothing above me,
nothing without me, nothing within me,
greater than myself. I do not submit my-
self to my spirit, mind you. My spirit, like
my flesh, is only one of my qualities; the
individual is more than soul and body.'
' Well, now, what is the individual ? ' asked
my companion.
' The individual, the ego ! ' replied the
German. * There are no words to define it ;
it is unsayable ; it cannot be named ; it is
perfect ; every individual is every instant ex-
actly what he can be, and nothing more or
less. I know of nothing that can impose
duty on me. I do not consider myself as an
individual among other individuals, but as
the only individuality which exists. All
things men and so-called property are
my goods and chattels in proportion as my
force allows me to appropriate them.'
The enthusiast attempted an interruption
at this point in the German's harangue, but
the latter bore him down.
'You see, it is simply freedom,' he said,
208
Among the Anarchists
'and one is free in proportion as one is
strong ; there is no liberty except what you
take. The State, Religion, Humanitarianism,
Socialism all that disappears before the
Sovereign ME. Truth itself signifies nothing.
Thoughts are the creatures of the individual ;
they are not themselves the individual. I
say that to believe in a truth, in any truth,
is to abdicate the individual. Thus we are
all fighting against each other, and every
weapon is allowable poison, infernal ma-
chines, because all that is required to become
immediately endowed with an inalienable
right to have a thing is that one should
desire to possess it.'
' Would it not be wise, then,' I asked, ' in
an individual holding your opinions, to keep
them to himself ? For his own sake, I mean ;
he will have a better chance of securing
what he wants if he alone acts on his " no
principle." You are too benevolent ; you arm
every one against you if you tell the world
that you have taken for your creed the
negation of the decalogue.'
' Error ! ' said the red-haired German
coolly. It is not for love of men, still less
M 209
Among the Anarchists
for love of truth, that I express my thoughts,
but for my own pleasure exclusively. I speak
because I have a voice, and I address you
because you have ears for which my voice
was intended.'
' Let me speak now,' said the chairman.
' I should like this gentleman to see that
there are as many kinds of Anarchism as
there are men me, for example. I want to
be a tyrant ; to relieve the world of all moral
clogs and world-old prejudices; to be the
anarch, and found a new religion and a new
legislative system for my own glory.'
The chairman's brief declaration elicited
no surprise from his companions, and I re-
ceived it as a matter of course.
'I understand Anarchism now,' I said;
'it is simply, Every man his own god.'
' Precisely,' said the enthusiast.
'Of course you are all wrong,' said my
companion. ' Don't you see that Anarchism
is the exaggeration of the idea of Liberty,
just as Socialism is the exaggeration of the
idea of Equality? Both have parted com-
pany with each other, and with Fraternity.
In my opinion, Society is quite healthy,
210
Among the Anarchists
although its constitution may be run down,
largely the result, I should say, of a dissipa-
tion in Liberty and Equality. You have
divorced these two ideas from Fraternity,
without which they cannot hold water. Did
nobody ever say to you, " Little children,
love one another"? Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity ! For the first two we want to
substitute Duty and Reverence. Fraternity
means Charity.'
Those who understood him smiled toler-
antly and went for their hats ; they were not
there to listen. They wished us ' Good-
night ' frankly and cheerily, and my com-
panion and I took our departure.
211
THE INTERREGNUM IN FAIRY-
LAND
HAROLDA lived with a lady whom she
called aunt, in a noisy street in the
north of London. She was rather a forlorn
little girl, although the lady treated her very
well indeed. Her uncle, as she called the
lady's husband, never forgot her birthday,
and when she was seven years old he gave
her a book of fairy-stories, containing many
coloured pictures and very little reading.
Harolda was not clever, and it took her all
her time to spell out the stories. But she
liked stories much better than the other
children in the house did, and this made
her the favourite of an old lady who lived
across the way, and knew a great many tales
and delighted to tell them. After tea
Harolda would cross the road with her doll
to this old lady's house, and would hear of
giants and jinns and fairies, of underground
212
The Interregnum in Fairyland
palaces and enchanted forests, and of poor
girls who had married beautiful princes.
Most people would have thought Harolda a
very simple-minded little girl, for she longed
greatly to go to an enchanted forest; but
she never thought of setting out in search of
one as long as she had the old lady to talk to.
At last, shortly before the end of Harolda's
eighth year, the old lady left the neighbour-
hood, and nobody could say where she had
gone to. So Harolda, having no one to tell
her any stories, made up her mind to do
nothing less than go in search of Fairyland
itself; she thought that perhaps a story
might happen to her. She intended at first
to ask one of the children who had called
her * cousin ' to accompany her ; but she
changed her mind when she remembered
how they had all made such a jest of her
and her fancies. Therefore she took with
her only her doll and her picture-book.
It was after tea that she set out, because
it was her habit at that time of the day to
have her mind filled with stories of fairies
and with the hope of an adventure in Fairy-
land. Harolda's holidays had always been
213
The Interregnum in Fairyland
spent at sea-coast places, and she had never
seen a forest. She had heard, however, of
one near London, called Epping Forest ;
and it was to it she meant to go. When she
had got two or three streets away from the
one she lived in, she went up to a policeman
who was standing on the edge of the pave-
ment, and said to him :
' Please tell me the way to Epping Forest.'
The policeman looked down at her with a
curious expression on his face, and said
nothing for such a long time that she began
to think he was an enchanted policeman.
'Epping Forest?' he exclaimed at last.
' Why, you 're nearly four miles from Epping
Forest ! Have you lost your way ? '
'No,' she said, 'not yet; but I hope to
when I get to the forest.'
' Oh, you do ! ' exclaimed the policeman,
not knowing what to make of Harolda, for
she talked what he thought either nonsense
or impudence, and yet looked so much in
earnest.
'What direction is it?' asked Harolda
wistfully. ' Will this street take me ? '
' It 's on the way,' said the policeman.
214
The Interregnum in Fairyland
'Thank you,' said Harolda, and tripped
off with her book and her doll.
It was a very long street, with few turnings
in it, and when she came to the end of it she
already felt tired.
' Which is the way to Epping Forest ? '
she said to a postman, thinking that he
would be likely to know the shortest way
to anywhere.
The postman, hurrying past her, turned
his head to say something over his shoulder ;
but Harolda had such a pleading face, and
was so quaint and pretty in her looks and
her dress, that the postman was constrained
to stop. He looked at her curiously, as the
policeman had done, and said :
' Epping Forest ! Which part of Epping
Forest?'
' I want,' said Harolda, ' to go to that part
of Epping Forest where the fairies live and
all the beasts can speak.'
' Oh, you do ? ' exclaimed the postman, just
as the policeman had done. ' Well, it 's
some miles from here, I reckon. But you 'd
best take a train.'
' Oh, no ! ' cried Harolda, with a scared
215
The Interregnum in Fairyland
look ; ' I would never think of such a thing.
We must walk, unless we have an enchanted
horse or something.'
( Well,' said the postman, laughing, ' take
the second to the right, and keep on as far
as that road goes, and then ask again.'
' Oh, thank you ! ' said Harolda.
The postman, as long as she was in sight,
looked back at her wonderingly each time he
delivered a letter.
Harolda was hardly able to drag one foot
after another when she came to the end of
the postman's road ; but she was not going
to give in, so she asked a milkman this
time.
' Epping Forest ! ' said the milkman.
* Why, I come from there, and I 'm going
back now. Have you lost your way ? '
' Oh, no ! ' said Harolda. ' How can I
lose my way till I get there ? '
' Eh ? ' said the milkman, who was a kind-
hearted man, but not very intelligent. ' Well,
I 'm going Woodford way, and you can jump
in if you like."
'Thank you very much,' said Harolda.
* Is Woodford near Epping Forest ? '
216
The Interregnum in Fairyland
' Why, it 's in it,' replied the milkman.
Harolda wondered a little, but forbore
any more questions, and stepped into the
milkman's cart.
By rows of houses, lines of trees and high
hedges, they rattled and clattered along.
The milkman whistled and hummed tunes,
while Harolda nursed her doll and looked at
her picture-book. In half an hour's time
they came among gardens and pleasant
villas. Shortly after they entered a little
street, and the milkman pulled up before a
dairy.
' But this is not the forest,' said Harolda,
getting out.
' Yes, it is,' said the milkman. ' It 's all
forest about here.'
' But where is the place where the fairies
live and all the beasts can talk ? '
' What a funny little girl you are ! ' said
the milkman, beginning to carry his cans into
the dairy.
With a sinking heart Harolda left the
milkman and went up the street. Opposite
the church she met a girl a few years older
than herself, and she asked her where the
217
V.
The Interregnum in Fairyland
true forest was ' where there are no houses,
but only trees and grass and bushes and
ferns, where the fames live and all the beasts
can talk.'
The girl was good-natured, and although
she laughed at Harolda, she took her to a
lane and showed her where at the end of it a
wood appeared.
' Perhaps,' said Harolda, ' you are a fairy.'
* Oh, no ! ' replied the girl, laughing merrily.
'And the milkman and his cart-,' said
Harolda anxiously ; ' do you think they
were n't sent by the fairies ? '
' I think not,' said the laughing girl. ' But
I don't know what you mean.'
' Good-bye, and thank you,' said Harolda.
Her courage rose again at the sight of the
wood, and she ran along the lane quite
briskly, because she had been much rested
by her ride in the milkman's cart. She
crept through a fence, and soon found her-
self knee-deep in feathery grass. A blush
had mounted to her cheeks, which were
usually rather pale, and her blue eyes
glowed as if little beacons had been lit in
them. She pressed on, looking eagerly into
218
The Interregnum in Fairyland
the shade ; but just when she began to feel
that now at last she might expect to meet a
fairy, the wood came to a sudden end, and
she saw a road and garden walls, and the
red roofs of houses. Two big tears rolled
down her cheeks, and a sob shook her little
body; but she turned back to where the
trees were thickest, and went forward in a
different direction. This time she came to
a close wooden fence, much too high for her
to climb, and she saw clearly that she had
not yet arrived in the forest. She therefore
left the little wood, and, looking about her- in
the lane, perceived at some distance a high
ridge extending east and west, and densely
covered with trees. That must be the forest,
she thought ; and off she set straight for it
through fields and over fences. It was a
very tiresome way; she had to take many
roundabouts, and sometimes to retrace her
steps; and at last, when she thought there
was nothing between her and the forest but
a little plain where some horses were feed-
ing, she fell headlong into a deep ditch, and
got herself all wet and dirty, and lost both
her shoes ; but she saved her doll and her
219
The Interregnum in Fairyland
picture-book. She was so near the goal,
however, that this misfortune hardly troubled
her. Over the little grassy plain she ran, as
if she had been beginning instead of ending
her journey ; but when she came to the true
forest she was dismayed to find no entrance.
On every side she was met by a wall of
thorns and brambles and briars, through
which only a weasel could make a way, or
a woodman with an axe. However, she
found a broad path like an avenue bordering
the forest, and this she followed, looking
carefully all the time for a break in the wall
of underwood.
It was now well on in the evening, and
would soon be quite dark. A low hum and
faint muffled noises came out of the forest,
and fear began to make Harolda's heart
flutter. She was thinking, half gladly, that
perhaps she would find no way in, when a
moaning like that of a woman in distress
began close beside her, and at the same
time a dark opening appeared between two
blackthorn bushes. Her first impulse was to
run away ; then she burst into tears, feeling
how tired she was, and remembering that
220
The Interregnum in Fairyland
she had lost her shoes, and that she was
four miles from home in a lonely wood all by
herself, and the night fast approaching.
The moaning grew louder and more dis-
tressing. ' Poor woman ! ' thought Harolda,
' she may be dying. Perhaps I can help
her.' Without more ado, and the tears still
running down her cheeks, she went in by
the dark opening between the blackthorn
bushes, and came at once upon the woman
who was moaning so bitterly. Harolda could
see that the woman's clothes were ragged,
and that her gray hair was dishevelled ; but
the face of the woman was hidden on her
knees as she rocked herself to and fro.
* My baby ! ' she moaned ; ' my boy ! His
eyes were like pansies, and his laugh was
like the brook's. Where have they hidden
him?'
Harolda shuddered and clasped her doll j
if her doll were to be taken from her, she
would lament like that, she knew. Her heart
would certainly break if she were to lose her
doll for ever and ever. She could n't re-
member a time when she did n't have it. Its
wooden face was chipped, and all the paint
221
The Interregnum in Fairyland
gone except the pupil of one eye ; but it had
slept in her bosom every night for five years ;
she had dressed it in its best clothes for the
journey ; and she loved it so much. It was
the only thing she had in the world to love
now ! It was her baby ; and she did pity
with all her heart this poor woman who had
lost hers.
' Oh, my boy, my little boy ! ' moaned the
woman, suddenly flinging up her head and
staring in front of her. * Lost ! lost ! '
Harolda shuddered again. In the dim
light she could just see the woman's face
the eyes and the hollow cheeks, so hopeless
and so full of pain. Her little heart ached
with sympathy, all the more because the
woman was very like the old lady who had
told her fairy tales.
' Poor woman ! ' she said ; and then, with-
out thinking that she was bereaving herself,
she went up to her, and laid her doll on the
woman's knees.
What ! ' cried the woman, clutching it
and holding it out at arm's length. 'My
baby ! my boy ! ' and she hugged it in her
arms and wrapped it in her shawl.
222
The Interregnum in Fairyland
Oh, my dolly ! ' moaned Harolda, realis-
ing what she had done.
She made a motion with outstretched arms,
as if to reclaim her property j but the woman
seemed not to see her, and began to hum a
lullaby :
' Where shall my little one play in his childhood ?
Swing him a cradle deep in the wildwood,
Where the timid squirrel abides,
And the frightened roe-deer hides,
Where the bronzy slow-worm crawls,
And the mousing owlet calls.'
As she sang, an extraordinary change came
over her. Her gray hair changed to gold,
her hollow cheeks filled out, sparks of fire
seemed to run this way and that through her
rags, and before the verse was finished she
stood up in the greenwood, a beautiful fairy
in glistening robes. And more wonderful
still, Harolda's doll had become a little boy
baby, with eyes like pansies and a laugh like
a rippling brook. It was quite dark now,
but Harolda saw the fairy and the changeling
clearly by the light that shone from their
dresses and their hair and their eyes.
' Oh ! ' cried Harolda from the very
223
The Interregnum in Fairyland
bottom of her heart, clasping her hands, and
letting her book fall in her astonishment and
delight.
' Your book has fallen, little girl,' said the
fairy. ' Pick it up and give it to my baby.'
Harolda did as she was told at once ; and
the baby clutched the book, and crowed and
sucked the corners.
Then the fairy took off a satchel of sewed
work with a silver mount, and a pearl em-
broidered belt which she wore, and gave
them to Harolda, and told her to put them
on. When Harolda had fastened the belt
with trembling fingers round her waist, she
was told to open the satchel and take out
the things that were in it. The first thing
that she took out was a diamond as big as a
large bean, and it shone like a glow-worm in
her hand.
' Do you remember,' said the fairy, 'when
you found that the little wood was not the
forest, how two great tears rolled down your
cheeks ? '
'No,' said Harolda, who remembered
about the wood, but had forgotten all about
her tears.
224
The Interregnum in Fairyland
4 Never mind,' said the fairy, ' take out the
other one.'
Sure enough, when Harolda put her hand
into the satchel again, she found a second
diamond as large as the first.
4 These are your two tears,' said the fairy.
4 Put in your hand again. Now, what do you
feel? '
4 I feel as if the little bag were full of peas
and barley,' replied Harolda.
4 Take out a handful,' said the fairy.
Harolda took out a handful, and found that
the things like peas and barley were pearls
of various sizes, but all of the first water.
Some of them fell on the ground, and first
they changed into dewdrops, and then into
daisies.
* These pearls,' said the fairy, * are the
shower of tears you shed a little while ago,
when you heard me crying. Now put them
all back.'
When Harolda had replaced the pearls
and the diamonds in the satchel and shut it
up, the fairy said :
4 1 have only one gift to give you, for these
pearls and diamonds were your own from
15 225
The Interregnum in Fairyland
the first. You shall henceforth have the
power of seeing in the dark. Turn your
back to me and close your eyes.'
Harolda obeyed at once, and the fairy
said :
' Count twenty, open your eyes, and go
straight forward till you meet Irkanda, the
great enchantress, whom you must obey as
you have obeyed me.'
As soon as Harolda had counted twenty,
she looked behind her; but the fairy and
her baby and the picture-book had vanished.
She was not dismayed, however, feeling cer-
tain that she would see them again. Be-
sides, all her thoughts were taken up with
her satchel and its contents, with her new
gift of sight by night, and with the expecta-
tion of meeting the enchantress, Irkanda.
She could see as clearly as in the daytime,
only everything had a very strange appear-
ance ; she thought it must be like walking
at the bottom of the sea. A way seemed to
open up for her, and she went on and on
until at last she thought she could go no
farther, for her stockings were torn to
threads, and her feet were bleeding; she
226
The Interregnum in Fairyland
had n't eaten anything for hours, and it was
long past her bedtime. Suddenly she saw,
a little to one side, a double green light.
Towards this she went, being now quite fear-
less, and imagining that it was for her guid-
ance. When she came to it she found that
the double green light was in the top of a
pollard oak-tree ; but what it was doing
there, and what help it could be to her, she
could not conceive, because there was no
way past the oak-tree. Then, to her horror,
when she tried to retrace her steps she was
unable to find the path she had left, or any
path. About her on every side the black-
thorn rose like a wall, and behind it the
trees clustered like a palisade.
' I 've lost my way ! ' she cried, sinking
on her knees, and forgetting altogether that
this was a thing she had hoped to do, like
little girls she had read of.
' Where do you want to go to ? ' asked a
harsh voice from the top of the pollard-oak,
while the double green light rose up in the
air and then dropped to the ground.
The green lights were the eyes of a large
dog-fox that had been resting, as is the
227
The Interregnum in Fairyland
manner of foxes, in the top of the pollard-
tree. Now, this fox was not a true fox, but
the wicked enchanter Declarabol, who was
in the habit of taking the forms of beasts,
and birds, and reptiles in order to pry into
and thwart, if possible, the good purposes of
the enchantress Irkanda, whom he hated.
* I am seeking the enchantress Irkanda,'
said Harolda.
' I can take you to her,' said the fox or,
rather, Declarabol as softly as he could,
wagging his tail with unfeigned delight.
As a rule, he found it difficult to overcome
the suspicions of those he wished to betray ;
but Harolda was so enraptured at finding
herself in the true forest, where the fairies
dwell and the beasts can speak, that she
never thought of doubting the fox's good
faith.
' What have you in your little bag? ' asked
Declarabol.
' Oh, my tears,' answered Harolda quite
truthfully, but not wishing to tell the fox
everything.
' Humph ! ' rejoined Declarabol, not by
any means satisfied with Harolda's reply,
228
The Interregnum in Fairyland
but afraid to say more lest he should arouse
her suspicions.
Then Declarabol, who had by enchant-
ment closed up the path, opened it again,
and led Harolda through the thicket to the
way which the good fairy had told her to
follow. This wicked magician was very sly
and wary. Harolda was no concern of his ;
it was Irkanda whom he wished to damage ;
so he judged it best for his plans to bring
the little girl safely to the great enchantress,
in the hope of finding out what new scheme
for the good of Fairyland Irkanda had on
hand.
* This,' said Declarabol, stopping suddenly,
and pointing with his nose to a knoll on
which a hawthorn grew, 'is the house of
Irkanda. You must knock at the door.'
The door, which was of bronze, richly
decorated in low relief, stood in the side of
the knoll, and when Harolda knocked, it
swung open with a musical sound. The fox
trotted in at once, and she followed, where-
upon the door swung to again with a musical
sound.
Harolda found herself in a large low room
229
The Interregnum in Fairyland
with a groined ceiling, like the crypt of a
church. A single silver lamp hung by silver
chains from the centre of the roof; in it
burned a sweet-smelling oil, and the light
had a rosy hue. There was tapestry on the
walls, strange implements were strewed about
the floor, and at the back of the room
Irkanda sat on a couch of tigers' skins, spin-
ning a golden thread in the old-fashioned
manner without a wheel ; and she sang this
song as she spun :
'The world spins round, and the moon,
And the sun spins round itself,
And this is my distaff tune,
As I twirl the shining pelf.
'The spider spins in the furze,
And the dew begems his net ;
Fate's unseen spindle whirrs,
And the thread with blood is wet.
' But tears nor blood shall stain,
Nor rust of death or sin,
The thread of golden grain
I spin, I spin.'
The deep low singing of the great en-
chantress overpowered Harolda, and she
stood like a statue. Declarabol trembled as
230
The Interregnum in Fairyland
he always did in the presence of Irkanda,
for she was stronger than he, and was his
mistress in all the arts of sorcery and witch-
craft, although she used them only for blame-
less ends. But while Declarabol trembled,
he was no coward. It is possible to be sick
with terror, and yet to go on unflinchingly
braving the cause of the terror ; and this is
possible to the worst as to the best.
Irkanda sang her song several times before
she laid her distaff by. She ceased singing
and spinning at the same time, and then,
without looking at Harolda, she said :
' Give me one of your diamonds.'
' Diamonds ! ' thought Declarabol, as he
watched Harolda open her satchel and give
one of her transformed tears to the enchan-
tress ; ' the girl is not such a simpleton, after
all.'
As soon as she had it, Irkanda struck a
bell that lay on the couch beside her, and a
little gnome appeared dressed in russet with
a red nightcap on his head.
' Bring Harolda,' said Irkanda, ' the Un-
tiring Shoes.'
The gnome vanished, and reappeared
231
The Interregnum in Fairyland
again almost instantaneously with three com-
panions, carrying among them a pair of
shoes, each of which was as big as Harolda's
whole body.
' They were last worn by a giant,' said
Irkanda. ' Step into them, Harolda.'
Harolda hesitated a second, but remem-
bering how the fairy had told her to obey
Irkanda promptly, she put her feet into the
enormous shoes, which immediately shrank
to the exact size of her feet ; at the same
time all her sense of weariness left her, and
she felt as if she could fly.
' Give me the other diamond,' said Irkanda.
' Bring a vial of the Aroma of Life,' she
continued, when Harolda had given her the
second diamond.
In a moment one of the gnomes had
brought a small green vial, which he handed
to Harolda.
' Bring me Harolda's pearls,' said Irkanda.
One of the gnomes took off his nightcap,
and when Harolda had emptied the pearls
into it, he carried them to the enchantress,
who received them in a satchel of her own,
larger, but of the same make as Harolda's.
232
The Interregnum in Fairyland
' Now,' continued Irkanda, ' in these Un-
tiring Shoes you could easily walk round
the world without a halt. When you are
sleepy or thirsty, or your spirits are low,
smell the Aroma of Life, or put a drop of it
on your tongue, and you will be immedi-
ately refreshed.'
Harolda, who was very dizzy and thirsty,
took out the stopper of the vial, and smelt
the aroma, and tasted it also; the scent
made her feel as if she had just come out of
the sea, and been rubbed down with a flesh-
brush, and the taste sent an exquisite thrill
along all her nerves, and seemed to expand
her whole body and mind. Irkanda smiled
indulgently as Harolda was testing the effects
of the contents of the vial, and then said :
' When you are hungry, put your hand in
your satchel, and you will find food.'
Harolda, who was quite famished for want
of something to eat, thrust her hand into her
satchel, and brought out a little cake of a
glistening white colour streaked with crim-
son. It was hardly bigger than a crown
piece, which disappointed her very much,
as she had never been so hungry in her life
233
The Interregnum in Fairyland
before. Then she thought that perhaps the
satchel might be full of food ; so she put her
hand in again, but brought it forth empty.
With a sigh she began to nibble the edge of
the cake, and, behold, she had never tasted
anything like it before ! It seemed to savour
of everything she liked best. In three sec-
onds she finished it, and, to her astonish-
ment, her hunger was quite satisfied; and
yet, although she felt that the ripest peach
would hardly tempt her to eat again at that
time, she had none of the miserable sensa-
tions she had sometimes experienced on
Christmas Day after dinner.
' Fox, fox, fox,' said Irkanda, ' are you a
good fox and true ? '
' The truest fox in the forest, O Irkanda,'
replied Declarabol.
It was the case that Irkanda, on account
of her greatness of soul, was as easily de-
ceived as a child : that was the sole advan-
tage Declarabol had over her. Nevertheless
Irkanda was the most wonderful enchantress
that ever lived.
'Swear by the crab-apple, the hawthorn,
and the mistletoe, to lead Harolda safe into
234
The Interregnum in Fairyland
Fairyland, with all the beasts to guard her/
said Irkanda in a terrible voice.
* I swear,' replied Declarabol huskily, while
he shook like a leaf.
The door then swung open of itself with a
musical sound, and Harolda and Declarabol
returned once more to the forest and the
night ; and just as the door closed behind
them they heard Irkanda resume her distaff
and her song :
' The spider spins in the furze,
And the dew begems his net ;
Fate's unseen spindle whirrs,
And the thread with tears is wet.'
Declarabol trotted through the forest at
a great rate, and Harolda in her Untiring
Shoes easily kept pace with him. In a deep
hollow Declarabol halted, and told Harolda
to wait for him while he went to summon
the beasts to guard her into Fairyland.
Now, Declarabol had no intention of ful-
filling his oath. Once out of sight of
Harolda, he rubbed himself against a moun-
tain-ash, and straightway appeared in his
own proper person, which was that of a
235
The Interregnum in Fairyland
black man with wings like a bat and horns
like a goat. Mounting into the air, he flew
to the north end of the forest and alit at the
door of a hut, in which, although it was now
after midnight, a light still burned. He
folded his wings and entered without
knocking.
' Declarabol ! ' said Rabbitskin, the inhabi-
tant of the hut, as soon as he heard the
latch lifted ; ' I know by the itching of my
ears.'
Rabbitskin was a foolish, ill-instructed
enchanter whom Declarabol often employed.
Like most foolish people, he was very vain,
and was constantly imposing on himself.
Nobody ever visited him after midnight,
except Declarabol ; and as Declarabol had
always something to tell him when he came,
and, as a rule, an advantageous proposal to
make, the itching of his ears can be under-
stood quite well.
With great gravity and self-importance he
said to Declarabol, 'By my art I knew it
was you.'
' Ha ! ' said Declarabol, who always flat-
tered Rabbitskin when he had need of his
236
The Interregnum in Fairyland
services, ' there 's no deceiving you, Rabbit-
skin. If you only had a fair chance, old
fellow, I believe you would outstrip us all.'
Rabbitskin chuckled, and dished the stew
which was simmering on the fire into two
porringers ; and two spoons were soon as
busy as two hungry enchanters could ply
them.
'And now to business,' said Declarabol,
when he had finished his portion. 'Irkanda
has some grand scheme afoot.'
' About the lost King and Queen of Fairy-
land?'
' Perhaps. A little girl has come into the
forest, and Irkanda has given her the Untir-
ing Shoes and the Aroma of Life, and caused
a cake of manna to be in her satchel when-
ever she is hungry. She has further in-
structed a fox to gather the beasts together
to guard this little girl into Fairyland. If
Harolda is the lost Queen, and should get
back to her kingdom, it 's all up with us.'
'How so?' asked Rabbitskin.
' Because,' answered Declarabol, ' the inter-
regnum in Fairyland would come to an end,
and with the restoration of authority we
237
The Interregnum in Fairyland
should be reduced to the state of impotence
in which we were eight years ago; for all
the forests would be so jealously guarded
and the air so filled with counter spells that
we should be unable to move either hand or
foot.'
' But,' said Rabbitskin, ' if the Queen is
only a little girl, what would it matter ? '
' Man alive ! ' exclaimed Declarabol, losing
patience. ' The Queen a little girl ! The
Queen was enchanted ! '
' Ah ! ah ! ' rejoined Rabbitskin medita-
tively. He knew nothing about history, and
never read the Sorcerer's Herald, and yet was
afraid to show his ignorance.
* I see you understand nothing of the
matter,' said Declarabol. ' You must know,
then, that it is a hundred years since the
chief wicked enchanters and evil spirits in
the world conspired together to put the
King and Queen of Faery under a spell.
In spite of all their efforts, it was only eight
years ago that they succeeded. How it was
done I don't know ; I was just out of my
apprenticeship then, and the secret was not
confided to me much to my own satis-
238
The Interregnum in Fairyland
faction now, for every enchanter and evil
spirit who took part in the conspiracy died
within a year in lingering agonies. That was
Irkanda's doing ; she was then just coming
to the front as an enchantress. Great as
she is, she has been eight years trying to find
out the nature of the enchantment of the
King and Queen of Faery, and I don't believe
she ever will. When she began to kill off the
conspirators, ever so many of them offered
to tell the secret if she would spare them ;
but in her pride she would n't hear of it,
declaring that her own art was sufficient.
Enchanted the King and Queen of Faery are,
thanks to the glorious dead ; no one has
heard tell of them since the day of their dis-
appearance ; and along with them vanished
The Book of the Laws of Fairyland.'
' Ay, ay,' said Rabbitskin.
' Well, then, whether this little girl has
anything to do with the enchantment of the
King and Queen of Faery or not, I can't say ;
but that Irkanda favours her is enough for
me. Now while this fox is away gathering
together the beasts, the little girl waits in a
den well known to me. I want to turn you
2 39
The Interregnum in Fairyland
into a fox, and to carry you on my back to
the little girl before the other fox brings the
beasts together. You will then lead her to
my cave, and I shall take care of her after
that.'
' And what will you give me ? '
' Give you ? I '11 give you the power of
making withered oak-leaves into gold.'
* You will ! ' cried Rabbi tskin, astonished
at the unusual liberality of his employer.
' Come on ! '
Declarabol pronounced a spell in a terrible
language, and in less than a minute Rabbit-
skin stood on four legs, a dog-fox of the
very fur in which Declarabol himself had
lately walked the forest. Having extin-
guished the lamp and the fire, Declarabol
led the way out; and, with Rabbitskin on
his -shoulders, spread his wings and flew
back to within a short distance of the den
where he had left Harolda. There he de-
posited Rabbitskin, gave him some final in-
structions, and took flight to his own place.
So rapid had been the passage of De-
clarabol to and from the hut of Rabbitskin,
the enchanters had despatched their supper
240
The Interregnum in Fairyland
so expeditiously, and struck up their bargain
so promptly, that Harolda had to wait barely
twenty minutes for the return of the fox.
' Oh, dear fox,' she said, when Rabbitskin
appeared, looking from the tips of his ears
to the tip of his tail in every hue and hair
exactly as Declarabol had looked in the same
disguise, ' I am so glad you have come back.
But where are the beasts?'
' They are all assembled half a mile from
here waiting for us,' replied Rabbitskin.
' Were you frightened ? '
' No,' rejoined Harolda, ' only very, very
impatient. I have taken two drops of the
Aroma of Life, and eaten another cake, and
I could hardly keep my legs from running
away. Oh ! how I long to get to Fairyland,
for there I shall see my dolly again turned
into a baby boy, with eyes like pansies and
a laugh like a little brook ! Come away,
dear fox.'
' Ha ! hum ! ' muttered Rabbitskin to him-
self. ' A fine Fairyland Declarabol has ready
for her, I bet my brush ! Serve her jolly
well right, too, interfering minx ! As quick
as you like,' he said aloud ; and they set off
16 24!
The Interregnum in Fairyland
at a pace which only the fleetest creatures
can maintain for any time at all. 'Here
we are ! ' he cried in a minute or two, stop-
ping at a knoll like that in which Irkanda
lived, but smaller. ' You must knock at the
door.'
Harolda knocked, and the door, which
was of oak studded with iron nails, opened
at once, screeching on its hinges. She was
about to enter, when a hideous yell arose
immediately behind her. Looking round in
alarm, she saw the figures of three animals
rolling on the turf. What they were doing
she could not make out, they wriggled so ;
but at last the fox rolled over dead, and two
polecats, who had bitten through his neck
on either side, slunk off into the forest. By
this time Declarabol, in his own shape, had
come out of his knoll. He smiled when he
saw the fox lying dead, and uttered an odd
cry. After a short interval an answer came
from some distance, and soon four horned
owls flew up on noiseless wings. They
perched on a low branch of an old oak that
grew near DeclaraboFs knoll, and said, one
after the other, slowly, gravely, and under
242
The Interregnum in Fairyland
their breath, as it were, ' Towhit, towhoo !
Towhit, towhoo ! Towhit, towhoo ! To-
whit, towhoo ! ' And their eight orange
coloured eyes sparkled in the midst of the
feathery discs on either side of their black
beaks like carbuncles in brooches of tar-
nished gold.
Declarabol addressed them briefly in the
beasts' argot, and in tones of command.
Without delay they came down from the
tree, and two taking the fox by the fore-legs
and two by the hind-legs, they mounted
into the air and flew away with him.
Then Declarabol uttered a spell and passed
his hand twice in front of Harolda's face ;
and when she tried to ask him what it all
meant, she found she was unable to speak ;
nor could she cause any sound at all to issue
from her mouth. Declarabol dragged her
across his threshold, and, having closed and
barred the door, thrust her into an iron
cage, which stood ready in the middle of
the room.
Keeping back her tears and holding her
breath, Harolda watched Declarabol. The
enchanter went to a cupboard, from which
243
The Interregnum in Fairyland
he took a long slim bottle and a green glass
with a crooked stem. Having seated him-
self on a low chair under the bronze lamp,
which hung by bronze chains from the ceil-
ing, he thrice filled the glass with a dancing
yellow liquor, and drank it off to the dregs
each time, chuckling and eyeing Harolda
with glances that made her blood run cold.
' Well,' he said, settling himself in his
chair, ' whoever you are, I 've caught you
nicely. Oh ! I 've done a good night's
work, for the fox that led you through the
forest is dead killed and carried off by my
slaves, and laid where Irkanda's folk will find
him; and then a certain enchanter, who
thought no end of himself, and knew a little
more of my secrets than I cared about, has
vanished unaccountably, and without learn-
ing how to make withered oak-leaves into
gold, either. A good night's work ! A
very, very good night's work ! And now I
wonder what I shall do with you, my little
dear. Shall I keep you and make terms for
myself, or shall I kill you to spite Irkanda?
That 's what this shall determine. When I
have dreamt an hour,' he went on, after
244
The Interregnum in Fairyland
drinking another glass of the yellow liquor,
' I shall know what I must do.'
And immediately he fell asleep.
Harolda was on the point of fainting with
terror, when she remembered her vial. She
sniffed it and took a drop of it, and recov-
ered her courage at once. But in a little
while the dreadful snoring of Declarabol so
worked upon her excited nerves that she was
glad to have recourse again to the Aroma of
Life. She kept tasting it and putting it to
her nostrils, for the effect of it was wonder-
fully exhilarating, making her feel not so
much as if she did n't care, but as if she had
the power to do whatever she chose. The
extraordinary sense of expansion, both of
body and mind, became so pleasant with the
continuous tasting and smelling of the aroma,
that at last, beside herself with delight, she
drank off half the vial. Then a marvel took
place, such as Harolda had never heard or
read of: she began to grow, sensibly and
visibly; all her limbs, her body, her neck,
her head, shot up and filled out, like some
flower an Eastern enchanter causes to spring
and blossom in a minute. She had no grow-
245
The Interregnum in Fairyland
ing pains, but it seemed as if her nerves and
muscles twanged and hummed as they ex-
tended with her body, while the blood sang
in all her veins. In a few minutes her head
struck the roof of the cage. Faint and afraid,
she bent herself at first, but after drinking
the rest of the vial she stood erect again,
happy and confident. Sure enough, her head
burst through the iron bars of the cage;
and, in a little while, as a butterfly breaks its
chrysalis, she stepped out of it altogether
a wonderful creature, taller than women
are, more exquisitely shaped, and much
more beautiful to behold. Her dress also
had changed, and she now wore purple robes
of the finest texture, embroidered with gold ;
she had on golden sandals, and her belt and
satchel had grown with her growth. Her
wonder at her transformation was still only
dawning, when Declarabol, disturbed by the
breaking of the cage, wakened, rubbed his
eyes, and stared about him.
Sarapapapapai ! ' he shrieked, starting up,
when he saw the cage in ruins.
But when he beheld Harolda standing ma-
jestic, beautiful, and fearless in the midst of
246
The Interregnum in Fairyland
the cave, he threw up his hands and fell to
the floor a gibbering idiot. Harolda looked
at him in disgust for a second or two ; then
she unbarred the door and went out into the
forest. She wanted to shout, she wanted to
laugh, she wanted to sing ; but the spell was
on her, and she could utter no sound of any
kind. As she walked about among the trees,
the rapture of her whole being found expres-
sion in eloquent movements of her arms, and
golden glances rained from her eyes on every
hand. A brown owl, flying overhead, noticed
her gracious movements and the stateliness
of her carriage, and, being an inquisitive owl,
he perched on a tree to see her pass. No
sooner did he catch sight of Harolda's face
than he rose into the air with a wild scream
of delight and flew off. Harolda wondered
a little, but went on her way ravished with
the depths of darkness and mysterious noises
of the forest, and with the beauty of the night.
When she came to a wide glade that sloped
up before her like an amphitheatre, she felt
constrained to stand still and wait for a little.
* Something else is about to happen,' she
said to herself.
247
The Interregnum in Fairyland
She had paused only for a few seconds,
when a new murmur and rustle began afar
off and near at hand : the whole forest had
become suddenly alive. Soon in every glade
and by-way resounded the patter and drum-
ming of feet and hoofs, and the swish and
whirr of wings sped over the tree-tops like a
rainy shower. Hoof and paw, on they came
like rivulets running to the sea ; and above
the darkening feathers gathered like clouds.
The first to reach the amphitheatre were the
fallow deer. Their shining eyes and dun
coats soon filled up a space about Harolda ;
and after a little jostling and scraping, they
all lay down as close together as they could,
every swart flank heaving like a wave of the
sea. Then came the little ruddy roe-deer,
shyest of creatures, in ones and twos and
threes ; actually bashful in the presence of
each other, they crouched dispersedly on the
outskirts of the amphitheatre. The foxes
slunk in next, and sat about on their
haunch 2S, with their heads innocently
dropped on one side. Hares and rabbits
crowded together; and polecats, water-rats,
and otters arrived in a batch; the stoat, the
248
The Interregnum in Fairyland
weasel, and the marten wriggled through the
crowd to the very front : the badger and
the hedgehog elbowed a way in ; the dormice
and the fieldmice, and the shrews ran hither
and thither ; and the scaly, yellow-stained
snake, the brown viper, and the burnish slow-
worm crawled to Harolda's feet. While the
area of the amphitheatre filled up in this way,
the clouds of birds took their places in the
galleries, as the surrounding trees may be
called : falcons, owls, ravens, shrikes, rooks,
jackdaws, crows, magpies, jays, starlings, ous-
els, thrushes, blackbirds, sparrows, finches,
nuthatches, woodpeckers, linnets, larks, wrens,
titmice, swallows, doves, plovers, snipes, cur-
lews, in the tree-tops and on the high branches
and on the low branches, head to tail, wing
to wing, a shining galaxy of eyes in a firma-
ment of feathers. And the squirrels were
among the birds, and the partridges and the
pheasants among the beasts.
When every creature had found a place
and perfect silence reigned, Harolda, know-
ing intuitively that the assembly had come
together to see her, and feeling, without
knowing why, that it was her duty to make
249
The Interregnum in Fairyland
a speech, opened her mouth, and was about
to try to begin, ' Dear beasts and birds.'
Remembering, however, that she had lost
the power of utterance, she buried her face
in her hands and burst into tears. A deep
murmur of sympathy broke from the ground
and the trees, which Harolda mistook for an
impatient grumble. She therefore raised her
face, and, by gestures, tried to indicate that
she was dumb. At first her audience were
puzzled ; but when they understood, a cry
of rage broke out which it is impossible to
imagine or describe. Then all the beasts and
birds talked at once, discussing the position
in the most excited manner. But while the
babel of tongues was at its highest an ant-
lered form appeared beside Harolda. The
assembly, beholding it, burst into a shout
of joy, which was followed by an attentive
silence. Now, this antlered form was the
doyen of Epping Forest, the only red-deer
surviving there. He was over a hundred
years old, and his existence was denied by
all the keepers, and doubted even by some of
the beasts. But there he was, a late arrival
come from the most secluded part of his
250
The Interregnum in Fairyland
' native dwelling-place ' to advise his brethren
in their need. In his stormy old voice, that
seemed to throb with the tempests of a cen-
tury, he said, ' We are too many to consult
together. Send me a snake, a raven, and a
badger, and we shall determine what is to
be done.'
With but little delay the delegates were
selected, and the four creatures retired behind
a thicket to take counsel with one another.
They were gone only a few minutes, and on
their return the stag announced their decision.
'We shall all rise up together and take
her to Fairyland,' he said ; and the decision
was received with acclaim.
The stag knelt down, and Harolda, under-
standing, got upon his back. Then the raven
fastened round his antlers a strong withe
which served as a bridle ; and the brown owl
who had announced Harolda's arrival was
honoured with a perch on the stag's head.
The birds were the first to set out; they
rose like a dense exhalation from the trees,
and flew off in a wide straggling cloud with
shrill cries and clangour. The sound of
their flight was still loud above the forest
251
The Interregnum in Fairyland
when the stag took the road. He walked
right through the amphitheatre, the animals
opening a lane for him, and then forming
up behind in a mixed but orderly proces-
sion. As for Harolda, it mattered little that
she was unable to speak, because her wonder
and delight were beyond words. Yet she
felt every moment as if she were about to
utter something, and as if momentous things
that she had long forgotten were about to
waken up. in her mind.
They had scarcely gone half a mile it
seemed so, at least, to Harolda when a
great gray cup, held out in the east, was
filled with the crimson wine of dawn ; and
from the east, too, was seen coming towards
them more swiftly than the wind a black
cloud. Soon they saw that the cloud was the
return of the birds. Having announced in
Fairyland Harolda's progress, they had put
about again ; and when the birds and beasts
met, the former, separating into two divisions,
hung on the flanks of the march for the rest
of the way.
And as they went along there came to
their ears in snatches an enchanting sound
252
The Interregnum in Fairyland
of music. This, the birds told the beasts,
was fairy music ; for, they said, ' the whole
fairy nation is coming to meet us with drums
and trumpets, cymbals and triangles, and
ancient psalteries and dulcimers, the strings
of which are moonbeams and sunbeams.'
The procession increased its pace at this
great news, and shortly the borderland of
Faery came in sight. Harolda had hardly
done feasting her eyes on the rich green
meadows and bowers that lay before her,
when the fairy outriders appeared over the
crest of a low hill, and at the same time the
sun rose up at once into the sky. After the
outriders came the minstrels in a chariot of
pearl, decorated with ocean gems that are
unknown outside of Fairyland. Then fol-
lowed the whole body of the fairy cavalry,
clad in gold and silver mail, and riding on
horses that were either wholly black or wholly
white. A great chariot of ivory, decorated
with gold and all kinds of precious stones,
came next ; it was drawn by six white horses,
and in it there sat three persons. Behind
marched the infantry, with bows and arrows,
swords and bucklers, in flashing helmets and
2 53
The Interregnum in Fairyland
glittering harness ; and behind them, again,
in crowds and companies, on foot and on
horseback, flocked the fairy nation. The
separate splendours of the divisions of the
army, of the chariots, and of the gaily attired
companies, all blended into a rich, soft
beauty of colour and form that entranced the
eyes of every bird and beast.
The earthly creatures came to a halt on
the edge of the world, for although they are
subject to Fairyland, and although the birds
may fly into the air of Faery, nothing earthly
may set foot on its soil ; while on their side
the fairies halted just on the border of their
territory. Straightway a figure stepped from
the ivory chariot, and came towards the
beasts. This was the fairy, as Harolda
quickly perceived, who had met her first in
the forest in the guise of a woman weeping.
She came up to Harolda accompanied by a
body-guard of archers, and helped her to
descend from the back of the stag. Then
she led her to the ivory chariot, while the
whole fairy nation shouted with joy again
and again, and the minstrels played a trium-
phal march that thrilled the listeners with
254
The Interregnum in Fairyland
delight to the marrow of their bones. In
the chariot sat Irkanda, and the most beauti-
ful youth any bird or beast, or body or fairy,
ever beheld.
The beautiful youth assisted Harolda into
the chariot, and made her sit down beside
him.
Then Irkanda arose, and, resting on her
distaff, spoke in a clear voice that was dis-
tinctly heard by every creature on both sides
of the borderland. She reminded her double
audience how their King and Queen had
been enchanted and spirited away eight years
before ; she told them also, what they had
long guessed, how she, Irkanda, by her spells,
had caused all the conspirators to perish
miserably, and had then applied herself to
the discovery of the condition of their King
and Queen.
'I will not now divulge,' she said, 'nor
shall I ever divulge to any one, the marvel-
lously ingenious and all but inextricably
involved enchantment, or, rather, series of en-
chantments, by which those wicked sorcerers
and evil spirits worked their infamous will.
Were I to reveal the secret, it would endanger
255
The Interregnum in Fairyland
the State. Happily, those subtle devices,
the perfecting of which occupied for ninety-
two years hundreds of the most unscrupulous
and most powerful minds, are never likely
to be reinvented. This only I can tell you :
Your King and Queen, my most gracious
master and mistress, were to be changed
into cheap wooden dolls, in which shape,
after having amused some thoughtless chil-
dren for a year or two, they would have
been inevitably burnt up in a patent stove.
The enchantment succeeded perfectly with
the King, but with the Queen it failed ; by
some extraordinary and beneficent mistake,
she was changed into a baby instead of into
a doll. Had it not been for this happy error,
I question if I should have succeeded in dis-
enchanting them. Fortunately, it required
only a very simple spell to bring the royal
pair together the King as the doll of the
Queen. The difficulty lay here : Such was
the diabolical ingenuity of the dead con-
spirators, that a restoration could not be
effected by force. However, my sister, the
fairy Urgala, in the guise of an old woman,
filled the mind of your enchanted Queen with
256
The Interregnum in Fairyland
such an overpowering desire to see Fairyland
that she set out to reach it of her own accord,
bringing the King, her dearly-loved doll, with
her. I should have told you that the con-
spirators completed, as they thought, their
nefarious designs, by enchanting- The Book of
the Laws of Faery into a toy picture-book.
That also I brought into the possession of
our Queen, and she, most adorable of en-
chanted princesses now happily disen-
chanted carried it with her when she set
out unwittingly to find her kingdom ; and it
is now once more safe in the muniment-room
of the royal palace. We were sadly tempted
in the forest, my sister and I, to seize upon
the royal pair and carry them straight to
you, for we knew of the dangers that beset
their majesties, but we dared not because of
the enchantment. The great soul of our
Queen helped us through all ; she did what-
ever we bade her, whatever we asked, fear-
lessly and trustfully, and it is to her, to her
alone, that this great and happy restoration
is due ; and after her to the Aroma of Life,
which quickly gave again to the royal pair
their own beautiful and majestic forms.'
17 257
The Interregnum in Fairyland
With that Irkanda placed crowns of gold
on the heads of the King and Queen j and
the beautiful, awe-struck, but radiant pair
stood up and bowed graciously to their fairy
and to their earthly subjects, who hailed
them with frantic shouts of ' Long live the
King and Queen ! Long live the King and
Queen ! '
And the King spoke loving words to his
consort; but she, trying in vain to reply,
burst into tears. Whereupon the King kissed
her tenderly and pressed her to his bosom,
and at once Declarabol's spell was broken,
and she murmured, between two joyful sobs :
' My husband ! '
The procession started immediately to
return to the capital of Fairyland, with tri-
umphal music and triumphal shouts. But
Irkanda crossed over the borderland to the
beasts, although the Queen begged her to
stay.
' My sister Urgala goes with you,' said
Irkanda, 'and she can communicate with
me, if danger threatens, in the thousandth
part of a second.'
So the Queen kissed Irkanda on both
258
The Interregnum in Fairyland
cheeks ; and she also kissed both her hands
to the beasts and the birds as her chariot
moved away. And all the creatures stood
silently watching the fairies until they passed
out of sight over the crest of the low hill.
Then, with the great enchantress and the
old stag at their head, they went back to
Epping Forest, and all the way Irkanda spun
her golden thread and sang her magic song :
' The world spins round, and the moon ;
And the sun spins round itself ;
And this is my distaff tune,
As I twirl the shining pelf.
' The spider spins in the furze,
And the dew begems his net ;
Fate's unseen spindle whirrs,
And the thread with blood is wet.
' But tears nor blood shall stain,
Nor rust of death or sin,
The thread of golden grain
I spin, I spin.'
THE END.
2 59
PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON AT
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS IN CAMBRIDGE
DURING JUNE M DCCC XCVI. FOR
STONE AND KIMBALL
NEW YORK
Date Due
PRINTED IN U.S./
CAT. NO. 24 161
UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY
A 000 686 000 1
, 1
rciim sances
bj
>
fohn Davidson