DROLLS FROM SHADOWLAND DROLLS FROM SHADOWLAND BY J. H. PEARCE Author of** Esther Petttreath," *' Inconsequent LiveSt" •' yaco Treloar," Grc, LONDON LAWRENCE & BULLEN i6, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, W.C. 1893. S\G'd P5/4oL THE CONTENTS. The Man who Coined his Blood into Gold An Unexpected Journey The Man who Could Talk with Birds The Pursuit A Pleasant Entertainment The Man who Desired to be a Tree The Man who Had Seen The Unchristened Child The Man who Met Hate The Haunted House Gifts and Awards . Friend or Foe? The Fields of Amaranth The Comedy of a Soul. I 15 27 39 49 61 73 85 95 109 lly 133 145 15s 9- THE MAN WHO COINED HIS BLOOD INTO GOLD. THE MAN WHO COINED HIS BLOOD INTO GOLD. The yoke of Poverty galled him exceed- ingly, and he hated his taskmistress with a most rancorous hatred. As he climbed up or down the dripping ladders, descending from soUar to sollar towards the level where he worked, he would set his teeth grimly that he might not curse aloud — an oath underground being an invitation to the Evil One — but in his heart the muffled curses were audible enough. And when he was at work in the dreary level, with the darkness B 2 4 Drolls from Shadowland. lying on his shoulder like a hand, and the candles shining unsteadily through the gloom, like little evil winking eyes, he brooded so moodily over his bondage to Poverty, that he desired to break from it at any cost. " I'd risk a lem for its weight in gowld : darned ef I wedn' ! " he muttered savagely, as he dug at the stubborn rock with his pick. He could hear the sounds of blasting in other levels — the explosions travelling to him in a muffled boom — and above him, for he was working beneath the bed of the ocean, he could faintly distinguish the grinding of the sea as the huge waves wallowed and roared across the beach. " I'm sick to death o' this here life," he grumbled ; "I'd give a haand or a' eye for a pot o' suvrins. Iss, I'd risk more Drolls from Shadowland. 5 than that," he added darkly : letting the words ooze out as if under his breath. Kx. that moment his pick detached a piece of rock which came crashing down on the floor of the level, splintering into great jagged fragments as it fell. He started back with an exclamation of uncontrollable surprise. The falling rock had disclosed the interior of a cavern whose outlines were lost in impenetrable gloom, but which here and there in a vague fashion, as it caught the light of the candle flickering in his hat, seemed to sparkle as if its walls were crusted with silver. " Lor' Jimmeny, this es bra' an' queer ! " he gasped. As he leaned on his pick, peering into the cavern with covetous eyes, but with a wildly-leaping heart, he was aware of an 6 Drolls fro77i Shadowland. odd movement among the shadows which were elusively outlined by the Hght of his dip. It was almost as though some of them had an independent individuality, and could have detached themselves from their roots if they wished. It was certain a squat, hump-backed blotch, that was sprawling blackly beside a misshapen block, was either wriggling on the floor as if trying to stand upright .... or else there was something wrong with his eyes. He stared at the wavering gloom in the cavern, with its quaint, angular splashes of glister, where heads of quartz and patches of mundic caught the light from the unsteady flame of the candle, and presently he was certain that the shadows were alive. Drolls from Shadowland. 7 Most of all he was sure that the little hump-backed oddity had risen to its feet and was a veritable creature : an actual uncouth, shambling grotesque, instead of a mere flat blotch of shadow. Up waddled the little hump-back to the hole in the wall where Joel stood staring, leaning on his pick. " What can I do for'ee, friend ? " he asked huskily : his voice sounding faint, hoarse, and muffled, as if it were coming from an immense distance, or as if the squat little frame had merely borrowed it for the nonce. Joel stared at the speaker, with his lower jaw dropping. " What can I do for'ee, friend ? " asked the hump-back ; peering at the grimy, half-naked miner, with his little ferrety eyes glowing luminously. 8 Drolls from Shadowland. Joel moistened his lips with his tongue before he answered. " Nawthin', plaise, sir," he gasped out, quakingly. " Nonsense, my man ! " said the hump- back pleasantly, rubbing his hands cheer- fully together as he spoke. And Joel noticed that the fingers, though long and skinny — almost wrinkled and lean enough, in fact, to pass for claws — were adorned with several sparkling rings. " Nonsense, my man ! I'm your friend — if you'll let me be. O never mind my hump, if it's that that's frightening you, I got that through a fall a long while ago," and the lean brown face puckered into a smile. " Come ! In what way can I oblige 'ee, friend ? I can grant you any wish you like. Say the word — and it's done ! Just think what you could do if you had heaps of money, now — piles of suvrins in that owld chest in your Drolls from Shadowland. g bedroom, instead o' they paltry two-an'- twenty suvrins which you now got heeded away in the skibbet," Joel stared at the speaker with distended eyes : the great beads of perspiration gathering on his forehead. " How ded'ee come to knaw they was there ? " he asked. "I knaw more than that," said the hump-back, laughing. " I could tell'ee a thing or two, b'leeve, if I wanted to. I knaw tin,* cumraade, as well as the next." And with that he began to chuckle to himself. "Wedn'ee like they two-an'-twenty suvrins in the skibbet made a hunderd-an'- *To " ijtawim" is amongthe miners of Cornwall a sign of, and a colloquial euphemism for, clever- ness. lo Drolls from SJiadowland. twenty ? " asked the hump-back insinua- tingly. " Iss, by Gosh, I should ! " said Joel. " Then gi'me your haand on it, curn- raade ; an' you shall have 'em ! " " Here goes, then ! " said Joel, thrusting out his hand. The hump-back seized the proffered hand in an instant, covering the grimy fingers with his own lean claws. " Oh, le'go ! ligo ! " shouted Joel. The hump-back grinned ; his black eyes glittering "I waan't be niggardly to'ee, cumraade," said he. " Every drop o' blood you choose to shed for the purpose shall turn into a golden suvrin for'ee — there ! " " Darn'ee ! thee ben an' run thy nails in me — see ! " And Joel shewed a drop of blood oozing from his wrist. Drolls from Shadowland. 1 1 " Try the charm, man ! Wish ! Hold un out, an' say, Wan ! " Joel held out his punctured wrist mechanically. "Wan!" There was a sudden gleam — and down dropped a sovereign : a bright gold coin that rang sharply as it fell. " Try agen ! " said the hump-back, grinning delightedly. Joel stooped first to pick up the coin, and bit it eagerly. " Ay, good Gosh ! 'tes gowld, sure 'nuff!" " Try agen ! " said the hump-back " Make up a pile ! " Joel held out his wrist and repeated the formula. "Wan!" And another coin clinked at his feet. 1 2 Drolls from Shadowlmid. " I needn' wait no longer, s'pose ? " said the hump-back. " Wan ! " cried Joel. And a third coin dropped. He leaned on his pick and kept coin- ing his blood eagerly, till presently there was quite a little pile at his feet. The hurap-back watched him intently for a time : but Joel appeared to be oblivious of his presence ; and the squat little figure stealthily disappeared. The falling coins kept chiming melodi- ously, till presently the great stalwart miner had to lean against the wall of the level to support himself. So tired as he was, he had never felt before. But give over his task he either could not, or would not. The chink of the gold-pieces he must hear if he died for it. He looked down at them greedily. "Wan ! . . . . Wan! .... Wan !...." Drolls from Shadowland. 1 3 Presently he tottered, and fell over on his heap. At that same moment the halting little hump-back stole out from the shadows immediately behind him, and leaned over Joel, rubbing his hands gleefully. " I must catch his soul," said the little black man. And with that he turned Joel's head round sharply, and held his hand to the dying man's mouth. Just then there fluttered up to Joel's lips a tiny yellow flame, which, for some reason or other, seemed as agitated as if it had a human consciousness. One might almost have imagined it perceived the Httle hump-back, and knew full well who and what he was. But there on Joel's lips the flame hung quivering. And now a deeper shadow fell upon his face. 14 Drolls front Shadow land. Surely the tiny thing shuddered with horror as the hump-back's black paws closed upon it ! But, in any case, it now was safely prisoned. And the httle black man laughed long and loudly. " Not so bad a bargain after all ! " chuckled he. AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY. AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY. The performance was over : the curtain had descended and the spectators had dispersed. There had been a shght crush at the doors of the theatre, and what with the abrupt change from the pleasant warmth and hght of the interior to the sharp chill of the night outside, Preston shivered, and a sudden weakness smote him at the joints. The crowd on the pavement in front of the theatre melted away with unexam- pled rapidity, in fact, seemed almost to c 1 8 Drolls from SJiadotvland. waver and disappear as if the mise en scene had changed in some inexphcable way. A hansom drove up, and Preston stepped into it heavily, glancing drowsily askance at the driver as he did so. Seated up there, barely visible in the gloom, the driver had an almost grisly aspect, humped with waterproof capes, and with such a lean, white face. Preston, as he glanced at him, shivered again. The trap-door above him opened softly, and the colourless face peered down at him curiously. " Where to, sir ? " asked the hollow voice. Preston leaned back wearily. "Home," he replied. It did not strike him as anything strange or unusual, that the driver asked Drolls from Shadowland. 19 no questions but drove off without a word. He was very weary, and he wanted to rest. The sleepless hum of the city was abid- ingly in his ears, and the lamps that dotted the misty pavements stared at him blink- ingly all along the route. The tall black buildings rose up grimly into the night ; the faces that flitted to and fro along the pavements, kept ever sliding past him, melting into the darkness ; and the cabs and 'buses, still astir in the streets, had a ghostly air as they vanished in the gloom. Preston lay back, weary in every joint, a drowsy numbness settling on his pulse. He had faith in his driver: he would bring him safely home. Presently they were at one of the wharves beside the river : Preston could c 2 20 Drolls from Shadowland. hear the gurgle of the water around the piles. Not this way had he ever before gone homeward. He looked out musingly on the swift, black stream. " Just in time : we can go down with the tide," said a voice. Preston would have uttered some pro- test, but this sluggishness overpowered him : it was as if he could neither lift hand nor foot. The inertia of indifference had penetrated into his bones. Presently he was aware that he had entered a barge that lay close against the wharf, heaving on the tide. And, as if it were all a piece of the play, the lean old driver, with his dead-white face, had the oars in his hands and stood quietly facing him, guiding the dark craft down the stream. Drolls from Shadowland. 2 1 The panorama of the river-bank kept changing and shifting in the most inexplic- able manner, and Preston was aware of a crowd of pictures ever coming and going before his eyes : as if some subtle magician, standing behind his shoulder, were project- ing for him, on the huge black screen of night, the most marvellous display of memories he had ever contemplated. For they were all memories, or blends of memories, that now rose here on the horizon of his consciousness. There was nothing new in essentials presented to him : but the grouping was occasionally novel to a fault. The dear old home — the dear old folks ! Green hills, with the little white-washed cottage in a dimple of them, and in the foreground the wind-fretted plain of the sea. The boyish games — marbles and 2? Drolls from Shadowland. hoop-trundling — and the coming home at dusk to the red-lighted kitchen, where the mother had the tea ready on the table and the sisters sat at their knitting by the fire. The dear, dear mother ! how his pulse yearned towards her ! there were tears in his eyes as he thought of her now. Yet, all the same, the quiet of his pulse was profound. And there was the familiar scenery of his daily life : the ink-stained desks, the brass rails for the books, the ledgers and bank-books, and the files against the walls ; and the faces of his fellow-clerks (even the office boy) depicted here before him to the very life. The wind across the waters blew chilly in his face : he shivered, a numbness settling in his limbs. His sweet young wife, so loving and Drolls from Shadoivland. 23 gentle — how shamefully he had neglected her, seeking his own pleasure selfishly — there she sat in the familiar chair by the fireside with dear little Daisy dancing on her knee. What a quiet, restful interior it was ! He wondered : would they miss him much if he were dead ? . . . . Above all, would httle Daisy understand what it meant when some one whispered to her '■'■favee is dead " ? The wavering shadows seemed to thicken around the boat. And the figure at the oars — how lean and white it was : and yet it seemed a good kind of fellow, too, he thought. Preston watched it musingly as the stream bore them onward : the rushing of the water almost lulling him to sleep. Were they sweeping outward, then, to the unknown sea .'' 24 Drolls from Shadowlmid. It was an unexpected journey And he had asked to be taken ho7ne ! Presently the air grew full of shapes : shadowy shapes with mournful faces ; shapes that hinted secrets, with threaten- ings in their eyes. If a man's sins, now, should take to themselves bodies, would it not be in some such guise as this they would front and affright him at dead of night ? Preston shivered, sitting there like a mere numb lump. How much of his wrong-doing is for- given to a man — and how much remem- bered against him in the reckoning .? How awful this gruesome isolation was becoming ! Was it thus a man went drifting up to God? The figure at the oars was crooning Drolls from Shadowland. 25 softly. It was like the lullaby his mother used to sing to him when he was a child. There was a breath of freer air — human- ity lay behind them — they were alone with Nature on the vast, dim sea. The numbness crept to the roots of his being. He had no hands to lift ; he had no feet to move. His heart grew sluggish : there was a numbness in his brain. Death stood upright now in the bow before him : and in the east he was aware of a widening breadth of grey. Would the blackness freshen into perfect day for him .... or would the night lie hopelessly on him for ever ? . . . . The figure drew near — and laid its hand across his eyes .... * * * * " Thrown out of the hansom, and the 26 Drolls from Shadowland. wheels went over him, sir. He was dead in less than five minutes, I should think." " Cover his face .... and break it gently to his wife." THE MAN WHO COULD TALK WITH THE BIRDS. THE MAN WHO COULD TALK WITH THE BIRDS. A TALE TOLD BY THE FIRESIDE. Wance upon a time there was a youngster in Zennor who was all'ys geekin'* into matters that warn't no use in the world. Some do say 'a was chver, too, weth it all, an' cut out that there mermaid in the church t what the folks do come from * Prying. tThe mermaid, with glass and comb and with the tail of a fish, which is carved on a bench-end in Zennor church. 30 Drolls from Shadowland. miles round to see. Anyway, 'a warn't like 'es brawthers an' sesters, an' 'as folks dedn' knaw what to maake of un, like. Well, wan day when 'a was wand'rin' about, down to Nancledrea or some such plaace, 'a got 'mong lots o' trees an' bushes an' heerd the cuckoos callin' to ayche awther, an' awther kinds o' birds what was singin' or talkin,' an' all as knawin' as humans, like. So no rest now cud 'a git, poor chuckle-head ! for wantin' to larn to spayke weth they. Well, it warn't long arter that 'a was geekin' as usual round some owld ruined crellas* up to Choon, when 'a seed a man weth a long white beard settin' on wan o' the burrowsf on the hill * Ancient hut-dwellings. + Barrows. Drolls from Shadoivland. 3 1 that are 'longside that owld Quoit* up there. 'A was a bowldish piece o' goods, was the youngster, simmin'ly, for 'a dedn' mind the stranyer a dinyun,t though 'a was like an owld black witch,; they do say. Any- how, the two beginned jawin' together, an soon got thick as Todgy an' Tom. An' by-an'-by the stranyer wormed out of un how 'a was all'ys troubled in 'es mind 'cause 'a cudn' onderstaand what the birds was sayin'. * Cromlech. The term is derived from the legendary belief that these rude megalithic monu- ments were used by the giants when playing quoits. t A little bit, in the least. + In Cornwall witch is both masculine and feminine. The black witch exercises the most potent magic ; the lohite witch being vastly inferior in power. 32 Drolls from Shadow land. " I'd give anything in the world," says the bucca-davy,* " ef I cud onnly lam to spayke weth they." "Aw, es it so, me dear," said the stranyer : " well, I'll tayche 'ee to talk to they, sure 'nuff, ef thee'll come up to that owld Quoit weth me." "What must I pay'ee?" axed the youngster, bowld-like. For he'd heerd o' cureyus bargains o' this kind, an' 'a dedn' want to risk 'es sawl. " Nawthin' ! Nawthin', me dear ! " said the stranyer. " I shall git paid for't in a way o' me awn." Well, the end of it was, accordin' to the story, that the youngster 'greed to go 'long weth un : so up the two of 'em went to the Quoit. * Fool. Drolls from SJiadoivla?id. 33 When they come up to un the stones seemed to oppen, an' they went inside an' found un like a house. But that was hunderds o' years ago. The owld Quoit now es more Hke a crellas, though 'a still got a bra' gayte rock for a roof. Anyhow, they went in, 'cordin' to the story ; an' there they lived for a number o' years. But, somehow, when they was wance got in, the youngster cudn' git out agen nohow. 'A cud geek through the cracks, an' see the country an' the people, but the stones wedn' oppen, an' 'a cudn' git out. But the owld black witch keeped 'es promise to un, an' tayched un all that 'a wanted to knaw. The craws that croaked on the Quoit in the sunshine, an' the sparrers an' wagtails an' awther kinds o' birds that come D 34 Drolls from SJiadowland. flittin' round an' cheepin' to ayche awther, the owld witch tayched un ('cordin' to the story) to onderstaand everything any of 'em said. Well, at laast 'a got so cliver, ded the youngster, that there warn't no bird but what 'a cud talk to ; from the owld black raven, wha's all'ys cryin' " corpse I " to the putty li'l robins what wedn' hurt a worm. But aw ! lor' Jimmeny ! warn't 'a disappointed when 'a found what 'a'd ben so hankerin' arter warn't wuth givin' a snail's shill to knaw. He'd ben thinkin', 'fore 'a cud onder- staand them, that what they'd be talkin' about to ayche awther wed be somethin' cureyus an' mighty cliver, all sorts o' strange owld saycrets, s'pose. But 'a found, when 'a come to spayke their language, that instead o' tellin' 'bout Drolls from Sliadoivland. 35 haypes o' treasures, an' hunted housen, an' owld queer ways, they was all the time talkin' 'bout their mait or their nestes, an' awther silly jabber like that. So 'a was mighty disappointed, an' got very law-sperrited, though 'a dedn' like to confess it to the witch. An' now, thinks the youngster, he'd like to go home agen : an' shaw off 'fore the nayburs, s'pose. " Well, thee cust go," says the owld witch, grinnin'. "An' what must I pay'ee for taychin' me ? " says the youngster. " Nawthin', sonny ! Nawthin' at all ! " says the witch. " I shall git me reward in a way o' me awn." An' weth that 'a bust out laughin' agen. Well, anyway, the lad, accordin' to the D 2 ^6 Drolls from Shadowland. story, wished un ^^ good-bye" an' trudged off home. But aw ! poor dear ! when 'a got to Zennor 'a nigh 'pon brok 'es heart weth grief. He'd ben Uvin' all alone weth the owld black witch, an' 'a hadn' took no note of what was passin', an' 'a thought 'a was still a youngster, simniin'ly : 'stead o' which 'a was graw'd to an owld, owld man, weth no more pith in 'es bones than a piskey ; an' 'a cud hardly manage to crawl to Zennor, 'a was so owld an' palchy*, an' nigh 'pon blind. An', wust of all, when 'a got to Zennor everywan who knaw'd un was dead an' gone ! 'Es faather an' mawther was up Weak. Drolls from Shadowland. 37 in the churchyard, an' 'a hadn' got a single friend in the world ! So because 'a was so owld an' terrible palchy, an' hadn' got nowan to taake no int'rest in un, through never havin' took no int'rest in nowan, they was obliged to put un up to Maddern Union ; an' there 'a lingered, owld an' toatlish,* 'tell 'a died at laast a lone owld man. Silly. THE PURSUIT. THE PURSUIT. It began when I was a lad at the country day-school, struggling to hold my own among the scholars in my class. If I could only always be perfect in my lessons, and among the foremost (if not the first) in the examinations ; then, at least, I thought, I should see Her face to face. But these good things befell me — possi- bly undeservedly — and though I swelled beneath my coat with inward satisfaction, She was still far off: a phantom on the hills. 42 Drolls from SJiadowland. Then it struck me that if I went to dear Mother Nature she would tell me of this daughter of hers — so enchanting, yet so shy — and I might even one day surprise Her on the hill-slopes, or meet Her as She wandered among the green, winding lanes. So I presently became a haunter of the tree-clad valleys, of the prattling brooks with the meadowsweet drooping over them, and of the lone, bleak hills where the great wind growled. Many mornings did I steal out long before the sunrise in order to watch the stars die out in the dawning and the red bars glow in the palpitating east. And when, standing among the firs in the windy plantation, I saw the huge sun rear its head and flood the world with splendour, and heard the birds sing jubilantly, almost breathless with delight, I have fancied I felt the breath of Drolls from Shadowla7id. 43 the Beloved One on my cheek and Her heart beating wildly and tremulously against my own. But it was only fancy. Presently the singing dwindled and became fainter : the air grew hot beneath the aromatic fir-boughs : and when, in the distance, the flood of dazzling sunlight dashed redly on the window-panes of the village cottages, I knew I must descend from the haunted hill-top and return to the more prosaic details of life. If She had flown past me, brushing me with Her garments in passing, I had not yet dis- covered Her as a possession that I could grasp. Then I said to myself, I shall find Her among my girl-friends: among their rustling garments I shall hear Her gar- ments rustle; and from among the laughing eyes with which they bewilder 44 Drolls from Shadoivland. me, I shall no doubt be able to single out Hers. I chose the pleasantest of the maidens who fluttered through my world; and I knew her beautiful, and I believed her to be true. But that old clown Circumstance was piping in the market-place, shewing his cheap-jack wares to catch the fancies of the maidens, and my sweetheart, caught in the excitement of the moment, presently paid down for one of his flashy baubles no less a price than her own young heart. Then I said, I will look abroad in the market-place myself Through the clatter of feet and the babble of many voices, I may perhaps catch a whisper, a hint of Her presence. Possibly She may love the eager haunts of men even more than She loves the silent haunt of the wood-dove Devils from SJiadowland. 45 and the great wide moors where the kite circles slowly. I will move among ray fellows and will search for Her there. But the market-place with its thud, thud, thud of many feet, and its clatter of vehicles, and its buzz of many voices, was a busy spot, and the pleasures were very cheap ones : and not here could I manage to get a glimpse of Her face. I looked in the shops, and I stood beside the hawkers, and I listened to the sellers and gossiped with those who bought ; but the noise, and the heat, and the dust that rose so thickly, were more than I had bargained for, and I felt lonely and dis- illusioned : so I very lamely turned my back on it all, and went away feeling that I should never find Her there. Then I built for myself a study into 46 Drolls from SJiadowland. which I gathered covetously the most perfect vintage of the human intellect — the ripest fruit our wise race has garnered during all the years it has been harvesting from time. And here I sat me down waiting for my Beloved. She will surely show Her face to me here, said I. The wind rattled the casement ; the lamp-flame shook tremulously; and the fire burned cheerfully in the grotesque- tiled grate. I could hear the rain viciously swishing against the window-panes and gurgling unmelodiously through the gutters and from the pipes, but She whom I desired came not to keep me company. For all the feast I have gathered for us, and for all the comfort I have secured for her, She holds aloof, and I have never seen Her yet. Drolls from Shadowland. 47 And sometimes now I fancy that possibly I may never see Her : but that one day, when I am lying in my coffin, She will press Her lips to mine — and I shall never know. A PLEASANT ENTERTAINMENT. £ A PLEASANT ENTERTAINMENT. " I HAVE here," said the Showman, " the most interesting entertainment to be witnessed on earth ! Walk up ! walk up, and judge for yourselves ! " And with that he beat the drum and blew shrilly on the pipes. The music travelled to the ears of his audience with a difference : or so it seemed to them, as they stood before the booth. Some heard in it, through the discordant hubbub of the fair, the rattle of vehicles and the tramp of feet in the busy thorough- fares of a great city ; for others, it was the B 2 52 Drolls from Shadowland. whistling of birds in the hedgerows : and to some, hke the restless pulsations of the sea. To each, according to his memories and his mood. But the music of the Showman was a single tune for all. " Walk up ! walk up ! " bawled the grey- coated Showman, blowing at the pipes and pounding on the drum. " Darned if I wouldn't go in, if I had the brass ! " quoth a lean, unshaven, shabby-looking man, who stood in front of the booth with his hands in his pockets. " I'll stand treat, if you like ! " cried a sunken-eyed young woman, whose cheap and much-bedraggled finery matched aptly enough with her wan and haggard counten- ance. It was the impulse of a moment, but she was the puppet of impulse and danced on the wires at the slightest touch of chance. Drolls from Shadowland. 53 " Right you are ! " cried the man. And they mounted the steps to- gether. " It's like going up to the altar, isn't it ? " giggled the woman to her com- panion. " More like going up to the gallows," growled the man. The Showman rattled the coins as he pocketed them, and flinging aside the canvas admitted them to the booth. The interior was enveloped in a dim obscurity ; hardly deep enough to be counted as darkness, but oppressive enough to slow the pulses of both. There was, however, at one end of the booth a large disc projected on the obscurity : a pale, empty, weirdly-lighted circle, which they stared at dumbly, with wonder in their eyes. 54 Drolls from Shadow land. " Is this some darned fool's joke ? " growled the man. " Hush ! " said the woman, "the enter- tainment has commenced." And, true enough, the disc at which they had been staring had already a stirring, as of life, across its surface. They were aware of a couple of enthral- ling faces fronting them side by side on the disc. One was a woman's face, exquisitely beautiful, with soft blue eyes, full of the most charming gaiety, and with lips as sweetly winsome as a child's : the other was a man's face, proud and handsome, the mouth set firmly, the eyes full of thought. "Such a face I had dreamed of as my own," sighed the woman. *' So I had imagined I might have been," mused the man. Drolls from Shadow la?id. 5 5 And then the scenes on the disc began to wax and dwindle rapidly ; like the momentary clinging, and as rapid vanish- ing, of breath across a mirror of polished steel. There was a vague fluttering and inter- change of images ; an elusive, intangible influx of suggestions, and an equally dreamy efflux of the same. A young girl growing into beautiful womanhood, well-dressed, shapely, sought eagerly in marriage, admired by the opposite sex, and envied by her own. Then a woman in the prime of her powers of enjoyment — with her charms undiminished and her wishes ripened — wedded, and success- fully shaping her life : a woman blessed greatly, and very happy. And side by side with these dream- fancies, or imaginings, went those of a 56 Drolls from Shadowland. young man facing the world gallantly ; surmounting every obstacle easily, and conquering hearts as if by a spell. There was success for him in every scene on which he entered : he was proud and admired, and very haughty, and very rich. Presently, as if through some dexterous sleight of hand, the pictures of his wooing blended waveringly and dimly with the pictures which emerged for the bedraggled woman who stood beside the loafer in front of the disc. In the church, when the wedding-march was being played, and in the vignettes of domestic happiness that ensued, the faces and scenes mysteriously coalesced. For the two spectators, who watched the shifting pictures breathlessly, there were no longer four figures in the scene, but only two. Drolls from SJiadozvland. 57 " Some such future I had imagined for myself," the man muttered. And the woman mused amazedly : " These were day-dreams of my own." The disc became obscured, as if their eyes were blurred mistily. The woman gulped down something : and the man clenched his teeth. There was a sudden exquisite clarity in the pictures. They were looking at a cluster of white-washed cottages, with tall thatched roofs and with great stone chim- neys : a lonely little hamlet drowsing in the sun. White-winged ducks were quacking in the roadway, a grey-coated donkey was grazing beside a hedge, and the threadlets of smoke, that mounted lazily above the roofs, rose up into a sky of the most exquisite purity, spacious, high, and cloudlessly blue. And again there was only one scene for them both. 58 Drolls from SJiadowland. " My God, that is where I was born ! ' groaned the man. " That's my mother's cottage ! " sobbed the woman, and wept aloud. Then came rural scenes of almost every character, with a lad and a girl moving flittingly through them — laughing and kissing in the lanes among the brambles, drifting together everywhere, sweetheart- ing through it all. "Are you Nelly King, then?" asked the man, hoarsely. " And you .... you are Stephen Laity, are you not ? " " If we could both die here and now ! " cried the man. Then the pictures for a while grew blurred and confused, till presently they shewed the gas-lighted streets of London .... Drolls from Sliadoxvland. 59 " My God, I will see no more ! " cried the girl. And she shudderingly held her hand before her eyes. " Nor I, either ! " cried the man, with an oath. " However much you close your eyes," said the Showman, " you will cancel nothing of the pictures on the screen." But they had turned and fled even while he was speaking. " Even in the fair the pictures will pursue you ! " said the stern-visaged Show- man, following them with his eyes. THE MAN WHO DESIRED TO BE A TREE. THE MAN WHO DESIRED TO BE A TREE. The sunshine streamed across the lush- grassed meadows, and beat fiercely down on the huge-limbed elms whose myriad leaves kept fluttering ceaselessly. In the dense green covert, formed by the multi- tude of interlacing branches, several wee brown songsters had built their nests, and they kept flitting to and fro and trilling joyously as the light breeze stirred the innumerable leaves. The air was warm, and soft, and pleasant. The deep green arcades were 64 Drolls from Shadowland. cool and moist, full of the drowsy flutter that rippled through the branches, and full also of the deliciously delicate fragrance from the budding sprays and fresh green foliage. IVIay was in the woodlands, shy and winsome; she had not yet shaken herself free from her day-dreams, and the ^\-onder of her young hopes lingered about her still. At the foot of a tree, reclining against its roots, lay a lean-visaged student, very shabbily dressed and with patches of thin grey hair around his temples. A volume of the Faery Queen lay open beside him, but he had for some time ceased to pore over its pages, being engaged instead in chasing Fancy as she flitted hither and thither through the vast green woodland, dallying with the shadows and gossiping with the wind. Drolls from SJiadoivland. 65 His mind's eye revelled in the pictur- esque suggestions that seemed to him, as he lay here with half-closed lids, to be fleetingly visible, as if in a dream. He was aware of beautiful damsels in gauzy draperies pantingly hurrying through the dusky avenues with steel-clad knights in hot pursuit; of grey old monks, cowled and sandalled, moving hither and thither in a world of utter peace ; and of dryads and fairies, fauns and satyrs, filling the woodland with dreamy poetry, as the wind filled its giant rafters with music, and the brooks purled babblingly through the crevices of its floor. How delightful it would be to be a denizen of the forest — to be this elm in whose shadow he was lying ! he thought. The huge tent-like shadow of the elm- tree deepened and widened with the F 66 Drolls from SJiadowland. dropping sun, and the shadows of other trees in the vicinity — dainty saplings and gnarled old foresters — fell across the nearer margin of the grass-land in fantastic, almost semi -human outlines : at least, so it seemed to the dreamy student, as he lay here watching the breeze ripple across the grass-blades and listened to the mur- mur of the forest at his back. " I should like to be a tree," he sighed lazily and half aloud. "Would you?" asked a voice from somewhere close to him. It was a low, caressing, insinuating voice, with a strange seductiveness in its silvery intonation. And instead of feeling startled he felt a sudden wave of happiness, as if a beautiful female had breathed upon his cheek. " Would you ? " asked the voice, Drolls from Shadow land. 6^ deliciously flattering him, ^^ would you like to be one of us indeed?" A tree has a life void of trouble, he ruminated. The birds sing to it, and the wind caresses it, and it feels the sunshine, and greatens where it grows. Yes, I should like to be a tree indeed ! " Shall I grant your wish ? " asked the voice whisperingly — how exquisitely sweet and soothing it was ! — " shall I grant it here, and now?" it asked. The student closed his eyes to leisurely consider; and then, half dreamily, an- swered, " Yes ! " To be a tree is to be in touch with Nature nakedly ; to be stripped of the disguises that have gathered about the man, and to be thrown back blankly into the narrowest groove of life. The student felt the wind and the sun on his branches, and the birds F 2 68 Drolls from SJiadowland. sang joyously, nestling among his leaves ; his feet were rooted in the fresh and whole- some earth, and the sap moved sluggishly in his rough-barked trunk. It was a calm and deeply drowsy exis- tence ; but the restlessness of humanity was not yet eliminated from him, and he investigated his novel tenement wonder- ingly, and not without a touch of squeam- ish disgust. But when the quiet night descended on him, and the cooling dews slid into his pores, the exquisite soothe of the darkness enveloped him, and to the rustling of his leaves he fell healthily asleep. He was awakened presently by the gracious dawn, by the sweet and wholesome breath of morning, and the flash of the sunrise and the singing of birds. And had it not been for the dew-crumpled Drolls from Shadowland. 69 volume that now lay blotched and smirched at his feet, he would have for- gotten his manhood and the unquiet life of cities and would have looked for his brothers only among the trees. But so long as the volume lay there forlornly, so long he remembered, and had something to regret. But the days passed — he could now keep no count of them— and human speech and human passions dropped away from his memory as quietly and painlessly as his own ripe leaves began presently to drop. And the tree's life narrowed to its narrow round of needs. It sheltered the birds, and it took the wind's kisses gladly, and it caught the snows in the wrinkles and twists of its boughs : and the squirrel nested in it, and the wood-mouse nibbled at it ; 70 Drolls from Shadowland. and its life sufficed it, answering its desires. * * * * One day there swept a mighty storm across the forest : the thunder crashed and the hghtning flashed continuously ; and the whole land held its breath, listening to the uproar. The Lord of the Forest was moving among his children : and some of them he passed without injuring or despoiling them \ but others he smote wrathfully, so that he rent them and they died. And when he came to the tree that had one-time been the student, he remembered, and desired to bestow on it a boon. And he said to the elm, now gnarled and wrinkled, " You shall be a man again, if you earnestly desire it — a man again until you die." Drolls from Shadowland. 7 1 The tree heard the great wind roaring among its brethren, and it was aware of the wee birds cowering among its boughs ; and it remembered, as in a flash, the weary hfe of humanity, with hopes to befool it and despair for its reward : and it rustled its myriad leaves whispering mourn- fully, " Let me, O Master, remain as I am!" And the Lord of the Forest was content, and passed on. THE MAN WHO HAD SEEN. THE MAN WHO HAD SEEN. On the third day he recovered from the " trance " and regained consciousness, and took up the burden of his hfe as before. But the revelation which had been vouchsafed to him had influenced him profoundly. He had now a new estimate of values and results. The centre of his mental life was permanently shifted, and a new bias had been given to his thoughts. He went to the King, where he sat sunning himself in his palace. " You are very rich," said the man to the King. 'j6 Drolls from Shadowland. " God has so willed it, and I am grate- ful," said the King. " You hope one day to see God face to face ? " " 1 do hope so, fervently ! " said the King, with unction. " And if He questions you of your wealth you will express your gratitude and bow to Him, and God will accept the com- pliment and be content ? " The King was silent. " You think He will ask no questions } " said the man. " He will not trouble to refer to His starving children, with whom you might reasonably have shared your superfluities ; to the sick whom you might have succoured ; or to the sorrowing whom you might have cheered ? You had wealth, and were grateful for it : and you used it on yourself. And presently, when Drolls from Shadozvland. yj you are dead ? " asked the man, more quietly. " If you sit beside the beggar who perished at your gates, what will you say to him if he should refer to matters such as these ? " " Sit beside a beggar ! " cried the King, in high disdain. " You forget it will be in heaven," said the man, gently. "In heaven, of course, I shall be a king as I am here ! " " Oh, will you ? " said the man : " I was not aware of that. I saw kings there per- forming the lowliest of services. And I saw many in hell : the majority of them were there." And therewith the man sighed heavily, as he mused. The King turned his back on him : and they thrust him out at the gates. * * * * 78 Drolls from Shadoivland. The Archbishop was reading a novel by the fire. " Your work, then, is ended, is it ? " asked the man. "Oh no! not by any means ended, I hope. I attended a drawing-room meet- ing at Lady Clack's yesterday," said the Archbishop, smiling benignantly on his questioner, "and this morning I have sanctioned proceedings against a vicar who for some time has been wavering heretically in his opinions. I think we can effectually silence him at last. Oh yes, I am extremely busy, I can assure you." "There are no souls, then, to be saved } " said the man. " No lives to be reformed : and no mourners to be comforted ? This side of your duties you have completed and closed ? " Drolls from SJiadoivland. 79 The Archbishop looked at him with extreme hauteur. " My dear sir, I leave these matters to my subordinates. I am here as an administrator, not as a minister." " And you always choose the men best fitted to be ministers ? " " Of course. At any rate, I hope so," quoth the Archbishop. "That young curate who has so successfully played the evangelist in Gorseshire — he will have one of your earliest nominations, then, no doubt ? " " Indeed, he will not ! He has offended me deeply. Would you believe it } he wrote an article on me in one of the reviews, and he actually had the audacity, sir, to criticize me unfavourably ! I will see that the man remains exactly where he is!" 8o Drolls from Shadowland. " And when you by-and-by make your report to your Master, will you explain to Him your methods and your aims in this way ? If so, do you think He will be satis- fied with you ? Your methods and His are at variance, surely ? In heaven there are neither archbishops nor bishops, as such. If they pass the gates at all, it is merely as men who have done their duty. Do you think you will pass the gates on that score, your Grace ? " The Archbishop rang the bell sharply and abruptly. "Please show this gentleman out!" said His Grace. * * * * "So you persist in disowning your daughter ? " asked the man, looking hard at the portly, pleasant-faced matron who was dandling her thirteenth infant on her Drolls from SJiadowland. 8 1 knees. "You will show her no mercy, now she asks it at your hands ? " " She has disgraced me — I will never forgive her ! " said the woman. " Let her starve with her brat. It will be well when they are dead." " She has disgraced you, you say ? But has she disgraced Nature? I thought it was Nature who was responsible for her sex and its instincts. She has obeyed the one and fulfilled the other. And they have been paramount considerations with you also, I perceive." "Did she owe no duty, then, to her parents ? Was I to count in her life merely as the soil to the plant ? " " In the scales of justice, as I saw them adjusted in heaven, the claim against the parents weighed the heaviest," said the man. " You suckled her at your breasts ; G 82 Drolls from Shadowland. but you brought her there to suckle. In your bringing her there, hes the onus of her claim." " I tell you, she has disgraced me, and I will never forgive her ! " '■'■^ Never'' is a long day for a mortal. You will be judged yourself before you reach the end of it," said the man. * -x- * * " Three months' imprisonment with hard labour," said the magistrate. " For taking a loaf of bread when he was starving ! " cried the man. " Even so," said the magistrate, with his hands on his paunch. " But surely this is a monstrous perver- sion of justice. Or, rather, let me call it a monstrous z'^zjustice ! " "The laws of the community must be respected," said the magistrate. Drolls from Shadowland. 83 " Here is a man — alive by no fault of his own, and poor, even to starvation, through absolute want of work : and yet you begrudge him the necessaries of life ! If he tries to commit suicide, you pillory and chastise him, and if he tries to keep life in him out of the superfluities of others, you pass on him this monstrous sentence ! " cried the man. " Surely here is some fault in the structure of your society." " It is the law of the community ! " said the magistrate, pompously "And in what way is the law of the community so very sacred, that it should be counted of higher price than the life and welfare of a man ? The law of the community may be a very pretty idol to play before, but in heaven it counts for nothing," said the quiet old man. G 2 84 Drolls from Shadowland. " This man is a pestilent fellow," said the community. " He troubles us over- much with this vision that he has know- ledge of. Come, let us kill him ! " And they smote him, and he died. THE UNCHRISTENED CHILD. THE UNCHRISTENED CHILD. " Thee shaan't christen un, ef he's never christened ! " said the father. " I've no faith in 'ee : not a dinyun.* Go to Hahfax to shoot gaanders : tha's all thee'rt fit for ! " " He'll suffer for it, both here and here- after," said the parson. " Doan't believe it ! " said the man. " Wherever he dies, whether on land or on water, he will become a creature of that element instead of going to his rest," * Little bit. 88 Drolls fro 711 Shadowland. said the parson, with an angry light in his eyes. " Doan't believe it ! " said the man : " an' thee doan't nayther." The parson marched off, disdaining to reply. The infant grew into a bright little lad, but there was always a certain oddity about him, and he saw and understood more than he ought. One day he was out fishing with a companion, in a tiny punt they had bor- rowed for the purpose, when he leaned overboard too far and fell into the sea. His little companion was so paralysed with terror that he could do nothing but set up a shrill screaming, clinging to the boat with both his hands. Silas rose once — and twice — with wildly- pleading eyes : his mouth full of water : Drolls from SJiadowland. 89 his hair plastered against his head : then sank; and a third time emerged just above the surface ; so close to the boat that his companion, leaning over, could see him sinking down slowly into the crystalline depths, with his hands stretched up and the hair on his head tapering to a point like the flame of a candle. " Silas ! Silas ! " the little lad shrieked. But Silas sank down ; and ever down : lower and lower beneath the translucent waters, the vast flood deepening its tint above him, till at last he was hopelessly buried out of sight. When John Penberthy heard the terrible news he took the blow as a man might take a sentence of death — in grim silence, and with a sullen despair which nothing might henceforth banish or relieve. The roof-tree of his hopes was broken 90 Drolls from Shadowland. irretrievably, and he gazed dowm blankly at the ruin around his feet. About three days after Silas was drowned, John was one afternoon out fishing for bait, and happened to be keep- ing rather close to the cliff-line, when he perceived a little seal emerge from a zawn* and come swimming, as with a settled purpose, towards the boat. There was something so melancholy and so pathetically human in the soft, liquid eyes of the animal, that John felt his heart touched unaccountably. Forgetting the line, which he was just about to draw in, he sat staring at the seal with a fixed intensity, as if he were looking in the familiar eyes of some one with whom he had a world of memories to interchange. * A cave. Drolls from SJiadowland. 91 And, meanwhile, the seal swam straight up to him, till it was so close to the boat that he could touch it with his hand. John leaned over and looked straight at the animal : fixing his eyes hungrily on the eyes of the seal. "Why dedn'ee ha' me christened, faather ? " asked the little seal, piteously. "My God! are'ee Silas?" cried John, trembling violently. " Iss, I'm Silas," said the little seal. John stared aghast at the smooth brown head and the innocent eyes that watched him so pathetically. "Why, I thought thee wert drownded, Silas ! " he ejaculated. " I caan't go to rest 'tell I'm christened," said the seal. " How can us do it now ? " asked the father, anxiously. 92 Drolls from Shadowland. " Ef anywan who's christened wed change sauls weth me," said the seal, "then I cud go to rest right away." " Thee shall ha' viy saul, Silas," said the father, tenderly. "Will'ee put thy mouth to mine an' bray the it into me, faather?" " Iss, me dear, that I will ! " said the father. "Rest thee shust have ef I can give it to'ee, Silas. Put thy haands or paws around me neck, will'ee, soas ? " And John leaned over the side of the boat till his face touched that of the piteous little seal. At that moment the boat — which for the last few minutes had been allowed to drift at the mercy of the tide, owing to John's pre-occupation — was caught among the irregular currents near a skerry, and Drolls from Shadowland. 93 John was suddenly jerked, or tilted, over- board, plunging into the waters with a sullen splash. When he rose to the surface, with a deadly chill in him — the chill of his drear and imminent doom, even more than the grueing chill of the water — his first thought, even in that perilous moment, was of dear little Silas and the promise he had given to him, or, at least, the promise he had given to the seal. The quaint little creature was, however, nowhere visible ; and John, with a sudden influx of strength — an alarmed awakening and resurgence of his will — made up his mind to save his hfe if it were possible, and quietly leave the settlement of the other affair to God. But grey old Fate was stronger than he was. And the waves were here her 94 Drolls from Shadowland. obedient servants ; doing her will blindly, without pity or remorse. In a little while John was tossing among the seaweed — into a bed of which his body had descended — and -what further dreams (if any) he dreamed there beneath the waters, must remain untold till the Judgment Day. THE MAN WHO MET HATE. THE MAN WHO MET HATE. It was drawing on towards midnight, and tlie world seemed very lonely. There was a huge, round harvest moon in the sky, and the hills were bathed in a kind of spectral splendour — a faint and filmy shimmer of silver that left the out- lines of objects blurred and elusive, though the scene as a whole emerged clearly for the eye. The wind was sighing drowsily across the moors, while high on the rugged cairns on the hill-tops it was wuthering mournfully beneath the wan grey sky. And 'Lijah, staring sleeplessly through H 98 Drolls from Shadowland. his blindless bedroom-window, felt a grow- ing unrest in the very marrow of his bones. He could see down below, in the little lonesome cove, the cottage where Dorcas had now made her nest with that " darned gayte long-legged 'Miah " for her husband, and in the sudden heat and bitterness of his wrath his heart became like a live coal within him. " I'll have my revenge on un, ef I haang for it ! " growled he. And then he remembered that up on yonder moors — whose ferns and granite boulders he could see plainly in the moon- light — there was a " gashly owld fogou,"* where, if a man went at midnight prepared to boldly summon Hate and to "turn a A subterranean storehouse or place of shelter. Drolls from Shadozvland. 99 stone "* in her honour, his hatred would be accomplished for him "as sure as death." " An' I'll go there, ef I die for it ! " said he grimly to himself. The village was asleep, and all its cottages were smokeless. There was no one stirring anywhere in the cove. But far out in the moonlit bay he could see the fishing-boats dotting the vast grey plain, and he knew that in one of them 'Miah Laity was fishing, and was no doubt think- ing of Dorcas as he fished. " I'll spoil 'es thinkin' for un 'fore long," said 'Lijah, " ayven ef I have to sill me saul to do the job ! " And with that he slipped on his coat * A portion of the rites practised in connection with " cursing stones." H 2 100 Drolls from Shadowland. and boots — for he had been standing at the window half undressed — and clapping on his cap as he passed through the kitchen, strode heavily and gloomily out of the house. On the moor he had only the breeze for company, and its long, vague wail, as it rustled across the ferns, merely deepened the moody irritation in his mind. He felt as sour as a fanatic and as gloomy as a thief. To find the fogou, among the bewildering growth of ferns, was by no means the easiest task in the world : for the rude cave- dwelling was literally buried in the hill- side ; its entrance being hidden by the rank vegetation that here reached almost to Elijah's arm-pits. As he ploughed his way through the trackless tangle, giving vent the while to a Drolls f 1^01)1 SJiadowland. loi superfluity of oaths, he presently stumbled on the entrance to the fogou, almost pre- cipitating himself into its darkness, so suddenly had he stumbled on it, wading through the ferns. The low and narrow tunnel in the hill- side, with its walls and roof lined with slabs of rock, was as uncanny a spot as a man could set foot in, and Elijah shook like one with the ague, as he thrust aside the ferns and peered into the blackness. He turned round, half inclined to retreat ; but, as he turned, his eyes chanced to travel to the sea, where he could still discern the fishing-boats riding at their nets ; and the idea of 'Miah out there thinking of Dorcas made him clench his teeth grimly, as if he had received a blow. He swung round on his heels sharply and determinedly, savagely trampling the 102 Drolls from SJiadowland. ferns beneath his feet, and strode forward into the pitch-black mirk. Groping his way in, with hands extended, he presently found the block of granite called the altar, and "turning the stone " in the hollow on its surface, he shaped the while in his heart his rancorous prayer to Hate. Suddenly he was aware of a face staring at him : a mere face vaguely limned on the darkness, as if a bodiless head were held before him by the hair. And in that same instant, without a word being uttered, he felt that he had looked in the face of Hate. He reeled out of the fogou like a drunken man. The vision was one it would be impossible to forget. He must bear with him this memory, as a man who has Drolls from Shadowland. 103 committed a murder must bear with him the memory of his victim's ghastly face. "I'll wait an' see what comes of it," said 'Lijah to himself, as he ran and stumbled down the hill-side in the moon- light, the thick hair stiffening under his cap. * * * * The months slipped by, and the years dragged on sluggishly, and 'Miah and Dorcas were as happy as ever. They had a couple of bairns to toddle about their cottage, and 'Miah had been fairly fortunate on the fishery, so that their lives were generally sunny and enviable to an extent that made Elijah's blood turn to gall. "Thee'st forgotten me, thou darned owld liar that thou art ! " said he, shaking his fist savagely at the fern-clad hill- • I04 Drolls from Shadowland. side, where Hate presumably was watching from her lair. On which he heard a chilling whisper at his elbow: "You shall have your wish, as feure as death ! " Elijah heard the loud thump, thump of his heart. But an instant after, his pulse danced buoyantly, and he went about his work chuckling grimly to himself. But while 'Miah's life was harvesting happiness, as his nets gathered abundantly the harvest of the sea, Elijah's life on his farm on the hill-side appeared to be stifling among the stones and thistles, and a sour and acid leanness seemed eating up his heart. It was as if Hate had shot her arrows blindly, and they had struck and rankled in the wrong breast. With Elijah Trevorrow nothing seemed Drolls from Shadozvlajtd. 105 to prosper. He might rise early and go to bed late, he might pinch and pare as relentlessly as he pleased, every year of his life he grew leaner and poorer, till the scowl on his features deepened per- manently among its lines, and in the end transformed his features as completely as a mask. He was no more like the clear-eyed, whistling young farmer who had gone a-wooing Dorcas among the rustling wheat- fields, than the wrinkled tree, with its heart rotted out of it, is like the green young sapling in the bravery of its spring. Ever watching hungrily to see Misfor- tune seize his rival and set he:r teeth thirstily in the very pulse of his life, Elijah held aloof from commerce with his neigh- bours, sour and discontented, and wishing each i3ay to end, in the hope that on io6 Drolls from Shadowland. the morrow he might see the evil he desired. Presently there went a whisper through the tiny hamlet that Elijah Trevorrow was a bit touched here — the villagers tapping their brows significantly as they spoke. " He do talk as ef Hate es a woman, an' he've seed her. Up in that owld fogou he've mit her, he do say. An' he's all'ys sayin' she ha'nt keeped her word to un. Whatever do 'a mayne, weth 'es gashly owld tales ? " 'Miah, whose name had got mixed up in the tale, one day called at the lonely farmhouse, in order to see Elijah and reason with him if he could. But Elijah, as 'Miah approached, set the dogs on him savagely, and the fisher- man was obliged precipitately to beat a retreat. Drolls from Shadoivland. 107 At last, one day in the depth of winter, when the hills were white with whirling snowdrifts, Elijah Trevorrow disappeared. They searched everywhere for him, but could find no trace of him, and the search was finally abandoned in despair. Elijah had made his way to the fogou, determined to front Hate and to compel her to keep faith with him, even if he squeezed her life out through her throat. * * * * Some eight months after — in the time of blackberries — some youngsters, quest- ing among the ferns on the hillside, stumbled across the fogou and crept in to explore it. They rushed down the hillside scream- ing with terror ; and, when safe among the cottages, began to babble incoherently that there was a ghost up yonder in the io8 Drolls from SJiadowland. '• owld hunted fogou," they had seen its face — and it was white — so white ! The villagers began to have an inkling of the truth, and went toiling up through the ferns in a body. " As like as not 'tes he^ poor saul," they whispered awesomely as they clambered up the windy ridges of the hill. True enough, it was Elijah, dead in the fogou. But whether or not he had again met Hate there, is one of the questions the gossips have still to solve. THE HAUNTED HOUSE. THE HAUNTED HOUSE. It was only an old deserted house, perched half-way up the hillside and over- looking the village. But it was none the less the village theatre : the peep-hole through which the villagers obtained a glimpse of many mysteries, and the stage and drop-scene of half the legends of the thorp. It was an old stone building which evidently had once been a dwelling of importance, but for quite a century it had been tenantless and almost entirely dis- mantled : the home of the owl and the lizard, of the spectre and the bat. 112 Drolls from Shadowland. When the sunrise splashed across the fragmentary panes of glass that here and there remained in their frames, the farmer would stand still at his ploughing on the hill-slope and glance up at the great Argus- eyed building — that had now, however, more sockets than eyes — and a world of memories, of legends and superstitions, would buzz, with strange bewilderment, through his brain. The old house reminded him of his mother and of his grandfather, and of those who had been the village historians for his childhood, and a musing gravity seemed to deepen in his mind. He was aware of the brevity of life, and of the lapse of the personality ; of the tragedies of passion, with their gravity and poignancy, and of the mystery that broods at the back of all our thoughts. But most of all he was Drolls from Shadowland. 1 1 3 aware that the building standing fronting him was the very kernel of his individuality projected into visibility : the one knot into which all his memories were tied. He would hold his children spell-bound by the hour as he told them the ordinary folk-tales of the hamlet, with that ruin on the hillside as the stage for the majority of them; till his daughter Ruth, who was young and sentimental, though with a streak of passion running through her nature, learned to contemplate the ruin with an awe akin to his, and stared up wonderingly at it, so long and so often, that at last it had become for her a necessary part of life. While Ruth was still a child, the haunted ruin chiefly attracted her thoughts as the scene and locality of uncanny occurrences that were fanciful and unusual rather than I 114 Drolls from Shadowland. sombre or suggestive. It was the great haunted cheese in which the piskies burrowed, and out of which they hopped with amusing unexpectedness : it was the building to pass which you must always turn your stocking, if you wished to escape being pisky-ledden, or misguided : it was the place to which the " Little Folks " * conveyed stolen children : above all, it was the place of dark and cobwebbed corners, where naughty children were put to live with snails and spiders and with great big goggle-eyed buccaboos ! As she stood on her doorstep with her bit of knitting in her hand — a tiny doll's stocking, or a garter for herself — little Ruth would stare up at the great black building, with the scarlet splendour of the sunset at * Fairies. Drolls from Shadowland. 1 1 5 its back, until she almost fancied she could see the little winking piskies grinning through the window-holes and clambering across the roofs. And by-and-by, when the rich yellow sky began to darken and the flocks of rooks flew cawing overhead, Ruth would shiver with a delicious sense of security as she stood beneath the porch in the gather- ing twilight and heard the wind begin to moan and sigh mysteriously, as if it trembled at the thought of spending the night on the hillside with no other company than that "whisht* owld house." As she grew older and became aware of the drift of her wishes, feeling stirrings and promptings at the roots of her life, her imagination seized now on the passionate * Melancholy, forlorn. I 2 ii6 Di'olls fro7n Shadow land. human tragedies which, according to the legends, had been enacted in the building. She had a sweetheart of her own, and she could understand lovers ; and something of the glamour and mystery of a great heady passion she believed she could interpret out of her own ripened life. But Rastus Dabb, her sweetheart, was as cloddish and unimaginative as the heavy-uddered cows, with their great fleshy dewlaps, of which he was prouder than he was of anything else in his world. It was quite impossible to get his feet off the solid earth : and apparently his mind was anchored firmly to his feet. But Ruth had the attractiveness of all young things — she was fresh and cheerful, with a heart as light as a feather — and, by the law of con- trast, she suited him to a nicety, more especially as she was an excellent little Drolls from Shadowland. 1 1 J housewife to boot. So the courting pros- pered sunnily ; and he let her " romance " as she pleased. When she was a wife and mother, Ruth presently became acquainted with that grim Shadow who knows the secret of our tears — their source and the bitter in them — and knows, too, the secret of everlasting peace. And thereafter, when at intervals his wings darkened the world for her, her thoughts went out, with a strange yearning, towards the dead who had once inhabited the ruin and could now roam through it only as ghosts. " Shall I one day have only such a foot- hold as theirs in this dear green world of ours ? " she would ask herself, shiveringly. And the Sunday-evening's sermon could soothe her not a whit. At last, in the waning afternoon of life. 1 1 8 Drolls from SJiadowland. when her smooth brown hair was as yet unstreaked with grey and her cheeks had still a splash of colour in them, she fell ill of some mysterious malady — mysterious, at least, to the sympathetic villagers — and one dreary day in the blustering autumn she was aware in her heart that the Shadow was in the room. " Draw back the curtains as far as you can," said she to Rastus, who stood help- less by the bedside. And when they were drawn, and she could see the great gaunt ruin frowning blackly above the slopes of the shadow- checkered hillside, she cried out suddenly, " I'm going there among them, Rastus ! Oh, dear, hold me ! " And with that she passed. GIFTS AND AWARDS. GIFTS AND AWARDS. " Two bonnier babes," said the grey old midwife, bending thoughtfully over them, " I never before assisted into the world." The mother, lying wan in her bed, smiled happily. " So bonny are they," said the wrinkled beldame, " that I will give to each of them one of my choicest gifts : something they will still keep hugged to their hearts when they are as close to the gates as you or I." " And how close is that ? " asked the mother, growing whiter. The wise old midwife turned from the 122 Drolls from Shadow land. bedside and bent above the infants, mumbling to herself. Presently the mother started up from a doze. There was no one in the room but her married sister. " I dreamed Death was in the room with me just now," said she. " And he had an old woman with him whom he called his Sister. She seemed to me to be giving my babies something : but what it was I don't know. At first I thought it was a plaything ; but now I think it was a sorrow. At least . . . . " " Dear I dear ! " cried her sister, in alarm, as if she saw the spirit drifting beyond her ken. " My babies ! " whispered the mother. And presently she was " at rest." * * * * Rick and Dick grew up somehow. Drolls from SJiadowland. 123 Though motherless and fatherless they were not quite friendless, and in the struggle for existence they held their own and kept alive. A more agreeable and cheerful fellow than Dick it would have been impossible to find, according to his com- panions. He seemed dowered with a disposition so equable and contented that it was a pleasure to be with him : and he radiated cheerfulness like a fire. More- over, he was in thorough harmony with his surroundings. He found fault with nothing in the structure of society, and desired no change either in laws or institutions : everything was ordered wisely, and was ordered for the best. In fact, he was the spirit of Content personi- fied : and much patting on the back did he get for his reward. 1 24 Drolls from Shadowland. "We must give him a helpixig hand, must push him forward, you know," said the Community, beaming on its cheerful young champion. And Dick took the " pushing forward " with admirable self-composure, and cer- tainly seemed to deserve all he got. As for Rick, the Community would have nothing to do with him. He was not quite an out-and-out pessimist, it was true ; but he seemed to look on the Community as a most clumsily-articulated creature — a thing of shreds and patches, and the Cheap Jack of shams. He was always putting his finger on this spot or that ; hinting that here there was a weak- ness, and there .... something worse. Every advanced thinker, and the majority of theorists, could count on finding a sympathetic listener in him : and not in- Drolls from Shadowland. 125 frequently they found in him an advocate also ; such an arrant anti-optimist was the pestilent fellow. As if Civilization, after thousands of years of travail, had produced nothing better than a clumsy abortion with the claws of an animal and the tastes of Jack-an-ape ! Why, the man must be mad, to have such irregular fancies ! It was a pity laws against opinions were not oftener put in force : then — a click of the guillotine, and the world would have peace ! Rick listened grimly, and made a note of the imagery. " You will remember it better in black and white," said he. In the course of years Dick became a churchwarden and a philanthropist (he took the infection very mildly and in its most agreeable form), and a highly 126 Drolls from Shadowland. respected gambler on, or rather member of, the .Stock Exchange. He was also joined " in the bands of holy matrimony " to a buxom young widow who was left- handedly connected with The Aristocracy Itself ! The lady brought him a most desirable fortune to start with, and after some years made him a present of twins : so that Dick was now a notable man among his acquaintances, and had the ambition to become a bigger man still, by-and-by : a Common Councilman certainly, and an Alderman perhaps ! Meanwhile Rick had developed into a musty savatit : a fellow whose tastes, if you might call them such, were of the most outre order — in advance of everything that was sober, respectable, and conventional ; and in aggressive alliance with everything that was disturbing, and that was Drolls from Shadow land. 127 maliciously and wickedly critical (said the saints). " The kernel of his life is unhealthy," said his brother : " it has a deadly fungus growing in it, I am afraid." " The fungus of discontent, dear friend," said the clergyman. " I am afraid so," said Dick, with a prodigious great sigh. "Still, we must none the less pray for him unceasingly : for prayer availeth much, as we know." The clergyman dramatically clasped his white hands together, looking up as one who speechlessly admires. * * * * Rick sat musing in his gloomy study : thinking of the ladder he had climbed, and of the scenery of his life that now stretched out like a map before him. Presently the study door opened softly, 128 Drolls from Shadowland. and a Figure came in and took a chair at his side. " You have come, then ! " said Rick. " I thought your coming must be near." " Shall we start ? " asked the Figure. " I am ready," answered Rick. And they passed out together into the deep black night. " Come, take my arm : we will call together for your brother." " He has so much to make him happy ! There are the little ones and his wife ! Could you not delay a little ? " " He must come with us to-night." Dick was attending a banquet which was being given in his honour to celebrate his recent election as a Common Council- man, and the lust of life was in his every vein. But in the act of responding to the toast of the evening he was suddenly Drolls from Shadow land. 1 29 attacked by a fit of apoplexy. He staggered, and fell back — and they per- ceived that he was dead. * * * -Si- It was a bleak and a very depressing journey to pass nakedly and alone from the warm, well-lighted, and flattering banquet, and, most of all, from the com- fortable and familiar earth, up to the Doom's-man and the Bar beside the Gates. If he could only have had a friend or two at his side ! On the way up, just as he was nearing the gates, Dick overtook Rick, who was a little way ahead of him. " Come, let us go up together," said Rick. At the gates, however, Dick began to grow uneasy. His brother's reputation on earth among " the godly " was a curiously K 1 30 Drolls from Shadowland. unwelcome memory to Dick now the Bar was so near and the Doom's-man was in sight. " You go first," said Dick to his brother ; falling behind as if to dissociate himself from him. Rick passed the gate and stood silently at the Bar. " Place the brothers side by side," said the Doom's-man sternly. " If you please," began Dick, stumbling in his speech, so afraid was he of being confounded in the judgment of his brother ; " If you please . . . . " Said the Doom's-man : " Let the Advocates state the case." The Black-robed Advocate claimed Rick boldly. The verdict of Rick's fellow- citizens, he asserted, was emphatic on the point that Rick was legitimately his. Drolls from Sliadowland. 131 And he went with the majority, and claimed a verdict accordingly. The White-robed Advocate advanced, more hesitatingly, that Dick presumably should go with him. The Community, he averred, had long ago decided that only in this way would justice have its due. The Doom's-man's verdict was simpli- city itself. A nature so contented, and so little given to fault-finding, would be the typical one for the Black Advocate's household, said the Doom's- man, humorously con- templating Dick. " Take him away with you," said he to the Black Advocate : " the man will give you no trouble, as you know. " But that restless, fault-finding fellow there," and he indicated Rick with a movement of his forefinger, "it would K 2 132 Drolls from SJuxdowland. need a faultless abode like yours to satisfy him," and he signed to the silent White Advocate at his side. " Take him, he is yours," said the Doom's-man solemnly. And with that the Advocates departed with their awards. FRIEND OR FOE? FRIEND OR FOE? I. Sir Edward lay back lazily in his chair, with a letter in a woman's handwriting crumpled at his feet. " She must make the best of it now," said he, gazing at the fire. " She is not worse off than others, come to that." And he lolled among the cushions, gazing into the fire, with a hard and cruel look on his countenance, on which the stamp of sensuality was unmistakably impressed. It was a large and luxuriously-furnished apartment, with everything so arranged as 1 36 Drolls from Shadowland, to minister to the senses and afford them the fullest gratification which suggestions could impart. But Sir Edward, lolling by the fire this evening, experienced little satisfaction in his luxurious surroundings : the eroding tooth of thought they could no way quiet ; and it was the irritation of this that he most desired to have allayed. He lighted a cigar, and began to smoke vigorously, leaning back the while and contemplating the smoke-clouds that drifted round in swirling folds and spirals, an occasional ring mounting airily over all. Smoking away steadily, cigar after cigar — for he was an insatiable smoker as he was insatiable in everything — Sir Edward seemed presently to be almost hidden among the smoke-wreaths, which had now Drolls from Shadowland. 137 thickened in the room with unexampled rapidity. At first he felt inclined to ring for a servant and have the windows opened to let in a breath of air, but there was a certain amount of interest in watching the floating veils of smoke ; and, besides, in the mere act of idly watching these he could let certain vivid tableaux, with which Memory was amusing him, drift beyond the range of his attention, he hoped. So he lay back, letting the smoke thicken in the atmosphere, while he followed the fantastic wreaths lazily with his eyes. It was almost as if he were dozing as he lay there ; for he could have sworn that in the chair on the opposite side of the fireplace he perceived a grey old fogey reclining among the cushions, yetwith deep- sunken eyes fixed watchfully on his face. 138 Drolls from Sliadowland. It was really absurd to have an utter stranger intrude his company on him in this unceremonious manner, and Sir Edward felt incUned to question him sharply, and, if need be, have him turned out neck and crop. But instead of taking up the intended role of inquisitor, he found himself reduced ignominiously to the role of the questioned one. " Where were you thinking of going to- night?" asked the Visitor. "To the theatre, or the opera, or to that ' private club' we know of?" And the Visitor looked at him with a glance of quiet intelligence which Sir Edward somehow felt powerless to resent. " I was thinking . . . . " " Of going with me ? Quite right ! " replied the Visitor. " With me you shall Drolls from SJiadozvland. 139 go : unless we can come to terms together. In which case, possibly, I may leave you behind y