by
After this, by the Permission, the Just and Terrible Archangel Michael next descended, and he, likewise, hearing and seeing the abjection of Earth, returned with an empty hand. Then was sent the Archangel Azrael, and when Earth had once again implored God, and once again cried out, he closed his hand upon her bosom and tore out the clays and sands necessary.
Upon his return to the Vestibule it was asked if Earth had again taken refuge with Allah or not? Azrael said: Yes. It was answered If it took refuge with Me why didst thou not spare? Azrael answered: Obedience (to Thee) was more obligatory than Pity (for it). It was answered: Depart ! I have made thee the Angel of Death to separate the souls from the bodies of men. Azrael wept, saying: Thus shall all men hate me. It was answered: Thou hast said that Obedience is more obligatory than Pity. Mix thou the clays and the sands and lay them to dry between Tayif and Mecca till the time appointed. So, then, Azrael departed and did according to the Command. But in his haste he perceived not that he had torn out from Earth clays and minerals that had lain in her at war with each other since the first; nor did he withdraw them and set them aside. And in his grief that he should have been decreed the Separator of Companions, his tears mingled with them in the mixing, so that the substance of Adams body was made unconformable and ill-assorted, pierced with burning drops, and at issue with itself before there was (cause of) strife.
This, then, lay out to dry for forty years between Tayif and Mecca and, through all that time, the Beneficence of the Almighty leavened it and rained upon it the Mercy and the Blessing, and the properties necessary to the adornment of the Successorship. In that period, too, it is narrated that the Angels passed to and fro above it, and among them Eblis the Accursed, who smote the predestined Creation while it was drying, and it rang hollow. Eblis then looked more closely and observing that of which it was composed to be diverse and ill-assorted and impregnated with bitter tears, he said: Doubt not I shall soon attain authority over this; and his ruin shall be easy. (This, too, lay in the foreknowledge of The Endless.)
When time was that the chain of cause and effect should be surrendered to Mans will, and the vessels of desire and intention entrusted to his intelligence, and the tent of his body illuminated by the lamp of vitality, the Soul was despatched, by Command of the Almighty, with the Archangel Jibrail, towards that body. But the Soul being thin and subtle refused, at first, to enter the thick and diverse clays, saying : I have fear of that (which is) to be. This it cried twice, till it received the Word: Enter unwillingly, and unwillingly depart. Then only it entered. And when that agony was accomplished, the Word came : My Compassion exceedeth My Wrath. It is narrated that these were the first words of which our pure Forefather had cognisance.
Afterwards, by the operation of the determinate Will, there arose in Adam a desire for a companion, and an intimate and a friend in the Garden of the Tree. It is narrated that he first took counsel of Earth (which had furnished) his body. Earth said: Forbear. Is it not enough that one should have dominion over me? Adam answered: There is but one who is One in Earth or Heaven. All paired things point to the Unity, and my soul, which came not from thee, desires unutterably. Earth said: Be content in innocence, and let thy body, which I gave unwillingly, return thus to (me) thy mother. Adam said: I am motherless. What should I know?
At that time came Eblis the Accursed who had long prepared an evil stratagem and a hateful device against our pure Forefather, being desirous of his damnation, and anxious to multiply causes and occasions thereto. He addressed first his detestable words to the Peacock among the birds of the Garden, saying: I have great amity towards thee because of thy beauty; but, through no fault of mine, I am forbidden the Garden. Hide me, then, among thy tail-feathers that I may enter it, and worship both thee and our Lord Adam, who is Master of thee. The Peacock said: Not by any contrivance of mine shaft thou enter, lest a judgment fall on my beauty and my excellence. But there is in the Garden a Serpent of loathsome aspect who shall make thy path easy. He then despatched the Serpent to the Gate and after conversation and by contrivance and a malign artifice, Eblis hid himself under the tongue of the Serpent, and was thus conveyed past the barrier. He then worshipped Adam and ceased not to counsel him to demand a companion and an intimate that the delights might be increased, and the succession assured to the Regency of Earth. For he foresaw that, among multitudes, many should come to him. Adam therefore made daily supplication for that blessing. It was answered him: How knowest thou if the gratification of thy desire be a blessing or a curse? Adam said: By no means; but I will abide the chance.
Then the somnolence fell upon him, as is narrated; and upon waking he beheld our Lady Eve (upon whom be the Mercy and the Forgiveness). Adam said: O my Lady and Light of my Universe, who art thou? Eve said: O my Lord and Summit of my Contentment, who art thou? Adam said: Of a surety I am thine. Eve said: Of a surety I am throe. Thus they ceased to inquire further into the matter, but were united, and became one flesh and one soul, and their felicity was beyond comparison or belief or imagination or apprehension.
Thereafter, it is narrated that Eblis the Stoned consorted with them secretly in the Garden, and the Peacock with him; and they jested and made mirth for our Lord Adam and his Lady Eve and propounded riddles and devised occasions for the stringing of the ornaments and the threading of subtleties. And upon a time when their felicity was at its height, and their happiness excessive, and their contentment expanded to the uttermost, Eblis said: O my Master and my Mistress, declare to us, if it pleases, some comparison or similitude that lies beyond the limits of possibility. Adam said: This is easy. That the Sun should cease in Heaven or that the Rivers should dry in the Garden is beyond the limits of possibility. And they laughed and agreed, and the Peacock said: O our Lady, tell us now something of a jest as unconceivable and as beyond belief as this saying of thy Lord. Our Lady Eve then said: That my Lord should look upon me otherwise than is his custom is beyond this saying. And when they had laughed abundantly, she said: O our Servitors, tell us now something that is further from possibility or belief than my saying. Then the Peacock said: O our Lady Eve, except that thou shouldst look upon thy Lord otherwise than is thy custom, there is nothing further than thy saying from possibility or belief or imagination. Then said Eblis: Except that the one of you should be made an enemy to the other, there is nothing, O my Lady, further than thy saying from possibility, or belief, or imagination, or apprehension. And they laughed immoderately all four together in the Garden.
But when the Peacock had gone and Eblis had seemed to depart, our Lady Eve said to Adam My Lord and Disposer of my Soul, by what means did Eblis know our fear? Adam said: 0 my Lady, what fear? Eve said: The fear which was in our hearts from the first, that the one of us might be made an enemy to the other. Then our pure Forefather bowed his head on her bosom and said: O Companion of my Heart, this has been my fear also from the first, but how didst thou know? Eve said: Because I am thy flesh and thy soul. What shall we do?
Thus, then, they came at moonrise to the Tree that had been forbidden to them, and Eblis lay asleep under it. But he waked merrily and said O my Master and my Mistress, this is the Tree of Eternity. By eating her fruit, felicity is established for ever among mankind; nor after eating it shall there be any change whatever in the disposition of the hearts of the eaters.
Eve then put out her hand to the fruit, but Adam said: It is forbidden. Let us go. Eve said: O my Lord and my Sustainer, upon my head be it, and upon the heads of my daughters after me. I will first taste of this Tree, and if misfortune fall on me, do thou intercede for me; or else eat likewise, so that eternal bliss may come to us together.
Thus she ate, and he after her; and at once the ornaments of Paradise disappeared from round them, and they were delivered to shame and nudity and abjection. Then, as is narrated, Adam accused Eve in the Presence; but our Lady Eve (upon whom be the Pity and the Recompense) accepted (the blame of) all that had been done.
When the Serpent and the Peacock had each received their portion for their evil contrivances (for the punishment of Eblis was reserved) the Divine Decree of Expulsion was laid upon Adam and Eve in these words: Get ye down, the one of you an enemy to the other. Adam said: But I have heard that Thy Compassion exceeds Thy Wrath. It was answered: I have spoken. The Decree shall stand in the place of all curses. So they went down, and the barriers of the Garden of the Tree were made fast behind them.
It is further recorded by the stringers of the pearls of words and the narrators of old, that when our pure Forefather the Lord Adam and his adorable consort Eve (upon whom be the Glory and the Sacrifice) were thus expelled, there was lamentation among the beasts in the Garden whom Adam had cherished and whom our Lady Eve had comforted. Of those unaffected there remained only the Mole, whose custom it was to burrow in earth and to avoid the light of the Sun. His nature was malignant and his body inconspicuous, but, by the Power of the Omnipotent, Whose Name be exalted, he was then adorned with eyes far-seeing both in the light and the darkness.
When the Mole heard the Divine Command of Expulsion, it entered his impure mind that he would extract profit and advancement from a secret observation and a hidden espial. So he followed our Forefather and his august consort, under the earth, and watched those two in their affliction and their abjection and their misery, and the Garden was without his presence for that time.
When his watch was complete and his observation certain, he turned him swiftly underneath the earth and came back saying to the Guardians of the Gate: Make room! I have a sure and a terrible report. So his passage was permitted, and he lay till evening in the Garden. Then he said: Can the Accursed by any means escape the Decree? It was answered : By no means can they escape or avoid. Then the Mole said But I have seen that they have escaped. It was answered: Declare thy observation. The Mole said: The enemies to each other have altogether departed from Thy worship and Thy adoration. Nor are they in any sort enemies to each other, for they enjoy together the most perfect felicity, and moreover they have made them a new God. It was answered: Declare the shape of the God. The Mole said: Their God is of small stature, pinkish in colour, unclothed, fat and smiling. They lay it upon the grass and, filling its hands with flowers, worship it and desire no greater comfort. It was answered: Declare the name of the God. The Mole said: Its name is Quabil (Cain), and I testify upon a sure observation that it is their God and their Uniter and their Comforter. It was answered: Why hast thou come to Us? The Mole said: Through my zeal and my diligence; for honour and in hope of reward. It was answered: Is this, then, the best that thou canst do with the eyes which We gave thee? The Mole said: To the extreme of my ability! It was answered: There is no need. Thou hast not added to their burden, but to thine own. Be darkened henceforward, upon earth and under earth. It is not good to spy upon any creature of God to whom alleviation is permitted. So, then, the Moles eyes were darkened and contracted, and his lot was made miserable upon and under the earth to this day.
But to those two, Adam and Eve, the alleviation was permitted, till Habil and Quabil and their sisters Labuda and Aqlemia had attained the age of maturity. Then there came to the Greatest Substitute and his Consort, from out of Kabul the Stony, that Peacock, by whose contrivance Eblis the Accursed had first obtained admission into the Garden of the Tree. And they made him welcome in all their ways and into all their imaginings; and he sustained them with false words and flagitious counsels, so that they considered and remembered their forfeited delights in the Garden both arrogantly and impenitently.
Then came the Word to the Archangel Jibrail the Faithful, saying: Follow those two with diligence, and interpose the shield of thy benevolence where it shall be necessary; for though We have surrendered them for awhile (to Eblis) they shall not achieve an irremediable destruction. Jibrail therefore followed our First Substitute and the Lady Eveupon whom is the Grace and a Forgetfulnessand kept watch upon them in all the lands appointed for their passage through the world. Nor did he hear any lamentations in their mouths for their sins. It is recorded that for an hundred years they were continuously upheld by the Peacock under the detestable power of Eblis the Stoned, who by means of magic multiplied the similitudes of meat and drink and rich raiment about them for their pleasure, and came daily to worship them as Gods. (This also lay in the predestined Will of the Inscrutable.) Further, in that age, their eyes were darkened and their minds were made turbid, and the faculty of laughter was removed from them. The Excellent Archangel Jibrail, when he perceived by observation that they had ceased to laugh, returned and bowed himself among the Servitors and cried: The last evil has fallen upon Thy creatures whom I guard! They have ceased to laugh and are made even with the ox and the camel. It was answered: This also was foreseen. Keep watch.
After yet another hundred years Eblis, whose doom is assured, came to worship Adam as was his custom and said: O my Lord and my Advancer and my Preceptor in Good and Evil, whom hast thou ever beheld in all thy world, wiser and more excellent than thyself? Adam said: I have never seen such an one. Eblis asked: Hast thou ever conceived of such an one? Adam answered: Except in dreams I have never conceived of such an one. Eblis then answered: Disregard dreams. They proceed from superfluity of meat. Stretch out thy hand upon the world which thou hast made and take possession. So Adam took possession of the mountains which he had levelled and of the rivers which he had diverted and of the upper and lower Fires which he had made to speak and to work for him, and he named them as possessions for himself and his children for ever. After this, Eblis asked: O, my Upholder and Crown of my Belief, who has given thee these profitable things? Adam said: By my Hand and my Head, I alone have given myself these things. Eblis said: Praise we the Giver! So, then, Adam praised himself in a loud voice, and built an Altar and a Mirror behind the Altar; and he ceased not to adore himself in the Mirror, and to extol himself daily before the Altar, by the name and under the attributes of the Almighty.
The historians assert that on such occasions it was the custom of the Peacock to expand his tail and stand beside our First Substitute and to minister to him with flatteries and adorations.
After yet another hundred years, the Omnipotent, Whose Name be exalted, put a bitter remorse into the bosom of the Peacock, and that bird closed his tail and wept upon the mountains of Serendib. Then said the Excellent and Faithful Archangel Jibrail: How has the Vengeance overtaken thee, O thou least desirable of fowl? The Peacock said: Though I myself would by no means consent to convey Eblis into the Garden of the Tree, yet as is known to thee and to the All-Seeing, I referred him to the Serpent for a subtle device, by whose malice and beneath whose tongue did Eblis secretly enter that Garden. Wherefore did Allah change my attuned voice to a harsh cry and my beauteous legs to unseemly legs, and hurled me into the district of Kabul the Stony. Now I fear that He will also deprive me of my tail, which is the ornament of my days and the delight of my eye. For that cause and in that fear I am penitent, O Servant of God. Jibrail then said: Penitence lies not in confession, but in restitution and visible amendment. The Peacock said: Enlighten me in that path and prove my sincerity. Jibrail said: I am troubled on account of Adam who, through the impure magic of Eblis, has departed from humility, and worships himself daily at an Altar and before a Mirror, in such and such a manner. The Peacock said: O Courier of the Thrones, hast thou taken counsel of the Lady Eve? Jibrail asked: For what reason? The Peacock said: For the reason that when the Decree of Expulsion was issued against those two, it was said: Get ye down, the one of you an enemy unto the other, and this is a sure word. Jibrail answered: What will that profit? The Peacock said: Let us exchange our shapes for a time and I will show thee that profit.
Jibrail then exacted an oath from the Peacock that he would return him his shape at the expiration of a certain time without dishonour or fraud, and the exchange was effected, and Jibrail retired himself into the shape of the Peacock, and the Peacock lifted himself into the illustrious similitude of Jibrail and came to our Lady Eve and said: Who is God? The Lady Eve answered him: His name is Adam. The Peacock said: How is he God? The Lady Eve answered: For that he knows both Good and Evil. The Peacock asked: By what means attained he to that knowledge? The Lady Eve answered: Of a truth it was I who brought it to him between my hands from off a Tree in the Garden. The Peacock said: The greater then thy modesty and thy meekness, O my Lady Eve, and he removed himself from her presence, and came again to Jibrail a little before the time of the evening prayer. He said to that excellent and trusty one: Continue, I pray, to serve in my shape at the time of the Worship at the Altar. So Jibrail consented and preened himself and spread his tail and pecked between his claws, after the manner of created Peacocks, before the Altar until the entrance of our pure Forefather and his august consort. Then he perceived by observation that when Adam kneeled at the Mirror to adore himself the Lady Eve abode unwillingly, and in time she asked: Have I then no part m this worship? Adam answered: A great and a redoubtable part bast thou, O my Lady, which is to praise and worship me constantly. The Lady Eve said: But I weary of this worship. Except thou build me an Altar and make a Mirror to me also I will in no wise be present at this worship, nor in thy bed. And she withdrew her presence. Adam then said to Jibrail whom he esteemed to be the Peacock: What shall we do? If I build not an Altar, the Woman who walks by my side will be a reproach to me by day and a penance by night, and peace will depart from the earth. Jibrail answered, in the voice of the Peacock: For the sake of Peace on earth build her also an Altar. So they built an Altar with a Mirror in all respects conformable to the Altar which Adam had made, and Adam made proclamation from the ends of the earth to the ends of the earth that there were now two Gods upon earth-the one Man, and the other Woman.
Then came the Peacock in the likeness of Jibrail to the Lady Eve and said: O Lady of Light, why is thy Altar upon the left hand and the Altar of my Lord upon the right? The Lady Eve said: It is a remediable error, and she remedied it with her own hands, and our pure Forefather fell into a great anger. Then entered Jibrail in the likeness of the Peacock and said to Adam: O my Lord and Very Interpreter, what has vexed thee? Adam said: What shall we do? The Woman who sleeps in my bosom has changed the honourable places of the Altars, and if I suffer not the change she will weary me by night and day, and there will be no refreshment upon earth. Jibrail said, speaking in the voice of the Peacock: For the sake of refreshment suffer the change. So they worshipped at the changed Altars, the Altar to the Woman upon the right, and to the Man upon the left.
Then came the Peacock, in the similitude of Jibrail the Trusty One, to our Lady Eve and said: O Incomparable and All-Creating, art thou by chance the mother of Quabil and Habil (Cain and Abel)? The Lady Eve answered: By no chance but by the immutable ordinance of Nature am I their Mother. The Peacock said, in the voice of Jibrail: Will they become such as Adam? The Lady Eve answered: Of a surety, and many more also. The Peacock, as Jibrail, said: O Lady of Abundance, enlighten me now which is the greater, the mother or the child? The Lady Eve answered: Of a surety, the mother. The disguised Peacock then said: O my Lady, seeing that from thee alone proceed all the generations of Man who calls himself God, what need of any Altar to Man? The Lady Eve answered: It is an error. Doubt not it shall be rectified, and at the time of the Worship she smote down the left-hand Altar. Adam said: Why is this, O my Lady and my Co-equal? The Lady Eve answered: Because it has been revealed that in Me is all excellence and increase, splendour, terror, and power. Bow down and worship. Adam answered: O my Lady, but thou art Eve my mate and no sort of goddess whatever. This have I known from the beginning. Only for Peace sake I suffered thee to build an Altar to thyself. The Lady Eve answered: O my Lord, but thou art Adam my mate, and by many universes removed from any sort of Godhead, and this have I known from the first. Nor for the sake of any peace whatever will I cease to proclaim it. She then proclaimed it aloud, and they reproached each other and disputed and betrayed their thoughts and their inmost knowledges until the Peacock lifted himself in haste from their presence and came to Jibrail and said: Let us return each to his own shape; for Enlightenment is at hand.
So restitution was made without fraud or dishonour and they returned to the temple each in his proper shape with his attributes, and listened to the end of that conversation between the First Substitute and his august Consort who ceased not to reprehend each other upon all matters within their observation and their experience and their imagination.
When the steeds of recrimination had ceased to career across the plains of memory, and when the drum of evidence was no longer beaten by the drumstick of malevolence, and the bird of argument had taken refuge in the rocks of silence, the Excellent and Trustworthy Archangel Jibrail bowed himself before our pure Forefather and said: O my Lord and Fount of all Power and Wisdom, is it permitted to worship the Visible God?
Then by the operation of the Mercy of Allah, the string was loosed in the throat of our First Substitute and the oppression was lifted from his lungs and he laughed without cessation and said: By Allah, I am no God but the mate of this most detestable Woman whom I love, and who is necessary to me beyond all the necessities. But he ceased not to entertain Jibrail with tales of the follies and the unreasonableness of our Lady Eve till the night time.
The Peacock also bowed before the Lady Eve and said: Is it permitted to adore the Source and the Excellence? and the string was loosened in the Lady Eves throat and she laughed aloud and merrily and said: By Allah I am no goddess in any sort, but the mate of this mere Man whom, in spite of all, I love beyond and above my soul. But she detained the Peacock with tales of the stupidity and the childishness of our pure Forefather till the Sun rose.
Then Adam entered, and the two looked upon each other laughing. Then said Adam: O my Lady and Crown of my Torments, is it peace between us? And our Lady Eve answered: O my Lord and sole Cause of my Unreason, it is peace till the next time and the next occasion. And Adam said: I accept, and I abide the chance. Our Lady Eve said: O Man, wouldst thou have it otherwise upon any composition? Adam said: O Woman, upon no composition would I have it otherwisenot even for the return to the Garden of the Tree; and this I swear on thy head and the heads of all who shall proceed from thee. And Eve said: I also. So they removed both Altars and laughed and built a new one between.
Then Jibrail and the Peacock departed and prostrated themselves before the Throne and told what had been said. It was answered: How left ye them? They said: Before one Altar. It was answered: What was written upon the Altar? They said: The Decree of Expulsion as it was spokenGet ye down, the one of you an enemy unto the other.
And it was answered: Enough! It shall stand in the place of both Our Curse and Our Blessing.
OR EVER the battered liners sank With their passengers to the dark, I was head of a Walworth Bank, And you were a grocers clerk.
I was a dealer in stocks and shares,
Wet and worry about our ways
We saw more than the nights could hide
We were more tired than words can tell
Now there is nothingnot even our rank |
Not seen you sinceoh, ever so long, he began. So glad to get your wire. Quite welleh?
Fair to middling, Henri. Portson shook hands with him. Youre looking all right, too. Have you got us our table?
Henri nodded toward a pink alcove, kept for mixed doubles, which discreetly commanded the main dining-rooms glitter and blaze.
Good man! said Portson. Now, this is serious, Henri. We put ourselves unreservedly in your hands. Were weather-beaten marinersthough we dont look it, and we havent eaten a Chrihristian meal in months. Have you thought of all that, Henri, mon ami?
The menu, I have compose it myself, Henri answered with the gravity of a high priest.
It was more than a year since Portsonof Portson, Peake and Ensell, Stock and Share Brokershad drawn Henris attention to an apparently extinct Oil Company which, a little later, erupted profitably; and it may be that Henri prided himself on paying all debts in full.
The most recent foreign millionaire and the even more recent foreign actress at a table near the entrance clamoured for his attention while he convoyed the party to the pink alcove. With his own hands he turned out some befrilled electrics and lit four pale rose-candles.
Bridal! some one murmured. Quite bridal!
So glad you like. There is nothing too good. Henri slid away, and the four men sat down. They had the coarse-grained complexions of men who habitually did themselves well, and an air, too, of recent, red-eyed dissipation. Maddingham, the eldest, was a thick-set middle-aged presence, with crisped grizzled hair, of the type that one associates with Board Meetings. He limped slightly. Tegg, who followed him, blinking, was neat, small, and sandy, of unmistakable Navy cut, but sheepish aspect. Winchmore, the youngest, was more on the lines of the conventional pre-war nut, but his eyes were sunk in his head and his hands black-nailed and roughened. Portson, their host, with Vandyke beard and a comfortable little stomach, beamed upon them as they settled to their oysters.
Thats what I mean, said the carrying voice of the foreign actress, whom Henri had just disabused of the idea that she had been promised the pink alcove. They aint alive to the war yet. Now, whats the matter with those four dubs yonder joining the British Army oror doing something?
Whos your friend? Maddingham asked.
Ive forgotten her name for the minute, Portson replied, but shes the latest thing in imported patriotic piece-goods. She sings Sons of the Empire, Go Forward! at the Palemseum. It makes the aunties weep.
Thats Sidney Latter. Shes not half bad. Tegg reached for the vinegar. We ought to see her some night.
Yes. Weve a lot of time for that sort of thing, Maddingham grunted. Ill take your oysters, Portson, if you dont want em.
Cheer up, Papa Maddingham! Soon be dead! Winchmore suggested.
Maddingham glared at him. If Id had you with me for one week, Master Winchmore
Not the least use, the boy retorted. Ive just been made a full-lootenant. I have indeed. I couldnt reconcile it with my conscience to take Etheldreda out any more as a plain sub. Shes too flat in the floor.
Did you get those new washboards of yours fixed? Tegg cut in.
Dont talk shop already, Portson protested. This is Vesiga soup. I dont know what hes arranged in the way of drinks.
Pol Roger 04, said the waiter.
Sound man, Henri, said Winchmore. But, he eyed the waiter doubtfully, I dont quite like . . . Whats your alleged nationality?
Henris nephew, monsieur, the smiling waiter replied, and laid a gloved hand on the table. It creaked corkily at the wrist. Bethisy-sur-Oise, he explained. My uncle he buy me all the hand for Christmas. It is good to hold plates only.
Oh! Sorry I spoke, said Winchmore.
Monsieur is right. But my uncle is very careful, even with neutrals. He poured the champagne.
Hold a minute, Maddingham cried. First toast of obligation: For what we are going to receive, thank God and the British Navy.
Amen! said the others with a nod toward Lieutenant Tegg, of the Royal Navy afloat, and, occasionally, of the Admiralty ashore.
Next! Damnation to all neutrals! Maddingham went on.
Amen! Amen! they answered between gulps that heralded the sole a la Colbert. Maddingham picked up the menu. Suprême of chicken, he read loudly. Filet béarnaise, Woodcock and Richebourg 74, Pêches Melba, Croûtes Baron. I couldnt have improved on it myself; though one might, he went onone might have substituted quail en casserole for the woodcock.
Then there would have been no reason for the Burgundy, said Tegg with equal gravity.
Youre right, Maddingham replied.
The foreign actress shrugged her shoulders. What can you do with people like that? she said to her companion. And yet Ive been singing to em for a fortnight.
I left it all to Henri, said Portson.
My Gord! the eavesdropping woman whispered. Get on to that! Aint it typical? They leave everything to Henri in this country.
By the way, Tegg asked Winchmore after the fish, where did you mount that one-pounder of yours after all?
Midships. Etheldreda wont carry more weight forward. Shes wet enough as it is.
Why dont you apply for another craft? Portson put in. Theres a chap at Southampton just now, down with pneumonia and
No, thank you. I know Etheldreda. Shes nothing to write home about, but when she feels well she can shift a bit.
Maddingham leaned across the table. If she does more than eleven in a flat calm, said he, IllIll give you Hilarity.
Wouldnt be found dead in Hilarity, was Winchmores grateful reply. You dont mean to say youve taken her into real wet water, Papa? Where did it happen?
The other laughed. Maddinghams red face turned brick colour, and the veins on the cheekbones showed blue through a blurr of short bristles.
Hes been convoying neutralsin a tactful manner, Tegg chuckled.
Maddingham filled his glass and scowled at Tegg. Yes, he said, and heres special damnation to me Lords of the Admiralty. A more muddle-headed set of brass-bound apes
My! My! My! Winchmore chirruped soothingly. It dont seem to have done you any good, Papa. Who were you conveyancing?
Maddingham snapped out a ships name and some details of her build.
Oh, but that chaps a friend of mine! cried Winchmore. I ran across himthenot so long ago, hugging the Scotch coastout of his course, he said, owing to foul weather and a new type of enginea Diesel. Thats him, aint itthe complete neutral? He mentioned an outstanding peculiarity of the ships rig.
Yes, said Portson. Did you board him, Winchmore?
No. Thered been a bit of a blow the day before and old Ethels only dinghy had dropped off the hooks. But he signalled me all his symptoms. He was as communicative asas a lady in the Promenade. (Hold on, Nephew of my Uncle! Im going to have some more of that Béarnaise fillet.) His smell attracted me. I chaperoned him for a couple of days.
Only two days. You hadnt anything to complain of, said Maddingham wrathfully.
I didnt complain. If he chose to hug things, twasnt any of my business. Im not a Purity League. Didnt care what he hugged, so long as I could lie behind him and give him first chop at any mines that were going. I steered in his wake (I really can steer a bit now, Portson) and let him stink up the whole of the North Sea. I thought he might come in useful for bait. No Burgundy, thanks, Nephew of my Uncle. Im sticking to the Jolly Roger.
Go on, thenbefore youre speechless. Was he any use as bait? Tegg demanded.
We never got a fair chance. As I told you, he hugged the coast till dark, and then he scraped round Gilarra Head and went up the bay nearly to the beach.
Lights out? Maddingham asked.
Winchmore nodded. But I didnt worry about that. I was under his stern. As luck ud have it, there was a fishing-party in the bay, and we walked slam into the middle of ema most ungodly collection of local talent. First thing I knew a steam-launch fell aboard us, and a boya nasty little Navy boy, Teggwanted to know what I was doing. I told him, and he cursed me for putting the fish down just as they were rising. Then the two of us (he was hanging on to my quarter with a boat-hook) drifted on to a steam trawler and our friend the Neutral and a ten-oared cutter full of the military, all mixed up. They were subs from the garrison out for a lark. Uncle Newt explained over the rail about the weather and his engine-troubles, but they were all so keen to carry on with their fishing, they didnt fuss. They told him to clear off.
Was there anything on the move round Gilarra at that time? Tegg inquired.
Oh, they spun me the usual yarns about the water being thick with em, and asked me to help; but I couldnt stop. The cutters stern-sheets were piled up with mines, like lobster-pots, and from the way the soldiers handled em I thought Id better get out. So did Uncle Newt. He didnt like it a bit. There were a couple of shots fired at something just as we cleared the Head, and one dropped rather close to him. (These duck-shoots in the dark are dam dangerous, y know.) He lit up at oncetail-light, head-light, and side-lights. I had no more trouble with him the rest of the night.
But what about the report that you sawed off the steam-launchs boat-hook? Tegg demanded suddenly.
What! You dont mean to say that little beast of a snotty reported it? He was scratchin poor old Ethels paint to pieces. I never reported what he said to me. And he called me a damned amateur, too! Well! Well! Wars war. I missed all that fishing-party that time. My orders were to follow Uncle Newt. So I followedand poor Ethel without a dry rag on her.
Winchmore refilled his glass.
Well, dont get poetical, said Portson. Lets have the rest of your trip.
There wasnt any rest, Winchmore insisted pathetically. There was just good old Ethel with her engines missing like sin, and Uncle Newt thumping and stinking half a mile ahead of us, and me eating bread and Worcester sauce. I do when I feel that way. Besides, I wanted to go back and join the fishing-party. Just before dark I made out Cordeiliathat Southampton ketch that old Jarrott fitted with oil auxiliaries for a family cruiser last summer. Shes a beamy bus, but she can roll, and she was doing an honest thirty degrees each way when I overhauled her. I asked Jarrott if he was busy. He said he wasnt. But he was. Hes like me and Nelson when theres any sea on.
But Jarrotts a Quaker. Has been for generations. Why does he go to war? said Maddingham.
If it comes to that, Portson said, why do any of us?
Jarrotts a mine-sweeper, Winchmore replied with deep feeling. The Quaker religion (Im not a Quaker, but Im much more religious than any of you chaps give me credit for) has decided that mine-sweeping is lifesaving. Consequentlyhe dwelt a little on the wordthe profession is crowded with Quakersspecially off Scarborough. See? Owin to the purity of their lives, they all go to Heaven when they dieRoll, Jordan, Roll!
Disgustin, said the actress audibly as she drew on her gloves. Winchmore looked at her with delight. Thats a peach-Melba, too, he said.
And David Jarrotts a minesweeper, Maddingham mused aloud. So you turned our Neutral over to him, Winchmore, did you?
Yes, I did. It was the end of my beatI wish I didnt feel so sleepyand I explained the whole situation to Jarrott, over the rail. Gave him all my silly instructionsthose latest ones, yknow. I told him to do nothing to imperil existing political relations. I told him to exercise tact. II told him that in my capacty as Actin Lootenant, you see. Jarrotts only a Lootenant-Commanderat fifty-four, too! Yes, I handed my Uncle Newt over to Jarrott to chaperone, and I went back to myI can say it perfectlypis-ca-to-rial party in the bay. Now Im going to have a nap. In ten minutes I shall be on deck again. This is my first civilised dinner in nine weeks, so I dont apologise.
He pushed his plate away, dropped his chin on his palm and closed his eyes.
Lyndnoch and Jarrotts Bank, established 1793, said Maddingham half to himself. Ive seen old Jarrott in Cowes week bullied by his skipper and steward till he had to sneak ashore to sleep. And now hes out mine-sweeping with Cordelia! Whats happened to hisI shall forget my own name nextBelfast-built two-hundred tonner?
Goneril, said Portson. He turned her over to the Service in October. Shesshe was Culana.
She was Culana, was she? My God! I never knew that. Where did it happen?
Off the same old Irish corner I was watching last month. My young cousin was in her; so was one of the Raikes boys. A whole nest of mines, laid between patrols.
Ive heard theres some dirty work going on there now, Maddingham half whispered.
You neednt tell me that, Portson returned. But one gets a little back now and again.
What are you two talking about? said Tegg, who seemed to be dozing too.
Culana, Portson answered as he lit a cigarette.
Yes, that was rather a pity. But . . . What about this Newt of ours?
I took her over from Jarrott next dayoff Margate, said Portson. Jarrott wanted to get back to his mine-sweeping.
Every man to his taste, said Maddingham. That never appealed to me. Had they detailed you specially to look after the Newt?
Me among others, Portson admitted. I was going down Channel when I got my orders, and so I went on with him. Jarrott had been tremendously interested in his course up to datespecially off the Wash. Hed charted it very carefully and he said he was going back to find out what some of the kinks and curves meant. Has he found out, Tegg?
Tegg thought for a moment. Cordelia was all right up to six oclock yesterday evening, he said.
Glad of that. Then I did what Winchmore did. I lay behind this stout fellow and saw him well into the open.
Did you say anything to him? Tegg asked.
Not a thing. He kept moving all the time.
See anything? Tegg continued.
No. He didnt seem to be in demand anywhere in the Channel, and, when Id got him on the edge of soundings, I dropped himas per your esteemed orders.
Tegg nodded again and murmured some apology.
Where did you pick him up, Maddingham? Portson went on.
Maddingham snorted.
Well north and west of where you left him heading up the Irish Channel and stinking like a taxi. I hadnt had my breakfast. My cook was seasick; so were four of my hands.
I can see that meeting. Did you give him a gun across the bows? Tegg asked.
No, no. Not that time. I signalled him to heave to. He had his papers ready before I came over the side. You see, Maddingham said pleadingly, Im new to this business. Perhaps I wasnt as polite to him as I should have been if Id had my breakfast.
He deposed that Maddingham came alongside swearing like a bargee, said Tegg.
Not in the least. This is what happened. Maddingham turned to Portson. I asked him where he was bound for and he told meAntigua.
Hi! Wake up, Winchmore. Youre missing something. Portson nudged Winchmore, who was slanting sideways in his chair.
Right! All right! Im awake, said Winchmore stickily. I heard every word.
Maddingham went on. I told him that this wasnt his way to Antigua
Antigua. Antigua! Winchmore finished rubbing his eyes. There was a young bride of Antigua
Hsh! Hsh! said Portson and Tegg warningly.
Why? Its the proper one. Who said to her spouse, What a pig you are!
Ass! Maddingham growled and continued: He told me that hed been knocked out of his reckoning by foul weather and engine-trouble, owing to experimenting with a new type of Diesel engine. He was perfectly frank about it.
So he was with me, said Winchmore. Just like a real lady. I hope you were a real gentleman, Papa.
I asked him what hed got. He didnt object. He had some fifty thousand gallon of oil for his new Diesel engine, and the rest was coal. He said he needed the oil to get to Antigua with, he was taking the coal as ballast, and he was coming back, so he told me, with coconuts. When hed quite finished, I said: What sort of damned idiot do you take me for? He said: I havent decided yet! Then I said hed better come into port with me, and wed arrive at a decision. He said that his papers were in perfect order and that my instructionsmine, please!were not to imperil political relations. I hadnt received these asinine instructions, so I took the liberty of contradicting himperfectly politely, as I told them at the Inquiry afterward. He was a small-boned man with a grey beard, in a glengarry, and he picked his teeth a lot. He said: The last time I met you, Mister Maddingham, you were going to Carlsbad, and you told me all about your blood-pressures in the wagon-lit before we tossed for upper berth. Dont you think you are a little old to buccaneer about the sea this way? I couldnt recall his facehe must have been some fellow that Id travelled with some time or other. I told him I wasnt doing this for amusementit was business. Then I ordered him into port. He said: Spose I dont go? I said: Then Ill sink you. Isnt it extraordinary how natural it all seems after a few weeks? If any one had told me when I commissioned Hilarity last summer what Id be doing this spring IdId . . . God! It is mad, isnt it?
Quite, said Portson. But not bad fun.
Not at all, but thats what makes it all the madder. Well, he didnt argue any more. He warned me Id be hauled over the coals for what Id done, and I warned him to keep two cables ahead of me and not to yaw.
Jaw? said Winchmore sleepily.
No. Yaw; Maddingham snarled. Not to look as if he even wanted to yaw. I warned him that, if he did, Id loose off into him, end-on. But I was absolutely polite about it. Give you my word, Tegg.
I believe you. Oh, I believe you, Tegg replied.
Well, so I took him into portand that was where I first ran across our Master Tegg. He represented the Admiralty on that beach.
The small blinking man nodded. The Admiralty had that honour, he said graciously.
Maddingham turned to the others angrily. Id been rather patting myself on the back for what Id done, you know. Instead of which, they held a court-martial
We called it an Inquiry, Tegg interjected.
You werent in the dock. They held a court-martial on me to find out how often Id sworn at the poor injured Neutral, and whether Id given him hot-water bottles and tucked him up at night. Its all very fine to laugh, but they treated me like a pickpocket. There were two fat-headed civilian judges and that blackguard Tegg in the conspiracy. A cursed lawyer defended my Neutral and he made fun of me. He dragged in everything the Neutral had told him about my blood-pressures on the Carlsbad trip. And thats what you get for trying to serve your country in your old age! Maddingham emptied and refilled his glass.
We did give you rather a grilling, said Tegg placidly. Its the national sense of fair play.
I could have stood it all if it hadnt been for the Neutral. We dined at the same hotel while this court-martial was going on, and he used to come over to my table and sympathise with me! He told me that I was fighting for his ideals and the uplift of democracy, but I must respect the Law of Nations!
And we respected em, said Tegg. His papers were perfectly correct; the Court discharged him. We had to consider existing political relations. I told Maddingham so at the hotel and he
Again Maddingham turned to the others. I couldnt make up my mind about Tegg at the Inquiry, he explained. He had the air of a decent sailor-man, but he talked like a poisonous politician.
I was, Tegg returned. I had been ordered to change into that rig. So I changed.
Maddingham ran one fat square hand through his crisped hair and looked up under his eyebrows like a shy child, while the others lay back and laughed.
I suppose I ought to have been on to the joke, he stammered, but Id blacked myself all over for the part of Lootenant-Commander R.N.V.R. in time of war, and Id given up thinking as a banker. If it had been put before me as a business proposition I might have done better.
I thought you were playing up to me and the judges all the time, said Tegg. I never dreamed you took it seriously.
Well, Ive been trained to look on the law as serious. Ive had to pay for some of it in my time, you know.
Im sorry, said Tegg. We were obliged to let that oily beggar gofor reasons, but, as I told Maddingham, the night the award was given, his duty was to see that he was properly directed to Antigua.
Naturally, Portson observed. That being the Neutrals declared destination. And what did Maddingham do? Shut up, Maddingham!
Said Tegg, with downcast eyes: Maddingham took my hand and squeezed it; he looked lovingly into my eyes (he did!); he turned plumcolour, and he said: I will just like a bride groom at the altar. It makes me feel shy to think of it even now. I didnt see him after that till the evening when Hilarity was pulling out of the Basin, and Maddingham was cursing the tug-master.
I was in a hurry, said Maddingham. I wanted to get to the Narrows and wait for my Neutral there. I dropped down to Biller and Groves yard that tide (theyve done all my work for years) and I jammed Hilarity into the creek behind their slip, so the Newt didnt spot me when he came down the river. Then I pulled out and followed him over the Bar. He stood nor-west at once. I let him go till we were well out of sight of land. Then I overhauled him, gave him a gun across the bows and ran alongside. Id just had my lunch, and I wasnt going to lose my temper this time. I said: Excuse me, but I understand you are bound for Antigua? He was, he said, and as he seemed a little nervous about my falling aboard him in that swell, I gave Hilarity another sheer inshes as handy as a launchand I said: May I suggest that this is not the course for Antigua? By that time he had his fenders overside, and all hands yelling at me to keep away. I snatched Hilarity out and began edging in again. He said: Im trying a sample of inferior oil that I have my doubts about. If it works all right I shall lay my course for Antigua, but it will take some time to test the stuff and adjust the engines to it. I said: Very good, let me know if I can be of any service, and I offered him Hilarity again once or twicehe didnt want herand then I dropped behind and let him go on. Wasnt that proper, Portson?
Portson nodded. I know that game of yours with Hilarity, he said. How the deuce do you do it? My nerve always goes at close quarters in any sea.
Its only a little trick of steering, Maddingham replied with a simper of vanity. You can almost shave with her when she feels like it. I had to do it again that same evening, to establish a moral ascendancy. He wasnt showing any lights, and I nearly tripped over him. He was a scared Neutral for three minutes, but I got a little of my own back for that damned court-martial. But I was perfectly polite. I apologised profusely. I didnt even ask him to show his lights.
But did he? said Winchmore.
He didevery one; and a flare now and then, Maddingham replied. He held north all that night, with a falling barometer and a rising wind and all the other filthy things. Gad, how I hated him! Next morning we got it, good and tight from the nor-nor-west out of the Atlantic, off Carso Head. He dodged into a squall, and then he went about. We werent a mile behind, but it was as thick as a wall. When it cleared, and I couldnt see him ahead of me, I went about too, and followed the rain. I picked him up five miles down wind, legging it for all he was worth to the southardnine knots, I should think. Hilarity doesnt like a following sea. We got pooped a bit, too, but by noon wed struggled back to where we ought to have beentwo cables astern of him. Then he began to signal, but his flags being end-on to us, of course, we had to creep up on his beamwell abeamto read em. That didnt restore his morale either. He made out hed been compelled to put back by stress of weather before completing his oil tests. I made back I was sorry to hear it, but would be greatly interested in the results. Then I turned in (Id been up all night) and my lootenant took on. He was a widower (by the way) of the name of Sherrin, aged forty-seven. Hed run a girls school at Weston-super-Mare after hed left the Service in ninety-five, and he believed the English were the Lost Tribes.
What about the Germans? said Portson.
Oh, theyd been misled by Austria, who was the Beast with Horns in Revelations. Otherwise he was rather a dull dog. He set the topsls in his watch. Hilarity wont steer under any canvas, so we rather sported round our friend that afternoon, I believe. When I came up after dinner, she was biting his behind, first one side, then the other. Lets seethat would be about thirty miles east-sou-east of Harry Island. We were running as near as nothing south. The wind had dropped, and there was a useful cross-rip coming up from the south-east. I took the wheel and, the way I nursed him from starboard, he had to take the sea over his port bow. I had my sciatica on mebuccaneerings no game for a middleaged manbut I gave that fellow sprudel! By Jove; I washed him out! He stood it as long as he could, and then he made a bolt for Harry Island. I had to ride in his pocket most of the way there because I didnt know that coast. We had charts, but Sherrin never understood em, and I couldnt leave the wheel. So we rubbed along together, and about midnight this Newt dodged in over the tail of Harry Shoals and anchored, if you please, in the lee of the Double Ricks. It was dead calm there, except for the swell, but there wasnt much room to manoeuvre in, and I wasnt going to anchor. It looked too like a submarine rendezvous. But first, I came alongside and asked him what his trouble was. He told me he had overheated his something-or-other bulb. Ive never been shipmates with Diesel engines, but I took his word for it, and I said I ud stand by till it cooled. Then he told me to go to hell.
If you were inside the Double Ricks in the dark, you were practically there, said Portson.
Thats what I thought. I was on the bridge, rabid with sciatica, going round and round like a circus-horse in about three acres of water, and wondering when Id hit something. Ridiculous position. Sherrin saw it. He saved me. He said it was an ideal place for submarine attacks, and wed better begin to repel em at once. As I said, I couldnt leave the wheel, so Sherrin fought the shipboth quick-firers and the maxims. He tipped em well down into the sea or well up at the Ricks as we went round and round. We made rather a row; and the row the gulls made when we woke em was absolutely terrifying. Give you my word!
And then? said Winchmore.
I kept on running in circles through this ghastly din. I took one sheer over toward his sternI thought Id cut it too fine, but we missed it by inches. Then I heard his capstan busy, and in another three minutes his anchor was up. He didnt wait to stow. He hustled out as he wasbulb or no bulb. He passed within ten feet of us (I was waiting to fall in behind him) and he shouted over the rail: You think youve got patriotism. All youve got is uric acid and rotten spite! I expect he was a little bored. I waited till we had cleared Harry Shoals before I went below, and then I slept till 9 a.m. He was heading north this time, and after Id had breakfast and a smoke I ran alongside and asked him where he was bound for now. He was wrapped in a comforter, evidently suffering from a bad cold. I couldnt quite catch what he said, but I let him croak for a few minutes and fell back. At 9 a.m. he turned round and headed south (I was getting to know the Irish Channel by then) and I followed. There was no particular sea on. It was a little chilly, but as he didnt hug the coast I hadnt to take the wheel. I stayed below most of the night and let Sherrin suffer. Well, Mr. Newt kept up this game all the next day, dodging up and down the Irish Channel. And it was infernally dull. He threw up the sponge off Cloone Harbour. That was on Friday morning. He signalled: Developed defects in engine-room. Antigua trip abandoned. Then he ran into Cloone and tied up at Bradys Wharf. You know you cant repair a dinghy at Cloone! I followed, of course, and berthed behind him. After lunch I thought Id pay him a call. I wanted to look at his engines. I dont understand Diesels, but Hyslop, my engineer, said they must have gone round em with a hammer, for they were pretty badly smashed up. Besides that, they had offered all their oil to the Admiralty agent there, and it was being shifted to a tug when I went aboard him. So Id done my job. I was just going back to Hilarity when his steward said hed like to see me. He was lying in his cabin breathing pretty loud-wrapped up in rugs and his eyes sticking out like a rabbits. He offered me drinks. I couldnt accept em, of course. Then he said: Well, Mr. Maddingham, Im all in. I said I was glad to hear it. Then he told me he was seriously ill with a sudden attack of bronchial pneumonia, and he asked me to run him across to England to see his doctor in town. I said, of course, that was out of the question, Hilarity being a man-of-war in commission. He couldnt see it. He asked what had that to do with it? He thought this war was some sort of joke, and I had to repeat it all over again. He seemed rather afraid of dying (its no game for a middle-aged man, of course) and he hoisted himself up on one elbow and began calling me a murderer. I explained to himperfectly politelythat I wasnt in this job for fun. It was business. My orders were to see that he went to Antigua, and now that he wasnt going to Antigua, and had sold his oil to us, that finished it as far as I was concerned. (Wasnt that perfectly correct?) He said: But that finishes me, too. I cant get any doctor in this Godforsaken hole. I made sure youd treat me properly as soon as I surrendered. I said there wasnt any question of surrender. If hed been a wounded belligerent, I might have taken him aboard, though I certainly shouldnt have gone a yard out of my course to land him anywhere; but as it was, he was a neutralaltogether outside the game. You see my point? I tried awfully hard to make him understand it. He went on about his affairs all being at loose ends. He was a rich mana million and a quarter, he saidand he wanted to redraft his will before he died. I told him a good many people were in his position just nowonly they werent rich. He changed his tack then and appealed to me on the grounds of our common humanity. Why, if you leave me now, Mr. Maddingham, he said, you condemn me to death, just as surely as if you hanged me.
This is interesting, Portson murmured. I never imagined you in this light before, Maddingham.
I was surprised at myselfgive you my word. But I was perfectly polite. I said to him: Try to be reasonable, sir. If you had got rid of your oil where it was wanted, youd have condemned lots of people to death just as surely as if youd drowned em. Ah, but I didnt, he said. That ought to count in my favour. That was no thanks to you, I said. You werent given the chance. This is war, sir. If you make up your mind to that, youll see that the rest follows. I didnt imagine youd take it as seriously as all that, he saidand he said it quite seriously, too. Show a little consideration. Your sides bound to win anyway. I said: Look here! Im a middle-aged man, and I dont suppose my conscience is any clearer than yours in many respects, but this is business. I can do nothing for you.
You got that a bit mixed, I think, said Tegg critically.
He saw what I was driving at, Maddingham replied, and he was the only one that mattered for the moment. Then Im a dead man, Mr. Maddingham, he said. Thats your business, I said. Good afternoon. And I went out.
And? said Winchmore, after some silence.
He died. I saw his flag half-masted next morning.
There was another silence. Henri looked in at the alcove and smiled. Maddingham beckoned to him.
But why didnt you lend him a hand to settle his private affairs? said Portson.
Because I wasnt acting in my private capacity. Id been on the bridge for three nights and Maddingham pulled out his watchthis time to-morrow I shall be there againconfound it! Has my car come, Henri?
Yes, Sare Francis. I am sorry. They all complimented Henri on the dinner, and when the compliments were paid he expressed himself still their debtor. So did the nephew.
Are you coming with me, Portson? said Maddingham as he rose heavily.
No. Im for Southampton, worse luck! My car ought to be here, too.
Im for Euston and the frigid calculating North, said Winchmore with a shudder. One common taxi, please, Henri.
Tegg smiled. Im supposed to sleep in just now, but if you dont mind, Id like to come with you as far as Gravesend, Maddingham.
Delighted. Theres a glass all round left still, said Maddingham. Heres luck! The usual, I suppose? Damnation to all neutrals!
AT the eleventh hour he came, But his wages were the same As ours who all day long had trod The wine-press of the Wrath of God.
When he shouldered through the lines
(Children of the morning-tide
Since his back had felt no load
We went home, delivered thence,
Till he showed us for our good |
ONCE in so often, King Solomon said, Watching his quarrymen drill the stone, We will club our garlic and wine and bread And banquet together beneath my Throne And all the Brethren shall come to that mess As Fellow-Craftsmenno more and no less.
Send a swift shallop to Hiram of Tyre,
Carry this message to Hiram Abif
God gave the Hyssop and Cedar their place
So it was ordered and so it was done,
The Quarries are hotter than Hirams forge, |
He passed out before I could thank him. He was a middle-aged man with grey hair and a short, dark beard, rather like a Sealyham terrier in silver spectacles. For some reason his face and his voice stayed in my mind so distinctly that, months later, when I jostled against him on a platform crowded with an Angling Club going to the Thames, I recognised, turned, and nodded.
I took your advice about the canary, I said.
Did you? Good! he replied heartily over the rod-case on his shoulder, and was parted from me by the crowd.
A few years ago I turned into a tobacconists to have a badly stopped pipe cleaned out.
Well! Well! And how did the canary do? said the man behind the counter. We shook hands, and Whats your name? we both asked together.
His name was Lewis Holroyd Burges, of Burges and Son, as I might have seen above the doorbut Son had been killed in Egypt. His hair was whiter than it had been, and the eyes were sunk a little.
Well! Well! To think, said he, of one man in all these millions turning up in this curious way, when theres so many who dont turn up at alleh? (It was then that he told me of Son Lewiss death and why the boy had been christened Lewis.) Yes. Theres not much left for middle-aged people just at present. Even ones hobbies We used to fish together. And the same with canaries! We used to breed em for colourdeep orange was our speciality. Thats why I spoke to you, if you remember; but Ive sold all my birds. Well! Well! And now we must locate your trouble.
He bent over my erring pipe and dealt with it skilfully as a surgeon. A soldier came in, spoke in an undertone, received a reply, and went out.
Many of my clients are soldiers nowadays, and a number of em belong to the Craft, said Mr. Burges. It breaks my heart to give them the tobaccos they ask for. On the other hand, not one man in five thousand has a tobacco-palate. Preference, yes. Palate, no. Heres your pipe, again. It deserves better treatment than its had. Theres a procedure, a ritual, in all things. Any time youre passing by again, I assure you, you will be welcome. Ive one or two odds and ends that may interest you.
I left the shop with the rarest of all feelings on methe sensation which is only youths rightthat I might have made a friend. A little distance from the door I was accosted by a wounded man who asked for Burgess. The place seemed to be known in the neighbourhood.
I found my way to it again, and often after that, but it was not till my third visit that I discovered Mr. Burges held a half interest in Ackerman and Pernits, the great cigar-importers, which had come to him through an uncle whose children now lived almost in the Cromwell Road, and said that the uncle had been on the Stock Exchange.
Im a shopkeeper by instinct, said Mr. Burges. I like the ritual of handling things. The shop has done me well. I like to do well by the shop.
It had been established by his grandfather in 1827, but the fittings and appointments must have been at least half a century older. The brown and red tobacco- and snuff-jars, with Crowns, Garters, and names of forgotten mixtures in gold leaf; the polished Oronoque tobacco-barrels on which favoured customers sat ; the cherry-black mahogany counter, the delicately moulded shelves, the reeded cigar-cabinets, the German-silver-mounted scales, and the Dutch brass roll- and cake-cutter, were things to covet.
They arent so bad, he admitted. That large Bristol jar hasnt any duplicate to my knowledge. Those eight snuff-jars on the third shelftheyre Dollins ware; he used to work for Wimble in Seventeen-Fortyare absolutely unique. Is there any one in the trade now could tell you what Romanos Hollande was? Or Scholtens? Heres a snuff-mull of George the Firsts time; and heres a Louis Quinzewhat am I talking of? Treize, Treize, of coursegrater for making bran-snuff. They were regular tools of the shop in my grandfathers day. And who on earth to leave em to outside the British Museum now, I cant think!
His pipesI would this were a tale for virtuosihis amazing collection of pipes was kept in the parlour, and this gave me the privilege of making his wifes acquaintance. One morning, as I was looking covetously at a jacaranda-wood cigarronot cigar-cabinet with silver lock-plates and drawer-knobs of Spanish work, a wounded Canadian came into the shop and disturbed our happy little committee.
Say, he began loudly, are you the right place?
Who sent you? Mr. Burges demanded.
A man from Messines. But that aint the point! Ive got no certificates, nor papers nothin, you understand. I left my Lodge owin em seventeen dollars back-dues. But this man at Messines told me it wouldnt make any odds with you.
It doesnt, said Mr. Burges. We meet to-night at 7 p.m.
The mans face fell a yard. Hell! said he. But Im in hospitalI cant get leaf.
And Tuesdays and Fridays at 3 p.m., Mr. Burges added promptly. Youll have to be proved, of course.
Guess I can get by that all right, was the cheery reply. Toosday, then. He limped off, beaming.
Who might that be? I asked.
I dont know any more than you doexcept he must be a Brother. Londons full of Masons now. Well! Well! We must do what we can these days. If youll come to tea this evening, Ill take you on to Lodge afterwards. Its a Lodge of Instruction.
Delighted. Which is your Lodge? I said, for up till then he had not given me its name.
Faith and Works 5837the third Saturday of every month. Our Lodge of Instruction meets nominally every Thursday, but we sit oftener than that now because there are so many Visiting Brothers in town. Here another customer entered, and I went away much interested in the range of Brother Burgess hobbies.
At tea-time he was dressed as for Church, and wore gold pince-nez in lieu of the silver spectacles. I blessed my stars that I had thought to change into decent clothes.
Yes, we owe that much to the Craft, he assented. All Ritual is fortifying. Rituals a natural necessity for mankind. The more things are upset, the more they fly to it. I abhor slovenly Ritual anywhere. By the way, would you mind assisting at the examinations, if there are many Visiting Brothers to-night? Youll find some of em very rusty, butits the Spirit, not the Letter, that giveth life. The question of Visiting Brethren is an important one. There are so many of them in London now, you see; and so few places where they can meet.
You dear thing! said Mrs. Burges, and handed him his locked and initialed apron-case.
Our Lodge is only just round the corner, he went on. You mustnt be too critical of our appurtenances. The place was a garage once.
As far as I could make out in the humiliating darkness, we wandered up a mews and into a courtyard. Mr. Burges piloted me, murmuring apologies for everything in advance.
You mustnt expect he was still saying when we stumbled up a porch and entered a carefully decorated ante-room hung round with Masonic prints. I noticed Peter Gilkes and Barton Wilson, fathers of Emulation working, in the place of honour; Knellers Christopher Wren; Dunkerley, with his own Fitz-George book-plate below and the bend sinister on the Royal Arms; Hogarths caricature of Wilkes, also his disreputable Night; and a beautifully framed set of Grand Masters, from Anthony Sayer down.
Are these another hobby of yours? I asked.
Not this time, Mr. Burges smiled. We have to thank Brother Lemming for them. He introduced me to the senior partner of Lemming and Orton, whose little shop is hard to find, but whose words and cheques in the matter of prints are widely circulated.
The frames are the best part of em, said Brother Lemming after my compliments. There are some more in the Lodge Room. Come and look. Weve got the big Desaguliers there that nearly went to Iowa.
I had never seen a Lodge Room better fitted. From mosaicked floor to appropriate ceiling, from curtain to pillar, implements to seats, seats to lights, and little carved music-loft at one end, every detail was perfect in particular kind and general design. I said what I thought of them all, many times over.
I told you I was a Ritualist, said Mr. Burges. Look at those carved corn-sheaves and grapes on the back of these Wardens chairs. Thats the old traditionbefore Masonic furnishers spoilt it. I picked up that pair in Stepney ten years agothe same time I got the gavel. It was of ancient, yellowed ivory, cut all in one piece out of some tremendous tusk. That came from the Gold Coast, he said. It belonged to a Military Lodge there in 1794. You can see the inscription.
If its a fair question, I began, how much
It stood us, said Brother Lemming, his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, an appreciable sum of money when we built it in 1906, even with what Brother Anstrutherhe was our contractorcheated himself out of. By the way, that ashlar there is pure Carrara, he tells me. I dont understand marbles myself. Since then I expect weve put inoh, quite another little sum. Now well go to the examination-room and take on the Brethren.
He led me back, not to the ante-room, but a convenient chamber flanked with what looked like confessional-boxes (I found out later that that was what they had been, when first picked up for a song near Oswestry). A few men in uniform were waiting at the far end. Thats only the head of the procession. The rest are in the ante-room, said an officer of the Lodge.
Brother Burges assigned me my discreet box, saying: Dont be surprised. They come all shapes.
Shapes was not a bad description, for my first penitent was all head-bandagesescaped from an Officers Hospital, Pentonville way. He asked me in profane Scots how I expected a man with only six teeth and half a lower lip to speak to any purpose, so we compromised on the signs. The nexta New Zealander from Taranakireversed the process, for he was one-armed, and that in a sling. I mistrusted an enormous Sergeant-Major of Heavy Artillery, who struck me as much too glib, so I sent him on to Brother Lemming in the next box, who discovered he was a Past District Grand Officer. My last man nearly broke me down altogether. Everything seemed to have gone from him.
I dont blame yer, he gulped at last. I wouldnt pass my own self on my answers, but I give yer my word that so far as Ive had any religion, its been all the religion Ive had. For Gods sake, let me sit in Lodge again, Brother!
When the examinations were ended, a Lodge Officer came round with our apronsno tinsel or silver-gilt confections, but heavily-corded silk with tassels andwhere a man could prove he was entitled to them-levels, of decent plate. Some one in front of me tightened a belt on a stiffly silent person in civil clothes with dischargebadge. Strewth! This is comfort again, I heard him say. The companion nodded. The man went on suddenly: Here! Whatre you doing? Leave off! You promised not to Chuck it! and dabbed at his companions streaming eyes.
Let him leak, said an Australian signaller. Cant you see how happy the beggar is?
It appeared that the silent Brother was a shell-shocker whom Brother Lemming had passed, on the guarantee of his friend andwhat moved Lemming morethe threat that, were he refused, he would have fits from pure disappointment. So the shocker went happily and silently among Brethren evidently accustomed to these displays.
We fell in, two by two, according to tradition, fifty of us at least, and were played into Lodge by what I thought was an harmonium, but which I discovered to be an organ of repute. It took time to settle us down, for ten or twelve were cripples and had to be helped into long or easy chairs. I sat between a one-footed R.A.M.C. Corporal and a Captain of Territorials, who, he told me, had had a brawl with a bomb, which had bent him in two directions. But thats first-class Bach the organist is giving us now, he said delightedly. Id like to know him. I used to be a piano-thumper of sorts.
Ill introduce you after Lodge, said one of the regular Brethren behind usa plump, torpedo-bearded man, who turned out to be a doctor. After all, theres nobody to touch Bach, is there? Those two plunged at once into musical talk, which to outsiders is as fascinating as trigonometry.
Now a Lodge of Instruction is mainly a parade-ground for Ritual. It cannot initiate or confer degrees, but is limited to rehearsals and lectures. Worshipful Brother Burges, resplendent in Solomons Chair (I found out later where that, too, had been picked up), briefly told the Visiting Brethren how welcome they were and always would be, and asked them to vote what ceremony should be rendered for their instruction.
When the decision was announced he wanted to know whether any Visiting Brothers would take the duties of Lodge Officers. They protested bashfully that they were too rusty. The very reason why, said Brother Surges, while the organ Bached softly. My musical Captain wriggled in his chair.
One moment, Worshipful Sir. The plump Doctor rose. We have here a musician for whom place and opportunity are needed. Only, he went on colloquially, those organ-loft steps are a bit steep.
How much, said Brother Burges with the solemnity of an initiation, does our Brother weigh?
Very little over eight stone, said the Brother. Weighed this morning, Worshipful Sir.
The Past District Grand Officer, who was also a Battery-Sergeant-Major, waddled across, lifted the slight weight in his arms and bore it to the loft, where, the regular organist pumping, it played joyously as a soul caught up to Heaven by surprise.
When the visitors had been coaxed to supply the necessary officers, a ceremony was rehearsed. Brother Burges forbade the regular members to prompt. The visitors had to work entirely by themselves, but, on the Battery-Sergeant-Major taking a hand, he was ruled out as of too exalted rank. They floundered badly after that support was withdrawn.
The onefooted R.A.M.C. on my right chuckled.
Dyou like it? said the Doctor to him.
Do I? Its Heaven to me, sittin in Lodge again. Its all comin back now, watching their mistakes. I havent much religion, but all I had I learnt in Lodge. Recognising me, he flushed a little as one does when one says a thing twice over in anothers hearing. Yes, veiled in allgory and illustrated in symbolsthe Fatherhood of God, an the Brotherhood of Man; an what more in Hell do you want? . . . Look at em! He broke off giggling. See! See! Theyve tied the whole thing into knots. I could ha done it better myselfmy one foot in France. Yes, I should think they ought to do it again!
The new organist covered the little confusion that had arisen with what sounded like the wings of angels.
When the amateurs, rather red and hot, had finished, they demanded an exhibition-working of their bungled ceremony by Regular Brethren of the Lodge. Then I realised for the first time what word-and-gesture-perfect Ritual can be brought to mean. We all applauded, the one-footed Corporal most of all.
We are rather proud of our working, and this is an audience worth playing up to, the Doctor said.
Next the Master delivered a little lecture on the meanings of some pictured symbols and diagrams. His theme was a well-worn one, but his deep holding voice made it fresh.
Marvellous how these old copybook-headings persist, the Doctor said.
Thats all right! the one-footed man spoke cautiously out of the side of his mouth like a boy in form. But theyre the kind o copybook-headins we shall find burnin round our bunks in Hell. Believe me-ee! Ive broke enough of em to know. Now, hsh! He leaned forward, drinking it all in.
Presently Brother Burges touched on a point which had given rise to some diversity of Ritual. He asked for information. Well, in Jamaica, Worshipful Sir, a Visiting Brother began, and explained how they worked that detail in his parts. Another and another joined in from different quarters of the Lodge (and the world), and when they were well warmed the Doctor sidled softly round the walls and, over our shoulders, passed us cigarettes.
A shocking innovation, he said, as he returned to the Captain-musicians vacant seat on my left. But men cant really talk without tobacco, and were only a Lodge of Instruction.
An Ive learned more in one evenin here than ten years. The one-footed man turned round for an instant from a dark, sour-looking Yeoman in spurs who was laying down the law on Dutch Ritual. The blue haze and the talk increased, while the organ from the loft blessed us all.
But this is delightful, said I to the Doctor. How did it all happen?
Brother Burges started it. He used to talk to the men who dropped into his shop when the war began. He told us sleepy old chaps in Lodge that what men wanted more than anything else was Lodges where they could sitjust sit and be happy like we are now. He was right too. Were learning things in the war. A mans Lodge means more to him than people imagine. As our friend on your right said just now, very often Masonrys the only practical creed weve ever listened to since we were children. Platitudes or no platitudes, it squares with what everybody knows ought to be done. He sighed. And if this war hasnt brought home the Brotherhood of Man to us all, Ima Hun!
How did you get your visitors? I went on.
Oh, I told a few fellows in hospital near here, at Burgess suggestion, that we had a Lodge of Instruction and theyd be welcome. And they came. And they told their friends. And they came! That was two years agoand now weve Lodge of Instruction two nights a week, and a matinee nearly every Tuesday and Friday for the men who cant get evening leave. Yes, its all very curious. Id no notion what the Craft meantand meanstill this war.
Nor I, till this evening, I replied.
Yet its quite natural if you think. Heres Londonall Englandpacked with the Craft from all over the world, and nowhere for them to go. Why, our weekly visiting attendance for the last four months averaged just under a hundred and forty. Divide by fourcall it thirty-five Visiting Brethren a time. Our records seventy-one, but we have packed in as many as eighty-four at Banquets. You can see for yourself what a potty little hole we are!
Banquets too! I cried. It must cost like anything. May the Visiting Brethren
The Doctorhis name was Keedelaughed. No, a Visiting Brother may not.
But when a man has had an evening like this, he wants to
Thats what they all say. That makes our difficulty. They do exactly what you were going to suggest, and theyre offended if we dont take it.
Dont you? I asked.
My dear manwhat does it come to? They cant all stay to Banquet. Say one hundred suppers a weekfifteen quidsixty a monthseven hundred and twenty a year. How much are Lemming and Orton worth? And Ellis and McKnightthat long big man over yonderthe provision dealers? How much dyou suppose could Burges write a cheque for and not feel? Tisnt as if he had to save for any one now. I assure you we have no scruple in calling on the Visiting Brethren when we want anything. We couldnt do the work otherwise. Have you noticed how the Lodge is keptbrass-work, jewels, furniture, and so on?
I have indeed, I said. Its like a ship. You could eat your dinner off the floor.
Well, come here on a bye-day and youll often find half-a-dozen Brethren, with eight legs between em, polishing and ronuking and sweeping everything they can get at. I cured a shell-shocker this spring by giving him our jewels to look after. He pretty well polished the numbers off em, butit kept him from fighting Huns in his sleep. And when we need Masters to take our dutiestwo matinees a week is rather a taxweve the choice of P.M.s from all over the world. The Dominions are much keener on Ritual than an average English Lodge. Besides that Oh, were going to adjourn. Listen to the greetings. Theyll be interesting.
The crack of the great gavel brought us to our feet, after some surging and plunging among the cripples. Then the Battery-Sergeant-Major, in a trained voice, delivered hearty and fraternal greetings to Faith and Works from his tropical District and Lodge. The others followed, with out order, in every tone between a grunt and a squeak. I heard Hauraki, Inyanga-Umbezi, Aloha, Southern Lights (from somewhere Punta Arenas way), Lodge of Rough Ashlars (and that Newfoundland Naval Brother looked it), two or three Stars of something or other, half-a-dozen cardinal virtues, variously arranged, hailing from Klondyke to Kalgoorlie, one Military Lodge on one of the fronts, thrown in with a severe Scots burr by my friend of the head-bandages, and the rest as mixed as the Empire itself. Just at the end there was a little stir. The silent Brother had begun to make noises; his companion tried to soothe him.
Let him be! Let him be! the Doctor called professionally. The man jerked and mouthed, and at last mumbled something unintelligible even to his friend, but a small dark P.M. pushed forward importantly.
It iss all right, he said. He wants to say he spat out some yard-long Welsh name, adding, That means Pembroke Docks, Worshipful Sir. We haf good Masons in Wales, too. The silent man nodded approval.
Yes, said the Doctor, quite unmoved. It happens that way sometimes. Hespere panta fereis, isnt it? The Star brings em all home. I must get a note of that fellows case after Lodge. I saw you didnt care for music, he went on, but Im afraid youll have to put up with a little more. Its a paraphrase from Micah. Our organist arranged it. We sing it antiphonally, as a sort of dismissal.
Even I could appreciate what followed. The singing seemed confined to half-a-dozen trained voices answering each other till the last line, when the full Lodge came in. I give it as I heard it
We have showèd thee, O Man, What is good. What doth the Lord require of us? Or Conscience self desire of us? But to do justly But to love mercy, And to walk humbly with our God, As every Mason should. |
Then we were played and sung out to the quaint tune of the Entered Apprentices Song. I noticed that the regular Brethren of the Lodge did not begin to take off their regalia till the lines
Great Kings, Dukes, and Lords Have laid down their swords. |
They moved into the ante-room, now set for the Banquet, on the verse
Antiquitys pride We have on our side, Which maketh men just in their station. |
The Brother (a big-boned clergyman) that I found myself next to at table told me the custom was a fond thing vainly invented on the strength of some old legend. He laid down that Masonry should be regarded as an intellectual abstraction. An Officer of Engineers disagreed with him, and told us how in Flanders, a year before, some ten or twelve Brethren held Lodge in what was left of a Church. Save for the Emblems of Mortality and plenty of rough ashlars, there was no furniture.
I warrant you werent a bit the worse for that, said the Clergyman. The idea should be enough without trappings.
But it wasnt, said the other. We took a lot of trouble to make our regalia out of camouflage-stuff that wed pinched, and we manufactured our jewels from old metal. Ive got the set now. It kept us happy for weeks.
Ye were absolutely irregular an unauthorised. Whaur was your Warrant? said the Brother from the Military Lodge. Grand Lodge ought to take steps against
If Grand Lodge had any sense, a private three places up our table broke in, it ud warrant travelling Lodges at the front and attach first-class lecturers to em.
Wad ye confer degrees promiscuously? said the scandalised Scot.
Every time a man asked, of course. Youd have half the Army in.
The speaker played with the idea for a little while, and proved that, on the lowest scale of fees, Grand Lodge would get huge revenues.
I believe, said the Engineer Officer thoughtfully, I could design a complete travelling Lodge outfit under forty pounds weight.
Yere wrong. Ill prove it. Weve tried ourselves, said the Military Lodge man; and they went at it together across the table, each with his own note-book.
The Banquet was simplicity itself. Many of us ate in haste so as to get back to barracks or hospitals, but now and again a Brother came in from the outer darkness to fill a chair and empty a plate. These were Brethren who had been there before and needed no examination.
One man lurched inhelmet, Flanders mud, accoutrements and allfresh from the leave-train.
Got two hours to wait for my train, he explained. I remembered your night, though. My God, this is good!
What is your train and from what station? said the Clergyman precisely. Very well. What will you have to eat?
Anything. Everything. Ive thrown up a months rations in the Channel.
He stoked himself for ten minutes without a word. Then, without a word, his face fell forward. The Clergyman had him by one already limp arm and steered him to a couch, where ho dropped and snored. No one took the trouble to turn round.
Is that usual too? I asked.
Why not? said the Clergyman. Im on duty to-night to wake them for their trains. They do not respect the Cloth on those occasions. He turned his broad back on me and continued his discussion with a Brother from Aberdeen by way of Mitylene where, in the intervals of mine-sweeping, he had evolved a complete theory of the Revelation of St. John the Divine in the Island of Patmos.
I fell into the hands of a Sergeant-Instructor of Machine Gunsby profession a designer of ladies dresses. He told me that Englishwomen as a class lose on their corsets what they make on their clothes, and that Satan himself cant save a woman who wears thirty-shilling corsets under a thirty-guinea costume. Here, to my grief, he was buttonholed by a zealous Lieutenant of his own branch, and became a Sergeant again all in one click.
I drifted back and forth, studying the prints on the walls and the Masonic collection in the cases, while I listened to the inconceivable talk all round me. Little by little the company thinned, till at last there were only a dozen or so of us left. We gathered at the end of a table near the fire, the night-bird from Flanders trumpeting lustily into the hollow of his helmet, which some one had tipped over his face.
And how did it go with you? said the Doctor.
It was like a new world, I answered.
Thats what it is really. Brother Burges returned the gold pince-nez to their case and reshipped his silver spectacles. Or thats what it might be made with a little trouble. When I think of the possibilities of the Craft at this juncture I wonder He stared into the fire.
I wonder, too, said the Sergeant-Major slowly, buton the wholeIm inclined to agree with you. We could do much with Masonry.
As an aidas an aidnot as a substitute for Religion, the Clergyman snapped.
Oh, Lord! Cant we give Religion a rest for a bit? the Doctor muttered. It hasnt done soI beg your pardon all round.
The Clergyman was bristling. Kamerad! the wise Sergeant-Major went on, both hands up. Certainly not as a substitute for a creed, but as an average plan of life. What Ive seen at the front makes me sure of it.
Brother Burges came out of his muse. There ought to be a dozentwentyother Lodges in London every night; conferring degrees too, as well as instruction. Why shouldnt the young men join? They practise what were always preaching. Well! Well! We must all do what we can. Whats the use of old Masons if they cant give a little help along their own lines?
Exactly, said the Sergeant-Major, turning on the Doctor. And whats the darn use of a Brother if he isnt allowed to help?
Have it your own way then, said the Doctor testily. He had evidently been approached before. He took something the Sergeant-Major handed to him and pocketed it with a nod. I was wrong, he said to me, when I boasted of our independence. They get round us sometimes. This, he slapped his pocket, will give a banquet on Tuesday. We dont usually feed at matinees. It will be a surprise. By the way, try another sandwich. The ham are best. He pushed me a plate.
They are, I said. Ive only had five or six. Ive been looking for them.
Glad you like them, said Brother Lemming. Fed him myself, cured him myselfat my little place in Berkshire. His name was Charlemagne. By the way, Doc, am I to keep another one for next month?
Of course, said the Doctor with his mouth full. A little fatter than this chap, please. And dont forget your promise about the pickled nasturtiums. Theyre appreciated. Brother Lemming nodded above the pipe he had lit as we began a second supper. Suddenly the Clergyman, after a glance at the clock, scooped up half-a-dozen sandwiches from under my nose, put them into an oiled paper bag, and advanced cautiously towards the sleeper on the couch.
They wake rough sometimes, said the Doctor. Nerves, yknow. The Clergyman tip-toed directly behind the mans head, and at arms length rapped on the dome of the helmet. The man woke in one vivid streak, as the Clergyman stepped back, and grabbed for a rifle that was not there.
Youve barely half an hour to catch your train. The Clergyman passed him the sandwiches. Come along.
Youre uncommonly kind and Im very grateful, said the man, wriggling into his stiff straps. He followed his guide into the darkness after saluting.
Whos that? said Lemming.
Cant say, the Doctor returned indifferently. Hes been here before. Hes evidently a P.M. of sorts.
Well! Well! said Brother Burges, whose eyelids were drooping. We must all do what we can. Isnt it almost time to lock up?
I wonder, said I, as we helped each other into our coats, what would happen if Grand Lodge knew about all this.
About what? Lemming turned on me quickly.
A Lodge of Instruction open three nights and two afternoons a weekand running a lodging-house as well. Its all very nice, but it doesnt strike me somehow as regulation.
The point hasnt been raised yet, said Lemming. Well settle it after the war. Meantime we shall go on.
There ought to be scores of them, Brother Burges repeated as we went out of the door. All Londons full of the Craft, and no places for them to meet in. Think of the possibilities of it! Think what could have been done by Masonry through Masonry for all the world. I hope Im not censorious, but it sometimes crosses my mind that Grand Lodge may have thrown away its chance in the war almost as much as the Church has.
Lucky for you the Padre is taking that chap to Kings Cross, said Brother Lemming, or hed be down your throat. What really troubles him is our legal position under Masonic Law. I think hell inform on us one of these days. Well, good night, all. The Doctor and Lemming turned off together.
Yes, said Brother Burges, slipping his arm into mine. Almost as much as the Church has. But perhaps Im too much of a Ritualist.
I said nothing. I was speculating how soon I could steal a march on the Clergyman and inform against Faith and Works No. 5837 E.C.
HOW comes it that, at even-tide, When level beams should show most truth, Man, failing, takes unfailing pride In memories of his frolic youth?
Venus and Liber fill their hour;
Yet at the end, these comfort not
Of frontless days before the beard,
And wenot caring who He was
Then He withdrew from sight and speech, |
Looking back at the affair, one sees that the Head should have warned Mr. Brownell of the Colleges outstanding peculiarity, instead of leaving him to discover it for himself the first day of the term, when he went for a walk to the beach, and saw Potiphar Mullins, Head of Games, smoking without conceal on the sands. Pot, having the whole of the Autumn Football challenges, acceptances, and Fifteen reconstructions to work out, did not at first comprehend Mr. Brownells shrill cry of: Youre smoking! Youre smoking, sir! but he removed his pipe, and answered, placably enough: The Army Class is allowed to smoke, sir.
Mr. Brownell replied: Preposterous!
Pot, seeing that this new person was uninformed, suggested that he should refer to the Head.
You may be sure I shallsure I shall, sir! Then we shall see!
Mr. Brownell and his umbrella scudded off, and Pot returned to his match-plannings. Anon, he observed, much as the Almighty might observe black-beetles, two small figures coming over the Pebble-ridge a few hundred yards to his right. They were a Major and his Minor, the latter a new boy and, as such, entitled to his brothers countenance for exactly three daysafter which he would fend for himself. Pot waited till they were well out on the great stretch of mother-opearl sands; then caused his ground-ash to describe a magnificent whirl of command in the air.
Come on, said the Major. Run!
What for? said the Minor, who had noticed nothing.
Cause were wanted. Leg it!
Oh, I can do that, the Minor replied and, at the end of the sprint, fetched up a couple of yards ahead of his brother, and much less winded.
Your Minor? said Pot, looking over them, seawards.
Yes, Mullins, the Major replied.
All right. Cut along! They cut on the word.
Hi! Fludd Major! Come back!
Back fled the elder.
Your winds bad. Too fat. You grunt like a pig. Mustnt do it! Understand? Go away!
What was all that for? the Minor asked on the Majors return.
To see if we could run, you fool! ,
Well, I ran faster than you, anyhow, was the scandalous retort.
Look here, HarMinor, if you go on talking like this, youll get yourself kicked all round Coll. An you mustnt stand like you did when a Prefects talkin to you.
The Minors eyes opened with awe. I thought it was only one of the masters, said he.
Masters! It was MullinsHead o Games. You are a putrid young ass!
By what seemed pure chance, Mr. Brownell ran into the School Chaplain, the Reverend John Gillett, beating up against the soft September rain that no native ever troubled to wear a coat for.
I was trying to catch you after lunch, the latter began. I wanted to show you our objects of local interest.
Thank you! Ive seen all I want, Mr. Brownell answered. , Gillett, is there anything about me which suggests the Congenital Dupe?
Its early to say, yet, the Chaplain answered. Whove you been meeting?
A youth called Mullets, I believe. And, indeed, there was Potiphar, ground-ash, pipe, and all, quarter-decking serenely below the Pebbleridge.
Oh! I see. Old Potour Head of Games.
He was smoking. Hes smoking now! Before those two little boys, too! Mr. Brownell panted. He had the audacity to tell me that
Yes, the Reverend John cut in. The Army Class is allowed to smokenot in their studies, of course, but within limits, out of doors. You see, we have to compete against the Crammers establishments, where smokings usual.
This was true! Of the only school in England was this the cold truth, and for the reason given, in that unprogressive age.
Good Heavens! said Mr. Brownell to the gulls and the gray sea. And I was never warned!
The Head is a little forgetful. I ought to haveBut its all right, the Chaplain added soothingly. Pot wontergive you away.
Mr. Brownell, who knew what smoking led to, testified out of his twelve years experience of what he called the Animal Boy. He left little unexplored or unexplained.
There may be something in what you say, the Reverend John assented. But as a matter of fact, their actual smoking doesnt amount to much. They talk a great deal about their brands of tobacco. Practically, it makes them rather keen on putting down smoking among the juniorsas an encroachment on their privilege, you see. They lick em twice as hard for it as wed dare to.
Lick! Mr. Brownell cried. One expels! One expels! I know the end of these practices. He told his companion, in detail, with anecdotes and inferences, a great deal more about the Animal Boy.
Ah! said the Reverend John to himself. Youll leave at the end of the term; but youll have a deuce of a time first. Aloud: We-ell, I suppose no one can be sure of any schools tendency at any given moment, but, personally, I should incline to believe that were reasonably free from theermonastic microbes oferolder institutions.
But a schools a school. You cant get out of that! Its preposterous! You must admit that, Mr. Brownell insisted.
They were within hail of Pot by now, and the Reverend John asked him how Affairs of State stood.
All right, thank you, sir. How are you, sir?
Loungin round and sufferin, my son. What about the dates of the Exeter and Tiverton matches?
As late in the term as we can get em, dont you think, sir?
Quite! Specially Blundells. Theyre our dearest foe, he explained to the frozen Mr. Brownell. Arent we rather light in the scrum just now, Mullins?
Fraid so, sir: but Packmans playin forward this term.
At last! cried the Reverend John. (Packman was Pots second-in-command, who considered himself a heaven-born half-back, but Pot had been working on him diplomatically. Hell be a pillar, at any rate. Lend me one of your fuzees, please. Ive only got matches.
Mr. Brownell was unused to this sort of talk. A bad beginning to a bad business, he muttered as they returned to College.
Pot finished out his meditations; from time to time rubbing up the gloss on his new seven-and-sixpenny silver-mounted, rather hot, myall-wood pipe, with its very thin crust in the bowl.
As the Studies brought back brackets and pictures for their walls, so did they bring odds and ends of speechtheatre, opera, and music-hall gagsfrom the great holiday world; some of which stuck for a term, and others were discarded. Number Five was unpacking, when Dick Four (Kings House) of the red nose and dramatic instincts, who with Pussy and Tertius1 inhabited the study below, loafed up and asked them how their symptoms seemed to segashuate. They said nothing at the time, for they knew Dick had a giddy uncle who took him to the Pavilion and the Cri, and all would be explained later. But, before they met again, Beetle came across two fags at war in a box-room, one of whom cried to the other Turn me loose, or Ill knock the natal stuffin out of you. Beetle demanded why he, being offal, presumed to use this strange speech. The fag said it came out of a new book about rabbits and foxes and turtles and niggers, which was in his locker. (Uncle Remus was a popular holiday gift-book in Shotovers year: when Cetewayo lived in the Melbury Road, Arabi Pasha in Egypt, and Spofforth on the Oval.) Beetle had it out and read for some time, standing by the window, ere he carried it off to Number Five and began at once to give a wonderful story of a Tar Baby. Stalky tore it from him because he sputtered incoherently; McTurk, for the same cause, wrenching it from Stalky. There was no prep that night. The book was amazing, and full of quotations that one could hurl like javelins. When they came down to prayers, Stalky, to show he was abreast of the latest movement, pounded on the door of Dick Fours study shouting a couplet that pleased him:
Ti-yi! Tungalee! I eat um pea! I pick um pea! |
Upon which Dick Four, hornpiping and squinting, and not at all unlike a bull-frog, came out and answered from the bottom of his belly, whence he could produce incredible noises
Ingle-go-jang, my joy, my joy! Ingle-go-jang, my joy! Im right at home, my joy, my joy! |
The chants seemed to answer the ends of their being created for the moment. They all sang them the whole way up the corridor, and, after prayers, bore the burdens dispersedly to their several dormitories, where they found many who knew the book of the words, but who, boylike, had waited for a lead ere giving tongue. In a short time the College was as severely infected with Uncle Remus as it had been with Pinafore and Patience. King realised it specially because he was running Macreas House in addition to his own and, Dick Four said, was telling his new charges what he thought of his esteemed colleagues methods of House-control.
The Reverend John was talking to the Head in the tatters study, perhaps a fortnight later.
If youd only wired me, he said. I could have dug up something that might have tided us over. This mans dangerous.
Mea culpa! the Head replied. I had so much on hand. Our Governing Council aloneBut what do We make of him?
Trust Youth! We call him Mister.
Mister Brownell?
Just Mister. It took Us three days to plumb his soul.
And he doesnt approve of Our institutions? You say he is On the Trackeh? He suspects the worst?
The School Chaplain nodded.
We-ell. I should say that that was the one tendency we had not developed. Setting aside we havent even a curtain in a dormitory, let alone a lock to any form-room doorthere has to be tradition in these things.
So I believe. So, indeed, one knows. Andtisnt as if I ever preached on personal purity either.
The Head laughed. No, or youd join Brownell at term-end. By the way, whats this new line of Patristic discourse youre giving us in church? I found myself listening to some of it last Sunday.
Oh! My early Christianity sermons? I bought a dozen ready made in Town just before I came down. Some one who knows his Gibbon must have done em. Arent they good? The Reverend John, who was no hand at written work, beamed self-approvingly. There was a knock and Pot entered.
The weather had defeated him, at last. All footer-grounds, he reported, were unplayable, and must be rested. His idea, to keep things going, was Big and Little Side Paper-chases thrice a week. For the juniors, a shortish course on the Burrows, which he intended to oversee personally the first few times, while Packman lunged Big Side across the inland and upland ploughs, for proper sweats. There was some question of bounds that he asked authority to vary; and, would the Head please say which afternoons would interfere least with the Army Class, Extra Tuition.
As to bounds, the Head left those, as usual, entirely to Pot. The Reverend John volunteered to shift one of his extra-Tu classes from four to five p.m. till after prayers-nine to ten. The whole question was settled in five minutes.
We hate paper-chases, dont we, Pot? the Headmaster asked as the Head of Games rose.
Yes, sir, but it keeps em in training. Good night, sir.
To go back drawled the Head when the door was well shut. No-o. I do not think so! . . . Ye-es! Hell leave at the end of the term . . . A-aah! How does it go? Dont spute wid de squinch-owl. Jam de shovel in de fier. Have you come across that extraordinary book, by the way?
Oh, yes. Weve got it badly too. It has some sort of elemental appeal, I suppose.
Here Mr. King came in with a neat little scheme for the reorganisation of certain details in Macreas House, where he had detected reprehensible laxities. The Head sighed. The Reverend John only heard the beginnings of it. Then he slid out softly. He remembered he had not written to Macrea for quite a long time.
The first Big Side Paper-chase, in blinding wet, was as vile as even the groaning and bemired Beetle had prophesied. But Dick Four had managed to run his own line when it skirted Bideford, and turned up at the Lavatories half an hour late cherishing a movable tumour beneath his sweater.
Ingle-go-jang! he chanted, and slipped out a warm but coy land-tortoise.
My Sacred Hat! cried Stalky. Brer Terrapin! Where you catchee? What you makee-do aveck?
This was Stalkys notion of how they talked in Uncle Remus; and he spake no other tongue for weeks.
I dont know yet; but I had to get him. Man with a barrow full of em in Bridge Street. Gave me my choice for a bob. Leave him alone, you owl! He wont swim where youve been washing your filthy self! Im right at home, my joy, my joy. Dicks nose shone like Bardolphs as he bubbled in the bath.
Just before tea-time, he, Pussy, and Tertius broke in upon Number Five, processionally, singing:
Ingle-go-jang, my joy, my joy! Ingle-go-jang, my joy! Im right at home, my joy, my joy! Ingle-go-jang, my joy. |
Brer Terrapin, painted or and sableKings Housecolours-swung by a neatly contrived belly-band from the end of a broken jumping-pole. They thought rather well of taking him in to tea. They called at one or two studies on the way, and were warmly welcomed; but when they reached the still shut doors of the dining-hall (Richards, ex-Petty Officer, R.N., was always unpunctualbut they neednt have called him Stinking Jim ) the whole school shouted approval. After the meal, Brer Terrapin was borne the round of the form-rooms from Number One to Number Twelve, in an unbroken roar of homage.
To-morrow, Dick Four announced, well sacrifice to him. Fags in blazin paper-baskets! and with thundering Ingle-go fangs the Idol retired to its shrine.
It had been a satisfactory performance. Little Hartopp, surprised labelling rocks in Number Twelve, which held the Natural History Museum, had laughed consumedly; and the Reverend John, just before prep, complimented Dick that he had not a single dissenter to his following. In this respect the affair was an advance on Byzantium and Alexandria which, of course, were torn by rival sects led by militant Bishops or zealous heathen. Vide, (Beetle,) Hypatia, and (if Dick Four ever listened, instead of privily swotting up his Euclid, in Church) the Reverend Johns own sermons. Mr. King, who had heard the noise but had not appeared, made no comment till dinner, when he told the Common Room ceiling that he entertained the lowest opinion of Uncle Remuss buffoonery, but opined that it might interest certain types of intellect. Little Hartopp, School Librarian, who had, by special request, laid in an extra copy of the book, differed acridly. He had, he said, heard or overheard every salient line of Uncle Remus quoted, appositely too, by boys whom he would not have credited with intellectual interests. Mr. King repeated that he was wearied by the senseless and childish repetitions of immature minds. He recalled the Patience epidemic. Mr. Prout did not care for Uncle Remusthe dialect put him offbut he thought the Houses were getting a bit out of hand. There was nothing one could lay hold of, of courseAs yet, Mr. Brownell interjected darkly. But this larking about in form-rooms, he added, had potentialities which, if he knew anything of the Animal Boy, would developor had developed.
I shouldnt wonder, said the Reverend John. This is the first time to my knowledge that Stalky has ever played second-fiddle to any one. Brer Terrapin was entirely Dick Fours notion. By the way, he was painted your House-colours, King.
Was he? said King artlessly. I have always held that our Dickson Quartus had the rudiments of imagination. We will look into itlook into it.
In our loathsome calling, more things are done by judicious letting alone than by any other, the Reverend John grunted.
I cant subscribe to that, said Mr. Prout. You havent a House, and for once Mr. King backed Prout.
Thank Heaven I havent! Or I should be like you two. Leave em alone! Leave em alone! Havent you ever seen puppies fighting over a slipper for hours?
Yes, but Gillett admits that Dickson Quartus was the only begetter of this manifestation. I wasnt aware that theerTestacean had been tricked out in my colours, said King.
And at that very hour, Number Five Studyprep thrown to the windswere toiling inspiredly at a Tar Baby made up of Beetles sweater, and half-a-dozen lavatory-towels; a condemned cretonne curtain and, ditto, baize table-cloth for natal stuffin; an ancient, but air-tight puntabout-ball for the head; all three play-box ropes for bindings; and most of Richards weekly blacking-allowance for Prouts Houses boots, to give tone to the whole.
Gummy! said Beetle when their curtain-pole had been taken down and Tar Baby hitched to the end of it by a loop in its voluptuous back. It looks pretty average indecent, somehow.
You can use it this way, too, Turkey demonstrated, handling the curtain-pole like a flail Now, shove it in the fireplace to dry an well wash up.
Butbut, said Stalky, fascinated by the unspeakable front and behind of the black and bulging horror. How come he lookee so hellish?
Dead easy! If you do anything with your whole heart, Ruskin says, you always pull off something dam-fine. Brer Terrapins only a natural animal; but Tar Babys Art, McTurk explained.
I see! If youre anxious for to shine in the high aesthetic line. Well, Tar Babys the filthiest thing Ive ever seen in my life, Stalky concluded. Kingll be rabid.
The United Idolaters set forth, side by side, at five oclock next afternoon; Brer Terrapin, wide awake, and swimming hard into nothing; Tar Baby lurching from side to side with a lascivious abandon that made Foxy, the School Sergeant, taking defaulters drill in the Corridor, squawk like an outraged hen. And when they ceremoniously saluted each other, like aristocratic heads on revolutionary pikes, it beat the previous days performance out of sight and mind. The very fags, offered up, till the bottoms of the paper-baskets carried away, as heave-offerings before them, fell over each other for the honour; and House by House, when the news spread, dropped its doings, and followed the Mysteriesnot without song . . .
Some say it was a fag of Prouts who appealed for rescue from Brer Terrapin to Tar Baby; others, that the introits to the respective creeds (Ingle-go-jang,Ti-yi-Tungalee!) carried in themselves the seeds of dissent. At any rate, the cleavage developed as swiftly as in a new religion, and by tea-time, when they were fairly hoarse, the rolling world was rent to the death between Ingles versus Tungles, and Brer Terrapin had swept out Number Eleven form-room to the War-cry: Here I come a-bulgin and a-bilin. Prep stopped further developments, but they agreed that, as a recreation for wet autumn evenings, the jape was unequalled, and called for its repetition on Saturday.
That was a brilliant evening, too. Both sides went into prayers practically re-dressing themselves. There was a smell of singed fag down the lines and a watery eye or so; but nothing to which the most fastidious could have objected. The Reverend John hinted something about roof-lifting noises.
Oh, no, Padre, Sahib. We were only billin an cooin a bit, Stalky explained. We havent really begun. Theres goin to be a tug-o-war next Saturday with Miss Meadows bed-cord
Which in dem days would ha hilt a mule, the Reverend John quoted. Well, Ive got to be impartial. I wish you both good luck.
The week, with its three paper-chases, passed uneventfully, but for a certain amount of raiding and reprisals on new lines that might have warned them they were playing with fire. The Juniors had learned to use the sacred war-chants as signals of distress; oppressed Ingles squealing for aid against oppressing Tungles, and vice versa; so that one never knew when a peaceful form-room would flare up in song and slaughter. But not a soul dreamed, for a moment, that that Saturdays jape would develop intowhat it did! They were rigidly punctilious about the ritual; exquisitely careful as to the weights on Miss Meadows bed-cord, kindly lent by Richards, who said he knew nothing about mules, but guaranteed it would hold a barges crew; and if Dick Four chose to caparison himself as Archimandrite of Joppa, black as burned cork could make him, why, Stalky, in a nightgown kilted up beneath his sweater, was equally the Pope Symmachus, just converted from heathendom but given to alarming relapses.
It began after teasay 6.50 p.m. It got into its stride by 7.30 when Turkey, with pillows bound round the ends of forms, invented the Royal Battering-Ram Corps. It grew andit grew till a quarter to nine when the Prefects, most of whom had fought on one side or the other, thought it time to stop and went in with ground-ashes and the bare hand for ten minutes, . . .
Honours for the action were not awarded by the Head till Monday morning when he dealt out one dozen lickings to selected seniors, eight millies (one thousand), fourteen usuals (five hundred lines), minor impositions past count, and a stoppage of pocket-money on a scale and for a length of time unprecedented in modern history.
He said the College was within an ace of being burned to the ground when the gas jet in Number Eleven form-roomwhere they tried to burn Tar Baby, fallen for the moment into the hands of the enemywas wrenched off, and the lit gas spouted all over the ceiling till some one plugged the pipe with dormitory soap. He said that nothing save his consideration for their future careers kept him from expelling the wanton ruffians who had noosed all the desks in Number Twelve and swept them up in one crackling mound, barring a couple that had pitch-poled through the window. This, again, had been no mans design but the inspiration of necessity when Tar Babys bodyguard, surrounded but defiant, was only rescued at the last minute by Turkeys immortal flank-attack with the battering-rams that carried away the door of Number Nine. He said that the same remarks applied to the fireplace and mantelpiece in Number Seven which everybody had seen fall out of the wall of their own motion after Brer Terrapin had hitched Miss Meadows bed-cord to the bars of the grate.
He said much more, too; but as King pointed out in Common Room that evening, his canings were inept, he had not confiscated the Idols and, above all, had not castigated, as King would have castigated, the disgusting childishness of all concerned.
Well, said Little Hartopp. I saw the Prefects choking them off as we came into prayers. Youve reason to reckon that in the scale of suffering.
And more than half the damage was done under your banner, King, the Reverend John added.
That doesnt affect my judgment; though, as a matter of fact, I believe Brer Terrapin triumphed over Tar Baby all along the line. Didnt he, I rout?
It didn t seem to me a fitting time to ask. The Tar Babies were handicapped, of course, by not being able toahtackle a live animal.
I confess, Mr. Brownell volunteered, it was the studious perversity of certain aspects of the orgy which impressed me. And yet, what can one exp
How do you mean? King demanded. Dickson Quartus may be eccentric, but
I was alluding to the vile and calculated indecency of that black doll.
Mr. Brownell had passed Tar Baby going down to battle, all round and ripe, before Turkey had begun to use it as Bishop Odos holy-water sprinkler.
It is possible you didnt
I never noticed anything, said Prout. If there had been, I should have been the first
Here Little Hartopp sniggered, which did not cool the air.
Peradventure, King began with due intake of the breath. Peradventure even I might have taken cognizance of the matter both for my own Houses sake and for my colleagues . . No! Folly I concede. Utter childishness and complete absence of discipline in all quarters, as the natural corollary to dabbling in so-called transatlantic humour, I frankly admit. But that there was anything esoterically obscene in the outbreak I absolutely deny.
Theyve been fighting for weeks over those things, said Mr. Prout. Silly, of course, but I dont see how it can be dangerous.
Quite true. Any House-master of experience knows that, Brownell, the Reverend John put in reprovingly.
Given a normal basis of tradition and conductcertainly, Mr. Brownell answered. But with such amazing traditions as exist here, no man with any experience of the Animal Boy can draw your deceptive inferences. Thats all I mean.
Once again, and not for the first time, but with greater heat he testified what smoking led towhat, indeed, he was morally certain existed in full blast under their noses . . .
Gloves were off in three minutes. Pessimists, no more than poets, love each other and, even when they work together, it is one thing to pessimise congenially with an ancient and tried associate who is also a butt, and another to be pessimised over by an inexperienced junior, even though the latters college career may have included more exhibitionsnay, even pot-huntingsthan ones own. The Reverend John did his best to pour water on the flames. Little Hartopp, perceiving that it was pure oil, threw in canfuls of his own, from the wings. In the end, words passed which would have made the Common Room uninhabitable for the future, but that Macrea had written (the Reverend John had seen the letter) saying that his knee was fairly re-knit and he was prepared to take on again at half-term. This happened to be the only date since the Creation beyond which Mr. Brownells self-respect would not permit him to stay one hour. It solved the situation, amid puffings and blowings and bitter epigrams, and a most distinguished stateliness of bearing all round, till Mr. Brownells departure.
My dear fellow! said the Reverend John to Macrea, on the first night of the latters return. I do hope there was nothing in my letters to youyou asked me to keep you postedthat gave you any idea King wasnt doing his best with your House according to his lights?
Not in the least, said Macrea. Ive the greatest respect for King, but after all, ones House is ones House. One cant stand it being tinkered with by well-meaning outsiders.
To Mr. Brownell on Bideford station-platform, the Reverend Johns last words were:
Well, well. You mustnt judge us too harshly. I dare say theres a great deal in what you say. Oh, Yes! Kings conduct was inexcusable, absolutely inexcusable! About the smoking? Lamentable, but we must all bow down, more or less, in the House of Rimmon. We have to compete with the Crammers Shops.
To the Head, in the silence of his study, next day: He didnt seem to me the kind of animal whod keep to advantage in our atmosphere. Luckily he lost his temper (King and he are own brothers) and he couldnt withdraw his resignation.
Excellent. After all, its only a few pounds to make up. Ill slip it in under our recenterbarrack damages. And what do We think of it all, Gillett?
We do not think at allany of us, said the Reverend John. Youth is its own prophylactic, thank Heaven.
And the Head, not usually devout, echoed, Thank Heaven!
It was worth it, Dick Four pronounced on review of the profit-and-loss account with Number Five in his study.
Heap-plenty-bong-assez, Stalky assented.
But why didnt King raar up an cuss Tar Baby? Beetle asked.
You preter-pluperfect, fat-ended fool! Stalky began
Keep your hair on! We all know the Idolaters wasnt our Uncle Stalkys idea. But why didnt King
Because Dick took care to paint Brer Terrapin Kings House-colours. You can always conciliate King by soothin his putrid esprit-de-maisong. Aint that true, Dick?
Dick Four, with the smile of modest worth unmasked, said it was so.
An now, Turkey yawned. King an Macreall jaw for the rest of the term how he ran his house when Macrea was tryin to marry fat widows in Switzerland. Mountaineerin! Bet Macrea never went near a mountain.
One good job, though. I go back to Macrea for Maths. He does know something, said Stalky.
Why? Didnt Mister know anythin? Beetle asked.
Bout as much as you, was Stalkys reply.
I dont go about pretending to. What was he like?
Mister? Oh, rather like KingKing and water.
Only water was not precisely the fluid that Stalky thought fit to mention.
UP came the young Centaur-colts from the plains they were fathered in Curious, awkward, afraid. Burrs on their hocks and their tails, they were branded and gathered in Mobs and run up to the yard to be made.
Starring and shying at straws, with sidlings and plungings,
First the light web and the cavesson; then the linked keys
Next, over-pride and its price at the low-seeming fence
Last, the trained squadron, full-chargethe sound of a going |
LATE came the God, having sent his forerunners who were not regarded Late, but in wrath; Saying: The wrong shall be paid, the contempt be rewarded On all that she hath. He poisoned the blade and struck home, the full bosom receiving The wound and the venom in one, past cure or relieving.
He made treaty with Time to stand still that the grief might be fresh
So she lived while her body corrupted upon her.
|
Much was to be said, and many ends, loose since last time, to be ravelled up on both sides, before Mrs. Fettley, with her bag of quilt-patches, took the couch beneath the window commanding the garden, and the football-ground in the valley below.
Most folk got out at Bush Tye for the match there, she explained, so there werent no one for me to cushion agin, the last five mile. An she do just-about bounce ye.
Youve took no hurt, said her hostess. You dont brittle by agein, Liz.
Mrs. Fettley chuckled and made to match a couple of patches to her liking. No, or Id ha broke twenty year back. You cant ever mind when I was sos to be called round, can ye?
Mrs. Ashcroft shook her head slowlyshe never hurriedand went on stitching a sack-cloth lining into a list-bound rush tool-basket. Mrs. Fettley laid out more patches in the Spring light through the geraniums on the window-sill, and they were silent awhile.
What likes this new Visitor o yourn? Mrs. Fettley inquired, with a nod towards the door. Being very short-sighted, she had, on her entrance, almost bumped into the lady.
Mrs. Ashcroft suspended the big packing-needle judicially on high, ere she stabbed home. Settin aside she dont bring much news with her yet, I dunno as Ive anythin special agin her.
Ourn, at Keyneslade, said Mrs. Fettley, shes full o words an pity, but she dont stay for answers. Ye can get on with your thoughts while she clacks.
This un dont clack. Shes aimin to be one o those High Church nuns, like.
Ourns married, but, by what they say, sheve made no great gains of it . . . Mrs. Fettley threw up her sharp chin. Lord! How they dam cherubim do shake the very bones o the place!
The tile-sided cottage trembled at the passage of two specially chartered forty-seat charabancs on their way to the Bush Tye match; a regular Saturday shopping bus, for the countys capital, fumed behind them; while, from one of the crowded inns, a fourth car backed out to join the procession, and held up the stream of through pleasure-traffic.
Youre as free-tongued as ever, Liz, Mrs. Ashcroft observed.
Only when Im with you. Otherwhiles, Im Grannythree times over. I lay that baskets for one o your granchilleraint it?
Tis for Arthurmy Janes eldest.
But he aint workin nowheres, is he?
No. Tis a picnic-basket.
Youre let off light. My Willie, hes allus at me for money for them aireated wash-poles folk puts up in their gardens to draw the music from Lunnon, like. An I give it impore fool me!
An he forgets to give you the promise-kiss after, dont he? Mrs. Ashcrofts heavy smile seemed to strike inwards.
He do. No odds twixt boys now an forty year back. Take all an give naught-an we to put up with it! Pore fool we! Three shillin at a time Williell ask me for!
They dont make nothin o money these days, Mrs. Ashcroft said.
An ony last week, the other went on, me daughter, she ordered a quarter pound suet at the butcherss; an she sent it back to im to be chopped. She said she couldnt bother with choppin it.
I lay he charged her, then.
I lay he did. She told me there was a whisk-drive that afternoon at the Institute, an she couldnt bother to do the choppin.
Tck!
Mrs. Ashcroft put the last firm touches to the basket-lining. She had scarcely finished when her sixteen-year-old grandson, a maiden of the moment in attendance, hurried up the garden-path shouting to know if the thing were ready, snatched it, and made off without acknowledgment. Mrs. Fettley peered at him closely.
Theyre goin picnickin somewheres, Mrs. Ashcroft explained.
Ah, said the other, with narrowed eyes. I lay he wont show much mercy to any he comes across, either. Now oo the dooce do he remind me of, all of a sudden?
They must look arter theirselvessame as we did. Mrs. Ashcroft began to set out the tea.
No denyin you could, Gracie, said Mrs. Fettley.
Whats in your head now?
Dunno . . . But it come over me, sudden-likeabout dat woman from RyeIve slipped the nameBarnsley, wadnt it?
BattenPolly Batten, youre thinkin of.
Thats itPolly Batten. That day she had it in for you with a hay-forktime we was all hayin at Smalldenefor stealin her man.
But you heered me tell her she had my leave to keep him? Mrs. Ashcrofts voice and smile were smoother than ever.
I didan we was all looking that shed prod the fork spang through your breastes when you said it.
No-oo. Shed never go beyond boundsPolly. She shruck too much for reel doins.
Allus seems to me, Mrs. Fettley said after a pause, that a man twixt two fightin women is the foolishest thing on earth. Like a dog bein called two ways.
Mebbe. But what set ye off on those times, Liz?
That boys fashion o carryin his head an arms. I havent rightly looked at him since hes growed. Your Jane never showed it, buthim! Why, tis Jim Batten and his tricks come to life again! . . . Eh?
Mebbe. Theres some that would ha made it out sobein barren-like, themselves.
Oho! Ah well! Dearie, dearie me, now! . . . An Jim Battens been dead this
Seven and twenty year, Mrs. Ashcroft answered briefly. Wont ye draw up, Liz?
Mrs. Fettley drew up to buttered toast, currant bread, stewed tea, bitter as leather, some home-preserved pears, and a cold boiled pigs tail to help down the muffins. She paid all the proper compliments.
Yes. I dunno as Ive ever owed me belly much, said Mrs. Ashcroft thoughtfully. We only go through this world once.
But dont it lay heavy on ye, sometimes? her guest suggested.
Nurse says Im a sight liker to die o me indigestion than me leg. For Mrs. Ashcroft had a long-standing ulcer on her shin, which needed regular care from the Village Nurse, who boasted (or others did, for her) that she had dressed it one hundred and three times already during her term of office.
An you that was so able, too! Its all come on ye before your full time, like. Ive watched ye goin. Mrs. Fettley spoke with real affection.
Somethins bound to find ye sometime. Ive me eart left me still, Mrs. Ashcroft returned.
You was always big-hearted enough for three. Thats somethin to look back on at the days eend.
I reckon youve your back-lookins, too, was Mrs. Ashcrofts answer.
You know it. But I dont think much regardin such matters excep when Im along with you, Gra. Takes two sticks to make a fire.
Mrs. Fettley stared, with jaw half-dropped, at the grocers bright calendar on the wall. The cottage shook again to the roar of the motortraffic, and the crowded football-ground below the garden roared almost as loudly; for the village was well set to its Saturday leisure.
But youve ad your satisfactions?
Godd! Yess! Those four years e was workin on the rail near us. An the other drivers they gave him a brave funeral, too.
Then youve naught to cast-up about. Nother cup o tea?
The light and air had changed a little with the suns descent, and the two elderly ladies closed the kitchen-door against chill. A couple of jays squealed and skirmished through the undraped apple-trees in the garden. This time, the word was with Mrs. Ashcroft, her elbows on the teatable, and her sick leg propped on a stool . . . .
Well I never! But what did your usband say to that? Mrs. Fettley asked, when the deep-toned recital halted.
E said I might go where I pleased for all of im. But seein e was bedrid, I said Id tend im out. E knowed I wouldnt take no advantage of im in that state. E lasted eight or nine week. Then he was took with a seizure-like; an laid stone-still for days. Then e propped imself up abed an says: You pray no manll ever deal with you like youve dealed with some. An you? I says, for you know, Liz, what a rover e was. It cuts both ways, says e, but Im death-wise, an I can see whats comin to you. He died a-Sunday an was buried a-Thursday . . . An yet Id set a heap by himone time ordid I ever?
You never told me that before, Mrs. Fettley ventured.
Im payin ye for what ye told me just now. Him bein dead, I wrote up, sayin I was free for good, to that Mrs. Marshall in Lunnonwhich gave me my first place as kitchen-maidLord, how long ago! She was well pleased, for they two was both gettin on, an I knowed their ways. You remember, Liz, I used to go to em in service between whiles, for yearswhen we wanted money, or or my usband was away on occasion.
E did get that six months at Chichester, didnt e? Mrs. Fettley whispered. We never rightly won to the bottom of it.
Ed ha got more, but the man didnt die.
None o your doins, was it, Gra?
No! Twas the womans husband this time. An so, my man bein dead, I went back to them Marshalls, as cook, to get me legs under a gentlemans table again, and be called with a handle to me name. That was the year you shifted to Portsmouth.
Cosham, Mrs. Fettley corrected. There was a middlin lot o new buildin bein done there. My man went first, an got the room, an I follered.
Well, then, I was a yearabouts in Lunnon, all at a breath, like, four meals a day an livin easy. Then, long towards autumn, they two went travellin, like, to France; keepin me on, for they couldnt do without me. I put the house to rights for the caretaker, an then I slipped down ere to me sister Bessieme wages in me pockets, an all ands glad to beold of me.
That would be when I was at Cosham, said Mrs. Fettley.
You know, Liz, there wasnt no cheap-dog pride to folk, those days, no more than there was cinemas nor whisk-drives. Man or woman ud lay hold o any job that promised a shillin to the backside of it, didnt they? I was all peaked up after Lunnon, an I thought the fresh airs ud serve me. So I took on at Smalldene, obligin with a hand at the early potato-liftin, stubbin hens, an such-like. Theyd ha mocked me sore in my kitchen in Lunnon, to see me in mens boots, an me petticoats all shorted.
Did it bring ye any good? Mrs. Fettley asked.
Twadnt for that I went. You know, swells me, that naun happens to ye till it as appened. Your mind dont warn ye beforeand of the road yeve took, till youre at the far eend of it. Weve only a backwent view of our proceedins.
Oo was it?
Arry Mockler. Mrs. Ashcrofts face puckered to the pain of her sick leg.
Mrs. Fettley gasped. Arry? Bert Mocklers son! An I never guessed!
Mrs. Ashcroft nodded. An I told myselfan I beleft itthat I wanted field-work.
What did ye get out of it?
The usuals. Everythin at firstworse than naught after. I had signs an warnings a-plenty, but I took no heed of em. For we was burnin rubbish one day, just when wed come to know how twas withwith both of us. Twas early in the year for burnin, an I said so. No! says he. The sooner dat old stuffs off an done with, e says, the better. Is face was hardern rocks when he spoke. Then it come over me that Id found me master, which I adnt ever before. Id allus owned em, like.
Yes ! Yes ! Theyre yourn or youre theirn, the other sighed. I like the right way best.
I didnt. But Arry did . . . Long then, it come time for me to go back to Lunnon. I couldnt. I clean couldnt! So, I took an tipped a dollop o scaldin water out o the copper one Monday mornin over me left and and arm. Dat stayed me where I was for another fortnight.
Was it worth it? said Mrs. Fettley, looking at the silvery scar on the wrinkled fore-arm.
Mrs. Ashcroft nodded. An after that, we two made it up twixt us sos e could come to Lunnon for a job in a livrystable not far from me. E got it. Itended to that. There wadnt no talk nowhere. His own mother never suspicioned how twas. He just slipped up to Lunnon, an there we abode that winter, not alf a mile tother from each.
Ye paid is fare an all, though; Mrs. Fettley spoke convincedly.
Again Mrs. Ashcroft nodded. Dere wadnt much I didnt do for him. E was me master, anO God, help us!wed laugh over it walkin together after dark in them paved streets, an me corns fair wrenchin in me boots! Id never been like that before. Ner he! Ner he!
Mrs. Fettley clucked sympathetically.
An when did ye come to the eend? she asked.
When e paid it all back again, every penny. Then I knowed, but I wouldnt suffer meself to know. Youve been mortal kind to me, he says. Kind! I said. Twixt us? But e kep all on tellin me ow kind Id been an ed never forget it all his days. I held it from off o me for three evenins, because I would not believe. Then e talked about not bein satisfied with is job in the stables, an the men there puttin tricks on im, an all they lies which a man tells when es leavin ye. I heard im out, neither elpin nor inderin. At the last, I took off a fiddle brooch which hed give me an I says: Datll do. I aint askin naun. An I turned me round an walked off to me own sufferins. E didnt make em worse. E didnt come nor write after that. E slipped off ere back ome to is mother again.
An ow often did ye look for en to come back? Mrs. Fettley demanded mercilessly.
Moren oncemoren once! Goin over the streets wed used, I thought de very pave-stones ud shruck out under me feet.
Yes, said Mrs. Fettley. I dunno but dat dont urt as much as aught else. An dat was all ye got?
No. Twadnt. Thats the curious part, if youll believe it, Liz.
I do. I lay youre further off lyin now than in all your life, Gra.
I am . . . An I suffered, like Id not wish my most arrantest enemies to. Gods Own Name! I went through the hoop that spring! One part of it was eddicks which Id never known all me days before. Think o me with an eddick! But I come to be grateful for em. They kep me from thinkin . . .
Tis like a tooth, Mrs. Fettley commented. It must rage an rugg till it tortures itself quiet on ye; an thenthen theres naun left.
I got enough lef to last me all my days on earth. It come about through our charwomans fiddle girlSophy Ellis was er nameall eyes an elbers an hunger. I used to give er vittles. Otherwhiles, I took no special notice of er, an a sight less, o course, when me trouble about Arry was on me. Butyou know how fiddle maids first feel it sometimesshe come to be crazy-fond o me, pawin an cuddlin all whiles; an I adnt the eart to beat er off . . . One afternoon, early in spring twas, er mother ad sent er round to scutchel up what vittles she could off of us. I was settin by the fire, me apern over me head, halfmad with the eddick, when she slips in. I reckon I was middlin short with er. Lor! she says. Is that all? Ill take it off you in two-twos! I told her not to lay a finger on me, for I thought shed want to stroke my forehead; anI aint that make. I wont tech ye, she says, an slips out again. She adnt been gone ten minutes fore me old eddick took off quick as bein kicked. So I went about my work. Prasinly, Sophy comes back, an creeps into my chair quiet as a mouse. Er eyes was deep in er ead an er face all drawed. I asked er what ad appened. Nothin, she says. Ony Ive got it now. Got what? I says. Your eddick, she says, all hoarse an sticky-tipped. Ive took it on me. Nonsense, I says, it went of itself when you was out. Lay still an Ill make ye a cup o tea. Twont do no good, she says, till your times up. Ow long do your eddicks last? Dont talk silly, I says, or Ill send for the Doctor. It looked to me like she might be hatchin de measles. Oh, Mrs. Ashcroft, she says, stretchin out er fiddle thin arms. I do love ye. There wasnt any holdin agin that. I took er into me lap an made much of er. Is it truly gone? she says. Yes, I says, an if twas you took it away, Im truly grateful. Twas me, she says, layin er cheek to mine. No one but me knows how. An then she said shed changed me eddick for me at a Wish Ouse.
Whatt? Mrs. Fettley spoke sharply.
A Wish House. No! Iadnt eard o such things, either. I couldnt get it straight at first, but, puttin all together, I made out that a Wish Ouse ad to be a house which ad stood unlet an empty long enough for Some One, like, to come an inabit there. She said a fiddle girl that shed played with in the livery-stables where Arty worked ad told er so. She said the girl ad belonged in a caravan that laid up, o winters, in Lunnon. Gipsy, I judge.
Ooh! Theres no sayin what Gippos know, but Ive never eard of a Wish Ouse, an I knowsome things, said Mrs. Fettley.
Sophy said there was a Wish Ouse in Wadloes Road just a few streets off, on the way to our green-grocers. All you ad to do, she said, was to ring the bell an wish your wish through the slit o the letter-box. I asked er if the fairies give it er? Dont ye know, she says, theres no fairies in a Wish Ouse? Theres ony a Token.
Goo Lord Amighty! Where did she come by that word? cried Mrs. Fettley; for a Token is a wraith of the dead or, worse still, of the living.
The caravan-girl ad told er, she said. Well, Liz, it troubled me to ear er, an lyin in me arms she must ha felt it. Thats very kind o you, I says, holdin er tight, to wish me eddick away. But why didnt ye ask somethin nice for yourself? You cant do that, she says. All youll get at a Wish Ouse is leave to take some one elses trouble. Ive took Mas eddicks, when shes been kind to me; but this is the first time Ive been able to do aught for you. Oh, Mrs. Ashcroft, I do justabout love you. An she goes on all like that. Liz, I tell you my air een amost stood on end to ear er. I asked er what like a Token was. I dunno, she says, but after youve ringed the bell, youll ear it run up from the basement, to the front door. Then say your wish, she says, an go away. The Token dont open de door to ye, then? I says. Oh no, she says. You ony ear gigglin, like, beind the front door. Then you say youll take the trouble off of oo ever tis youve chose for your love; an yell get it, she says. I didnt ask no moreshe was too ot an fevered. I made much of er till it come time to light de gas, an a fiddle after that, er eddickmine, I supposetook off, an she got down an played with the cat.
Well, I never! said Mrs. Fettley. Diddid ye foller it up, anyways?
She askt me to, but I wouldnt ave no such dealins with a child.
What did ye do, then?
Sat in me own room stid o the kitchen when me eddicks come on. But it lay at de back o me mind.
Twould. Did she tell ye more, ever?
No. Besides what the Gippo girl ad told er, she knew naught, cept that the charm worked. An, next after thatin May twasI suffered the summer out in Lunnon. Twas hot an windy for weeks, an the streets stinkin o dried orsedung blowin from side to side an lyin level with the kerb. We dont get that nowadays. I ad my olday just before hoppin, an come down ere to stay with Bessie again. She noticed Id lost flesh, an was all poochy under the eyes.
Did ye see Arry?
Mrs. Ashcroft nodded. The fourthno, the fifth day. Wednesday twas. I knowed e was workin at Smalldene again. I asked is mother in the street, bold as brass. She adnt room to say much, for Bessieyou know er tonguewas talkin full-clack. But that Wednesday, I was walkin with one o Bessies chillern hangin on me skirts, at de back o Chanters Tot. Prasinly, I felt e was beind me on the footpath, an I knowed by is tread ed changed is nature. I slowed, an I heard im slow. Then I fussed a piece with the child, to force him past me, like. So e ad to come past. E just says Good-evenin, and goes on, tryin to pull isself together.
Drunk, was he? Mrs. Fettley asked.
Never! Srunk an wizen; is clothes angin on im like bags, an the back of is neck whitern chalk. Twas all I could do not to oppen my arms an cry after him. But I swallered me spittle till I was back ome again an the chillern abed. Then I says to Bessie, after supper, What in de worlds come to Arry Mockler? Bessie told me ed been a-Hospital for two months, long o cuttin is foot wid a spade, muckin out the old pond at Smalldene. There was poison in de dirt, an it rooshed up is leg, like, an come out all over him. E adnt been back to is jobcarterin at Smalldenemoren a fortnight. She told me the Doctor said hed go off, likely, with the November frostes; an is mother ad told er that e didnt rightly eat nor sleep, an sweated imself into pools, no odds ow chill e lay. An spit terrible o mornins. Dearie me, I says. But, mebbe, hoppin ll set im right again, an I licked me thread-point an I fetched me needles eye up to it an I threads me needle under de lamp, steady as rocks. An dat night (me bed was in de wash-house) I cried an I cried. An you know, Lizfor youve been with me in my throesit takes summat to make me cry.
Yes; but Chile-bearin is ony just pain, said Mrs. Fettley.
I come round by cock-crow, an dabbed cold tea on me eyes to take away the signs. Long towards nex eveninI was settin out to lay some flowers on me usbands grave, for the look o the thingI met Arry over against where the War Memorial is now. E was comin back from is orses, so e couldnt not see me. I looked im all over, an Arry, I says twix me teeth, come back an rest-up in Lunnon. I wont take it, he says, for I can give ye naught. I dont ask it, I says. By Gods Own Name, I dont ask naun ! Ony come up an see a Lunnon doctor. E lifts is two eavy eyes at me: Tis past that, Gra, e says. Ive but a few months left. Arry! I says. My man! I says. I couldnt say no more. Twas all up in me throat. Thank ye kindly, Gra, e says (but e never says my woman), an e went on upstreet an is motherOh, damn er!she was watchin for im, an she shut de door beind im.
Mrs. Fettley stretched an arm across the table, and made to finger Mrs. Ashcrofts sleeve at the wrist, but the other moved it out of reach.
So I went on to the churchyard with my flowers, an I remembered my usbands warnin that night he spoke. E was death-wise, an it ad appened as e said. But as I was settin down de jam-pot on the grave-mound, it come over me there was one thing I could do for Arry. Doctor or no Doctor, I thought Id make a trial of it. So I did. Nex mornin, a bill came down from our Lunnon green-grocer. Mrs. Marshall, shed lef me petty cash for suchlikeo coursebut I tole Bess twas for me to come an open the ouse. So I went up, afternoon train.
Anbut I know you adntadnt you no fear?
What for? There was nothin front o me but my own shame an Gods croolty. I couldnt ever get Arryow could I? I knowed it must go on burnin till it burned me out.
Aie! said Mrs. Fettley, reaching for the wrist again, and this time Mrs. Ashcroft permitted it.
Yit twas a comfort to know I could try this for im. So I went an I paid the green-grocers bill, an put is receipt in me hand-bag, an then I stepped round to Mrs. Ellisour char-an got the ouse-keys an opened the ouse. First, I made me bed to come back to (Gods Own Name! Me bed to lie upon!). Nex I made me a cup o tea an sat down in the kitchen thinkin, till long towards dusk. Terrible close, twas. Then I dressed me an went out with the receipt in me and-bag, feignin to study it for an address, like. Fourteen, Wadloes Road, was the placea liddle basement-kitchen ouse, m a row of twenty-thirty such, an tiddy strips o walled garden in frontthe paint off the front doors, an naun done to naun since ever so long. There wasnt ardly no one in the streets cept the cats. Twas ot, too! I turned into the gate bold as brass; up de steps I went an I ringed the front-door bell. She pealed loud, like it do in an empty house. When shed all ceased, I eard a cheer, like, pushed back on de floor o the kitchen. Then I eard feet on de kitchen-stairs, like it might ha been a heavy woman in slippers. They come up to de stairhead, acrost the hallI eard the bare boards creak under eman at de front door dey stopped. I stooped me to the letter-box slit, an I says: Let me take everythin bad thats in store for my man, Arry Mockler, for loves sake. Then, whatever it was tother side de door let its breath out, like, as if it ad been holdin it for to ear better.
Nothin was said to ye? Mrs. Fettley demanded.
Naun. She just breathed outa sort of A-ah, like. Then the steps went back an downstairs to the kitchenall draggyan I heard the cheer drawed up again.
An you abode on de doorstep, throughout all, Gra?
Mrs. Ashcroft nodded.
Then I went away, an a man passin says to me: Didnt you know that house was empty? No, I says. I must ha been give the wrong number. An I went back to our ouse, an I went to bed; for I was fair flogged out. Twas too ot to sleep moren snatches, so I walked me about, lyin down betweens, till crack o dawn. Then I went to the kitchen to make me a cup o tea, an I hitted meself just above the ankle on an old roastin jack o mine that Mrs. Ellis had moved out from the corner, her last cleanin. An sonex after thatI waited till the Marshalls come back o their holiday.
Alone there? Id ha thought youd ad enough of empty houses, said Mrs. Fettley, horrified.
Oh, Mrs. Ellis an Sophy was runnin in an out soons I was back, an twixt us we cleaned de house again top-to-bottom. Theres allus a hands turn more to do in every house. An thats ow twas with me that autumn an winter, in Lunnon.
Then naun hapovertook ye for your doins?
Mrs. Ashcroft smiled. No. Not then. Long in November I sent Bessie ten shillins.
You was allus free-anded, Mrs. Fettley interrupted.
An I got what I paid for, with the rest o the news. She said the hoppin ad set im up wonderful. Ed ad six weeks of it, and now e was back again carterin at Smalldene. No odds to me ow it ad appenedslongs it ad. But I dunno as my ten shillins eased me much. Arry bein dead, like, ed ha been mine, till Judgment. Arry bein alive, ed like as not pick up with some woman middlin quick. I raged over that. Come spring, I ad somethin else to rage for. Id growed a nasty little weepin boil, like, on me shin, just above the boot-top, that wouldnt heal no shape. It made me sick to look at it, for Im clean-fleshed by nature. Chop me all over with a spade, an Id heal like turf. Then Mrs. Marshall she set er own doctor at me. E said I ought to ha come to him at first go-off, stead o drawn all manner o dyed stockms over it for months. E said Id stood up too much to me work, for it was settin very close atop of a big swelled vein, like, behither the small o me ankle. Slow come, slow go, e says. Lay your leg up on high an rest it, he says, an twill ease off. Dont let it close up too soon. Youve got a very fine leg, Mrs. Ashcroft, e says. An he put wet dressins on it.
E done right. Mrs. Fettley spoke firmly. Wet dressins to wet wounds. They draw de humours, sames a lamp-wick draws de oil.
Thats true. An Mrs. Marshall was allus at me to make me set down more, an dat nigh healed it up. An then after a while they packed me off down to Bessies to finish the cure; for I aint the sort to sit down when I ought to stand up. You was back in the village then, Liz.
I was. I was, butnever did I guess!
I didnt desire ye to. Mrs. Ashcroft smiled. I saw Arry once or twice in de street, wonnerful fleshed up an restored back. Then, one day I didnt see im, an is mother told me one of is orses ad lashed out an caught im on the ip. So e was abed an middlin painful. An Bessie, she says to his mother, twas a pity Arry adnt a woman of is own to take the nursin off er. And the old lady was mad! She told us that Arry ad never looked after any woman in is born days, an as long as she was atop the mowlds, shed contrive for im till er two ands dropped off. So I knowed shed do watch-dog for me, thout askin for bones.
Mrs. Fettley rocked with small laughter.
That day, Mrs. Ashcroft went on, Id stood on me feet nigh all the time, watchin the doctor go in an out; for they thought it might be is ribs, too. That made my boil break again, issuin an weepin. But it turned out twadnt ribs at all, an Arry ad a good night. When I heard that, nex mornin, I says to meself, I wont lay two an two together yit. Ill keep me leg down a week, an see what comes of it. It didnt hurt me that day, to speak ofseemed more to draw the strength out o me likean Arry ad another good night. That made me persevere; but I didnt dare lay two an two together till the week-end, an then, Arry come forth een amost imself againnaun hurt outside ner in of him. I nigh fell on me knees in de washhouse when Bessie was up-street. Ive got ye now, my man, I says. Youll take your good from me thout knowin it till my lifes end. O God, send me long to live for Arrys sake! I says. An I dunno that didnt still me ragins.
For good? Mrs. Fettley asked.
They come back, plenty times, but, let be how twould, I knowed I was doin for im. I knowed it. I took an worked me pains on an off, like regulatin my own range, till I learned to ave em at my commandments. An that was funny, too. There was times, Liz, when my trouble ud all srink an dry up, like. First, I used to try an fetch it on again; bein fearful to leave Arry alone too long for anythin to lay old of. Prasinly I come to see that was a sign hed do all right awhile, an so I saved myself
Ow long for? Mrs. Fettley asked, with deepest interest.
Ive gone de better part of a year onct or twice with naun more to show than the liddle weepin core of it, like. All srinked up an dried off. Then hed inflame upfor a warninan Id suffer it. When I couldnt no morean I ad to keep on goin with my Lunnon workId lay me leg high on a cheer till it eased. Not too quick. I knowed by the feel of it, those times, dat Arry was in need. Then Id send another five shillins to Bess, or somethin for the chillern, to find out if, mebbe, ed took any hurt through my neglects. Twas so! Year in, year out, I worked it dat way, Liz, an e got is good from me thout knowinfor years and years.
But what did you get out of it, Gra? Mrs. Fettley almost wailed. Did ye see im reglar?
Timeswhen I was ere on me oldays. An more, now that Im ere for good. But es never looked at me, ner any other woman cept is mother. Ow I used to watch an listen! So did she.
Years an years! Mrs. Fettley repeated. An wheres e workin at now?
Oh, es give up carterin quite a while. Hes workin for one o them big tractorisin firmsplowin sometimes, an sometimes off with lorriesfur as Wales, Ive eard. He comes ome to is mother tween whiles; but I dont set eyes on him now, fer weeks on end. No odds! Is job keeps im from continuin in one stay anywheres.
But just for de sake o sayin somethinspose Arry did get married? said Mrs. Fettley.
Mrs. Ashcroft drew her breath sharply between her still even and natural teeth. Dat aint been required of me, she answered. I reckon my pains ull be counted agin that. Dont you, Liz?
It ought to be, dearie. It ought to be.
It do urt sometimes. You shall see it when Nurse comes. She thinks I dont know its turned.
Mrs. Fettley understood. Human nature seldom walks up to the word cancer.
Be ye certain sure, Gra? she asked.
I was sure of it when old Mr. Marshall ad me up to is study an spoke a long piece about my faithful service. Ive obliged em on an off for a goodish time, but not enough for a pension. But they give me a weekly lowance for life. I knew what that sinnifiedas long as three years ago.
Dat dont prove it, Gra.
To give fifteen bob a week to a woman ood live twenty year in the course o nature? It do!
Youre mistook! Youre mistook! Mrs. Fettley insisted.
Liz, theres no mistakin when the edges are all heaped up, likesame as a collar. Youll see it. An I laid out Dora Wickwood, too. She ad it under the arm-pit, like.
Mrs. Fettley considered awhile, and bowed her head in finality.
Ow long dyou reckon twill allow ye, countin from now, dearie?
Slow come, slow go. But if I dont set eyes on ye fore next hoppin, thisll be good-bye, Liz.
Dunno as Ill be able to manage by thennot thout I have a liddle dog to lead me. For de chillern, dey wont be troubled, anO Gra! Im blindin upIm blindin up!
Oh, dat was why you didnt moren finger with your quilt-patches all this while! I was wonderin . . . But the pain do count, dont ye think, Liz? The pain do count to keep Arry where I want im. Say it cant be wasted, like.
Im sure of itsure of it, dearie. Youll ave your reward.
I dont want no moren thisif de pain is taken into de reckonin.
Twill betwill be, Gra.
There was a knock on the door.
Thats Nurse. Shes before er time, said Mrs. Ashcroft. Open to er.
The young lady entered briskly, all the bottles in her bag clicking. Evenin, Mrs. Ashcroft, she began. Ive come raound a little earlier than usual because of the Institute dance to-na-ite. You wont ma-ind, will you? ,
Oh, no. Me dancin days are over. Mrs. Ashcroft was the self-contained domestic at once.
My old friend, Mrs. Fettley ere, has been settin talkin with me a while.
I hope she asnt been fatiguing you? said the Nurse a little frostily.
Quite the contrary. It as been a pleasure. Onlyonlyjust at the end I felt a bita bit flogged out like.
Yes, yes. The Nurse was on her knees already, with the washes to hand. When old ladies get together they talk a deal too much, Ive noticed.
Mebbe we do, said Mrs. Fettley, rising. So now Ill make myself scarce.
Look at it first, though, said Mrs. Ashcroft feebly. Id like ye to look at it.
Mrs. Fettley looked, and shivered. Then she leaned over, and kissed Mrs. Ashcroft once on the waxy yellow forehead, and again on the faded grey eyes.
It do count, dont itde pain? The lips that still kept trace of their original moulding hardly more than breathed the words.
Mrs. Fettley kissed them and moved towards the door.
RAHERE, King Henrys jester, feared by all the Norman Lords For his eye that pierced their bosoms, for his tongue that shamed their swords; Feed and flattered by the Churchmenwell they knew how deep he stood In dark Henrys crooked counselsfell upon an evil mood.
Suddenly, his days before him and behind him seemed to stand
Then a Horror of Great Darkness sunk his spirit and, anon,
So it comes, said Gilbert smoothly, mans most immanent distress.
Hence the dulled eyes deep self-loathing hence the loaded leaden brow;
But Rahere was in his torment, and he wandered, dumb and far,
He was cloaked from chin to anklefaceless, fingerless, obscene
So it comes,it comes, said Gilbert, as it came when Life began.
Hence the eye that sees no blemishhence the hour that holds no shame. |
SECURELY, after days Unnumbered, I behold Kings mourn that promised praise Their cheating bards foretold.
Of earth-constricting wars,
Yet furthest times receive,
A smoke of sacrifice;
Glazed snow beneath the moon;
Endure while Empires fall |
This particular afternoonin the autumn of 20Brother Burges, P.M., was on duty and, finding a strong shift present, took advantage of it to strip and dust all hangings and curtains, to go over every inch of the Pavementwhich was stone, not floorclothby hand; and to polish the Columns, Jewels, Working outfit and organ. I was given to clean some Officers Jewelsbeautiful bits of old Georgian silver-work humanised by generations of elbow-greaseand retired to the organ-loft; for the floor was like the quarterdeck of a battleship on the eve of a ball. Half-a-dozen brethren had already made the Pavement as glassy as the aisle of Greenwich Chapel; the brazen chapiters winked like pure gold at the flashing Marks on the Chairs; and a morose one-legged brother was attending to the Emblems of Mortality with, I think, rouge.
They ought, he volunteered to Brother Burges as we passed, to be betwixt the colour of ripe apricots an a half-smoked meerschaum. Thats how we kept em in my Mother-Lodgea treat to look at.
Ive never seen spit-and-polish to touch this, I said.
Wait till you see the organ, Brother Burges replied. You could shave in it when theyve done. Brother Anthonys in charge up therethe taxi-owner you met here last month. I dont think youve come across Brother Humberstall, have you?
I dont remember I began.
You wouldnt have forgotten him if you had. Hes a hairdresser now, somewhere at the back of Ebury Street. Was Garrison Artillery. Blown up twice.
Does he show it? I asked at the foot of the organ-loft stairs.
No-o. Not much more than Lazarus did, I expect. Brother Burges fled off to set some one else to a job.
Brother Anthony, small, dark, and humpbacked, was hissing groom-fashion while he treated the rich acacia-wood panels of the Lodge organ with some sacred, secret composition of his own. Under his guidance Humberstall, an enormous, flat-faced man, carrying the shoulders, ribs, and loins of the old Mark 14 Royal Garrison Artillery, and the eyes of a bewildered retriever, rubbed the stuff in. I sat down to my task on the organ-bench, whose purple velvet cushion was being vacuum-cleaned on the floor below.
Now, said Anthony, after five minutes vigorous work on the part of Humberstall. Now were gettin somethin worth lookin at! Take it easy, an go on with what you was tellin me about that Macklin man.
II adnt anything against im, said Humberstall, excep hed been a toff by birth; but that never showed till he was bosko absoluto. Mere bein drunk ony made a common ound of im. But when bosko, it all came out. Otherwise, he showed me my duties as mess-waiter very well on the ole.
Yes, yes. But what in ell made you go back to your Circus? The Board gave you down-an-out fair enough, you said, after the dump went up at Eatables?
Board or no Board, I adnt the nerve to stay at omenot with Mother chuckin erself round all three rooms like a rabbit every time the Gothas tried to get Victoria; an sister writin me aunts four pages about it next day. Not for me, thank you! till the war was over. So I slid out with a draftthey wasnt particular in 17, so long as the tally was correctand I joined up again with our Circus somewhere at the back of Lar Pug Noy, I think it was. Humberstall paused for some seconds and his brow wrinkled. Then II went sick, or somethin or other, they told me; but I know when I reported for duty, our Battery Sergeant-Major says that I wasnt expected back, anan, one thing leadin to anotherto cut a long story shortI went up before our MajorMajorI shall forget my own name next-Major
Never mind, Anthony interrupted. Go on! Itll come back in talk!
Alf a mo. Twas on the tip o my tongue then.
Humberstall dropped the polishing-cloth and knitted his brows again in most profound thought. Anthony turned to me and suddenly launched into a sprightly tale of his taxis collision with a Marble Arch refuge on a greasy day after a three-yard skid.
Much damage? I asked.
Oh no! Evry bolt an screw an nut on the chassis strained; but nothing carried away, you understand me, an not a scratch on the body. Youd never ave guessed a thing wrong till you took er in hand. It was a wop too: ead-onlike this! And he slapped his tactful little forehead to show what a knock it had been.
Did your Major dish you up much? he went on over his shoulder to Humberstall, who came out of his abstraction with a slow heave.
We-ell! He told me I wasnt expected back either; an he said e couldnt ang up the ole Circus till Id rejoined; an he said that my ten-inch Skoda which Id been Number Three of, before the dump went up at Eatables, had er full crowd. But, e said, as soon as a casualty occurred hed remember me. Meantime, says he, I particularly want you for actin mess-waiter.
Beggin your pardon, sir, I says perfectly respectful; but I didnt exactly come back for that, sir.
Beggin your pardon, Umberstall, says e, but I appen to command the Circus! Now, youre a sharp-witted man, he says; an what weve suffered from fool-waiters in Mess as been somethin cruel. Youll take on, from nowunder instruction to Macklin ere. So this man, Macklin, that I was tellin you about, showed me my duties . . . . Ammick! Ive got it! Ammick was our Major, an Mosse was Captain! Humberstall celebrated his recapture of the name by labouring at the organ-panel on his knee.
Look out! Youll smash it, Anthony protested.
Sorry! Mothers often told me I didnt know my strength. Now, heres a curious thing. This Major of oursits ail comin back to mewas a high-up divorce-court lawyer; an Mosse, our Captain, was Number One o Mosses Private Detective Agency. Youve heard of it? Wives watched while you wait, an so on. Well, these two ad been registerin together, so to speak, in the Civil line for years on end, but hadnt ever met till the War. Consequently, at Mess their talk was mostly about famous cases theyd been mixed up in. Ammick told the Law-courts end o the business, an all what had been left out of the pleadins; an Mosse ad the actual facts concernin the errin partiesin hotels an so on. Ive heard better talk in our Mess than ever before or since. It comes o the Gunners bein a scientific corps.
That be damned! said Anthony. If anythin appens to em theyve got it all down in a book. Theres no book when your lorry dies on you in the Oly Land. Thats brains.
Well, then, Humberstall continued, come on this secret society business that I started tellin you about. When those twoAmmick an Mossead finished about their matrimonial relationsand, mind you, they werent radishesthey seldom or ever repeatedtheyd begin, as often as not, on this Secret Society woman I was tellin you ofthis Jane. She was the only woman I ever eard em say a good word for. Cordin to them Jane was a none-such. I didnt know then she was a Society. Fact is, I only ung out arf an ear in their direction at first, on account of bein under instruction for mess-duty to this Macklin man. What drew my attention to her was a new Lieutenant joinin up. We called im Gander on account of his profeel, which was the identical bird. Ed been a nactuaryworkin out ow long civilians ad to live. Neither Ammick nor Mosse wasted words on im at Mess. They went on talking as usual, an in due time, as usual, they got back to Jane. Gander cocks one of his big chilblainy ears an cracks his cold finger joints. By God! Jane? says e. Yes, Jane, says Ammick pretty short an senior. Praise Eaven! says Gander. It was Bubbly where Ive come from down the line. (Some damn revue or other, I expect.) Well, neither Ammick nor Mosse was easy-mouthed, or for that matter mealy-mouthed; but no sooner ad Gander passed that remark than they both shook ands with the young squirt across the table an called for the port back again. It was a password, all right! Then they went at it about Janeall three, regardless of rank. That made me listen. Presently, I eard Ammick say
Arf a mo, Anthony cut in. But what was you doin in Mess?
Me an Macklin was refixin the sand-bag screens to the dug-out passage in case o gas. We never knew when wed cop it in the Eavies, dont you see? But we knew we ad been looked for for some time, an it might come any minute. But, as I was sayin, Ammick says what a pity twas Jane ad died barren. I deny that, says Mosse. I maintain she was fruitful in the ighest sense o the word. An Mosse knew about such things, too. Im inclined to agree with Ammick, says young Gander. Anyow, shes left no direct an lawful progny. I remember every word they said, on account o what appened subsequently. I adnt noticed Macklin much, or Id ha seen he was bosko absoluto. Then e cut in, leanin over a packin-case with a face on im like a dead mackerel in the dark. Pa-hardon me, gents, Macklin says, but this is a matter on which I do appen to be moderately well-informed. She did leave lawful issue in the shape o one son; an is name was Enery James.
By what sire? Prove it, says Gander, before is senior officers could get in a word.
I will, says Macklin, surgin on is two thumbs. An, mark you, none of em spoke! I forget whom he said was the sire of this Enery James-man; but e delivered em a lecture on this Jane-woman for more than a quarter of an hour. I know the exact time, because my old Skoda was on duty at ten-minute intervals reachin after some Jerry formin-up area; and her blast always put out the dug-out candles. I relit em once, an again at the end. In conclusion, this Macklin fell flat forward on is face, which was how e generally wound up is notion of a perfect day. Bosko absoluto!
Take im away, says Ammick to me. Es sufferin from shell-shock.
To cut a long story short, that was what first put the notion into my ead. Wouldnt it you? Even ad Macklin been a ighup Mason
Wasnt e, then? said Anthony, a little puzzled.
Ed never gone beyond the Blue Degrees, e told me. Anyow, ed lectured is superior officers up an down; ed as good as called em fools most o the time, in is toffs voice. I eard im an I saw im. An all he got wasme told off to put im to bed! And all on account o Jane! Would you have let a thing like that get past you? Nor me, either! Next mornin, when his stummick was settled, I was at him full-cry to find out ow it was worked. Toff or no toff, e knew his end of a bargain. First, e wasnt takin any. He said I wasnt fit to be initiated into the Society of the Janeites. That only meant five bob morefifteen up to date.
Make it one Bradbury, e says. Its dirt-cheap. You saw me old the Circus in the ollow of me and?
No denyin it. I ad. So, for one pound, he communicated me the Password of the First Degree, which was Tilniz an trap-doors.
I know what a trap-door is, I says to im, but what in ells Tilniz?
You obey orders, e says, an next time I ask you what youre thinkin about youll answer, Tilniz an trap-doors, in a smart and soldierly manner. Ill spring that question at me own time. All youve got to do is to be distinck.
We settled all this while we was skinnin spuds for dinner at the back o the rear-truck under our camouflage-screens. Gawd, ow that glue-paint did stink! Otherwise, twasnt so bad, with the sun comin through our pantomime-leaves, an the wind marcelling the grasses in the cutting. Well, one thing leading to another, nothin further appened in this direction till the afternoon. We ad a high standard o livin in Messan in the Group, for that matter. I was talon away Mosses lunchdinner e would never call itan Mosse was fillin is cigarette-case previous to the afternoons duty. Macklin, in the passage, comin in as if e didnt know Mosse was there, slings is question at me, an I give the countersign in a low but quite distinck voice, makin as if I adnt seen Mosse. Mosse looked at me through and through, with his cigarette-case in his and. Then e jerks out arf a dozenbest Turkishon the table an exits. I pinched em an divvied with Macklin.
You see ow it works, says Macklin. Could you ave invested a Bradbury to better advantage?
So far, no, I says. Otherwise, though, if they start provin an tryin me, Im a dead bird. There must be a lot more to this Janeite game.
Eaps an eaps, he says. But to show you the sort of eart I ave, Ill communicate you all the Igher Degrees among the Janeites, includin the Charges, for another Bradbury; but youll ave to work, Dobbin.
Pretty free with your Bradburys, wasnt you? Anthony grunted disapprovingly.
What odds? Ac-tually, Gander told us, we couldnt expect to avrage more than six weeks longer apiece, an, anyow, I never regretted it. But make no mistakethe preparation was somethin cruel. In the first place, I come under Macklin for direct instruction re Jane.
Oh! Jane was real, then? Anthony glanced for an instant at me as he put the question. I couldnt quite make that out.
Real! Humberstalls voice rose almost to a treble. Jane? Why, she was a little old maid ood written alf a dozen books about a hundred years ago. Twasnt as if there was anythin to em, either. I know. I had to read em. They werent adventurous, nor smutty, nor what youd call even interestinall about girls o seventeen (they begun young then, I tell you), not certain oom theyd like to marry; an their dances an card-parties an picnics, and their young blokes goin off to London on orseback for air-cuts an shaves. It took a full day in those days, if you went to a proper barber. They wore wigs, too, when they was chemists or clergymen. All that interested me on account o me profession, an cuttin the mens air every fortnight. Macklin used to chip me about bein an air-dresser. E could pass remarks, too!
Humberstall recited with relish a fragment of what must have been a superb comminationservice, ending with, You lazy-minded, lousyheaded, long-trousered, perfumed perookier.
An you took it? Anthonys quick eyes ran over the man.
Yes. I was after my moneys worth; an Macklin, havin put is and to the plough, wasnt one to withdraw it. Otherwise, if Id pushed im, Id ha slew im. Our Battery Sergeant Major nearly did. For Macklin had a wonderful way o passing remarks on a mans civil life; an he put it about that our B.S.M. had run a dope an dolly-shop with a Chinese woman, the wrong end o Southwark Bridge. Nothin you could lay old of, o course; but Humberstall let us draw our own conclusions.
That reminds me, said Anthony, smacking his lips. I ad a bit of a fracas with a fare in the Fulham Road last month. He called me a paras-tit-ic Forder. I informed im I was owner-driver, an e could see for imself the cab was quite clean. That didnt suit im. E said it was crawlin.
What happened? I asked.
One o them blue-bellied Bolshies of postwar Police (neglectin point-duty, as usual) asked us to flirt a little quieter. My joker chucked some Arabic at im. That was when we signed the Armistice. Ed been a Yeomana perishin Gloucestershire Yeomanthat Id helped gather in the orange crop with at Jaffa, in the Oly Land !
And after that? I continued.
It ud be ard to say. I know e lived at Hendon or Cricklewood. I drove im there. We must ave talked Zionism or somethin, because at seven next mornin him an me was tryin to get petrol out of a milkshop at St. Albans. They adnt any. In lots o ways this war has been a public noosance, as one might say, but theres no denyin it elps you slip through life easier. The dairymans son ad done time on Jordan with camels. So he stood us rum an milk.
Just like avin the Password, eh? was Humberstalls comment.
Thats right! Ours was Imshee kelb. Not so ard to remember as your Jane stuff.
Jane wasnt so very ardnot the way Macklin used to put er, Humberstall resumed. I ad only six books to remember. I learned the names by eart as Macklin placed em. There was one called Persuasion, first; an the rest in a bunch, except another about some Abbey or otherlast by three lengths. But, as I was sayin, what beat me was there was nothin to em nor in em. Nothin at all, believe me.
You seem good an full of em, anyow, said Anthony.
I mean that er characters was no use! They was only just like people you run across any day. One of em was a curatethe Reverend Collinsalways on the make an lookin to marry money. Well, when I was a Boy Scout, im or is twin brother was our troop-leader. An there was an upstandin ard-mouthed Duchess or a Baronets wife that didnt give a curse for any one oo wouldnt do what she told em to; the LadyLady Catherine (Ill get it in a minute) De Bugg. Before Ma bought the airdressin business in London I used to know of an olesale grocers wife near Leicester (Im Leicestershire myself) that might ave been er duplicate. Andoh yesthere was a Miss Bates; just an old maid runnin about like a hen with er ead cut off, an her tongue loose at both ends. Ive got an aunt like er. Good as goldbut, you know.
Lord, yes! said Anthony, with feeling. An did you find out what Tilniz meant? Im always huntin after the meanin of things mesel�
Yes, e was a swine of a Major-General, retired, and on the make. Theyre all on the make, in a quiet way, in Jane. E was so much of a gentleman by is own estimation that e was always beavin like a hound. You know the sort. Turned a girl out of is own ouse because she adnt any moneyafter, mark you, encouragin er to set er cap at his son, because e thought she had.
But that appens all the time, said Anthony. Why, me own mother
Thats right. So would mine. But this Tilney was a man, an someow Jane put it down all so naked it made you ashamed. I told Macklin that, an he said I was shapin to be a good Janeite. Twasnt his fault if I wasnt. Nother thing, too; avin been at the Bath Mineral Waters Ospital in Sixteen, with trench-feet, was a great advantage to me, because I knew the names o the streets where Jane ad lived. There was one of emLaura, I think, or some other girls namewhich Macklin said was oly ground. If youd been initiated then, he says, youd ha felt your flat feet tingle every time you walked over those sacred pavin-stones.
My feet tingled right enough, I said, but not on account of Jane. Nothin remarkable about that, I says.
Eaven lend me patience! he says, combin is air with is little hands. Every dam thing about Jane is remarkable to a pukka Janeite! It was there, he says, that Miss WhatsherName (he had the name; Ive forgotten it) made up er engagement again, after nine years, with Captain Tother Bloke. An he dished me out a page an a half of one of the books to learn by eartPersuasion, I think it was.
You quick at gettin things off by eart? Anthony demanded.
Not as a rule. I was then, though, or else Macklin knew ow to deliver the Charges properly. E said ed been some sort o schoolmaster once, and hed make my mind resume work or break imself. That was just before the Battery Sergeant-Major ad it in for him on account o what hed been sayin about the Chinese wife an the dollyshop.
What did Macklin really say? Anthony and I asked together. Humberstall gave us a fragment. It was hardly the stuff to let loose on a pious post-war world without revision.
And what had your B.S.M. been in civil life? I asked at the end.
Ead-embalmer to an olesale undertaker in the Midlands, said Humberstall; but, o course, when he thought e saw his chance he naturally took it. He came along one mornin lickin is lips. You dont get past me this time, e says to Macklin. Youre for it, Professor.
Ow so, me gallant Major, says Macklin; an what for?
For writin obese words on the breech o the ten-inch, says the B.S.M. She was our old Skoda that Ive been tellin you about. We called er Bloody Eliza. She ad a badly wore obturator an blew through a fair treat. I knew by Macklins face the B.S.M. ad dropped it somewhere, but all he vowsaifed was, Very good, Major. We will consider it in Common Room, The B.S.M, couldnt ever stand Macklins toffs way o puttin things; so he goes off rumblin like ells bells in an urricane, as the Marines say. Macklin put it to me at once, what had I been doin? Someow he could read me like a book.
Well, all Id donean I told im he was responsible for itwas to chalk the guns. Ammick never minded what the men wrote up on em. E said it gave em an interest in their job. Youd see all sorts of remarks chalked on the sideplates or the gear-casins.
What sort of remarks? said Anthony keenly.
Oh! Ow Bloody Eliza, or Spittin Jimthat was our old Mark Five Nine-point-twofelt that morning, an such things. But it ad come over memore to please Macklin than anythin elsethat it was time we Janeites ad a look in. So, as I was tellin you, Id taken an rechristened all three of em, on my own, early that mornin. Spittin Jim I ad chalked The Reverend Collinsthat Curate I was tellin you about; an our cut-down Navy Twelve, General Tilney, because it was worse wore in the groovin than anything Id ever seen. The Skoda (an that was where I dropped it) I ad chalked up The Lady Catherine De Bugg. I made a clean breast of it all to Macklin. He reached up an patted me on the shoulder. You done nobly, he says. Youre bringin forth abundant fruit, like a good Janeite. But Im afraid your spellin has misled our worthy B.S.M. Thats what it is, e says, slappin is little leg. Ow might you ave spelt De Bourgh for example?
I told im. Twasnt right; an e nips off to the Skoda to make it so. When e comes back, e says that the Gander ad been before im an corrected the error. But we two come up before the Major, just the same, that afternoon after lunch ; Ammick in the chair, so to speak, Mosse in another, an the B.S.M, chargin Macklin with writin obese words on His Majestys property, on active service. When it transpired that me an not Macklin was the offendin party, the B.S.M, turned is hand in and sulked like a baby. E as good as told Ammick e couldnt hope to preserve discipline unless examples was mademeanin, o course, Macklin.
Yes, Ive heard all that, said Anthony, with a contemptuous grunt. The worst of it is, a lot of its true.
Ammick took im up sharp about Military Law, which he said was even more fair than the civilian article.
My Gawd! This came from Anthonys scornful midmost bosom.
Accordin to the unwritten law of the Eavies, says Ammick, theres no objection to the men chalkin the guns, if decency is preserved. On the other and, says he, we avent yet settled the precise status of individuals entitled so to do. I old that the privilege is confined to combatants only.
With the permission of the Court, says Mosse, who was another born lawyer, Id like to be allowed to join issue on that point. Prisoners position is very delicate an doubtful, an he has no legal representative.
Very good, says Ammick. Macklin bein acquitted
With submission, me lud, says Mosse. I hope to prove e was accessory before the fact.
As you please, says Ammick. But in that case, oo the ells goin to get the port Im tryin to stand the Court?
I submit, says Mosse, prisoner, bein under direct observation o the Court, could be temporarily enlarged for that duty.
So Macklin went an got it, an the B.S.M. had is glass with the rest. Then they argued whether mess servants an non-combatants was entitled to chalk the guns (Ammick versus Mosse). After a bit, Ammick as C.O. give imself best, an me an Macklin was severely admonished for trespassin on combatants rights, an the B.S.M. was warned that if we repeated the offence e could deal with us summrily. He ad some glasses o port an went out quite appy. Then my turn come, while Macklin was gettin them their tea; an one thing leadin to another, Ammick put me through all the Janeite Degrees, you might say. Never ad such a doin m my life.
Yes, but what did you tell em? said Anthony. I cant ever think my lies quick enough when Im for it.
No need to lie. I told em that the backside view o the Skoda, when she was run up, put Lady De Bugg into my ead. They gave me right there, but they said I was wrong about General Tilney. Cordin to them, our Navy twelve-inch ought to ave been christened Miss Bates. I said the same idea ad crossed my mind, till Id seen the Generals groovin. Then I felt it had to be the General or nothin. But they give me full marks for the Reverend Collinsour Nine-point-two.
An you fed em that sort o talk? Anthonys fox-coloured eyebrows climbed almost into his hair.
While I was assistin Macklin to get teayes. Seem it was an examination, I wanted to do im credit as a Janeite.
Anan what did they say?
They said it was ighly creditable to us both. I dont drink, so they give me about a hundred fags.
Gawd! What a Circus you must ave been, was Anthonys gasping comment.
It was a appy little Group. I wouldnt a changed with any other.
Humberstall sighed heavily as he helped Anthony slide back the organ-panel. We all admired it in silence, while Anthony repocketed his secret polishing mixture, which lived in a tin tobacco-box. I had neglected my work for listening to Humberstall. Anthony reached out quietly and took over a Secretarys jewel and a rag. Humberstall studied his reflection in the glossy wood.
Almost, he said critically, holding his head to one side.
Not with an Army. You could with a Safety, though, said Anthony. And, indeed, as Brother Burges had foretold, one might have shaved in it with comfort.
Did you ever run across any of em afterwards, any time? Anthony asked presently.
Not so many of em left to run after, now. With the Eavies its mostly neck or nothin. We copped it. In the neck. In due time.
Well, you come out of it all right. Anthony spoke both stoutly and soothingly; but Humberstall would not be comforted.
Thats right; but I almost wish I adnt, he sighed. I was appier there than ever before or since. Jerrys March push in Eighteen did us in; an yet, ow could we ave expected it? Ow could we ave expected it? Wed been sent back for rest an runnin-repairs, back pretty near our base; an our old loco that used to shift us about o nights, shed gone down the line for repairs. But for Ammick we wouldnt even ave ad our camouflage-screens up. He told our Brigadier that, whatever e might be in the Gunnery line, as a leadin Divorce lawyer he never threw away a point in argument. So e ad us all screened in over in a cuttin on a little spur-line near a wood; an e saw to the screens imself. The leaves werent more than comin out then, an the sun used to make our glue-paint stink. Just like actin in a theatre, it was! But appy. But appy! I expect if wed been caterpillars, like the new big six-inch hows, theyd ha remembered us. But we was the old La Bassée 15 Mark o Heavies that ran on railsnot much more good than scrap-iron that late in the war. An, believe me, gentsor Brethren, as I should saywe copped it cruel. Look ere! It was in the afternoon, an I was watchin Gander instructin a class in new sights at Lady Catherine. All of a sudden I eard our screens rip overhead, an a runner on a motor-bike come sailin, sailin through the airlike that bloke that used to bicycle off Brighton Pierand landed one awful wop almost atop o the class. Old ard, says Gander. Thats no way to report. Whats the fuss? Your screens ave broke my back, for one thing, says the bloke on the ground; an for another, the ole fronts gone. Nonsense, says Gander. E adnt more than passed the remark when the man was vilently sick an conked out. E ad plenty papers on im from Brigadiers and C.O.s reporting emselves cut off an askin for orders. E was right both wayshis back an our front. The ole Somme front washed out as clean as kiss-me-and! His huge hand smashed down open on his knee.
We eard about it at the time in the Oly Land. Was it reelly as quick as all that? said Anthony.
Quicker! Look ere! The motorbike dropped in on us about four pip-emma. After that, we tried to get orders o some kind or other, but nothin came through excep that all available transport was in use and not likely to be released. That didnt elp us any. About nine oclock comes along a young Brass At in brown gloves. We was quite a surprise to im. E said they were evacuating the area and wed better shift. Where to? says Ammick, rather short.
Oh, somewhere Amiens way, he says. Not that Id guarantee Amiens for any length o time; but Amiens might do to begin with. Im giving you the very words. Then e goes off swingin is brown gloves, and Ammick sends for Gander and orders im to march the men through Amiens to Dieppe; book thence to Newaven, take up positions beind Seaford, an carry on the war. Gander said ed see im damned first. Ammick says ed see im courtmartialled after. Gander says what e meant to say was that the men ud see all an sundry damned before they went into Arniens with their gunsights wrapped up in their puttees. Ammick says e adnt said a word about puttees, an carryin off the gunsights was purely optional. Well, anyhow, says Gander, puttees or drawers, they aint goin to shift a step unless you lead the procession.
Mutinous ounds, says Amrnick. But we live in a democratic age. Dyou suppose theyd object to kindly diggin emselves in a bit? Not at all, says Gander. The B.S.M.s kept em at it like terriers for the last three hours. That bein so, says Ammick, Macklinll now fetch us small glasses o port. Then Mosse comes inhe could smell port a mile offan he submits wed only add to the congestion in Amiens if we took our crowd there, whereas, if we lay doggo where we was, Jerry might miss us, though he didnt seem to be missin much that evenin.
The ole country was pretty noisy, an our dumps wed lit ourselves flarin heavens-high as far as you could see. Lyin doggo was our best chance. I believe we might ha pulled it off, if wed been left alone, but along towards midnightthere was some small stuff swishin about, but nothin particulara nice little bald-headed old gentleman in uniform pushes into the dug-out wipin his glasses an sayin e was thinkin o formin a defensive flank on our left with is battalion which ad just come up. Ammick says e wouldnt form much if e was im. Oh, dont say that, says the old gentleman, very shocked. One must support the Guns, mustnt one? Ammick says we was refittin an about as effective, just then, as a public lavtory. Go into Amiens, he says, an defend em there. Oh no, says the old gentleman, me an my laddies must make a defensive flank for you, an he flips out of the dug-out like a performin bullfinch, chirruppin for his laddies. Gawd in Eaven knows what sort o push they waslittle boys mostlybut they ung on to is coat-tails like a Sunday-school treat, an we eard em muckin about in the open for a bit. Then a pretty tight barrage was slapped down for ten minutes, an Ammick thought the laddies had copped it already. Itll be our turn next, says Mosse. Theres been a covey o Gothas messin about for the last alf-hourlookin for the Railway Shops, I expect. Theyre just as likely to take us. Arisin out o that, says Ammick, one of em sounds pretty low down now. Were for it, me learned colleagues! Jesus! says Gander, I believe youre right, sir. And that was the last word I eard on the matter.
Did they cop you then? said Anthony.
They did. I expect Mosse was right, an they took us for the Railway Shops. When I come to, I was lyin outside the cuttin, which was pretty well filled up. The Reverend Collins was all right; but Lady Catherine and the General was past prayin for. I lay there, takin it in, till I felt cold an I looked at meself. Otherwise, I adnt much on excep me boots. So I got up an walked about to keep warm. Then I saw somethin like a mushroom in the moonlight. It was the nice old gentlemans bald ead. I patted it. im and is laddies ad copped it right enough. Some battalion run out in a urry from England, I suppose. They adnt even begun to dig inpore little perishers! I dressed myself off em there, an topped off with a British warm. Then I went back to the cuttin an some one says to me: Dig, you ox, dig! Ganders under. So I elped shift things till I threw up blood an bile mixed. Then I dropped, an they brought Gander outdeadan laid im next me. Ammick ad gone toofair tore in alf, the B.S.M. said; but the funny thing was he talked quite a lot before e died, an nothin to im below is stummick, they told me. Mosse we never found. Ed been standing by Lady Catherine. Shed up-ended an gone back on em, with alf the cuttin atop of er, by the look of things.
And what come to Macklin? said Anthony.
Dunno. . . . E was with Ammick. I expect I must ha been blown clear of all by the first bomb; for I was the ony Janeite left. We lost about half our crowd, either under, or after wed got em out. The B.S.M. went off is rocker when mornin came, an he ran about from one to another sayin : That was a good push! That was a great crowd! Did ye ever know any push to touch em? An then ed cry. So what was left of us made off for ourselves, an I came across a lorry, pretty full, but they took me in.
Ah! said Anthony with pride. They all take a taxi when its rainin. Ever eard that song?
They went a long way back. Then I walked a bit, an there was a hospital-train fillin up, an one of the Sistersa grey-headed oneran at me wavin er red ands an sayin there wasnt room for a louse in it. I was past carin. But she went on talkin and talkin about the war, an her pa in Ladbroke Grove, an ow strange for er at er time of life to be doin this work with a lot o men, an next war, ow the nurses ud ave to wear khaki breeches on account o the mud, like the Land Girls; an that reminded er, shed boil me an egg if she could lay ands on one, for shed run a chicken-farm once. You never eard anythin like itoutside o Jane. It set me off laughin again. Then a woman with a nose an teeth on er, marched up. Whats all this? she says. What do you want? Nothing, I says, only make Miss Bates, there, stop talkin or Ill die. Miss Bates? she says. What in Eavens name makes you call er that? Because she is, I says. Dyou know what youre sayin? she says, an slings her bony arm round me to get me off the ground. Course I do, I says, an if you knew Jane youd know too. Thats enough, says she. Youre comin on this train if I have to kill a Brigadier for you, an she an an ordly fair hove me into the train, on to a stretcher close to the cookers. That beef-tea went down well! Then she shook ands with me an said Id hit off Sister Molyneux in one, an then she pinched me an extra blanket. It was er own ospital pretty much. I expect she was the Lady Catherine de Bourgh of the area. Well, an so, to cut a long story short, nothing further transpired.
Adnt you ad enough by then? asked Anthony.
I expect so. Otherwise, if the old Circus ad been carryin on, I might ave ad another turn with em before Armistice. Our B.S.M. was right. There never was a appier push. Ammick an Mosse an Gander an the B.S.M. an that pore little Macklin man makin an passin an raisin me an gettin me on to the ospital train after e was dead, all for a couple of Bradburys. I lie awake nights still, reviewing matters. There never was a push to touch oursnever!
Anthony handed me back the Secretarys Jewel resplendent.
Ah, said he. No denyin that Jane business was more useful to you than the Roman Eagles or the Star an Garter. Pity there wasnt any of you Janeites in the Oly Land. I never come across em.
Well, as pore Macklin said, its a very select Society, an youve got to be a Janeite in your eart, or you wont have any success. An yet he made me a Janeite! I read all her six books now for pleasure tween times in the shop; an it brings it all backdown to the smell of the glue-paint on the screens. You take it from me, Brethren, theres no one to touch Jane when youre in a tight place. Gawd bless er, whoever she was.
Worshipful Brother Burges, from the floor of the Lodge, called us all from Labour to Refreshment. Humberstall hove himself upso very a cart-horse of a man one almost expected to hear the harness creak on his backand descended the steps.
He said he could not stay for tea because he had promised his mother to come home for it, and she would most probably be waiting for him now at the Lodge door.
One or other of em always comes for im. Hes apt to miss is gears sometimes, Anthony explained to me, as we followed.
Goes on a bust, dyou mean?
Im! Hes no more touched liquor than e as women since e was born. No, es liable to a sort o quiet fits, like. They came on after the dump blew up at Eatables. But for them, ed ha been Battery Sergeant-Major.
Oh! I said. I couldnt make out why he took on as mess-waiter when he got back to his guns. That explains things a bit.
Is sister told me the dump goin up knocked all is Gunnery instruction clean out of im. The only thing e stuck to was to get back to is old crowd. Gawd knows ow e worked it, but e did. He fair deserted out of England to em, she says; an when they saw the state e was in, they adnt the eart to send im back or into ospital. They kep im for a mascot, as you might say. Thats all dead-true. Is sister told me so. But I cant guarantee that Janeite business, excep e never told a lie since e was six. Is sister told me so. What do you think?
He isnt likely to have made it up out of his own head, I replied.
But people dont get so crazy-fond o books as all that, do they? Es made is sister try to read em. Shed do anythin to please him. But, as I keep tellin er, sod is mother. Dyou appen to know anything about Jane?
I believe Jane was a bit of a match-maker in a quiet way when she was alive, and I know all her books are full of match-making, I said. Youd better look out.
Oh, thats as good as settled, Anthony replied, blushing.
JANE went to Paradise: That was only fair. Good Sir Walter followed her, And armed her up the stair. Henry and Tobias, And Miguel of Spain, Stood with Shakespeare at the top To welcome Jane.
Then the Three Archangels
Instantly the under-
In a private limbo
He heard the question |
OH, late withdrawn from human-kind And following dreams we never knew Varus, what dream has Fate assigned To trouble you?
Such virtue as commends the law
And, flagrant in well-doing, smite
Whence public strife and naked crime
Cease, then, to fashion State-made sin,
|
Last summer, desperate need forced me to cross that area, and I fell into a motor-licence control which began in a market-town filled with unherded beeves carrying red numbered tickets on their rumps. An English-speaking policeman inspected my licence on a bridge, while the cattle blundered and blew round the car. A native in plain clothes lolled out an enormous mulberry-coloured tongue, with which he licked a numbered label, precisely like one of those on the behinds of the bullocks, and made to dab it on my wind-screen. I protested. But it will save you trouble, he said. Youre liable to be held up for your licence from now on. This is your protection. Everybody does it.
Oh! If thats the case I began weakly.
He slapped it on the glass and I went forward the man was right-all the cars I met were protected as mine wastill I reached some county or other which marked the limit of the witch-doctoring, and entered, at twilight, a large-featured land where the Great North Road ran, bordered by wide way-wastes, between clumps of old timber.
Here the car, without warning, sobbed and stopped. One does not expect the make-and-break of the magnetothat tiny two-inch spring of finest steelto fracture; and by the time we had found the trouble, night shut down on us. A rounded pile of woods ahead took one sudden star to its forehead and faded out; the way-waste melted into the darker velvet of the hedge; another star reflected itself in the glassy black of the bitumened road; and a weak moon struggled up out of a mist-patch from a valley. Our lights painted the grass unearthly greens, and the treeboles bone-white. A church clock struck eleven, as I curled up in the front seat and awaited the progress of Time and Things, with some notion of picking up a tow towards morning. It was long since I had spent a night in the open, and the hour worked on me. Time was when such nights, and the winds that heralded their dawns, had been fortunate and blessed; but those Gates, I thought, were for ever shut . . . .
I diagnosed it as a bakers van on a Ford chassis, lit with unusual extravagance. It pulled up and asked what the trouble might be. The first sentence sufficed, even had my lights not revealed the full hairless face, the horn-rimmed spectacles, the hooded boots below, and the soft hat, fashioned on no block known to the Eastern trade, above, the yellow raincoat. I explained the situation. The resources of Mr. Henry Fords machines did not run to spare parts of my cars type, butit was a beautiful night for camping-out. He himself was independent of hotels. His outfit was a caravan hired these months past for tours of Great Britain. He had been alone since his wife died, of duodenal ulcer, five years ago. Comparative Ethnology was his present study. No, not a professor, nor, indeed, ever at any College, but a realtora dealer in real estate in a suburb of the great and cultured centre of Omaha, Nebraska. Had I ever heard of it? I had once visited the very place and there had met an unforgettable funeral-furnisher; but I found myself (under influence of the night and my Demon) denying all knowledge of the United States. I had, I said, never left my native land; but the passion of my life had ever been the study of the fortunes and future of the U.S.A.; and to this end I had joined three Societies, each of which regularly sent me all its publications.
He jerked her on to the grass beside my car, where our mingled lights slashed across the trunks of a little wood; and I was invited into his pitch-pine-lined caravan, with its overpowering electric installation, its flap-table, typewriter, drawers and lockers below the bunk. Then he spoke, every word well-relished between massy dentures; the inky-rimmed spectacles obscuring the eyes, and the face as expressionless as the unrelated voice.
He spoke in capital letters, a few of which I have preserved, on our National Spirit, which, he had sensed, was Homogeneous and in Ethical Contact throughoutUnconscious but Vitally Existent. That was his Estimate of our Racial Complex. It was an Asset, but a Democracy postulating genuine Ideals should be more multitudinously-minded and diverse in Outlook. I assented to everything in a voice that would have drawn confidences from pillar-boxes.
He next touched on the Collective Outlook of Democracy, and thence glanced at Herd Impulse, and the counter-balancing necessity for Individual Self-Expression. Here he began to search his pockets, sighing heavily from time to time.
Before my wife died, sir, I was rated a one-hundred-per-cent. American. I am nowbut . . . Have you ever in Our Literature read a book called The Man Without a Country? Im him! He still rummaged, but there was a sawing noise behind the face.
And you may say, first and last, drink did it! he added. The noise resumed. Evidently he was laughing, so I laughed too. After all, if a man must drink, what better lair than a caravan? At his next words I repented.
On my return back home after her burial, I first received my Primal Urge towards Self-Expression. Till then I had never realised myself . . . . Ah!
He had found it at last in a breast pocketa lank and knotty cigar.
And what, sir, is your genuine Opinion of Prohibition? he asked when the butt had been moistened to his liking.
Oh!er! Its aa gallant adventure! I babbled, for somehow I had tuned myself to listen-in to tales of other things. He turned towards me slowly.
The Revelation qua Prohibition that came to me on my return back home from her funeral was not along those lines. This is the Platform I stood on. I became, thenceforward, one of vast crowds being addressed from that Platform.
There are Races, sir, which have been secluded since their origin from the microbes-the necessary and beneficent microbesof Civlisation. Once those microbes are introdooced to em, those races re-act precisely in proportion to their previous immunity or Racial Virginity. Measles, which Ive had twice and never laid by for, are as fatal to the Papuan as pneumonic plague to the White. Alcohol, for them, is disaster, degeneration, and death. Why? You cant get ahead of Cause and Effect. Protect any race from its natural and God-given bacteria and you automatically create the culture for its decay, when that protection is removed. That, sir, is my Thesis.
The unlit cigar between his lips circled slowly, but I had no desire to laugh.
The virgin Red Indian fell for the Firewater of the Paleface as soon as it was presented to him. For Firewater, sir, he parted with his lands, his integrity, an his future. What is he now? An Ethnological Survival under State Protection. You get me? Immunise, or virgnise, the Citzen of the United States to alcohol, an you as surely redooce him to the mental status an outlook of that Redskin. That is the Ne-mee-sis of Prohibition. And the Process has begun, sir. Havent you noticed it alreadyhe gulpedamong Our People?
Well, I said. Men dont always act as they preach, of course.
You wont abrade my National Complex. Whats the worst youve seen in connection with Our Peopleand Rum? The round lenses were full on me. I chanced it.
Ive seen one of em on a cross-Channel boat, talking Prohibition in the barpretty full. He had three drinks while I listened.
I thought you said youd never quit England? he replied.
Oh, we dont count France, I amended hastily.
Then was you ever at Monte Carlo? No? Well, I wasthis spring. One of our tourist steamers unloaded three hundred of em at the port o Veel Franshe; and they went off to Monte Carlo to dine. I saw em, sir, come out of the dinner-hall of that vast Hotel oppsite the Cassino there, not drunk, but allall havin drink taken. In that hotel lounge after that meal, I saw an elderly citzen up an kiss eight women, none of em specially young, sittin in a circle on the settees; the rest of his crowd applaudin. Folk just shrugged their shoulders, and the French nigger on the door, I heard him say: Its only the Yanks tankin up. It galled me. As a one-hundred-per-cent. American, it galled me unspeakably. And youve observed the same thing durin the last few years?
I nodded. The face was working now in the yellow lights reflected from the close-buttoned raincoat. He dropped his hand on his knee and struck it again and again, before he steadied himself with the usual snap and grind of his superb dentist-work.
My Revlation qua the Peril of Prohibition was laid on me on my return back home in the hour of my affliction. Id been discussin Prohibition with Mrs. Tarworth only the week before. Her best friend, sir, a neighbour of ours, had filled one of the vases in our parlour with chrysanthemums out of a bust wreath. I cant ever smell to those flowers now thout it all comin back. Yes, sir, in my hour of woe it was laid on me to warn my land of the Ne-mee-sis of Presumption. Theres only one Sin in the worldand that is Presumption. Without strong Presumption, sir, wed never have fixed Prohibition the way we did . . . . An when I retired that night I reasoned it out that there was but one weapon for me to work with to convey my message to my native land. That, sir, was the Movies. So I reasoned it. I reasoned it so-oo! Now the Movies wasnt a business Id ever been interested in, though a regular attendant . . . . Well, sir, within ten days after I had realised the Scope an Imperativeness of my Revlation, Id sold out an re-invested sos everything was available. I quit Omaha, sir, the freestthe happiestman in the United States.
A puff of air from the woods licked through the open door of the caravan, trailing a wreath of mist with it. He pushed home the door.
So you started in on Anti-Prohibition films? I suggested.
Sir?More! It was laid on me to feature the Murder of Immunised America by the Microbe of Modern Civlisation which she had presumptuously defied. That text inspired all the titling. Before I arrived at the concept of the Appeal, I was months studyin the Movie business in every State of Our Union, in labour and trava-il. The Complete Concept, sir, with its Potentialties, came to me of a Sunday afternoon in Rand Park, Keokuk, Iowathe centre of our native pearl-button industry. As a boy, sir, I used to go shell-tongin after mussels, in a shanty-boat on the Cumberland River, Tennessee, always hopin to find a thousand dollar pearl. (The shell goes to Keokuk for manufacture.) I found my pearl in Keokukwhere my Concept came to me! Excuse me!
He pulled out a drawer of card-indexed photographs beneath the bunk, ran his long fingers down the edges, and drew out three.
The first showed the head of an elderly Red Indian chief in full war-paint, the lined lips compressed to a thread, eyes wrinkled, nostrils aflare, and the whole face lit by so naked a passion of hate that I started.
That, said Mr. Tarworth, is the Spirit of the Tragedyboth of the Red Indians who initially, and of our Whites who subsequently, sold emselves and their heritage for the Firewater of the Paleface. The Captions run in diapason with that note throughout. But for a Film Appeal, you must have a balanced leet-motif interwoven with the footage. Now this close-up of the Red Man Im showin you, punctuates the action of the dramma. He recurs, sir, watchin the progressive degradation of his own people, from the advent of the Paleface with liquor, up to the extinction of his race. After that, you see him, again, more and more dominant, broodin over an rejoicin in the downfall of the White American artificially virgnised against Alcoholthe identical cycle repeated. I got this shot of Him in Oklahoma, one of our Western States, where theres a crowd of the richest Red Indians (drawin oil-royalties) on earth. But theyve got a Historical Society that chases em into paint and feathers to keep up their race-pride, and for the Movies. He was an Episcopalian and owns a Cadillac, I was told. The sun in his eyes makes him look that way. Hes indexed as Rum-in-the-Cup (thats the element of Popular Appeal), but, say the voice softened with the pride of artistryaint He just it for my purposes?
He passed me the second photo. The cigar rolled again and he held on:
Now in every Film Appeal, you must balance your leet-motif by balancin the Sexes. The American Women, sir, handed Prohibition to Us while our boys were away savin you. I know the typeborn an bred with it. She watches throughout the film what Shes brought aboutwatches an watches till the final Catastrophe. Shes Woman Triumphant, balanced against Rum-in-the-Cupthe Degraded Male. I hunted the whole of the Middle West for Her in vain, fore I rememberednot Jordan, but Abanna and ParpharMrs. Tarworths best friend at home. I was then in Texarkhana, Arkansas, fixin up a deal Ill tell you about; but I broke for Omaha that evenin to get a shot of Her. When I arrived so sudden sheshethought, I guess, I meant to make her Number Two. Thats Her. You wouldnt realise the Type, but its it.
I looked; saw the trained sweetness and unction in the otherwise hardish, ignorant eyes; the slightly open, slightly flaccid mouth; the immense unconscious arrogance, the immovable certitude of mind, and the other warning signs in the poise of the broad-cheeked head. He was fingering the third photo.
And when the American Woman realises the Scope an the Impact an the Irrevocability of the Catastrophe which she has created by Her Presumption, SheShe registers Despair. Thats Herat the finale.
It was cruelty beyond justification to have pinned down any living creature in such agony of shame, anger, and impotence among lifes wreckage. And this was a well-favoured woman, her torment new-launched on her as she stood gripping the back of a stamped-velvet chair.
And so you went back to Texarkhana without proposing, I began.
Why, yes. There was only forty-seven minutes between trains. I told her so. But I got both shots.
I must have caught my breath, for, as he took the photo back again, he explained: In the Movie business we dont employ the actool. This is only the Basis we build on to the nearest professional type. That secures controlled emphasis of expression. Shes only the Basis.
Im glad of that, I said. He lit his cigar, and relaxed beneath the folds of the loose coat.
Well, sir, having secured my leet-motifs and Sex-balances, the whole of the footage coverin the downfall of the Red Man was as good as given me by a bust Congregational Church that had been boosting Prohibition near Texarkhana. That was why Id gone there. One of their ladies, who was crazy about Our National dealins with the Indian, had had the details documented in Washington; an the resultant film must have cost her any Gods dollars you can name. It was all therethe Red Man partin with his lands and furs an women to the early settlers for Rum; the liquor-fights round the tradin-posts; the Government Agents swindlin em with liquor; an the Indians goin mad from it; the Black Hawk War; the winnin of the Westby Rum mainlythe whole jugful of Shame. But that film failed, sir, because folk in Arkansaw said it was an aspersion on the National Honour, and, anyway, buying land needful for Our inevitable development was more Christian than the bloody wars of Monarchical Europe. The Congregationalists wanted a new organ too; so I traded a big Estey organ for their film. My notion was to interweave it with parallel modern instances, from Monte Carlo and the European hotels, of White American Degradation; the Main Caption bein: The Firewater of the Paleface Works as Indifferently as Fate. An old Rum-in-the-Cups close-up shows broodinbroodinbroodinthrough it all! You sense my Concept?
He relighted his cigar.
I saw it like a vision. But, from there on; I had to rely on my own Complex for intuition. I cut out all modern side-issuesthe fight against Prohibition; bootlegging; home-made Rum manufacture; wood-alcohol tragedies, an all that dope. Dunno as I didnt elimnate to excess. The Revolt of the Red Blood Corpuscules should ha been stressed.
Whats their share in it?
Vital! They clean up waste and deleterious matter in the humane system. Under the microscope they rage like lions. Deprive em of their job by sterilisin an virginising the system, an the Red Blood Corpuscules turn on the humane system an destroy it bodily. Mentally, too, mebbe. Aint that a hell of a thought?
Where did you get it from?
It came to mewith the others, he replied as simply as Ezekiel might have told a fellow-captive beside Chebar. But its too high for a Democracy. So I cut it right out. For Film purposes I assumed that, at an unspecified date, the United States had become virgnised to liquor. The Taint was out of the Blood, and, apparently, the Instinct had aborted. The Triumph of Presumption is the Caption. But from there on, I fell down because, for the film Appeal, you cannot present such an Epoch without featurin confirmatory exhibits which, o course, havent as yet materialised. That meant that the whole Cultural Aspect o that Civlisation of the Future would have to be built up at Hollywood; an half a million dollars wouldnt cover it. The Vision of Virgnised Civlisation. A hell of a proposition! But it dont matter now.
He dropped his head and was still for a little.
Never mind, I said. How does the idea work outin your mind?
In my mind? As inevitably, sir, as the Red Mans Fall through Rum. My notion was a complete Cultural Exposay of a Shedomnated Civhsation, built on a virginal basis qua alcohol, with immensely increased material Productivity (say, thered be money in that from big Businesses demonstratin what theyll prodooce a hundred years hence), and a side-wipe at the practically non-existent birth-rate.
Why that, too? I asked.
He gave me the reasona perfectly sound onewhich has nothing to do with the tale, and went on:
After that Vision is fully realised, the End comesas remorselessly for the White as for the Red. How? The American Womanyou will recall the first close-up of that lady I showed you, interweavin throughout the narrtivehavin accomplished all She set out to do, wishes to demonstrate to the world the Inteegral Significance of Her Life-work. Why not? Shes never been blamed in Her life. So delibrately, out of High Presumption, the American Woman withdraws all inhibitry legislation, all barriers against Alcoholto show what She has made of Her Men. The Captions here runThe Zeenith of Presumption. America Stands by HerselfGuide and Saviour of Humanity. Let Evil do Its Damnedest! We are above It. Say, aint that a hell of a thought?
A bit extravagant, isnt it?
Extravgance? In the life of actool men an women? It dont exist. Well, anyway, thats my top-note before the day-bakkle. Theres an interval while the Great World-Wave is gatherin to sweep aside the Children of Presumption. Nothin eventuates for a while. The Machine of Virgnised Civlisation functions by its own stored energy. And then, sirthen the World-Wave crashes down on the White as it crashed on the Red Skin! (All this while old Rum-in-the-Cup is growin more an more domnant, as I told you.) But now, owin to the artificialised mentality of the victims and the immune poplation, its effects are Cataclysmic. The Alcohol Appeal, held back for five Generations, wakes like a Cyclone. Thats the Horror Im stressin. And Europe, and Asia, and the Ghetto exploit Americacold. A Virgnised People let go all holts, and part with their All. It is no longer a Domnationbut an Obsession. Then a Po-ssession! Then come the Levelled Baynets of Europe. Why so? Because the liquors peddled out, sir, under armed European guards to the elderly, pleadin American Whites who pass over their title-deedstheir businesses, factries, canals, sky-scrapers, town-lots, farms, little happy-lookin homeseverythingfor it. You can see em wadin into the ocean, from Oyster Bay to Palm Beach, under great flarin sunsets of National Decay, to get at the stuff sooner. And Europes got em by the gulletpeddlin out the cases, or a single bottle at a time, to each accordin to his needunder the Levelled Baynets of Europe.
But why lay all the responsibility on Europe? I broke in. Surely some progressive American Liquor Trust would have been m the game from the first?
Sure! But the Appeal is National, and there are some things, sir, that the American People will not stand for. It was Europe or nothing. Otherwise, I could not have stressed the effect of the Levelled Baynets of Europe. You see those baynets keepin order in the vast cathedrals of the new religionsthe broken whisky bottles round the altarthe Priest himself, old and virgnised, pleadin and prayin with his flock till, in the zeenith of his agony an his denunciations, he too falls an wallows with the rest of em! Extravgant? No! Logic. An so it spreads, from West to East, from East to West up to the dividin line where the European and the Asiatic Liquor Trust have parcelled out the Land o Presumption. No paltry rum-peddlin at tradinposts this time, but mile-long electric freight-trains, surgin and swoopin from San Francisco an Boston with their seven thousand ton of alcohol, till they meet head-on at the Liquor Line, an you see the little American People fawnin an pleadin round their big wheels an tryin to slip in under the Levelled Baynets of Europe to handle and touch the stuff, even if they cant drink it. Its horriblehorrible! The Wages of Sin! The Death of the She-Domnated Sons of Presumption!
He stood up, his head high in the caravans resonant roof, and mopped his face.
Go on ! I said.
There aint much more. You see the devirgnised European an the immemorially sophisticated Asiatic, who can hold their liquor, spreadin out an occupyin the land (the signs in the streets register that) likelike a lavva-flow in Honolulu. Theres jest a hint, too, of the Return of the Great Scourge, an how it fed on all this fresh human meat. Jest a few feet of the flesh rottin off the bonessame as when Syphlis originated in the Re-nay-sanse Epoch. Last of alldate not specifiedwill be the herdin of the few survivin Americans into their reservation in the Yellowstone Park by a few slouchin, crippled, remnants of the Redskins. Get me? Presumptions Ultimate Reward. The Wheel Comes Full Circle. An the final close-up of Rum-in-the-Cup with his Hate-Mission accomplished.
He stooped again to the photos in the bunk-locker.
I shot that, he said, when I was in the Yellowstone. Its a document to build up my Last Note on. Theyre jest a party of tourists watchin grizzly bears rakin in the hotel dumpheaps (they keep em to show). That wet light hits back well off their clothes, dont it?
I saw six or seven men and women, in pale-coloured raincoats, gathered, with no pretence at pose, in a little glade. One man was turning up his collar, another stooping to a bootlace, while a woman opened her umbrella over him. They faced towards a dimly defined heap of rubbish and tins; and they looked unutterably mean.
Yes. He took it back from me. That would have been the final notethe domnant resolvin into a minor. But it dont matter now.
Doesnt it? I said, stupidly enough.
Not to me, sir. My ChurchIm a Fundamentalist, an I didnt read em more than half the scenariostarted out by disownin me for aspersin the National Honour. A bunch of our home papers got holt of it next. They said I was a rengade an done it for dollars. An then the ladies on the Social Betterment an Uplift Committees took a hand. In your country you dont know the implications of that! ImIm a one-hundred-per-cent. American, butI didnt know what men an women are. I guess none of us do at home, or wed say so, instead o playin at being American Citzens. Theres no law with Us under which a man can be jailed for aspersin the National Honour. Theres no need. It got into the Legislature, an one Senator there he spoke for an hour, demandin to have me unanimously an internationally disavowed byby my Maker, I presoom. No one else stood by me. Id been to the big Jew combines that control the Movie business m our country. Id been to Heuvelsteinhe represents sixty-seven million dollars interests. They say hes never read a scenario in his life. He read every last word of mine aloud. He laughed some, but he said he was doin well in a small way, and he didnt propose to start up any pogroms against the Chosen in New York. He said I was ahead of my time. I know that. An thenmy wifes best friend was back of thisfolk at home got talkin about callin for an inquiry into my state o mind, an whether I was fit to run my own affairs. I saw a lawyer or two over that, an I came to a realism sense of American Law an Justice. That was another of the things I didnt know. It made me sick to my stummick, sirsick with physical an mental terror an dread. So I quit. I changed my name an quit two years back. Those ancient prophets an martyrs havent got much on me in the things a Democracy hands you if you dont see eye to eye with it. Therefore, I have no abidinplace except this old caravan. Now, sir, we two are like ships that pass in the night, except, as I said, Ill be very pleased to tow you into Doncaster this morning. Is there anythin about me strikes you in anyway as deviatin from sanity?
Not m the least, I replied quickly. But what have you done with your scenario?
Deposited it in the Bank of England at London.
Would you sell it?
No, sir.
Couldnt it be produced here?
I am a one-hundred-per-cent. American. The way I see it, I could not be a party to an indirect attack on my Native Land.
Once again he ground his jaws. There did not seem to be much left to say. The heat in the shut caravan was more and more oppressive. Time had stood still with me listening. I was aware now that the owls had ceased hooting and that a night had gone out of the world. I rose from the bunk. Mr. Tarworth, carefully rebuttoning his raincoat, opened the door.
Good Lord Gord Almighty! he cried, with a childs awed reverence. Its sun-up. Look!
Daylight was just on the heels of dawn, with the sun following. The icy-blackness of the Great North Road banded itself with smoking mists that changed from solid pearl to writhing opal, as they lifted above hedge-row level. The dew-wet leaves of the upper branches turned suddenly into diamond facets, and that wind, which runs before the actual upheaval of the sun, swept out of the fragrant lands to the East, and touched my cheekas many times it had touched it before, on the edge, or at the ends, of inconceivable experiences.
My companion breathed deeply, while the low glare searched the folds of his coat and the sags and wrinkles of his face. We heard the far-away pulse of a car through the infinite, clean-born, light-filled stillness. It neared and stole round the benda motor-hearse on its way to some early or distant funeral, one side of the bright oak coffin showing beneath the pall, which had slipped a little. Then it vanished in a blaze of wet glory from the sun-drenched road, amid the songs of a thousand birds.
Mr. Tarworth laid his hand on my shoulder.
Say, Neighbour, he said. Theres somethin very soothin in the Concept of Death after all.
Then he set himself, kindly and efficiently, to tow me towards Doncaster, where, when the days life should begin again, one might procure a new magneto make-and-breakthat tiny two-inch spring of finest steel, failure of which immobilises any car.
GOW (to Ferdinand). The Queens host would be delivered me to-daybut that these Mountain Men have sent battalia to hold the Pass. Theyre shod, helmed and torqued with soft gold. For the rest, naked. By no argument can I persuade em their gilt carcasses against my bombards avail not. Whats to do, Fox?
FERDINAND. Fatherless folk go furthest. These loud pagans
Are doubly fatherless. Consider; they came
Over the passes, out of all mans world
Adullamites, unable to endure
Its ancient pinch and belly-achefull of revenges
Or wilfully forgetful. The land they found
Was manless-her raw airs uncloven by speech,
Earth without wheel-track, hoof-mark, hearth or ploughshare
Since God created; nor even a cave where men,
When night was a new thing, had hid themselves.
GOW. Excellent. Do I fight them, or let go?
FERDINAND. Unused earth, air and water for their spoil,
And none to make comparison of their deeds.
No unbribed dead to judge, accuse em or comfort
Their present all their future and their past.
What should they know of reasonlitters of folk
New whelped to emptiness?
GOW. Nothing. They bar my path.
FERDINAND. Turn it, thenturn it.
Give them their triumph. Theyll be wiser anon
Some thirty generations hence.
GOW. Amen! Im no disposed murderer. (To the Mountain Men) Most magnificent Señors! Lords of all Suns, Moons, FirmamentsSole Architects of Yourselves and this present Universe! Yon Philosopher in the hairy cloak bids me wait only a thousand years, till yeve sorted yourselves more to the likeness of mankind.
THE PRIEST OF THE MOUNTAIN MEN. There are none beside ourselves to lead the world!
GOW. That is common knowledge. I supplicate you to allow us the head of the Pass, that we may better reach the Queens host yonder. Ye will not? Why?
THE PRIEST. Because it is our will. There is none other law for all the earth.
GOW. (That a few feet of snow on a nest of rocky mountains should have hatched this dream-people!) (To Priest) Ye have reason in natureall youve known of it . . . Buta thousand yearsI fear they will not suffice.
THE PRIEST. Go you back! We hold the passes into and out of the world. Do you defy us?
FERDINAND. (To Gow) I warned you. Theres none like them under Heaven. Say it!
GOW. Defy your puissance, Señors? Not I. Well have our bombards away, all, by noon; and our poor hosts with them. And you, Señors, shall have your triumph upon us.
FERDINAND. Ah! That touches! Let them shout and blow their horns half a day and theyll not think of aught else!
GOW. Fall to your riots then! Señors, ye have won. Well leave you the head of the Passfor thirty generations. (Loudly) The mules to the bombards and away!
FERDINAND. Most admirably you spoke to my poor text.
GOW. Maybe the better, Fox, because the discourse has drawn them to the head of the Pass. Meantime, our main body has taken the lower road, with all the Artillery.
FERDINAND. Had you no bombards here, then?
GOW. None, Innocence, at all! None, except your talk and theirs
I had attacked the distance several times, but always with a Mistral blowing, or the unchancy cattle of those parts on the move. But once, running from the East, into a high-piled, almost Egyptian, sunset, there came a night which it would have been sin to have wasted. It was warm with the breath of summer in advance; moonlit till the shadow of every rounded pebble and pointed cypress wind-break lay solid on that vast flat-floored waste; and my Mr. Leggatt, who had slipped out to make sure, reported that the roadsurface was unblemished.
Now, he suggested, we might see what shell do under strict road-conditions. Shes been pullin like the Blue de Luxe all day. Unless Im all off, its her night out.
We arranged the trial for after dinnerthirty kilometres as near as might be; and twenty-two of them without even a level crossing.
There sat beside me at table dhôte an elderly, bearded Frenchman wearing the rosette of by no means the lowest grade of the Legion of Honour, who had arrived in a talkative Citroën. I gathered that he had spent much of his life in the French Colonial Service in Annam and Tonquin. When the war came, his years barring him from the front line, he had supervised Chinese wood-cutters who, with axe and dynamite, deforested the centre of France for trench-props. He said my chauffeur had told him that I contemplated an experiment. He was interested in carshad admired minewould, in short, be greatly indebted to me if I permitted him to assist as an observer. One could not well refuse; and, knowing my Mr. Leggatt, it occurred to me there might also be a bet in the background.
While he went to get his coat, I asked the proprietor his name. VoironMonsieur André Voiron, was the reply. And his business? Mon Dieu! He is Voiron! He is all those things, there! The proprietor waved his hands at brilliant advertisements on the dining-room walls, which declared that Voiron Frères dealt in wines, agricultural implements, chemical manures, provisions and produce throughout that part of the globe.
He said little for the first five minutes of our trip, and nothing at all for the next tenit being, as Leggatt had guessed, Esmeraldas night out. But, when her indicator climbed to a certain figure and held there for three blinding kilometres, he expressed himself satisfied, and proposed to me that we should celebrate the event at the hotel. I keep yonder, said he, a wine on which I should value your opinion.
On our return, he disappeared for a few minutes, and I heard him rumbling in a cellar. The proprietor presently invited me to the dining-room, where, beneath one frugal light, a table had been set with local dishes of renown. There was, too, a bottle beyond most known sizes, marked black on red, with a date. Monsieur Voiron opened it, and we drank to the health of my car. The velvety, perfumed liquor, between fawn and topaz, neither too sweet nor too dry, creamed in its generous glass. But I knew no wine composed of the whispers of angels wings, the breath of Eden and the foam and pulse of Youth renewed. So I asked what it might be.
It is champagne, he said gravely.
Then what have I been drinking all my life?
If you were lucky, before the War, and paid thirty shillings a bottle, it is possible you may have drunk one of our better-class tisanes.
And where does one get this?
Here, I am happy to say. Elsewhere, perhaps, it is not so easy. We growers exchange these real wines among ourselves.
I bowed my head in admiration, surrender, and joy. There stood the most ample bottle, and it was not yet eleven oclock. Doors locked and shutters banged throughout the establishment. Some last servant yawned on his way to bed. Monsieur Voiron opened a window and the moonlight flooded in from a small pebbled court outside. One could almost hear the town of Chambres breathing in its first sleep. Presently, there was a thick noise in the air, the passing of feet and hooves, lowings, and a stifled bark or two. Dust rose over the courtyard wall, followed by the strong smell of cattle.
They are moving some beasts, said Monsieur Voiron, cocking an ear. Mine, I think. Yes, I hear Christophe. Our beasts do not like automobilesso we move at night. You do not know our countrythe Crau, here, or the Camargue? I wasI am now, againof it. All France is good; but this is the best. He spoke, as only a Frenchman can, of his own loved part of his own lovely land.
For myself, if I were not so involved in all these affairshe pointed to the advertisementsI would live on our farm with my cattle, and worship them like a Hindu. You know our cattle of the Camargue, Monsieur? No? It is not an acquaintance to rush upon lightly. There are no beasts like them. They have a mentality superior to that of others. They graze and they ruminate, by choice, facing our Mistral, which is more than some automobiles will do. Also they have in them the potentiality of thoughtand when cattle thinkI have seen what arrives.
Are they so clever as all that? I asked idly.
Monsieur, when your sportif chauffeur camouflaged your limousine so that she resembled one of your Army lorries, I would not believe her capacities. I bet himahtwo to oneshe would not touch ninety kilometres. It was proved that she could. I can give you no proof, but will you believe me if I tell you what a beast who thinks can achieve?
After the War, said I spaciously, everything is credible.
That is true! Everything inconceivable has happened; but still we learn nothing and we believe nothing. When I was a child in my fathers housebefore I became a Colonial Administratormy interest and my affection were among our cattle. We of the old rock live herehave you seen?in big farms like castles. Indeed, some of them may have been Saracenic. The barns group round themgreat white-walled barns, and yards solid as our houses. One gate shuts all. It is a world apart; an administration of all that concerns beasts. It was there I learned something about cattle. You see, they are our playthings in the Camargue and the Crau. The boy measures his strength against the calf that butts him in play among the manure-heaps. He moves in and out among the cows, who arenot so amiable. He rides with the herdsmen in the open to shift the herds. Sooner or later, he meets as bulls the little calves that knocked him over. So it was with metill it became necessary that I should go to our Colonies. He laughed. Very necessary. That is a good time in youth, Monsieur, when one does these things which shock our parents. Why is it always Papa who is so shocked and has never heard of such thingsand Mamma who supplies the excuses? . . . And when my brothermy elder who stayed and created the businessbegged me to return and help him, I resigned my Colonial career gladly enough. I returned to our own lands, and my well-loved, wicked white and yellow cattle of the Camargue and the Crau. My Faith, I could talk of them all night, for this stuff unlocks the heart, without making repentance in the morning . . . . Yes! It was after the War that this happened. There was a calf, among Heaven knows how many of oursa bull-calfan infant indistinguishable from his companions. He was sick, and he had been taken up with his mother into the big farmyard at home with us. Naturally the children of our herdsmen practised on him from the first. It is in their blood. The Spaniards make a cult of bull-fighting. Our little devils down here bait bulls as automatically as the English child kicks or throws balls. This calf would chase them with his eyes open, like a cow when she hunts a man. They would take refuge behind our tractors and wine-carts in the centre of the yard: he would chase them in and out as a dog hunts rats. More than that, he would study their psychology, his eyes in their eyes. Yes, he watched their faces to divine which way they would run. He himself, also, would pretend sometimes to charge directly at a boy. Then he would wheel right or leftone could never telland knock over some child pressed against a wall who thought himself safe. After this, he would stand over him, knowing that his companions must come to his aid; and when they were all together, waving their jackets across his eyes and pulling his tail, he would scatter themhow he would scatter them! He could kick, too, sideways like a cow. He knew his ranges as well as our gunners, and he was as quick on his feet as our Carpentier. I observed him often. Christophethe man who passed just nowour chief herdsman, who had taught me to ride with our beasts when I was ten-Christophe told me that he was descended from a yellow cow of those days that had chased us once into the marshes. He kicks just like her, said Christophe. He can side-kick as he jumps. Have you seen, too, that he is not deceived by the jacket when a boy waves it? He uses it to find the boy. They think they are feeling him. He is feeling them always. He thinks, that one. I had come to the same conclusion. Yesthe creature was a thinker along the lines necessary to his sport; and he was a humorist also, like so many natural murderers. One knows the type among beasts as well as among men. It possesses a curious truculent mirthalmost indecent but infallibly significant
Monsieur Voiron replenished our glasses with the great wine that went better at each descent.
They kept him for some time in the yards to practise upon. Naturally he became a little brutal; so Christophe turned him out to learn manners among his equals in the grazing lands, where the Camargue joins the Crau. How old was he then? About eight or nine months, I think. We met again a few months laterhe and I. I was riding one of our little half-wild horses, along a road of the Crau, when I found myself almost unseated. It was he! He had hidden himself behind a wind-break till we passed, and had then charged my horse from behind. Yes, he had deceived even my little horse! But I recognised him. I gave him the whip across the nose, and I said: Apis, for this thou goest to Arles! It was unworthy of thee, between us two. But that creature had no shame. He went away laughing, like an Apache. If he had dismounted me, I do not think it is I who would have laughedyearling as he was.
Why did you want to send him to Arles? I asked.
For the bull-ring. When your charming tourists leave us, we institute our little amusements there. Not a real bull-fight, you understand, but young bulls with padded horns, and our boys from hereabouts and in the city go to play with them. Naturally, before we send them we try them in our yards at home. So we brought up Apis from his pastures. He knew at once that he was among the friends of his youthhe almost shook hands with themand he submitted like an angel to padding his horns. He investigated the carts and tractors in the yards, to choose his lines of defence and attack. And thenhe attacked with an élan, and he defended with a tenacity and forethought that delighted us. In truth, we were so pleased that I fear we trespassed upon his patience. We desired him to repeat himself, which no true artist will tolerate. But he gave us fair warning. He went out to the centre of the yard, where there was some dry earth; he kneeled down andyou have seen a calf whose horns fret him thrusting and rooting into a bank? He did just that, very deliberately, till he had rubbed the pads off his horns. Then he rose, dancing on those wonderful feet that twinkled, and he said: Now, my friends, the buttons are off the foils. Who begins? We understood. We finished at once. He was turned out again on the pastures till it should be time to amuse them at our little metropolis. But, some time before he went to Arlesyes, I think I have it correctlyChristophe, who had been out on the Crau, informed me that Apis had assassinated a young bull who had given signs of developing into a rival. That happens, of course, and our herdsmen should prevent it. But Apis had killed in his own styleat dusk, from the ambush of a wind-breakby an oblique charge from behind which knocked the other over. He had then disembowelled him. All very possible, butthe murder accomplishedApis went to the bank of a wind-break, knelt, and carefully, as he had in our yard, cleaned his horns in the earth. Christophe, who had never seen such a thing, at once borrowed (do you know, it is most efficacious when taken that way?) some Holy Water from our little chapel in those pastures, sprinkled Apis (whom it did not affect), and rode in to tell me. It was obvious that a thinker of that bulls type would also be meticulous in his toilette; so, when he was sent to Arles, I warned our consignees to exercise caution with him. Happily, the change of scene, the music, the general attention, and the meeting again with old friendsall our bad boys attendedagreeably distracted him. He became for the time a pure farceur again; but his wheelings, his rushes, his rat-huntings were more superb than ever. There was in them now, you understand, a breadth of technique that comes of reasoned art, and, above all, the passion that arrives after experience. Oh, he had learned, out there on the Crau! At the end of his little turn, he was, according to local rules, to be handled in all respects except for the sword, which was a stick, as a professional bull who must die. He was manoeuvred into, or he posed himself in, the proper attitude; made his rush; received the point on his shoulder and thenturned about and cantered toward the door by which he had entered the arena. He said to the world: My friends, the representation is ended. I thank you for your applause. I go to repose myself. But our Arlesians, who arenot so clever as some, demanded an encore, and Apis was headed back again. We others from his country, we knew what would happen. He went to the centre of the ring, kneeled, and, slowly, with full parade, plunged his horns alternately in the dirt till the pads came off. Christophe shouts: Leave him alone, you straight-nosed imbeciles! Leave him before you must. But they required emotion; for Rome has always debauched her loved Provincia with bread and circuses. It was given. Have you, Monsieur, ever seen a servant, with pan and broom, sweeping round the base-board of a room? In a half-minute Apis has them all swept out and over the barrier. Then he demands once more that the door shall be opened to him. It is opened and he retires as thoughwhich, truly, is the caseloaded with laurels.
Monsieur Voiron refilled the glasses, and allowed himself a cigarette, which he puffed for some time.
And afterwards? I said.
I am arranging it in my mind. It is difficult to do it justice. Afterwardsyes, afterwardsApis returned to his pastures and his mistresses and I to my business. I am no longer a scandalous old sportif in shirt-sleeves howling encouragement to the yellow son of a cow. I revert to Voiron Frèreswines, chemical manures, et cetera. And next year, through some chicane which I have not the leisure to unravel, and also, thanks to our patriarchal system of paying our older men out of the increase of the herds, old Christophe possesses himself of Apis. Oh, yes, he proves it through descent from a certain cow that my father had given his father before the Republic. Beware, Monsieur, of the memory of the illiterate man! An ancestor of Christophe had been a soldier under our Soult against your Beresford, near Bayonne. He fell into the hands of Spanish guerrillas. Christophe and his wife used to tell me the details on certain Saints Days when I was a child. Now, as compared with our recent war, Soults campaign and retreat across the Bidassoa
But did you allow Christophe just to annex the bull? I demanded.
You do not know Christophe. He had sold him to the Spaniards before he informed me. The Spaniards pay in coindouros of very pure silver. Our peasants mistrust our paper. You know the saying: A thousand francs paper; eight hundred metal, and the cow is yours. Yes, Christophe sold Apis, who was then two and a half years old, and to Christophes knowledge thrice at least an assassin.
How was that? I said.
Oh, his own kind only; and always, Christophe told me, by the same oblique rush from behind, the same sideways overthrow, and the same swift disembowelment, followed by this levitical cleaning of the horns. In human life he would have kept a manicuristthis Minotaur. And so, Apis disappears from our country. That does not trouble me. I know in due time I shall be advised. Why? Because, in this land, Monsieur, not a hoof moves between Berre and the Saintes Maries without the knowledge of specialists such as Christophe. The beasts are the substance and the drama of their lives to them. So when Christophe tells me, a little before Easter Sunday, that Apis makes his debut in the bull-ring of a small Catalan town on the road to Barcelona, it is only to pack my car and trundle there across the frontier with him. The place lacked importance and manufactures, but it had produced a matador of some reputation, who was condescending to show his art in his native town. They were even running one special train to the place. Now our French railway system is only execrable, but the Spanish
You went down by road, didnt you? said I.
Naturally. It was not too good. Villamarti was the matadors name. He proposed to kill two bulls for the honour of his birthplace. Apis, Christophe told me, would be his second. It was an interesting trip, and that little city by the sea was ravishing. Their bull-ring dates from the middle of the seventeenth century. It is full of feeling. The ceremonial toowhen the horsemen enter and ask the Mayor in his box to throw down the keys of the bull-ringthat was exquisitely conceived. You know, if the keys are caught in the horsemans hat, it is considered a good omen. They were perfectly caught. Our seats were in the front row beside the gates where the bulls enter, so we saw everything.
Villamartis first bull was not too badly killed. The second matador, whose name escapes me, killed his without distinctiona foil to Villamarti. And the third, Chisto, a laborious, middle-aged professional who had never risen beyond a certain dull competence, was equally of the background. Oh, they are as jealous as the girls of the Comédie Française, these matadors! Villamartis troupe stood ready for his second bull. The gates opened, and we saw Apis, beautifully balanced on his feet, peer coquettishly round the corner, as though he were at home. A picadora mounted man with the long lance-goadstood near the barrier on his right. He had not even troubled to turn his horse, for the capeadorsthe men with the cloakswere advancing to play Apisto feel his psychology and intentions, according to the rules that are made for bulls who do not think . . . . I did not realise the murder before it was accomplished! The wheel, the rush, the oblique charge from behind, the fall of horse and man were simultaneous. Apis leaped the horse, with whom he had no quarrel, and alighted, all four feet together (it was enough), between the mans shoulders, changed his beautiful feet on the carcass, and was away, pretending to fall nearly on his nose. Do you follow me? In that instant, by that stumble, he produced the impression that his adorable assassination was a mere bestial blunder. Then, Monsieur, I began to comprehend that it was an artist we had to deal with. He did not stand over the body to draw the rest of the troupe. He chose to reserve that trick. He let the attendants bear out the dead, and went on to amuse himself among the capeadors. Now to Apis, trained among our children in the yards, the cloak was simply a guide to the boy behind it. He pursued, you understand, the person, not the propagandathe proprietor, not the journal. If a third of our electors of France were as wise, my friend! . . . But it was done leisurely, with humour and a touch of truculence. He romped after one mans cloak as a clumsy dog might do, but I observed that he kept the man on his terrible left side. Christophe whispered to me: Wait for his mothers kick. When he has made the fellow confident it will arrive. It arrived in the middle of a gambol. My God! He lashed out in the air as he frisked. The man dropped like a sack, lifted one hand a little towards his head, andthat was all. So you see, a body was again at his disposition; a second time the cloaks ran up to draw him off, but, a second time, Apis refused his grand scene. A second time he acted that his murder was accident and he convinced his audience! It was as though he had knocked over a bridge-gate in the marshes by mistake. Unbelievable? I saw it.
The memory sent Monsieur Voiron again to the champagne, and I accompanied him.
But Apis was not the sole artist present. They say Villamarti comes of a family of actors. I saw him regard Apis with a new eye. He, too, began to understand. He took his cloak and moved out to play him before they should bring on another picador. He had his reputation. Perhaps Apis knew it. Perhaps Villamarti reminded him of some boy with whom he had practised at home. At any rate Apis permitted itup to a certain point; but he did not allow Villamarti the stage. He cramped him throughout. He dived and plunged clumsily and slowly, but always with menace and always closing in. We could see that the man was conforming to the bullnot the bull to the man; for Apis was playing him towards the centre of the ring, and, in a little whileI watched his faceVillamarti knew it. But I could not fathom the creatures motive. Wait, said old Christophe. He wants that picador on the white horse yonder. When he reaches his proper distance he will get him. Villamarti is his cover. He used me once that way. And so it was, my friend! With the clang of one of our own Seventy-fives, Apis dismissed Villamarti with his chestbreasted him overand had arrived at his objective near the barrier. The same oblique charge; the head carried low for the sweep of the horns; the immense sideways fall of the horse, broken-legged and half-paralysed; the senseless man on the ground, andbehold Apis between them, backed against the barrierhis right covered by the horse; his left by the body of the man at his feet. The simplicity of it! Lacking the carts and tractors of his early parade-grounds he, being a genius, had extemporised with the materials at hand, and dug himself in. The troupe closed up again, their left wing broken by the kicking horse, their right immobilised by the mans body which Apis bestrode with significance. Villamarti almost threw himself between the horns, butit was more an appeal than an attack. Apis refused him. He held his base. A picador was sent at himnecessarily from the front, which alone was open. Apis chargedhe who, till then, you realise, had not used the horn! The horse went over backwards, the man half beneath him. Apis halted, hooked him under the heart, and threw him to the barrier. We heard his head crack, but he was dead before he hit the wood. There was no demonstration from the audience. They, also, had begun to realise this Foch among bulls! The arena occupied itself again with the dead. Two of the troupe irresolutely tried to play himGod knows in what hope!but he moved out to the centre of the ring. Look! said Christophe. Now he goes to clean himself. That always frightened me. He knelt down; he began to clean his horns. The earth was hard. He worried at it in an ecstasy of absorption. As he laid his head along and rattled his ears, it was as though he were interrogating the Devils themselves upon their secrets, and always saying impatiently: Yes, I know thatand thatand that! Tell me moremore! In the silence that covered us, a woman cried: He digs a grave! Oh, Saints, he digs a grave! Some others echoed thisnot loudlyas a wave echoes in a grotto of the sea.
And when his horns were cleaned, he rose up and studied poor Villamartis troupe, eyes in eyes, one by one, with the gravity of an equal in intellect and the remote and merciless resolution of a master in his art. This was more terrifying than his toilette.
And theyVillamartis men? I asked.
Like the audience, were dominated. They had ceased to posture, or stamp, or address insults to him. They conformed to him. The two other matadors stared. Only Chisto, the oldest, broke silence with some call or other, and Apis turned his head towards him. Otherwise he was isolated, immobilesombremeditating on those at his mercy. Ah!
For some reason the trumpet sounded for the banderillasthose gay hooked darts that are planted in the shoulders of bulls who do not think, after their neck-muscles are tired by lifting horses. When such bulls feel the pain, they check for an instant, and, in that instant, the men step gracefully aside. Villamartis banderillero answered the trumpet mechanicallylike one condemned. He stood out, poised the darts and stammered the usual patter of invitation . . . . And after? I do not assert that Apis shrugged his shoulders, but he reduced the episode to its lowest elements, as could only a bull of Gaul. With his truculence was mingled alwaysowing to the shortness of his taila certain Rabelaisian abandon, especially when viewed from the rear. Christophe had often commented upon it. Now, Apis brought that quality into play. He circulated round that boy, forcing him to break up his beautiful poses. He studied him from various angles, like an incompetent photographer. He presented to him every portion of his anatomy except his shoulders. At intervals he feigned to run in upon him. My God, he was cruel! But his motive was obvious. He was playing for a laugh from the spectators which should synchronise with the fracture of the human morale. It was achieved. The boy turned and ran towards the barrier. Apis was on him before the laugh ceased; passed him; headed himwhat do I say?herded him off to the left, his horns beside and a little in front of his chest: he did not intend him to escape into a refuge. Some of the troupe would have closed in, but Villamarti cried: If he wants him he will take him. Stand! They stood. Whether the boy slipped or Apis nosed him over I could not see. But he dropped, sobbing. Apis halted like a car with four brakes, struck a pose, smelt him very completely and turned away. It was dismissal more ignominious than degradation at the head of ones battalion. The representation was finished. Remained only for Apis to clear his stage of the subordinate characters.
Ah! His gesture then! He gave a dramatic startthis Cyrano of the Camargueas though he was aware of them for the first time. He moved. All their beautiful breeches twinkled for an instant along the top of the barrier. He held the stage alone! But Christophe and I, we trembled! For, observe, he had now involved himself in a stupendous drama of which he only could supply the third act. And, except for an audience on the razor-edge of emotion, he had exhausted his material. Molière himselfwe have forgotten, my friend, to drink to the health of that great soulmight have been at a loss. And Tragedy is but a step behind Failure. We could see the four or five Civil Guards, who are sent always to keep order, fingering the breeches of their rifles. They were but waiting a word from the Mayor to fire on him, as they do sometimes at a bull who leaps the barrier among the spectators. They would, of course, have killed or wounded several peoplebut that would not have saved Apis.
Monsieur Voiron drowned the thought at once, and wiped his beard.
At that moment Fatethe Genius of France, if you willsent to assist in the incomparable finale, none other than Chisto, the eldest, and I should have said (but never again will I judge!) the least inspired of all; mediocrity itself, but at heartand it is the heart that conquers always, my friendat heart an artist. He descended stiffly into the arena, alone and assured. Apis regarded him, his eyes in his eyes. The man took stance, with his cloak, and called to the bull as to an equal: Now, Señor, we will show these honourable caballeros something together. He advanced thus against this thinker who at a plungea kicka thrustcould, we all knew, have extinguished him. My dear friend, I wish I could convey to you something of the unaffected bonhomie, the humour, the delicacy, the consideration bordering on respect even, with which Apis, the supreme artist, responded to this invitation. It was the Master, wearied after a strenuous hour in the atelier, unbuttoned and at ease with some not inexpert but limited disciple. The telepathy was instantaneous between them. And for good reason! Christophe said to me: Alls well. That Chisto began among the bulls. I was sure of it when I heard him call just now. He has been a herdsman. Hell pull it off. There was a little feeling and adjustment, at first, for mutual distances and allowances.
Oh, yes! And here occurred a gross impertinence of Villamarti. He had, after an interval, followed Chistoto retrieve his reputation. My Faith! I can conceive the elder Dumas slamming his door on an intruder precisely as Apis did. He raced Villamarti into the nearest refuge at once. He stamped his feet outside it, and he snorted: Go! I am engaged with an artist. Villamarti wenthis reputation left behind for ever.
Apis returned to Chisto saying: Forgive the interruption. I am not always master of my time, but you were about to observe, my dear confrere . . . ? Then the play began. Out of compliment to Chisto, Apis chose as his objective (every bull varies in this respect) the inner edge of the cloakthat nearest to the mans body. This allows but a few millimetres clearance in charging. But Apis trusted himself as Chisto trusted him, and, this time, he conformed to the man, with inimitable judgment and temper. He allowed himself to be played into the shadow or the sun, as the delighted audience demanded. He raged enormously; he feigned defeat; he despaired in statuesque abandon, and thence flashed into fresh paroxysms of wrathbut always with the detachment of the true artist who knows he is but the vessel of an emotion whence others, not he, must drink. And never once did he forget that honest Chistos cloak was to him the gauge by which to spare even a hair on the skin. He inspired Chisto too. My God! His youth returned to that meritorious beef-stickerthe desire, the grace, and the beauty of his early dreams. One could almost see that girl of the past for whom he was rising, rising to these present heights of skill and daring. It was his hour tooa miraculous hour of dawn returned to gild the sunset. All he knew was at Apis disposition. Apis acknowledged it with all that he had learned at home, at Arles and in his lonely murders on our grazing-grounds. He flowed round Chisto like a river of deathround his knees, leaping at his shoulders, kicking just clear of one side or the other of his head; behind his back, hissing as he shaved by; and once or twiceinimitable!he reared wholly up before him while Chisto slipped back from beneath the avalanche of that instructed body. Those two, my dear friend, held five thousand people dumb with no sound but of their breathingsregular as pumps. It was unbearable. Beast and man realised together that we needed a change of notea détente. They relaxed to pure buffoonery. Chisto fell back and talked to him outrageously. Apis pretended he had never heard such language. The audience howled with delight. Chisto slapped him; he took liberties with his short tail, to the end of which he clung while Apis pirouetted; he played about him in all postures; he had become the herdsman againgross, careless, brutal, but comprehending. Yet Apis was always the more consummate clown. All that time (Christophe and I saw it) Apis drew off towards the gates of the toril where so many bulls enter buthave you ever heard of one that returned? We knew that Apis knew that as he had saved Chisto, so Chisto would save him. Life is sweet to us all; to the artist who lives many lives in one, sweetest. Chisto did not fail him. At the last, when none could laugh any longer, the man threw his cape across the bulls back, his arm round his neck. He flung up a hand at the gate, as Villamarti, young and commanding but not a herdsman, might have raised it, and he cried: Gentlemen, open to me and my honourable little donkey. They openedI have misjudged Spaniards in my time!those gates opened to the man and the bull together, and closed behind them. And then? From the Mayor to the Guardia Civil they went mad for five minutes, till the trumpets blew and the fifth bull rushed outan unthinking black Andalusian. I suppose some one killed him. My friend, my very dear friend, to whom I have opened my heart, I confess that I did not watch. Christophe and I, we were weeping together like children of the same Mother. Shall we drink to Her?
THERES a pasture in a valley where the hanging woods divide, And a Herd lies down and ruminates in peace; Where the pheasant rules the nooning, and the owl the twilight tide, And the war-cries of our world die out and cease. Here I cast aside the burden that each weary week-day brings And, delivered from the shadows I pursue, On peaceful, postless Sabbaths I consider Weighty Things Such as Sussex Cattle feeding in the dew!
At the gate beside the river where the trouty shallows brawl,
To a luscious sound of tearing, where the clovered herbage rips,
Here is colour, form and substance! I will put it to the proof
Theres a valley, under oakwood, where a man may dream his dream, |
UNLESS you come of the gipsy stock That steals by night and day, Lock your heart with a double lock And throw the key away. Bury it under the blackest stone Beneath your fathers hearth, And keep your eyes on your lawful own And your feet to the proper path. Then you can stand at your door and mock When the gipsy-vans come through . . . For it isnt right that the Gorgio stock Should live as the Romany do.
Unless you come of the gipsy blood
Unless you carry the gipsy eyes
Unless you come of the gipsy race |
Brother C. Strangwick, a young, tallish, new-made Brother, hailed from some South London Lodge. His papers and his answers were above suspicion, but his red-rimmed eyes had a puzzled glare that might mean nerves. So I introduced him particularly to Keede, who discovered in him a Headquarters Orderly of his old Battalion, congratulated him on his return to fitnesshe had been discharged for some infirmity or otherand plunged at once into Somme memories.
I hope I did right, Keede, I said when we were robing before Lodge.
Oh, quite. He reminded me that I had him under my hands at Sampoux in Eighteen, when he went to bits. He was a Runner.
Was it shock? I asked.
Of sortsbut not what he wanted me to think it was. No, he wasnt shamming. He had jumps to the limitbut he played up to mislead me about the reason of em . . . . Well, if we could stop patients from lying, medicine would be too easy, I suppose.
I noticed that, after Lodge-working, Keede gave him a seat a couple of rows in front of us, that he might enjoy a lecture on the Orientation of King Solomons Temple, which an earnest Brother thought would be a nice interlude between Labour and the high tea that we called our Banquet. Even helped by tobacco it was a dreary performance. About half-way through, Strangwick, who had been fidgeting and twitching for some minutes, rose, drove back his chair grinding across the tesselated floor, and yelped Oh, My Aunt! I cant stand this any longer. Under cover of a general laugh of assent he brushed past us and stumbled towards the door.
I thought so! Keede whispered to me. Come along! We overtook him in the passage, crowing hysterically and wringing his hands. Keede led him into the Tylers Room, a small office where we stored odds and ends of regalia and furniture, and locked the door.
ImIm all right, the boy began, piteously.
Course you are. Keede opened a small cupboard which I had seen called upon before, mixed sal volatile and water in a graduated glass, and, as Strangwick drank, pushed him gently on to an old sofa. There, he went on. Its nothing to write home about. Ive seen you ten times worse. I expect our talk has brought things back.
He hooked up a chair behind him with one foot, held the patients hands in his own, and sat down. The chair creaked.
Dont! Strangwick squealed. I cant stand it! Theres nothing on earth creaks like they do! Andand when it thaws weweve got to slap em back with a spa-ade ! Remember those Frenchmens little boots under the duckboards? . . . Whatll I do? Whatll I do about it?
Some one knocked at the door, to know if all were well.
Oh, quite, thanks! said Keede over his shoulder. But I shall need this room awhile. Draw the curtains, please.
We heard the rings of the hangings that drape the passage from Lodge to Banquet Room click along their poles, and what sound there had been, of feet and voices, was shut off.
Strangwick, retching impotently, complained of the frozen dead who creak in the frost.
Hes playing up still, Keede whispered. Thats not his real troubleany more than twas last time.
But surely, I replied, men get those things on the brain pretty badly. Remember in October
This chap hasnt, though. I wonder whats really helling him. What are you thinking of? said Keede peremptorily.
French End an Butchers Row, Strangwick muttered.
Yes, there were a few there. But suppose we face Bogey instead of giving him best every time. Keede turned towards me with a hint in his eye that I was to play up to his leads.
What was the trouble with French End? I opened at a venture.
It was a bit by Sampoux, that we had taken over from the French. Theyre tough, but you wouldnt call em tidy as a nation. They had faced both sides of it with dead to keep the mud back. All those trenches were like gruel in a thaw. Our people had to do the same sort of thingelsewhere; but Butchers Row in French End was theershow-piece. Luckily, we pinched a salient from Jerry just then, an straightened things outso we didnt need to use the Row after November. You remember, Strangwick?
My God, yes! When the Buckboard-slats were missin youd tread on em, an theyd creak.
Theyre bound to. Like leather, said Keede. It gets on ones nerves a bit, but
Nerves? Its real! Its real! Strangwick gulped.
But at your time of life, itll all fall behind you in a year or so. Ill give you another sip ofparegoric, an well face it quietly. Shall we?
Keede opened his cupboard again and administered a carefully dropped dark dose of something that was not sal volatile. Thisll settle you in a few minutes, he explained. Lie still, an dont talk unless you feel like it.
He faced me, fingering his beard.
Ye-es. Butchers Row wasnt pretty, he volunteered. Seeing Strangwick here, has brought it all back to me again. Funny thing! We had a Platoon Sergeant of Number Twowhat the deuce was his name?an elderly bird who must have lied like a patriot to get out to the front at his age; but he was a first-class Non-Com., and the last person, youd think, to make mistakes. Well, he was due for a fortnights home leave in January, Eighteen. You were at B.H.Q. then, Strangwick, werent you?
Yes. I was Orderly. It was January twenty-first; Strangwick spoke with a thickish tongue, and his eyes burned. Whatever drug it was, had taken hold.
About then, Keede said. Well, this Sergeant, instead of coming down from the trenches the regular way an joinin Battalion Details after dark, an takin that funny little train for Arras, thinks hell warm himself first. So he gets into a dug-out, in Butchers Row, that used to be an old French dressing-station, and fugs up between a couple of braziers of pure charcoal! As luck ud have it, that was the only dug-out with an inside door opening inwardssome French anti-gas fitting, I expectand, by what we could make out, the door must have swung to while he was warming. Anyhow, he didnt turn up at the train. There was a search at once. We couldnt afford to waste Platoon Sergeants. We found him in the morning. Hed got his gas all right. A machine-gunner reported him, didnt he, Strangwick?
No, Sir. Corporal Granto the Trench Mortars.
So it was. Yes, Grantthe man with that little wen on his neck. Nothing wrong with your memory, at any rate. What was the Sergeants name?
GodsoeJohn Godsoe, Strangwick answered.
Yes, that was it. I had to see him next morninfrozen stiff between the two braziersand not a scrap of private papers on him. That was the only thing that made me think it mightnt have beenquite an accident.
Strangwicks relaxing face set, and he threw back at once to the Orderly Room manner.
I give my evidenceat the timeto you, sir. He passedovertook me, I should saycomin down from supports, after Id warned him for leaf. I thought he was goin through Parrot Trench as usual; but e must ave turned off into French End where the old bombed barricade was.
Yes. I remember now. You were the last man to see him alive. That was on the twenty-first of January, you say? Now, when was it that Dearlove and Billings brought you to meclean out of your head? . . . Keede dropped his hand, in the style of magazine detectives, on Strangwicks shoulder. The boy looked at him with cloudy wonder, and muttered: I was took to you on the evenin of the twenty-fourth of January. But you dont think I did him in, do you?
I could not help smiling at Keedes discomfiture; but he recovered himself. Then what the dickens was on your mind that eveningbefore I gave you the hypodermic?
Thethe things in Butchers Row. They kept on comin over me. Youve seen me like this before, sir.
But I knew that it was a lie. Youd no more got stiffs on the brain then than you have now. Youve got something, but youre hiding it.
Ow do you know, Doctor? Strangwick whimpered.
Dyou remember what you said to me, when Dearlove and Billings were holding you down that evening?
About the things in Butchers Row?
Oh, no! You spun me a lot of stuff about corpses creaking; but you let yourself go in the middle of itwhen you pushed that telegram at me. What did you mean, frinstance, by asking what advantage it was for you to fight beasts of officers if the dead didnt rise?
Did I say Beasts of Officers?
You did. Its out of the Burial Service.
I suppose, then, I must have heard it. As a matter of fact, I ave. Strangwick shuddered extravagantly.
Probably. And theres another thingthat hymn you were shouting till I put you under. It was something about Mercy and Love. Remember it?
Ill try, said the boy obediently, and began to paraphrase, as nearly as possible thus: Whatever a man may say in his heart unto the Lord, yea, verily I say unto youGawd hath shown man, again and again, marvellous mercy anan somethin or other love. He screwed up his eyes and shook.
Now where did you get that from? Keede insisted.
From Godsoeon the twenty-first Jan . . . . Ow could I tell what e meant to do? he burst out in a high, unnatural keyAny more than I knew she was dead.
Who was dead? said Keede.
Me Auntie Armine.
The one the telegram came to you about, at Sampoux, that you wanted me to explainthe one that you were talking of in the passage out here just now when you began: O Auntie, and changed it to O Gawd, when I collared you?
Thats her! I havent a chance with you, Doctor. I didnt know there was anything wrong with those braziers. How could I? Were always usin em. Honest to God, I thought at first go-off he might wish to warm himself before the leaf-train. II didnt know Uncle John meant to startouse-keepin. He laughed horribly, and then the dry tears came.
Keede waited for them to pass in sobs and hiccoughs before he continued: Why? Was Godsoe your Uncle?
No, said Strangwick, his head between his hands. Only wed known him ever since we were born. Dad ad known him before that. He lived almost next street to us. Him an Dad an Ma anan the rest had always been friends. So we called him Unclelike children do.
What sort of man was he?
One o the best, sir. Pensioned Sergeant with a little money left himquite independentand very superior. They had a sittin-room full o Indian curios that him and his wife used to let sister an me see when wed been good.
Wasnt he rather old to join up?
That made no odds to him. He joined up as Sergeant Instructor at the first go-off, an when the Battalion was ready he got imself sent along. He wangled me into is Platoon when I went outearly in Seventeen. Because Ma wanted it, I suppose.
Id no notion you knew him that well, was Keedes comment.
Oh, it made no odds to him. He ad no pets in the Platoon, but ed write ome to Ma about me an all the doins. You seeStrangwick stirred uneasily on the sofawed known him all our liveslived in the next street an all . . . . An him well over fifty. Oh dear me! Oh dear me! What a bloody mix-up things are, when ones as young as me! he wailed of a sudden.
But Keede held him to the point. He wrote to your Mother about you?
Yes. Mas eyes had gone bad followin on air-raids. Blood-vessels broke behind em from sittin in cellars an bein sick. She had to ave er letters read to her by Auntie. Now I think of it, that was the only thing that you might have called anything at all
Was that the Aunt that died, and that you got the wire about? Keede drove on.
YesAuntie ArmineMas younger sister, an she nearer fifty than forty. What a mix-up! An if Id been asked any time about it, Id ave sworn there wasnt a single soltary item concernin her that everybody didnt know an hadnt known all along. No more conceal to her doins thanthan so much shop-front. Shed looked after sister an me, when needfulwhoopin cough an measles just the same as Ma. We was in an out of her house like rabbits. You see, Uncle Armine is a cabinet-maker, an second-and furniture, an we liked playin with the things. She ad no children, and when the war came, she said she was glad of it. But she never talked much of her feelins. She kept herself to herself, you understand. He stared most earnestly at us to help out our understandings.
What was she like? Keede inquired.
A biggish woman, an had been andsome, I believe, but, bein used to her, we two didnt notice muchexcept, peraps, for one thing. Ma called her er proper name, which was Bella; but Sis an me always called er Auntie Armine. See?
What for?
We thought it sounded more like herlike somethin movin slow, in armour.
Oh! And she read your letters to your mother, did she?
Every time the post came in shed slip across the road from opposite an read em. Anan Ill go bail for it that that was all there was to it for as far back as I remember. Was I to swing to-morrow, Id go bail for that! Tisnt fair of em to ave unloaded it all on me, becausebecauseif the dead do rise, why, what in ell becomes of me an all Ive believed all me life? I want to know that! II
But Keede would not be put off. Did the Sergeant give you away at all in his letters? he demanded, very quietly.
There was nothin to give awaywe was too busybut his letters about me were a great comfort to Ma. Im no good at writin. I saved it all up for my leafs. I got me fourteen days every six months an one over . . . . I was luckier than most, that way.
And when you came home, used you to bring em news about the Sergeant? said Keede.
I expect I must have; but I didnt think much of it at the time. I was took up with me own affairsnaturally. Uncle John always wrote to me once each leaf, tellin me what was doin an what I was lible to expect on return, an Ma ud ave that read to her. Then o course I had to slip over to his wife an pass her the news. An then there was the young lady that Id thought of marryin if I came through. Wed got as far as pricin things in the windows together.
And you didnt marry herafter all?
Another tremor shook the boy. No! he cried. Fore it ended, I knew what reel things reelly mean! II never dreamed such things could be! . . . An she nearer fifty than forty an me own Aunt! . . . But there wasnt a sign nor a hint from first to last, so ow could I tell? Dont you see it? All she said to me after me Christmas leaf in 18, when I come to say good-byeall Auntie Armine said to me was: Youll be seein Mister Godsoe soon? Too soon for my likings, I says. Well then, tell im from me, she says, that I expect to be through with my little trouble by the twenty-first of next month, an Im dyin to see him as soon as possible after that date.
What sort of trouble was it? Keede turned professional at once.
Shed ad a bit of a gatherin in er breast, I believe. But she never talked of er body much to any one.
see, said Keede. And she said to you?
Strangwick repeated: Tell Uncle John I hope to be finished of my drawback by the twenty-first, an Im dying to see im as soon as e can after that date. An then she says, laughin: But youve a head like a sieve. Ill write it down, an you can give it him when you see im. So she wrote it on a bit o paper an I kissed er good-byeI was always her favourite, you seean I went back to Sampoux. The thing hardly stayed in my mind at all, dyou see. But the next time I was up in the front lineI was a Runner, dye seeour platoon was in North Bay Trench an I was up with a message to the Trench Mortar there that Corporal Grant was in charge of. Followin on receipt of it, he borrowed a couple of men off the platoon, to slue er round or somethin. I give Uncle John Auntie Armines paper, an I give Grant a fag, an we warmed up a bit over a brazier. Then Grant says to me: I dont like it; an he jerks is thumb at Uncle John in the bay studyin Aunties message. Well, you know, sir, you had to speak to Grant about is way of prophesyin thingsafter Rankine shot himself with the Very light.
I did, said Keede, and he explained to me Grant had the Second Sightconfound him! It upset the men. I was glad when he got pipped. What happened after that, Strangwick?
Grant whispers to me: Look, you damned Englishman. Es for it. Uncle John was leanin up against the bay, an hummin that hymn I was tryin to tell you just now. He looked different all of a suddenas if ed got shaved. I dont know anything of these things, but I cautioned Grant as to his style of speakin, if an officer ad eard him, an I went on. Passin Uncle John in the bay, e nods an smiles, which he didnt often, an he says, pocketin the paper This suits me. Im for leaf on the twenty-first, too.
He said that to you, did he? said Keede.
Precisely the same as passin the time o day. O course I returned the agreeable about hopin hed get it, an in due course I returned to Eadquarters. The thing ardly stayed in my mind a minute. That was the eleventh Januarythree days after Id come back from leaf. You remember, sir, there wasnt anythin doin either side round Sampoux the first part o the month. Jerry was gettin ready for his March Push, an as long as he kept quiet, we didnt want to poke im up.
I remember that, said Keede. But what about the Sergeant?
I must have met him, on an off, I expect, goin up an down, through the ensuin days, but it didnt stay in me mind. Why needed it? And on the twenty-first Jan., his name was on the leaf-paper when I went up to warn the leaf-men. I noticed that, o course. Now that very afternoon Jerry ad been tryin a new trench-mortar, an before our Eavies could out it, hed got a stinker into a bay an mopped up alf a dozen. They were bringin em down when I went up to the supports, an that blocked Little Parrot, same as it always did. You remember, sir?
Rather! And there was that big machine-gun behind the Half-House waiting for you if you got out, said Keede.
I remembered that too. But it was just on dark an the fog was comin off the Canal, so I hopped out of Little Parrot an cut across the open to where those four dead Warwicks are heaped up. But the fog turned me round, an the next thing I knew I was knee-over in that old alf-trench that runs west o Little Parrot into French End. I dropped into italmost atop o the machine-gun platform by the side o the old sugar boiler an the two Zoo-ave skeltons. That gave me my bearins, an so I went through French End, all up those missin Buckboards, into Butchers Row where the poy-looz was laid in six deep each side, an stuffed under the Buckboards. It had froze tight, an the drippins had stopped, an the creakins had begun.
Did that really worry you at the time? Keede asked.
No, said the boy with professional scorn. If a Runner starts noticin such things hed better chuck. In the middle of the Row, just before the old dressin-station you referred to, sir, it come over me that somethin ahead on the Buckboards was just like Auntie Armine, waitin beside the door; an I thought to meself ow truly comic it would be if she could be dumped where I was then. In alf a second I saw it was only the dark an some rags o gas-screen, angin on a bit of board, ad played me the trick. So I went on up to the supports an warned the leaf-men there, includin Uncle John. Then I went up Rake Alley to warn em in the front line. I didnt hurry because I didnt want to get there till Jerry ad quieted down a bit. Well, then a Company Relief dropped inan the officer got the wind up over some lights on the flank, an tied em into knots, an I ad to hunt up me leaf-men all over the blinkin shop. What with one thing an another, it must ave been alf-past eight before I got back to the supports. There I run across Uncle John, scrapm mud off himself, havin shavedquite the dandy. He asked about the Arras train, an I said, if Jerry was quiet, it might be ten oclock. Good! says e. Ill come with you. So we started back down the old trench that used to run across Halnaker, back of the support dug-outs. You know, sir.
Keede nodded.
Then Uncle John says something to me about seein Ma an the rest of em in a few days, an had I any messages for em? Gawd knows what made me do it, but I told im to tell Auntie Armine I never expected to see anything like her up in our part of the world. And while I told him I laughed. Thats the last time I ave laughed. Ohyouve seen er, ave you? says he, quite natural-like. Then I told im about the sand-bags an rags in the dark, playin the trick. Very likely, says he, brushin the mud off his putties. By this time, wed got to the corner where the old barricade into French End wasbefore they bombed it down, sir. He turns right an climbs across it. No, thanks, says I. Ive been there once this evenin. But he wasnt attendin to me. He felt behind the rubbish an bones just inside the barricade, an when he straightened up, he had a full brazier in each hand.
Come on, Clem, he says, an he very rarely give me me own name. You arent afraid, are you? he says. Its just as short, an if Jerry starts up again he wont waste stuff here. He knows its abandoned. Whos afraid now? I says. Me for one, says he. I dont want my leaf spoiled at the last minute. Then e wheels round an speaks that bit you said come out o the Burial Service.
For some reason Keede repeated it in full, slowly: If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not?
Thats it, said Strangwick. So we went down French End togethereverything froze up an quiet, except for their creakins. I remember thinkin his eyes began to flicker.
Dont think. Tell what happened, Keede ordered.
Oh! Beg y pardon! He went on with his braziers, hummin his hymn, down Butchers Row. Just before we got to the old dressinstation he stops and sets em down an says Where did you say she was, Clem? Me eyes aint as good as they used to be.
In er bed at ome, I says. Come on down. Its perishin cold, an Im not due for leaf.
Well, I am, e says. I am. . . . An thengive you me word I didnt recognise the voicehe stretches out is neck a bit, in a way e ad, an he says: Why, Bella! e says. Oh, Bella! e says. Thank Gawd! e says. Just like that! An then I sawI tell you I sawAuntie Armine herself standin by the old dressinstation door where first Id thought Id seen her. He was lookin at er an she was lookin at him. I saw it, an me soul turned over inside me becausebecause it knocked out everything Id believed in. I ad nothin to lay old of, dye see? An e was lookin at er as though he could ave et er, an she was lookin at im the same way, out of er eyes. Then he says: Why, Bella, e says, this must be only the second time weve been alone together in all these years. An I saw er half hold out her arms to im in that perishin cold. An she nearer fifty than forty an me own Aunt! You can shop me for a lunatic to-morrow, but I saw itI saw er answerin to his spoken word . . . Then e made a snatch to unsling is rifle. Then e cuts is hand away saying: No! Dont tempt me, Bella. Weve all Eternity ahead of us. An hour or two wont make any odds. Then he picks up the braziers an goes on to the dug-out door. Hed finished with me. He pours petrol on em, an lights it with a match, an carries em inside, flarin. All that time Auntie Armine stood with er arms outan a look in er face! I didnt know such things was or could be! Then he comes out an says: Come in, my dear; an she stoops an goes into the dug-out with that look on her facethat look on her face! An then e shuts the door from inside an starts wedgin it up. So elp me Gawd, I saw an eard all these things with my own eyes an ears!
He repeated his oath several times. After a long pause Keede asked him if he recalled what happened next.
It was a bit of a mix-up, for me, from then on. I must have carried onthey told me I did, butbut I wasI felt aa long way inside of meself, likeif youve ever had that feelin. I wasnt rightly on the spot at all. They woke me up sometime next morning, because e adnt showed up at the train; an some one had seen him with me. I wasnt alf cross-examined by all an sundry till dinner-time.
Then, I think, I volunteered for Dearlove, who ad a sore toe, for a front-line message. I had to keep movin, you see, because I hadnt anything to hold on to. Whilst up there, Grant informed me how hed found Uncle John with the door wedged an sand-bags stuffed in the cracks. I hadnt waited for that. The knockin when e wedged up was enough for me. Like Dads coffin.
No one told me the door had been wedged. Keede spoke severely.
No need to black a dead mans name, sir.
What made Grant go to Butchers Row?
Because hed noticed Uncle John had been pinchin charcoal for a week past an layin it up behind the old barricade there. So when the unt began, he went that way straight as a string, an when he saw the door shut, he knew. He told me he picked the sand-bags out of the cracks an shoved is hand through and shifted the wedges before any one come along. It looked all right. You said yourself, sir, the door must ave blown to.
Grant knew what Godsoe meant, then? Keede snapped.
Grant knew Godsoe was for it; an nothin earthly could elp or inder. He told me so.
And then what did you do?
I expect I must ave kept on carryin on, till Headquarters give me that wire from Maabout Auntie Armine dyin.
When had your Aunt died?
On the mornin of the twenty-first. The mornin of the 21st! That tore it, dye see? As long as I could think, I had kep tellin myself it was like those things you lectured about at Arras when we was billeted in the cellarsthe Angels of Mons, and so on. But that wire tore it.
Oh! Hallucinations! I remember. And that wire tore it? said Keede.
Yes! You seehe half lifted himself off the sofathere wasnt a single gor-dam thing left abidin for me to take hold of, here or hereafter. If the dead do riseand I saw emwhywhy, anything can appen. Dont you understand?
He was on his feet now, gesticulating stiffly.
For I saw er, he repeated. I saw im an ershe dead since mornin time, an he killin imself before my livin eyes sos to carry on with er for all Eternityan she oldin out er arms for it! I want to know where Im at! Look ere, you twowhy stand we in jeopardy every hour?
God knows, said Keede to himself.
Hadnt we better ring for some one? I suggested. Hell go off the handle in a second.
No, he wont. Its the last kick-up before it takes hold. I know how the stuff works. Hul-lo!
Strangwick, his hands behind his back and his eyes set, gave tongue in the strained, cracked voice of a boy reciting. Not twice in the world shall the Gods do thus, he cried again and again.
And Im damned if its goin to be even once for me! he went on with sudden insane fury. I dont care whether we ave been pricin things in the windows . . . . Let er sue if she likes! She dont know what reel things mean. I doIve ad occasion to notice em . . . . No, I tell you! Ill ave em when I want em, an be done with em; but not till I see that look on a face . . . that look. . . . Im not takin any. The reel things life an death. It begins at death, dye see. She cant understand . . . . Oh, go on an push off to Hell, you an your lawyers. Im fed up with itfed up!
He stopped as abruptly as he had started, and the drawn face broke back to its natural irresolute lines. Keede, holding both his hands, led him back to the sofa, where he dropped like a wet towel, took out some flamboyant robe from a press, and drew it neatly over him.
Ye-es. Thats the real thing at last, said Keede. Now hes got it off his mind hell sleep. By the way, who introduced him?
Shall I go and find out? I suggested.
Yes; and you might ask him to come here. Theres no need for us to stand to all night.
So I went to the Banquet, which was in full swing, and was seized by an elderly, precise Brother from a South London Lodge, who followed me, concerned and apologetic. Keede soon put him at his ease.
The boys had trouble, our visitor explained. Im most mortified he should have performed his bad turn here. I thought hed put it beind him.
I expect talking about old days with me brought it all back, said Keede. It does sometimes.
Maybe! Maybe! But over and above that, Clems had post-war trouble, too.
Cant he get a job? He oughtnt to let that weigh on him, at his time of life, said Keede cheerily.
Tisnt thathes provided forbut he coughed confidentially behind his dry handas a matter of fact, Worshipful Sir, heshes implicated for the present in a little breach of promise action.
Ah! Thats a different thing, said Keede.
Yes. Thats his reel trouble. No reason given, you understand. The young lady in every way suitable, an shed make him a good little wife too, if Im any judge. But he says she aint his ideel or something. No getting at whats in young peoples minds these days, is there?
Im afraid there isnt, said Keede. But hes all right now. Hell sleep. You sit by him, and when he wakes, take him home quietly . . . . Oh, were used to men getting a little upset here. Youve nothing to thank us for, BrotherBrother
Armine, said the old gentleman. Hes my nephew by marriage.
Thats all thats wanted! said Keede.
Brother Armine looked a little puzzled. Keede hastened to explain. As I was saying, all he wants now is to be kept quiet till he wakes.
Enter Gow, with the Crown of the Kingdom.
GOW. Heres earnest of the Queens submission.
This by her last heraldand in haste.
PRINCESS. Twas ours already. Where is the woman?
GOW. Fled with her horse. They broke at dawn.
Noon has not struck, and youre Queen questionless.
PRINCESS. By youthrough you. How shall I honour you?
GOW. Me? But for what?
PRINCESS. For allallall
Since the realm sunk beneath us! Hear him! For what?
Your body twixt my bosom and her knife,
Your lips on the cup she proffered for my death;
Your one cloak over me, that night in the snows
We held the Pass at Bargi. Every hour
New strengths, to this most unbelievable last.
Honour him? I will honourwill honour you . . .
Tis at your choice.
GOW. Child, mine was long ago.
But heres one worthy honour. Welcome, Fox!
FERDINAND. And to you, Watchdog. This day clenches all.
Weve made it and seen it.
GOW. Is the city held?
FERDINAND. Loyally. Oh, theyre drunk with loyalty yonder.
A virtuous mood. Your bombards helped em to it . . .
But heres my word for you. The Lady Frances
PRINCESS. I left her sick in the city. No harm, I pray.
FERDINAND. Nothing that she called harm. In truth, so little
That (to Gow) I am bidden tell you, shell be here
Almost as soon as I.
GOW. She says it?
FERDINAND. Writes.
This. (Gives him letter.) Yester eve. Twas given me by the priest
He with her in her hour.
GOW. So? (Reads) So it is.
She will be here. (To Ferdinand) And all is safe in the city?
FERDINAND. As thy long sword and my lean wits can make it.
Youve naught to stay for. Is it the road again?
GOW. Ay. This time, not alone . . . She will be here.
PRINCESS. I am here. You have not looked at me awhile.
GOW. The rest is with you, Ferdinand . . .
Then free.
PRINCESS. And at my service more than ever. I claim
(Our wars have taught me)being your Queen, now, claim
You wholly mine.
GOW. Then free . . . She will be here! A little while
PRINCESS (to FERDINAND). He looks beyond, not at me.
FERDINAND. Weariness.
We are not so young as once was. Two days fight
A worthy servitorto be allowed
Some freedom.
PRINCESS. I have offered him all he would.
FERDINAND. He takes what he has taken.
(The Spirit of the LADY FRANCES appears to Gow.)
GOW. Frances
PRINCESS. Distraught!
FERDINAND. An old head-blow, maybe. He has dealt in them.
GOW (to the Spirit). What can the Grave against us, O my Heart,
Comfort and light and reason in all things
Visible and invisiblemy one God?
Thou that wast I these barren unyoked years
Of triflings now at end! Frances!
PRINCESS. Shes old.
FERDINAND. True. By most reckonings old.
They must keep other count.
PRINCESS. He kisses his hand to the air!
FERDINAND. His ring, rather, he kisses. Yesfor surethe ring.
GOW. Dear and most dear. And now, those very arms. (Dies.)
PRINCESS. Oh, look! He faints. Haste, you! Unhelm him! Help!
FERDINAND. Needless. No help
Avails against that poison. He is sped.
PRINCESS. By his own hand? This hour? When I had offered
FERDINAND. He had made other choicean old, old choice,
Neer swerved from, and now patently sealed in death.
PRINCESS. He called onthe Lady Frances was it? Wherefore?
FERDINAND. Because she was his life. Forgive, my friend(covers Gows face)
Gods uttermost beyond me in all faith,
Service and passionif I unveil at last
The secret. (To the Princess) Thoughtdreamed you, it was for you
He poured himselffor you resoldered the Crown?
Struck here, held there, amended, broke, built up
His multiplied imaginings for you?
PRINCESS. I thoughtI thought he
FERDINAND. Looked beyond. Her wish
Was the sole Law he knew. She did not choose
Your House should perish. Therefore he bade it stand.
Enough for him when she had breathed a word
Twas his to make it iron, stone, or fire,
Driving our flesh and blood before his ways
As the wind straws. Her one face unregarded
Waiting you with your mantle or your glove
That is the God whom he is gone to worship.
(Trumpets without. Enter the Princes Heralds.)
And heres the work of Kingship begun again.
These from the Prince of Bargito whose sword
You owe such help as may, he thinks, be paid . . .
Hes equal in blood, in fortune more than peer,
Young, most well favoured, with a heart to love
And two States in the balance. Do you meet him?
PRINCESS. God and my Misery! I have seen Love at last.
What shall content me after?
THE miracle of our lands speechso known And long received, none marvel when tis shown!
We have such wealth as Rome at her most pride |
Since, said he, the pearls of English Literature existed only to be wrenched from their settings and cast before young swine rooting for marks, it was his loathed businessin anticipation of the Army Preliminary Examination which, as usual, would be held at the terms end, under the auspices of an official examiner sent down ad hocto prepare for the Form a General Knowledge test-paper, which he would give them next week. It would cover their studies, up to date, of the Augustans and King Lear, which was the selectedand strictly expurgatedArmy Exam, play for that year. Now, English Literature, as he might have told them, was not divided into water-tight compartments, but flowed like a river. For example, Samuel Johnson, glory of the Augustans and no mean commentator of Shakespeare, was but one in a mighty procession which
At this point Beetles nodding brows came down with a grunt on the desk. He had been soaking and sunning himself in the open sea-baths built out on the rocks under the cliffs, from two-fifteen to four-forty.
The Army Class took Johnson off their minds. With any luck, Beetle would last King till the tea-bell. King rubbed his hands and began to carve him. He had gone to sleep to show his contempt (a) for Mr. King, who might or might not matter, and (b) for the Augustans, who none the less were not to be sneered at by one whose vast and omnivorous reading, for which such extraordinary facilities had been granted (this was because the Head had allowed Beetle the run of his library), naturally overlooked such epigonoi as Johnson, Swift, Pope, Addison, and the like. Harrison Ainsworth and Marryat doubtless appealed
Even so, Beetle salt-encrusted all over except his spectacles, and steeped in delicious languors, was sliding back to sleep again, when Taffy Howell, the leading light of the Form, who knew his Marryat as well as Stalky did his Surtees, began in his patent, noiseless whisper: Allow me to observein the most delicate manner in the worldjust to hint
Under pretext of studying literature, a desultory and unformed mind would naturally return, like the dog of Scripture
Youre a damned trencher-scrapin, napkin-carryin, shillinseekin, upandownstairs &c. Howell breathed.
Beetle choked aloud on the sudden knowledge that King was the ancient and eternal Chuckslater Count Shucksenof Peter Simple. He had not realised it before.
Sorry, sir. Im afraid Ive been asleep, sir, he sputtered.
The shout of the Army Class diverted the storm. King was grimly glad that Beetle had condescended to honour truth so far. Perhaps he would now lend his awakened ear to a summary of the externals of Dr. Johnson, as limned by Macaulay. And he read, with intention, the just historians outline of a grotesque figure with untied shoe-strings, that twitched and grunted, gorged its food, bit its finger-nails, and neglected its ablutions. The Form hailed it as a speaking likeness of Beetle; nor were they corrected.
Then King implored him to vouchsafe his comrades one single fact connected with Dr. Johnson which might at any time have adhered to what, for decencys sake, must, Mr. King supposed, be called his mind.
Beetle was understood to say that the only thing he could remember was in French.
You add, then, the Gallic tongue to your accomplishments? The information plus the accent? Tis well ! Admirable Crichton, proceed!
And Beetle proceeded with the text of an old Du Maurier drawing in a back-number of Punch:
De tous ces défunts cockolores Le moral Fénelon, Michel Ange et Johnson (Le Docteur) sont les plus awful bores. |
To which Howell, wooingly, just above his breath:
Oh, wont you come up, come up?
Result, as the tea-bell rang, one hundred lines, to be shown up at seven-forty-five that evening. This was meant to blast the pleasant summer interval between tea and prep. Howell, a favourite in English as well as Latin, got off; but the Army Class crashed in to tea with a new Limerick.
The imposition was a matter of book-keeping, as far as Beetle was concerned; for it was his custom of rainy afternoons to fabricate store of lines in anticipation of just these accidents. They covered such English verse as interested him at the moment, and helped to fix the stuff in his memory. After tea; he drew the required amount from his drawer in Number Five Study, thrust it into his pocket, went up to the Heads house, and settled himself in the big Outer Library where, ever since the Head had taken him off all mathematics, he did précis-work and French translation. Here he buried himself in a close-printed, thickish volume which had been his chosen browse for some time. A hideous account of a hanging, drawing, and quartering had first attracted him to it; but later he discovered the book (Curiosities of Literature was its name) full of the finest confused feedingsuch as forgeries and hoaxes, Italian literary societies, religious and scholastic controversies of old when men (even that most dreary John Milton, of Lycidas) slanged each other, not without dust and heat, in scandalous pamphlets; personal peculiarities of the great; and a hundred other fascinating inutilities. This evening he fell on a description of wandering, mad Elizabethan beggars, known as Tom-a-Bedlams, with incidental references to Edgar who plays at being a Tom-a-Bedlam in Lear, but whom Beetle did not consider at all funny. Then, at the foot of a left-hand page, leaped out on him a verseof incommunicable splendour, opening doors into inexplicable worldsfrom a song which Tom-a-Bedlams were supposed to sing. It ran:
With a heart of furious fancies Whereof I am commander, With a burning spear and a horse of air, To the wilderness I wander. With a knight of ghosts and shadows I summoned am to tourney, Ten leagues beyond the wide worlds end Methmks it is no journey. |
He sat, mouthing and staring before him, till the prep-bell rang and it was time to take his lines up to Kings study and lay them, as hot from the press, in the impot-basket appointed. He carried his dreams on to Number Five. They knew the symptoms of old.
Readin again, said Stalky, like a wife welcoming her spouse from the pot-house.
Look here, Ive found out something Beetle began. Listen
No, you donttill afterwards. Its Turkeys prep. This meant it was a Horace Ode through which Turkey would take them for a literal translation, and all possible pitfalls. Stalky gave his businesslike attention, but Beetles eye was glazed and his mind adrift throughout, and he asked for things to be repeated. So, when Turkey closed the Horace, justice began to be executed.
Im all right, he protested. I swear I heard a lot what Turkey said. Shut up! Oh, shut up! Do shut up, you putrid asses. Beetle was speaking from the fender, his head between Turkeys knees, and Stalky largely over the rest of him.
Whats the metre of the beastly thing? McTurk waved his Horace. Look it up, Stalky. Twelfth of the Third.
Ionicum a minore, Stalky reported, closing his book in turn. Dont let him forget it; and Turkeys Horace marked the metre on Beetles skull, with special attention to elisions. It hurt.
Miserar est neq arnori dare ludum neque dulci Mala vino layer aut ex |
Got it? You liar! Youve no ear at all! Chorus, Stalky!
Both Horaces strove to impart the measure, which was altogether different from its accompaniment. Presently Howell dashed in from his study below.
Look out! If you make this infernal din well have some one up the staircase in a sec.
Were teachin Beetle Horace. He was goin to burble us some muck hed read, the tutors explained.
Twasnt muck! It was about those Tom-a-Bedlams in Lear.
Oh! said Stalky. Why didnt you say so?
Cause you didnt listen. They had drinkin-horns an badges, and theres a Johnson note on Shakespeare about the meanin of Edgar sayin My horns dry. But Johnsons dead-wrong about it. Aubrey says
Whos Aubrey? Howell demanded. Does King know about him?
Dunno. Oh yes, an Johnson started to learn Dutch when he was seventy.
What the deuce for? Stalky asked.
For a change after his Dikker, I suppose, Howell suggested.
And I looked up a lot of other English stuff, too. Im goin to try it all on King.
Showin-off as usual, said the acid, McTurk, who, like his race, lived and loved to destroy illusions.
No. For a draw. Hes an unjust dog! If you read, he says youre showin-off. If you dont, youre a mark-huntin Philistine. What does he want you to do, curse him?
Shut up, Beetle! Stalky pronounced. Theres more than draws in this. Youve cribbed your maths off me ever since you came to Coll. You dont know what a co-sine is, even now. Turkey does all your Latin.
I like that! Who does both your Picciolas?
French dont count. Its time you began to work for your giddy livin an help us. You arent goin up for anythin that matters. Play for your side, as Heffles says, or die the death! You dont want to die the death, again, do you? Now, lets hear about that stinkard Johnson swottin Dutch. Youre sure it was Sammivel, not Binjamin? You are so dam inaccurate!
Beetle conducted an attentive class on the curiosities of literature for nearly a quarter of an hour. As Stalky pointed out, he promised to be useful.
The Horace Ode next morning ran well; and King was content. Then, in full feather, he sailed round the firmament at large, and, somehow, apropos to something or other, used the word della Cruscanif any of you have the faintest idea of its origin. Some one hadnt caught it correctly; which gave Beetle just time to whisper Branan mills to Howell, who said, promptly: Hasnt it somethin to do with millsan bran, sir? King cast himself into poses of stricken wonder. Oddly enough, said he, it has.
They were then told a great deal about some silly Italian Academy of Letters which borrowed its office furniture from the equipment of mediaeval flour-mills. And: How has our Ap-Howell come by his knowledge? Howell, being, indeed, Welsh, thought that it might have been something he had read in the holidays. King openly purred over him.
If that had been me, Beetle observed while they were toying with sardines between lessons, hed ha dropped on me for showin-off.
See what were savin you from, Stalky answered. Im playin Johnson, member, this afternoon.
That, too, came cleanly off the bat; and King was gratified by this interest in the Doctors studies. But Stalky hadnt a ghost of a notion how he had come by the fact.
Why didnt you say your father told you? Beetle asked at tea.
My-y Lord! Have you ever seen the guvnor? Stalky collapsed shrieking among the piles of bread and butter. Well, look here. Taffy goes in to-morrow about those drinkin horns an Tom-a-Bedlams. You cut up to the library after tea, Beetle. You know what Kings English papers are like. Look out useful stuff for answers an well divvy at prep.
At prep, then, Beetle, loaded with assorted curiosities, made his forecast. He argued that there were bound to be a good many what-do-you-know-abouts those infernal Augustans. Pope was generally a separate item; but the odds were that Swift, Addison, Steele, Johnson, and Goldsmith would be lumped under one head. Dryden was possible, too, though rather outside the Epoch.
Dryden. Oh! Glorious John! Know that much, anyhow, Stalky vaunted.
Then lug in Claude Halcro in The Pirate, Beetle advised. Hes always sayin Glorious John. Kings a hog on Scott, too.
No-o. I dont read Scott. You take this Hell Crow chap, Taffy.
Right. What about Addison, Beetle? Howell asked.
Drank like a giddy fish.
We all know that, chorused the gentle children.
He said, See how a Christian can die; an he hadnt any conversation, cause some one or other
Guessin again, as usual, McTurk sneered. Who?
Cynical man called Mandevillesaid he was a silent parson in a tie-wig.
Right-ho! Ill take the silent parson with wig and purtenances. Taffy can have the dyin Christian, Stalky decided.
Howell nodded, and resumed: What about Swift, Beetle?
Died mad. Two girls. Saw a tree, an said: I shall die at the top. Oh yes, an his private amusements were ridiculous an trivial.
Howell shook a wary head. Dunno what that might let me in for with King. You can have it, Stalky.
Ill take that, McTurk yawned. King doesnt matter a curse to me, an he knows it. Private amusements contemptible. He breathed all Ireland into the last perverted word.
Right, Howell assented. Bags I the dyin tree, then.
Cheery lot, these Augustans, Stalky sighed. Any more of em been croakin lately, Beetle?
My Hat! the far-seeing Howell struck in. King always gives us a stinker half-way down. What about Richardsonthat Clarissa chap, yknow?
Ive found out lots about him, said Beetle, promptly. He was the Shakespeare of novelists.
King wont stand that. He says theres only one Shakespeare. Mustnt rot about Shakespeare to King, Howell objected.
An he was always delighted with his own works, Beetle continued.
Like you, Stalky pointed out.
Shut up. Oh yes, an he consulted some hieroglyphics on a scrap of paperthethe impassioned Diderot (dunno who he was) broke forth: O Richardson, thou singular genius!
Howell and Stalky rose together, each clamouring that he had bagged that first.
I must have it! Howell shouted. Kings never seen me breakin forth with the impassioned Diderot. Hes got to! Give me Diderot, you impassioned hound!
Dont upset the table. Theres tons more. An his genius was fertile and prodigal.
All right! I dont mind bein fertile and prodigal for a change, Stalky volunteered. Kings going to enjoy this exam. If he was the Army Prelim. chap wed score.
The Prelim. questions will be pretty much like Kings stuff, Beetle assured them.
But its always a score to know what your examiners keen on, Howell said, and illustrated it with an anecdote. Uncle of mine stayin with my people last holidays
Your Uncle Diderot? Stalky asked.
No, you ass! Captain of Engineers. He told me he was up for a Staff exam. to an old Colonel-bird who believed that the English were the lost Tribes of Israel, or something like that. Hed written tons o books about it.
All Sappers are mad, said Stalky. Thats one of the things the guvnor did tell me.
Well, neer mind. My uncle played up, ocourse. Said hed always believed it, too. And so he got nearly top-marks for field-fortification. Didnt know a thing about it, either, he said.
Good biznai! said Stalky. Well, go on, Beetle. What about Steele?
Cant I keep anything for myself?
Not much! Kingll ask you where you got it from, and youd show off, an hed find out. This aint your silly English Literature, you ass. Its our marks. Cant you see that?
Beetle very soon saw it was exactly as Stalky had said.
Some days later a happy, and therefore not too likeable, King was explaining to the Reverend John in his own study how effort, zeal, scholarship, the humanities, and perhaps a little natural genius for teaching, could inspire even the mark-hunting minds of the young. His text was the result of his General Knowledge paper on the Augustans and King Lear.
Howell, he said, I was not surprised at. He has intelligence. But, frankly, I did not expect young Corkran to burgeon. Almost one might believe he occasionally read a book.
And McTurk too?
Yes. He had somehow arrived at a rather just estimate of Swifts lighter literary diversions. They are contemptible. And in the Lear questionsthey were all attracted by Edgars characterStalky had dug up something about Aubrey on Tom-a-Bedlams from some unknown source. Aubrey, of all people! Im sure I only alluded to him once or twice.
Stalky among the prophets of English! And he didnt remember where hed got it either?
No. Boys are amazingly purblind and limited. But if they keep this up at the Army Prelim., it is conceivable the Class may not do itself discredit. I told them so.
I congratulate you. Ours is the hardest calling in the world, with the least reward. By the way, who are they likely to send down to examine us?
It rests between two, I fancy. Martlettwith me at Ballioland Hume. They wisely chose the Civil Service. Martlett has published a brochure on Minor Elizabethan Versejourneyman work, of courseenthusiasms, but no grounding. Hume I heard of lately as having infected himself in Germany with some Transatlantic abominations about Shakespeare and Bacon. He was Sutton. (The Head, by the way, was a Sutton man.)
King returned to his examination-papers and read extracts from them, as mothers repeat the clever sayings of their babes.
Heres old Taffy Howell, for instanceapropos to Diderots eulogy of Richardson. The impassioned Diderot broke forth: Richardson, thou singular genius!
It was the Reverend John who stopped himself, just in time, from breaking forth. He recalled that, some days ago, he had heard Stalky on the stairs of Number Five, hurling the boots of many fags at Howells door and bidding the impassioned Diderot within break forth at his peril.
Odd, said he, gravely, when his pipe drew again. Where did Diderot say that?
Ive forgotten for the moment. Taffy told me hed picked it up in the course of holiday reading.
Possibly. One never knows what heifers the young are ploughing with. Oh! How did Beetle do?
The necessary dates and his handwriting defeated him, Im glad to say. I cannot accuse myself of having missed any opportunity to castigate that boys inordinate and intolerable conceit. But Im afraid its hopeless. I think I touched him somewhat, though, when I read Macaulays stock piece on Johnson. The others saw it at once.
Yes, you told me about that at the time, said the Reverend John, hurriedly.
And our esteemed Head having taken him off maths for this précis-writingwhatever that means!has turned him into a most objectionable free-lance. He was without any sense of reverence before, and promiscuous cheap fictionwhich is all that his type of reading meansaggravates his worst points. When it came to a trial he was simply nowhere.
Ah, well! Ours is a hard callingspecially if ones sensitive. Luckily, Im too fat. The Reverend John went out to bathe off the Pebble Ridge, girt with a fair linen towel whose red fringe signalled from half a mile away.
There lurked on summer afternoons, round the fives-court or the gym, certain watchful outcasts who had exhausted their weekly ration of three baths, and who were too well known to Cory the bathman to outface him by swearing that they hadnt. These came in like sycophantic pups at walk, and when the Reverend John climbed the Pebble Ridge, more than a dozen of them were at his heels, with never a towel among them. One could only bathe off the Ridge with a House Master, but by custom, a dozen details above a certain age, no matter whence recruited, made a House for bathing, if any kindly Master chose so to regard them. Beetle led the low, growing reminder: House! House, sir? Weve got a House now, Padre.
Let it be law as it is desired, boomed the Reverend John. On which word they broke forward, hirpling over the unstable pebbles and stripping as they ran, till, when they touched the sands, they were as naked as God had made them, and as happy as He intended them to be.
It was half-flooddead-smooth, except for the triple line of combers, a mile from wing to wing, that broke evenly with a sound of ripping canvas, while their sleek rear-guards formed up behind. One swam forth, trying to copy the roll, rise, and dig-out of the Reverend Johns sidestroke, and manoeuvred to meet them so that they should crash on ones head, when for an instant one glanced down arched perspectives of beryl, before all broke in fizzy, electric diamonds, and the pulse of the main surge slung one towards the beach. From a good combers crest one was hove up almost to see Lundy on the horizon. In its long cream-streaked trough, when the top had turned over and gone on, one might be alone in mid-Atlantic. Either way it was divine. Then one capered on the sands till one dried off; retrieved scattered flannels, gave thanks in chorus to the Reverend John, and lazily trailed up to five-oclock call-over, taken on the lower cricket field.
Eight this week, said Beetle, and thanked Heaven aloud.
Bathing seems to have sapped your mind, the Reverend John remarked. Why did you do so vilely with the Augustans?
They are vile, Padre. Sos Lear.
The other two did all right, though.
I expect theyve been swottin, Beetle grinned.
Ive expected that, too, in my time. But I want to hear about the impassioned Diderot, please.
Oh, that was Howell, Padre. You mean when Diderot broke forth: Richardson, thou singular genius? Hed read it in the holidays somewhere.
I beg your pardon. Naturally, Taffy would read Diderot in the holidays. Well, Im sorry I cant lick you for this; but if any one ever finds out anything about it, youve only yourself to thank.
Beetle went up to College and to the Outer Library, where he had on tap the last of a book called Elsie Venner, by a man called Oliver Wendell Holmesall about a girl who was interestingly allied to rattlesnakes. He finished what was left of her, and cast about for more from the same hand, which he found on the same shelf, with the trifling difference that the writers Christian name was now Nathaniel, and he did not deal in snakes. The authorship of Shakespeare was his themenot that Shakespeare with whom King oppressed the Army Class, but a low-born, poaching, ignorant, immoral village lout who could not have written one line of any play ascribed to him. (Beetle wondered what King would say to Nathaniel if ever they met.) The real author was Francis Bacon, of Bacons Essays, which did not strike Beetle as any improvement. He had done the essays last term. But evidently Nathaniels views annoyed people, for the margins of his bookit was second-hand, and the old label of a public library still adheredflamed with ribald, abusive, and contemptuous comments by various hands. They ranged from Rot! Rubbish! and such-like to crisp counter-arguments. And several times some one had written: This beats Delia. One copious annotator dissented, saying: Delia is supreme in this line, Delia beats this hollow. See Delias Philosophy, page so and so. Beetle grieved he could not find anything about Delia (he had often heard Kings views on lady-writers as a class) beyond a statement by Nathaniel, with pencilled exclamation-points rocketing all round it, that Delia Bacon discovered in Francis Bacon a good deal more than Macaulay. Taking it by and large, with the kind help of the marginal notes, it appeared that Delia and Nathaniel between them had perpetrated every conceivable outrage against the Head-God of Kings idolatry: and King was particular about his idols. Without pronouncing on the merits of the controversy, it occurred to Beetle that a well-mixed dose of Nathaniel ought to work on King like a seidlitz powder. At this point a pencil and a half sheet of impot-paper came into action, and he went down to tea so swelled with Baconian heresies and blasphemies that he could only stutter between mouthfuls. He returned to his labours after the meal, and was visibly worse at prep.
I say, he began, have you ever heard that Shakespeare never wrote his own beastly plays?
Fat lot of good to us! said Stalky. Weve got to swot em up just the same. Look here! This is for English parsin to-morrow. Its your biznai. He read swiftly from the school Lear (Act II. Sc. 2) thus
STEWARD: Never any: It pleased the King his master, very late, To strike at me, upon his misconstruction; When he, conjunct, an flatterin his displeasure, Tripped me behind: bein down, insulted, railed, And put upon him such a deal of man, That worthyd him, got praises of the King For him attemptin who was self-subdued; And, in the fleshment of this dread exploit, Drew on me here again. |
Now then, my impassioned bard, construez! Thats Shakespeare.
Give it up! Hes drunk, Beetle declared at the end of a blank half minute.
No, he isnt, said Turkey. Hes a stewardon the estatechattin to his employers.
Welllook here, Turkey. You ask King if Shakespeare ever wrote his own plays, an he wont give a dam what the steward said.
Ive not come here to play with ushers, was McTurks view of the case.
Id do it, Beetle protested, only hed slay me! He dont love me when I ask about things. I can give you the stuff to draw himtons of it! He broke forth into a précis, interspersed with praises, of Nathaniel Holmes and his commentatorsespecially the latter. He also mentioned Delia, with sorrow that he had not read her. He spoke through nearly the whole of prep; and the upshot of it was that McTurk relented and promised to approach King next English on the authenticity of Shakespeares plays.
The time and tone chosen were admirable. While King was warming himself by a preliminary canter round the Forms literary deficiencies, Turkey coughed in a style which suggested a reminder to a slack employee that it was time to stop chattering and get to work. As King began to bristle, Turkey inquired: Id be glad to know, sir, if its true that Shakespeare did not write his own plays at all?
Good God! said King most distinctly. Turkey coughed again piously. They all say so in Ireland, sir.
IrelandIrelandIreland! King overran Ireland with one blast of flame that should have been written in letters of brass for instruction to-day. At the end, Turkey coughed once more, and the cough said: It is Shakespeare, and not my country, that you are hired to interpret to me. He put it directly, too: An is it true at all about the alleged plays, sir?
It is not, Mr. King whispered, and began to explain, on lines that might, perhaps, have been too freely expressed for the parents of those young (though it gave their offspring delight), but with a passion, force, and wealth of imagery which would have crowned his discourse at any university. By the time he drew towards his peroration the Form was almost openly applauding. Howell noiselessly drummed the cadence of Bonnie Dundee on his desk; Paddy Vernon framed a dumb: Played! Oh, well played, sir! at intervals; Stalky kept tally of the brighter gems of invective; and Beetle sat aghast but exulting among the spirits he had called up. For though their works had never been mentioned, and though Mr. King said he had merely glanced at the obscene publications, he seemed to know a tremendous amount about Nathaniel and Deliaespecially Delia.
I told you so! said Beetle, proudly, at the end.
What? Him! I wasnt botherin myself to listen to him an his Delia, McTurk replied.
Afterwards King fought his battle over again with the Reverend John in the Common Room.
Had I been that triple ass Hume, I might have risen to the bait. As it is, I flatter myself I left them under no delusions as to Shakespeares authenticity. Yes, a small drink, please. Virtue has gone out of me indeed. But where did they get it from?
The devil! The young devil, the Reverend John muttered, half aloud.
I could have excused devilry. It was ignorance. Sheer, crass, insolent provincial ignorance! I tell you, Gillett, if the Romans had dealt faithfully with the Celt, ab initio, thisthis would never have happened.
Quite so. I should like to have heard your remarks.
Ive told em to tell me what they remember of them, with their own conclusions, in essay form next week.
Since he had loosed the whirlwind, the fairminded Beetle offered to do Turkeys essay for him. On Turkeys behalf, then, he dealt with Shakespeares lack of education, his butchering, poaching, drinking, horse-holding, and errandrunning as Nathaniel had described them; lifted from the same source pleasant names, such as rustic and sorry poetaster, on which last special hopes were built; and expressed surprise that one so ignorant could have done what he was attributed to. His own essay contained no novelties. Indeed, he withheld one or two promising subsequently transpireds for fear of distracting King.
But, when the essays were read, Mr. King confined himself wholly to Turkeys pitiful, puerile, jejune, exploded, unbaked, half-bottomed thesis. He touched, too, on the lie in the soul, which was, fundamentally, vulgaritythe negation of Reverence and the Decencies. He broke forth into an impassioned defence of mere atheism, which he said was often no more than mental flatulencetransitory and curable by knowledge of lifein no way comparable, for essential enormity, with the debasing pagan abominations to which Turkey had delivered himself. He ended with a shocking story about one Jowett, who seemed to have held some post of authority where King came from, and who had told an atheistical undergraduate that if he could not believe in a Personal God by five that afternoon he would be expelledas, with tears of rage in his eyes, King regretted that he could not expel McTurk. And Turkey blew his nose in the middle of it.
But the aim of education being to develop individual judgment, King could not well kill him for his honest doubts about Shakespeare. And he himself had several times quoted, in respect to other poets: There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds. So he treated Turkey in Form like a coiled puff-adder; and there was a tense peace among the Augustans. The only ripple was the day before the Army Examiner came, when Beetle inquired if he need take this exam., sir, as Im not goin up for anything. Mr. King said there was great needfor many reasons, none of them flattering to vanity.
As far as the Army Class could judge, the Examiner was not worse than his breed, and the written English paper ran closely on the lines of Kings mid-term General Knowledge test. Howell played his impassioned Diderot to the Richardson lead; Stalky his parson in the wig; McTurk his contemptible Swift; Beetle, Steeles affectionate notes out of the spunginghouse to Dearest Prue, all in due order. There were, however, one or two leading questions about Shakespeare. A boys hand shot up from a back bench.
In answering Number Sevenreasons for Shakespeares dramatic supremacy, he said, are we to take it Shakespeare did write the plays he is supposed to have written, sir?
The Examiner hesitated an instant. It is generally assumed that he did. But there was no reproof in his words. Beetle began to sit down slowly.
Another hand and another voice: Have we got to say we believe he did, sir? Even if we do not?
You are not called upon to state your beliefs. But we can go into that at viva voce this afternoonif it interests you.
Thank you, sir.
What did you do that for? Paddy Vernon demanded at dinner.
Its the lost tribes of Israel game, you ass, said Howell.
To make sure, Stalky amplified. If he was like King, hed have shut up Beetle an Turkey at the start, but hed have thought King gave us the Bacon notion. Well, he didnt shut em up; so theyre playin it again this afternoon. If he stands it then, hell be sure King gave us the notion. Either way, its dead-safe for us, an King.
At the afternoons viva voce, before they sat down to the Augustans, the Examiner wished to hear, with no bearing on the examination, of course, from those two candidates who had asked him about Question Seven. Which were they?
Take off your gigs, you owl, said Stalky between his teeth. Beetle pocketed them and looked into blurred vacancy with a voice coming out of it that asked: Whowhat gave you that idea about Shakespeare? From Stalkys kick he knew the question was for him.
Some people say, sir, theres a good deal of doubt about it nowadays, sir.
Ye-es, thats true, but
Its his knowin so much about legal phrases. Turkey was in supporta lone gun barking somewhere to his right.
That is a crux, I admit. Of course, whatever one may think privately, officially Shakespeare is Shakespeare. But how have you been taught to look at the question?
Well, Holmes says its impossible he could
On the legal phraseology alone, sir, McTurk chimed in.
Ah, but the theory is that Shakespeares experiences in the society of that day brought him in contact with all the leading intellects. The Examiners voice was quite colloquial now.
But they didnt think much of actors then, sir, did they? This was Howell cooing like a cushat dove. I mean
The Examiner explained the status of the Elizabethan actor in some detail, ending: And that makes it the more curious, doesnt it?
And this Shakespeare was supposed to be writin plays and actin in em all the time? McTurk asked, with sinister meaning.
Exactly what Iwhat lots of people have pointed out. Where did he get the time to acquire all his special knowledge?
Then it looks as if there was something in it, doesnt it, sir?
That, said the Examiner, squaring his elbows at ease on the desk, is a very large question which
Yes, sir!in half-a-dozen eagerly attentive keys . . . .
For decencys sake a few Augustan questions were crammed in conscience-strickenly, about the last ten minutes. Howell took them since they involved dates, but the answers, though highly marked, were scarcely heeded. When the clock showed six-thirty the Examiner addressed them as Gentlemen ; and said he would have particular pleasure in speaking well of this Army Class, which had evinced such a genuine and unusual interest in English Literature, and which reflected the greatest credit on their instructors. He passed out: the Form upstanding, as custom was.
Hes goin to congratulate King, said Howell. Dont make a row! DontmakeanoiseOr else youll wake the Baby! . . .
Mr. King of Balliol, after Mr. Hume of Sutton had complimented him, as was only just, before all his colleagues in Common Room, was kindly taken by the Reverend John to his study, where he exploded on the hearth-rug.
Hehe thought I had loosed thisthis rancid Baconian rot among them. He complimented me on my breadth of mindmy being abreast of the times! You heard him? Thats how they think at Sutton. Its an open stye! A lair of bestial! They have a chapel there, Gillett, and they pray for their soulstheir souls!
His particular weakness apart, Hume was perfectly sincere about what youd done for the Army Class. Hell report in that sense, too. Thats a feather in your cap, and a deserved one. He said their interest in Literature was unusual. That is all your work, King.
But I bowed down in the House of Rimmon while he Baconised all over me!poor devil of an usher that I am! You heard it! I ought to have spat in his eye! Heaven knows Im as conscious of my own infirmities as my worst enemy can be; but what have I done to deserve this? What have I done?
Thats just what I was wondering, the Reverend John replied. Have you, perchance, done anything?
Where? How?
In the Army Class, for example.
Assuredly not! My Army Class? I couldnt wish for a betterkeen, interested enough to read outside their allotted taskintelligent, receptive! Theyre head and shoulders above last years. The idea that I, forsooth, should, even by inference, have perverted their minds with this imbecile and unspeakable girls-school tripe that Hume professes! You at least know that I have my standards; and in Literature and in the Classics, I hold maxima debetur pueris reverentia.
Its singular, not plural, isnt it? said the Reverend John. But youre absolutely right as to the principle! . . . Ours is a deadly calling, Kingespecially if one happens to be sensitive.
There are two pieces that ought to be barred for ever, said a Brother as we were sitting down to the banquet. Last Post is the other.
I can just stand Last Post. Its Tipperary breaks me, another replied. But I expect every one carries his own firing-irons inside him.
I turned to look. It was a sponsor for one of our newly raised Brethrena fat man with a fish-like and vacant face, but evidently prosperous. We introduced ourselves as we took our places. His name was Bevin, and he had a chicken farm near Chalfont St. Giles, whence he supplied, on yearly contract, two or three high-class London hotels. He was also, he said, on the edge of launching out into herb-growing.
Theres a demand for herbs, said he; but it all depends upon your connections with the wholesale dealers. We aint systematic enough. The French do it much better, especially in those mountains on the Swiss an Italian sides. They use more herbal remedies than we do. Our patent-medicine business has killed that with us. But theres a demand still, if your connections are sound. Im going in for it.
A large, well-groomed Brother across the table (his name was Pole, and he seemed some sort of professional man) struck in with a detailed account of a hollow behind a destroyed village near Thiepval, where, for no ascertainable reason, a certain rather scarce herb had sprung up by the acre, he said, out of the overturned earth.
Only youve got to poke among the weeds to find it, and theres any quantity of bombs an stuff knockin about there still. They havent cleaned it up yet.
Last time I saw the place, said Bevin, I thought it ud be that way till Judgment Day. You know how it lay in that dip under that beet-factory. I saw it bombed up level in two daysinto brick-dust mainly. They were huntin for St. Firmin Dump. He took a sandwich and munched slowly, wiping his face, for the night was close.
Ye-es, said Pole. The trouble is there hasnt been any judgment taken or executed. Thats why the world is where it is now. We didnt need anything but justiceafterwards. Not gettin that, the bottom fell out of things, naturally.
Thats how I look at it too, Bevin replied. We didnt want all that talk afterwardswe only wanted justice. What I say is, there must be a right and a wrong to things. It cant all be kiss-an-make-friends, no matter what you do.
A thin, dark brother on my left, who had been attending to a cold pork pie (there are no pork pies to equal ours, which are home-made), suddenly lifted his long head, in which a pale blue glass eye swivelled insanely.
Well, he said slowly. My motto is Never again. Ne-ver again for me.
Same heretill next time, said Pole, across the table. Youre from Sydney, aint you?
How dyou know? was the short answer
You spoke. The other smiled. So did Bevin, who added: I know how your push talk, well enough. Have you started that Republic of yours down under yet?
No. But were goin to. Then youll see.
Carry on. No ones hindering, Bevin pursued.
The Australian scowled. No. We know they aint. Andandthats what makes us all so crazy angry with you. He threw back his head and laughed the spleen out of him. What can you do with an Empire thatthat dont care what you do?
Ive heard that before, Bevin laughed, and his fat sides shook. Oh, I know your push inside-out. .
When did you come across us? My names Ortonno relation to the Tichborne one.
Galliplidead mostly. My battalion began there. We only lost half.
Lucky! They gambled us away in two days. Member the hospital on the beach? asked asked Orton.
Yes. An the man without the facepreaching, said Bevin, sitting up a little.
Till he died, said the Australian, his voice lowered.
And afterwards, Bevin added, lower still.
Christ! Were you there that night?
Bevin nodded. The Australian choked off something he was going to say, as a Brother on his left claimed him. I heard them talk horses, while Bevin developed his herb-growing projects with the well-groomed Brother opposite.
At the end of the banquet, when pipes were drawn, the Australian addressed himself to Bevin, across me, and as the company re-arranged itself, we three came to anchor in the big anteroom where the best prints are hung. Here our Brother across the table joined us, and moored alongside.
The Australian was full of racial grievances, as must be in a young country; alternating between complaints that his people had not been appreciated enough in England, or too fulsomely complimented by an hysterical Press.
No-o, Pole drawled, after a while. Youre altogether wrong. We hadnt time to notice anythingwe were all too busy fightin for our lives. What your crowd down under are suffering from is growing-pains. Youll get over em in three hundred years or soif youre allowed to last so long.
Whos going to stoush us? Orton asked fiercely.
This turned the talk again to larger issues and possibilitiesdelivered on both sides straight from the shoulder without malice or heat, between bursts of song from round the piano at the far end. Bevin and I sat out, watching.
Well, I dont understand these matters, said Bevin at last. But Id hate to have one of your crowd have it in for me for anything.
Would you? Why? Orton pierced him with his pale, artificial eye.
Well, youre a triflewhats the word?vindictive?spiteful? At least, thats what Ive found. I expect it comes from drinking stewed tea with your meat four times a day, said Bevin. No! Id hate to have an Australian after me for anything in particular.
Out of this came his talesomewhat in this shape:
It opened with an Australian of the name of Hickmot or HickmerBevin called him bothwho, finding his battalion completely expended at Gallipoli, had joined up with what stood of Bevins battalion, and had there remained, unrebuked and unnoticed. The point that Bevin laboured was that his man had never seen a table-cloth, a china plate, or a dozen white people together till, in his thirtieth year, he had walked for two months to Brisbane to join up. Pole found this hard to believe.
But its true, Bevin insisted. This chap was born an bred among the black fellers, as they call em, two hundred miles from the nearest town, four hundred miles from a railway, an ten thousand from the grace o Godout in Queensland near some desert.
Why, of course. We come out of everywhere, said Orton. Whats wrong with that?
Yesbut Look here! From the time that this man Hickmot was twelve years old hed ridden, drivenwhats the word?conducted sheep for his father for thousands of miles on end, an months at a time, alone with these black fellers that you darent show the back of your neck toelse they knock your head in. That was all that hed ever done till he joined up. Hehedidnt belong to anything m the world, you understand. And he didnt strike other men as being aa human being.
Why? He was a Queensland drover. Theyre all right, Orton explained.
I dare say; butwell, a man notices another man, dont he? Youd notice if there was a man standing or sitting or lyin near you, wouldnt you? Sod any one. But youd never notice Hickmot. His bein anywhere about wouldnt stay in your mind. He just didnt draw attention any more than anything else that happened to be about. Have you got it?
Wasnt he any use at his job? Pole inquired.
Ive nothing against him that way, an ImI was his platoon sergeant. He wouldnt volunteer specially for any doings, but hed slip out with the party and hed slip back with what was left of em. No one noticed him, and he never opened his mouth about any doings. Youd think a man who had lived the way hed lived among black fellers an sheep would be noticeable enough in an English battalion, wouldnt you?
It teaches em to lie close; but you seem to have noticed him, Orton interposed, with a little suspicion.
Not at the timebut afterwards. If he was noticeable it was on account of his unnoticeabilitysame way youd notice there not being an extra step at the bottom of the staircase when you thought there was.
Ye-es, Pole said suddenly. Its the eternal mystery of personality. God before Whom ever lie bare Some people can occlude their personality like turning off a tap. I beg your pardon. Carry on!
Granted, said Bevin. I think I catch your drift. I used to think I was a student of human nature before I joined up.
What was your jobbefore? Orton asked.
Oh, I was the young blood of the village. Goal-keeper in our soccer team, secretary of the local cricket and rifleoh, lor!clubs. Yes, an village theatricals. My father was the chemist in the village. How I did talk! What I did know! He beamed upon us all.
I dont mind hearing you talk, said Orton, lying back in his chair. Youre a little different from some of em. What happened to this dam drover of yours?
He was with our push for the rest of the waran I dont think he ever sprung a dozen words at one time. With his upbringing, you see, there wasnt any subject that any man knew about he could open up on. He kept quiet, and mixed with his backgrounds. If there was a lump of dirt, or a hole in the ground, or what waswas left after anythin had happened, it would be Hickmot. That was all he wanted to be.
A camouflager? Orton suggested.
You have it! He was the complete camouflager all through. Thats him to a dot. Look here! He hadnt even a nickname in his platoon! And then a friend of mine from our village, of the name of Vigors, came out with a draft. Bert Vigors. As a matter of fact, I was engaged to his sister. And Bert hadnt been with us a week before they called him The Grief. His father was an oldish man, a market-gardenerhigh-class vegetables, bit o glass, anan all the rest of it. Do you know anything about that particular business?
Not much, Im afraid, said Pole, except that glass is expensive, and ones man always sells the cut flowers.
Then you do know something about it. It is. Bert was the old mans only son, anI dont blame himhed done his damnedest to get exemptedfor the sake of the business, you understand. But he caught it all right. The tribunal wasnt takin any the day he went up. Bert was for it, with a few remarks from the patriotic old was-sers on the bench. Our county paper had em all.
Thats the thing that made one really want the Hun in England for a week or two, said Pole.
Mwor osee! The same tribunal, havin copped Bert, gave unconditional exemption to the opposition shopa man called Margetts, in the market-garden business, which hed established since the war, with his two sons who, every one in the village knew, had been pushed into the business to save their damned hides. But Margetts had a good lawyer to advise him. The whole case was frank and above-board to a degreeour county paper had it all in, too. Agricultural producevital necessity; the plough mightier than the sword; an those ducks on the bench, who had turned down Bert, noddin and smilin at Margetts, all full of his cabbage and green peas. What happened? The usual. Vigors businesshes sixty-eight, with asthmagoes smash, and Margetts and Co. double theirs. So, then, that was Berts grievance, an he joined us full of it. Thats why they called him The Grief. Knowing the facts, I was with him; but being his sergeant, I had to check him, because grievances are catchin, and three or four men with em make Companiesersticky. Luckily Bert wasnt handy with his pen. He had to cork up his grievance mostly till he came across Hickmot, an Gord in Heaven knows what brought those two together. No! As ywere. Im wrong about God! I always am. It was Sheep. Bert knews much about sheep as I doan thats Canterbury lambbut hed let Hickmot talk about em for hours, in return for Hickmot listenin to his grievance. Hickmot ud talk sheepthe one created thing hed ever open up onan Bert ud talk his grievance while they was waiting to go over the top. Ive heard em again an again, and, of course, I encouraged em. Now, look here! Hickmot hadnt seen an English house or a field or a road oror anything any civlised man is used to in all his life! Sheep an blacks! Market-gardens an glass an exemption-tribunals! An the mens teeth chatterin behind their masks between rum-issue an zero. Oh, there was fun in Hell those days, wasnt there, boys?
Sure! Oh, sure! Orton chuckled, and Pole echoed him.
Look here! When we were lying up somewhere among those forsaken chicken-camps back o Doullens, I found Hickmot making mud-pies in a farmyard an Bert lookin on. Hed made a model of our village according to Berts description of it. Hed preserved it in his head through all those weeks an weeks o Berts yap; an hed coughed it all upMargetts house and gardens, old Mr. Vigors ditto; both pubs; my fathers shop, everything that hed been told by Bert done out to scale in mud, with bits o brick and stick. Haig ought to have seen it; but as his sergeant I had to check him for misusin his winkle-pin on dirt. Come to think of it, a man who runs about uninhabited countries, with sheep, for a livin must have gifts for mappin and scalin things somehow or other, or hed be dead. I never saw anything like itall out o what Bert had told him by word of mouth. An the next time we went up the line Hickmot copped it in the leg just in front of me.
Finish? I asked.
Oh, no. Only beginnin. That was in December, somethin or other, 16. In Janry Vigors copped it for keeps. I buried himsnowin blind it wasan before wed got him under the whole show was crumped. I wanted to bury him again just to spite em (Im a spiteful man by nature), but the party wasnt takin any moreeven if they could have found it. But, you see, we had buried him all right, which is what they want at home, and I wrote the usual trimmins about the chaplain an the full service, an what his captain had said about Bert bein recommended for a pip, an the irreparable loss an so on. That was in Janry 17. In Febry some time or other I got saved. My speciality had come to be bombins and night-doings. Very pleasant for a young free man, buttheres a limit to what you can stand. It takes all men differently. Noise was what started me, at last. Id got just up to the edgewonderin when Id crack an how many of our men Id do in if it came on me while we were busy. I had that nice taste in the mouth and the nice temperature they call trench-fever, anI had to feel inside my head for the meanin of every order I gave or was responsible for executin. You know!
We do. Go on! said Pole in a tone that made Orton look at him.
So, you see, the bettin was even on my drawin a V.C. or getting Number Umpty rest-camp ora firing party before breakfast. But Gord saved me. (I made friends with Him the last two years of the war. The others went off too quick.) They wanted a bomb in-instructor for the training-battalion at home, an He put it into their silly hearts to indent for me. It took em five minutes to make me understand I was saved. Then I vomited, an then I cried. You know! The fat face of Bevin had changed and grown drawn, even as he spoke; and his hands tugged as though to tighten an imaginary belt.
I was never keen on bombin myself, said Pole. But bomb in-instructions murder!
I dont deny its a shade risky, specially when they take the pin out an start shakin it, same as the Chinks used to do in the woods at Beauty, when they were cuttin em down. But you live like a home defence Brigadier, besides week-end leaf. As a matter o fact, I married Berts sister soons I could after I got the billet, an I used to lie in our bed thinkin of the old crowd on the Somme anfeelin what a swine I was. Of course, I earned two V.C.s a week behind the traverse in the exercise of my ordnary duties, but that isnt the same thing. An yet Id only joined up becausebecause I couldnt dam well help it.
An what about your Queenslander? the Australian asked.
Too de sweet! Pronto! We got a letter in May from a Brighton hospital matron, sayin that one of the name of Hickmer was anxious for news o me, previous to proceedin to Roehampton for initiation into his new leg. Of course, we applied for him by return. Bert had written about him to his sistermy missusevery time he wrote at all; an any pal o Bertswell, you know what the ladies are like. I warned her about his peculiarities. She wouldnt believe till she saw him. He was just the same. Youd ha thought hed show up in England like a fresh stiff on snowbut you never noticed him. You never heard him; and if he didnt want to be seen he wasnt there. He just joined up with his background. I knew he could do that with men; but how in Hell, seein how curious women are, he could camouflage with the ladiesmy wife an my mother to witbeats me! Hed feed the chickens for us; hed stand on his one legit was off above the kneeand saw wood for us. Hed runI mean hed hoperrands for Mrs. B, or mother; our dog worshipped him from the start, though I never saw him throw a word to him; andyet he didnt take any place anywhere. Youve seen a rabbityouve seen a pheasanthidin in a ditch? Put your hand on it sometimes before it moved, havent you? Well, that was Hickmotwith two women in the house crazy to find outfind outanything about him that made him human. You know what women are! He stayed with us a fortnight. He left us on a Satday to go to Roehampton to try his leg. On Friday he came over to the bombin groundnot saym anything, as usualto watch me instruct my Suicide Club, which was only half an hours run by rail from our village. He had his overcoat on, an as soon as he reached the place it was mafeesh with him, as usual. Rabbit-trick again! You never noticed him. He sat in the bomb-proof behind the pit where the duds accumulate till its time to explode em. Naturally, thats strictly forbidden to the public. So he went there, an no one noticed him. When hed had enough of watchin, he hopped off home to feed our chickens for the last time.
Then how did you know all about it? Orton said.
Because I saw him come into the place just as I was goin down into the trench. Then he slipped my memory till my train went back. But it would have made no difference what our arrangements were. If Hickmer didnt choose to be noticed, he wasnt noticed. Just for curiositys sake I asked some o the Staff Sergeants whether theyd seen him on the ground. Not onenot one single one hador could tell me what he was like. An, Satday noon, he went off to Roehampton. We saw him into the train ourselves, with the lunch Mrs. B. had put up for hima one-legged man an his crutch, in regulation blue, khaki warm an kit-bag. Takin everything together, peraps hed spoken as many as twenty times in the thirteen days hed been with us. Im givin it you straight as it happened. An nowlook here!this is what did happen.
Between two and three that Sunday morningdark an blowin from the northI was woke up by an explosion an people shoutin Raid! The first bang fetched em out like worms after rain. There was another some minutes afterwards, an me an a Sergeant in the Shropshires on leaf told em all to take cover. They did. There was a devil of a long wait an there was a third pop. Everybody, includin me, heard aeroplanes. I didnt notice till afterwards that
Bevin paused.
What? said Orton.
Oh, I noticed a heap of things afterwards. What we noticed firstthe Shropshire Sergeant an mewas a rick well alight back o Margetts house, an, with that north wind, blowin straight on to another rick o Margetts. It went up all of a whoosh. The next thing we saw by the light of it was Margetts house with a bomb-hole in the roof and the rafters leanin sideways likelike they always lean on such occasions. So we ran there, and the first thing we met was Margetts in his split-tailed nightie callin on his mother an damnin his wife. A man always does that when hes cross. Have you noticed? Mrs. Margetts was in her nightie too, remindin Margetts that he hadnt completed his rick insurance. An thats a womans lovin care all over. Behind them was their eldest son, in trousers an slippers, nursin his arm an callin for the doctor. They went through us howlin like flammemwerfer casualtiesright up the street to the surgery.
Well, there wasnt anything to do except let the show burn out. We hadnt any means of extinguishing conflagrations. Some of em fiddled with buckets, an some of em tried to get out some o Margetts sticks, but his younger son kept shoutin, Dont! Dont! Itll be stole! Itll be stole! So it burned instead, till the roof came down, top of alla little, cheap, dirty villa, In reel life one whizz-bang would have shifted it; but in our civil village it looked that damned important and particular you wouldnt believe. We couldnt get round to Margetts stable because of the two ricks alight, but we found some one had opened the door early an the horses was in Margetts new vegetable piece down the hill which hed hired off old Vigors to extend his business with. I love the way a horse always looks after his own bellysame as a Gunner. They went to grazin down the carrots and onions till young Margetts ran to turn em out, an then they got in among the glass frames an cut themselves. Oh, we had a regular Russian night of it, everybody givin advice an fallin over each other. When it got light we saw the damage. House, two ricks an stable mafeesh; the big glasshouse with every pane smashed and the furnace-end of it blown clean out. All the horses an about fifteen head o cattlebutchers stores from the next fieldfeeding in the new vegetable piece. It was a fair clean-up from end to endhouse, furniture, fittins, plant, an all the early crops.
Was there any other damage in the village? I asked.
Im coming to itthe curious partbut I wouldnt call it damage. I was renting a field then for my chickens off the Merecroft Estate. Its accommodation-land, an there was a wet ditch at the bottom that I had wanted for ever so long to dam up to make a swim-hole for Mrs. Bevins ducks.
Ah! said Orton, half turning in his chair, all in one piece.
Spose I was allowed? Not me. Their Agent came down on me for tamperin with the Estates drainage arrangements. An all I wanted was to bring the bank down where the ditch narrowsa couple of cartloads of dirt would have held the water back for half-a-dozen yardsnot more than that, an I could have made a little spill-way over the top with three boards-same as in trenches. Well, the first bombthe one that woke me uphad done my work for me better than I could. It had dropped just under the hollow of the bank an brought it all down in a fair landslide. Id got my swim-hole for Mrs. Bevins ducks, an I didnt see how the Estate could kick at the Act o God, dyou?
And Hickmot? said Orton, grinning.
Hold on! There was a Parish Council meetin to demand reprisals, of course, an there was the policeman an me pokin about among the ruins till the Explosives Expert came down in his motor car at three p.m. Monday, an he meets all the Margetts off their rockers, howlin in the surgery, an he sees my swim-hole fillin up to the brim.
What did he say? Pole inquired.
He sized it up at once. (He had to get back to dine in town that evening.) He said all the evidence proved that it was a lucky shot on the part of one isolated Hun plane gom home, an we werent to take it to heart. I dont know that anybody but the Margetts did. He said they must have used incendiary bombs of a new typewhich hed suspected for a long time. I dont think the man was any worse than God intended him to be. I dont reelly. But the Shropshire Sergeant said
And what did you think? I interrupted.
I didnt think. I knew by then. Im not a Sherlock Holmes; but havin chucked em an chucked em back and kicked em out of the light an slept with em for two years, an makin my livin out of them at that time, I could recognise the fuse of a Mills bomb when I found it. I found all three of em. Curious about that second in Margetts glasshouse. Hickmot mus have raked the ashes out of the furnace, popped it in, an shut the furnace door. It operated all right. Not one livin pane left in the putty, and all the brickwork spread round the yard in streaks. Just like that St. Firmin village we were talking about.
But how dyou account for young whatshisname gettin his arm broken? said Pole.
Crutch! said Bevin. If you or me had taken on that nights doins, with one leg, wed have hopped and sweated from one flank to another an been caught half-way between. Hickmot didnt. Im as sure as Im sittin here that he did his doings quiet and comfortable at his full heighthe was over six feetand no one noticed him. This is the way I see it. He fixed the swim-hole for Mrs. Bevins ducks first. We used to talk over our own affairs in front of him, of course, and he knew just what she wanted in the way of a pond. So he went and made it at his leisure. Then he probly went over to Margetts and lit the first rack, knowin that the wind ud do the rest. When young Margetts saw the light of it an came out to look, Hickmot would have taken post at the back-door an dropped the young swine with his crutch, same as we used to drop Huns comin out of a dug-out. You know how they blink at the light? Then he must have walked off an opened Margetts stable door to save the horses. Theyd be more to him than any mans life. Then he probly chucked one bomb on top o Margetts roof, havin seen that the first rick had caught the second and that the whole house was bound to go. Dyou get me?
Then why did he waste his bomb on the house? said Orton. His glass eye seemed as triumphant as his real one.
For camouflage, of course. He was camouflagin an air-raid. When the Margetts piled out of their place into the street, he probly attended to the glasshouse, because that would be Margetts chief means o business. After thatI think so, because otherwise I dont see where all those extra cattle came from that we found in the vegetable piecehe must have walked off an rounded up all the butchers beasts in the next medder, an driven em there to help the horses. And when hed finished everything hed set out to do, Ill lay my life an kit he curled up like a bloomin wombat not fifty yards away from the whole flamin showan let us run round him. An when hed had his sleep out, he went up to Roehampton Monday mornin by some tram that hed decided upon in his own mind weeks an weeks before.
Did he know all the trains then? said Pole.
Ask me another. I only know that if he wanted to get from any place to another without bein noticed, he did it.
And the bombs? He got em from you, of course, Pole went on.
What do you think? He was an hour in the park watchin me instruct, sittin, as I remember, in the bomb-proof by the dud-hole, in his overcoat. He got em all right. He took neither more nor less than he wanted; an Ive told you what he did with emonetwoan three.
Ever see him afterwards? said Orton.
Yes. Saw him at Brighton when I went down there with the missus, not a month after hed been broken in to his Roehampton leg. You know how the boys used to sit all along Brighton front in their blues, an jump every time the coal was bein delivered to the hotels behind them? I barged into him opposite the Old Ship, an I told him about our air-raid. I told him how Margetts had gone off his rocker an walked about starin at the sky an holdin reprisal-meetins all by himself; an how old Mr. Vigors had bought in what hed lefttho of course I said what was lefto Margetts business; an how well my swim-hole for the ducks was doin. It didnt interest him. He didnt want to come over to stay with us any more, either. We were a long, long way back in his past. You could see that. He wanted to get back with his new leg, to his own God-forsaken sheep-walk an his black fellers in Queensland. I expect hes done it now, an no one has noticed him. But, by Gord! He did leak a little at the end. He did that much! When we was waitin for the tram to the station, I said how grateful I was to Fritz for moppin up Margetts an makin our swim-hole all in one night. Mrs. B. seconded the motion. We couldnt have done less. Well, then Hickmot said, speakin in his queer way, as if English words were all new to him: Ah, go on an bail up in Hell, he says. Bert was my friend. That was all. Ive given it you just as it happened, word for word. Id hate to have an Australian have it in for me for anything Id done to his friend. Mark you, I dont say theres anything wrong with you Australians, Brother Orton. I only say they aint like us or any one else that I know.
Well, do you want us to be? said Orton.
No, no. It takes all sorts to make a world, as the sayin is. And nowBevin pulled out his gold watchif I dont make a move of it Ill miss my last train.
Let her go, said Orton serenely. Youve done some lorry-hoppin in your time, havent youSergeant?
When I was two an a half stone lighter, Digger, Bevin smiled in reply.
Well, Ill run you out home before sun-up. Im a haulage-contractor nowLondon and Oxford. Theres an empty of mine ordered to Oxford. We can go round by your place as easy as not. Shes lyin out Vauxhall-way.
My Gord ! An see the sun rise again! Havent seen him since I cant remember when, said Bevin, chuckling. Oh, there was fun sometimes in Hell, wasnt there, Australia?; and again his hands event down to tighten the belt that was missing.
FATHER, Mother, and Me,
We eat pork and beef
We shoot birds with a gun.
We eat kitcheny food.
All good people agree, |
As Death himself observed to St. Peter, who had just come off The Gate for a rest: One does the best one can with the means at ones disposal, but
I know, said the good Saint sympathetically. Even with what help I can muster, Im on The Gate twenty-two hours out of the twenty-four.
Do you find your volunteer staff any real use? Death went on. Isnt it easier to do the work oneself than
One must guard against that point of view, St. Peter returned, but I know what you mean. Office officialises the best of us . . . What is it now? He turned to a prim-lipped Seraph who had followed him with an expulsion-form for signature. St. Peter glanced it over. Private R. M. Buckland, he read, on the charge of saying that there is no God. That all?
He says he is prepared to prove it, sir, andaccording to the Rules
If you will make yourself acquainted with the Rules, youll find they lay down that the fool says in his heart, there is no God. That decides it; probably shell-shock. Have you tested his reflexes?
No, sir. He kept on saying that there
Pass him in at once! Tell off some one to argue with him and give him the best of the argument till St. Lukes free. Anything else?
A hospital-nurses record, sir. She has been nursing for two years.
A long while. St. Peter spoke severely. She may very well have grown careless.
Its her civilian record, sir. I judged best to refer it to you. The Seraph handed him a vivid scarlet docket.
The next time, said St. Peter, folding it down and writing on one corner, that you get one of theseertinted forms, mark it Q.M.A. and pass bearer at once. Dont worry over trifles. The Seraph flashed off and returned to the clamorous Gate.
Which Department is Q.M.A.? said Death. St. Peter chuckled .
Its not a department. Its a Ruling. Quia multum amavit. A most useful Ruling. Ive stretched it to . . . Now, I wonder what that child actually did die of.
Ill ask, said Death, and moved to a public telephone near by. Give me War Check and Audit: English side: non-combatant, he began. Latest returns . . . Surely youve got them posted up to date by now! . . . Yes ! Hospital Nurse in France . . . No! Not nature and aliases. I saidwhatwasnatureofillness? . . . Thanks. He turned to St. Peter. Quite normal, he said. Heart-failure after neglected pleurisy following overwork.
Good! St. Peter rubbed his hands. That brings her under the higher allowanceC,.L.H. scaleGreater love bath no man But my people ought to have known that from the first.
Who is that clerk of yours? asked Death. He seems rather a stickler for the proprieties.
The usual type nowadays, St. Peter returned. A young Power in charge of some half-baked Universe. Never having dealt with life yet, hes somewhat nebulous.
Death sighed. Its the same with my old Departmental Heads. Nothing on earth will make my fossils on the Normal Civil Side realise that we are dying in a new age. Come and look at them. They might interest you.
Thanks, I will, but Excuse me a minute! Heres my zealous young assistant on the wing once more.
The Seraph had returned to report the arrival of overwhelmingly heavy convoys at The Gate, and to ask what the Saint advised.
Im just off on an inter-departmental inspection which will take me some time, said St. Peter. You must learn to act on your own initiative. So I shall leave you to yourself for the next hour or two, merely suggesting (I dont wish in any way to sway your judgment) that you invite St. Paul, St. Ignatius (Loyola, I mean) anderSt. Christopher to assist as Supervising Assessors on the Board of Admission. Ignatius is one of the subtlest intellects we have, and an officer and a gentleman to boot. I assure youthe Saint turned towards Deathhe revels in dialectics. If hes allowed to prove his case, hes quite capable of letting off the offender. St. Christopher, of course, will pass anything that looks wet and muddy.
They are nearly all that now, sir, said the Seraph.
So much the better; andas I was going to saySt. Paul is an embarrassa distinctly strong colleague. Stillwe all have our weaknesses. Perhaps a well-timed reference to his seamanship in the Mediterraneanby the way, look up the name of his ship, will you? Alexandria register, I thinkmight be useful in some of those sudden maritime cases that crop up. I neednt tell you to be firm, of course. Thats your besettingerI meanreprimand em severely and publicly, but the Saints voice brokeoh, my child, you dont know what it is to need forgiveness. Be gentle with embe very gentle with em!
Swiftly as a falling shaft of light the Seraph kissed the sandalled feet and was away.
Aha! said St. Peter. He cant go far wrong with that Board of Admission as Iveerarranged it.
They walked towards the great central office of Normal Civil Death, which, buried to the knees in a flood of temporary structures, resembled a closed cribbage-board among spilt dominoes.
They entered an area of avenues and cross-avenues, flanked by long, low buildings, each packed with seraphs working wing to folded wing.
Our temporary buildings, Death explained. Always being added to. This is the War-side. Youll find nothing changed on the Normal Civil Side. They are more human than mankind.
It doesnt lie in my mouth to blame them, said St. Peter.
No, Ive yet to meet the soul you wouldnt find excuse for, said Death tenderly; but then I donterarrange my Boards of Admission.
If one doesnt help ones Staff, ones Staff will never help itself, St. Peter laughed, as the shadow of the main porch of the Normal Civil Death Offices darkened above them.
This facade rather recalls the Vatican, doesnt it? said the Saint.
Theyre quite as conservative. Notice how they still keep the old Holbein uniforms? Morning, Sergeant Fell. How goes it? said Death as he swung the dusty doors and nodded at a Commissionaire, clad in the grim livery of Death, even as Hans Holbein has designed it.
Sadly. Very sadly indeed, sir, the Commissionaire replied. So many pore ladies and gentlemen, sir, oo might well ave lived another few years, goin off, as you might say, in every direction with no time for the proper obsequities.
Too bad, said Death sympathetically. Well, were none of us as young as we were, Sergeant.
They climbed a carved staircase, behung with the whole millinery of undertaking at large. Death halted on a dark Aberdeen granite landing and beckoned a messenger.
Were rather busy to-day, sir, the messenger whispered, but I think His Majesty will see you.
Who is the Head of this Department if it isnt you? St. Peter whispered in turn.
You may well ask, his companion replied. Im only he checked himself and went on. The fact is, our Normal Civil Death side is controlled by a Being who considers himself all that I am and more. Hes Death as men have made himin their own image. He pointed to a brazen plate, by the side of a black-curtained door, which read: Normal Civil Death, K.G., K.T., K.P., P.C., etc. Hes as human as mankind.
I guessed as much from those letters. What do they mean?
Titles conferred on him from time to time. King of Ghosts; King of Terrors; King of Phantoms; Pallid Conqueror, and so forth. Theres no denying hes earned every one of them. A first-class mind, but just a leetle bit of a sn
His Majesty is at liberty, said the messenger.
Civil Death did not belie his name. No monarch on earth could have welcomed them more graciously; or, in St. Peters case, with more of that particularity of remembrance which is the gift of good kings. But when Death asked him how his office was working, he became at once the Departmental Head with a grievance.
Thanks to this abominable war, he began testily, my N.C.D. has to spend all its time fighting for mere existence. Your new War-side seems to think that nothing matters except the war. Ive been asked to give up two-thirds of my Archives Basement (E. 7E. 64) to the Polish Civilian Casualty Check and Audit. Preposterous! Where am I to move my Archives? And theyve just been cross-indexed, too!
As I understood it, said Death, our War-side merely applied for desk-room in your basement. They were prepared to leave your Archives in situ.
Impossible! We may need to refer to them at any moment. Theres a case now which is interesting Us alla Mrs. Ollerby. Worcestershire by extractiondying of an internal hereditary complaint. At any moment, We may wish to refer to her dossier, and how can We if Our basement is given up to people over whom We exercise no departmental control? This war has been made excuse for slackness in every direction.
Indeed! said Death. You surprise me. I thought nothing made any difference to the N.C.D.
A few years ago I should have concurred, Civil Death replied. But since thisthis recent outbreak of unregulated mortality there has been a distinct lack of respect toward certain aspects of Our administration. The attitude is bound to reflect itself in the office. The official is, in a large measure, what the public makes him. Of course, it is only temporary reaction, but the merest outsider would notice what I mean. Perhaps you would like to see for yourself? Civil Death bowed towards St. Peter, who feared that he might be taking up his time.
Not in the least. If I am not the servant of the public, what am I? Civil Death said, and preceded them to the landing. Now, thishe ushered them into an immense but badly lighted officeis our International Mortuary Departmentthe I.M.D. as we call it. It works with the Check and Audit. I should be sorry to say offhand how many billion sterling it represents, invested in the funeral ceremonies of all the races of mankind. He stopped behind a very bald-headed clerk at a desk. And yet We take cognizance of the minutest detail, do not We? he went on. What have We here, for example?
Funeral expenses of the late Mr. John Shenks Tanner. The clerk stepped aside from the redruled book. Cut down by the executors on account of the War from £173:19:1 to £47:18:4. A sad falling off, if I may say so, Your Majesty.
And what was the attitude of the survivors? Civil Death asked.
Very casual. It was a motor-hearse funeral.
A pernicious example, spreading, I fear, even in the lowest classes, his superior muttered. Haste, lack of respect for the Dread Summons, carelessness in the Subsequent Disposition of the Corpse and
But as regards peoples real feelings? St. Peter demanded of the clerk.
That isnt within the terms of our reference, Sir, was the answer. But we do know that, as often as not, they dont even buy black-edged announcement-cards nowadays.
Good Heavens! said Civil Death swellingly. No cards! I must look into this myself. Forgive me, St. Peter, but we Servants of Humanity, as you know, are not our own masters. No cards, indeed! He waved them off with an official hand, and immersed himself in the ledger.
Oh, come along, Death whispered to St. Peter. This is a blessed relief!
They two walked on till they reached the far end of the vast dim office. The clerks at the desks here scarcely pretended to work. A messenger entered and slapped down a small autophonic reel.
Here you are! he cried. Mister Wilbraham Lattimers last dying speech and record. He made a shockin end of it.
Good for Lattimer! a young voice called from a desk. Chuck it over!
Yes, the messenger went on.Lattimer said to his brother: Bert, I havent time to worry about a little thing like dying these days, and whats more important, you havent either. You go back to your Somme doins, and Ill put it through with Aunt Maria. Itll amuse her and it wont hinder you. Thats nice stuff for your boss! The messenger whistled and departed. A clerk groaned as he snatched up the reel.
How the deuce am I to knock this into official shape? he began. Pass us the edifying Gantry Tubnell. Ill have to crib from him again, I suppose.
Be careful! a companion whispered, and shuffled a typewritten form along the desk. Ive used Tubby twice this morning already.
The late Mr. Gantry Tubnell must have demised on approved departmental lines, for his record was much thumbed. Death and St. Peter watched the editing with interest.
I cant bring in Aunt Maria any way, the clerk broke out at last. Listen here, every one! She has heart-disease. She dies just as shes lifted the dropsical Lattimer to change his sheets. She says: Sorry, Willy! Id make a dam pore ospital nurse!; Then she sits down and croaks. Now I call that good! Ive a great mind to take it round to the War-side as an indirect casualty and get a breath of fresh air.
Then youll be hauled over the coals, a neighbour suggested.
Im used to that, too, the clerk sniggered.
Are you? said Death, stepping forward suddenly from behind a high map-stand. Who are you? The clerk cowered in his skeleton jacket.
Im not on the Regular Establishment, Sir, he stammered. Im aVolunteer. II wanted to see how people behaved when they were in trouble.
Did you? Well, take the late Mr. Wilbraham Lattimers and Miss Maria Lattimers papers to the War-side General Reference Office. When they have been passed upon, tell the Attendance Clerk that you are to serve as probationer inlets seein the Domestic Induced Casualty Side7 G.S.
The clerk collected himself a little and spoke through dry lips.
Butbut ImI slipped in from the Lower Establishment, Sir, he breathed.
There was no need to explain. He shook from head to foot as with the palsy; and under all Heaven none tremble save those who come from that class which also believe and tremble.
Do you tell Me this officially, or as one created being to another? Death asked after a pause.
Oh, non-officially, Sir. Strictly non-officially, so long as you know all about it.
His awe-stricken fellow-workers could not restrain a smile at Death having to be told about anything. Even Death bit his lips.
I dont think you will find the War-side will raise any objection, said he. By the way, they dont wear that uniform over there.
Almost before Death ceased speaking, it was ripped off and flung on the floor, and that which had been a sober clerk of Normal Civil Death stood up an unmistakable, curly-haired, bat-winged, faun-eared Imp of the Pit. But where his wings joined his shoulders there was a patch of delicate dove-coloured feathering that gave promise to spread all up the pinion. St. Peter saw it and smiled, for it was a known sign of grace.
Thank Goodness! the ex-clerk gasped as he snatched up the Lattimer records and sheered sideways through the skylight.
Amen! said Death and St. Peter together, and walked through the door.
Werent you hinting something to me a little while ago about my lax methods? St. Peter demanded, innocently.
Well, if one doesnt help ones Staff, ones Staff will never help itself, Death retorted. Now, I shall have to pitch in a stiff demi-official asking how that young fiend came to be taken on in the N.C.D. without examination. And I must do it before the N.C.D. complain that Ive been interfering with their departmental transfers. Arent they human? If you want to go back to The Gate I think our shortest way will be through here and across the War-Sheds.
They carne out of a side-door into Heavens full light. A phalanx of Shining Ones swung across a great square singing
To Him Who made the Heavens abide, yet cease not from their motion, To Him Who drives the cleansing tide twice a day round Ocean Let His Name be magnified in all poor folks devotion! |
Death halted their leader, and asked a question.
Were Volunteer Aid Serving Powers, the Seraph explained, reporting for duty in the Domestic Induced Casualty Departmenttold off to help relatives, where we can.
The shift trooped onsuch an array of Powers, Honours, Glories, Toils, Patiences, Services, Faiths and Loves as no man may conceive even by favour of dreams. Death and St. Peter followed them into a D.I.C.D. Shed on the English side where, for the moment, work had slackened. Suddenly a name flashed on the telephone-indicator. Mrs. Arthur Bedott, 317, Portsmouth Avenue, Brondesbury. Husband badly wounded. One child. Her special weakness was appended.
A Seraph on the raised dais that overlooked the Volunteer Aids waiting at the entrance, nodded and crooked a finger. One of the new shifta temporary Acting Gloryhurled himself from his place and vanished earthward.
You may take it, Death whispered to St. Peter, there will be a sustaining epic built up round Private Bedotts wound for his wife and Baby Bedott to cling to. And herethey heard wings that flapped wearilyhere, I suspect, comes one of our failures.
A Seraph entered and dropped, panting, on a form. His plumage was ragged, his sword splintered to the hilt; and his face still worked with the passions of the world he had left, as his soiled vesture reeked of alcohol.
Defeat, he reported hoarsely, when he had given in a womans name. Utter defeat! Look! He held up the stump of his sword. I broke this on her gin-bottle.
So? We try again, said the impassive Chief Seraph. Again he beckoned, and there stepped forward that very Imp whom Death had transferred from the N.C.D.
Go you! said the Seraph. We must deal with a fool according to her folly. Have you pride enough?
There was no need to ask. The messengers face glowed and his nostrils quivered with it. Scarcely pausing to salute, he poised and dived, and the papers on the desks spun beneath the draught of his furious vans.
St. Peter nodded high approval. I see! he said. Hell work on her pride to steady her. By all meansif by all means, as my good Paul used to say. Only it ought to read by any manner of possible means. Excellent!
Its difficult, though, a soft-eyed Patience whispered. I fail again and again. Im only fit for an old-maids tea-party.
Once more the record flasheda multiple-urgent appeal on behalf of a few thousand men, worn-out body and soul. The Patience was detailed.
Oh, me! she sighed, with a comic little shrug of despair, and took the void softly as a summer breeze at dawning.
But how does this come under the head of Domestic Casualties? Those men were in the trenches. I heard the mud squelch, said St. Peter.
Something wrong with the installationas usual. Waves are always jamming here, the Seraph replied.
So it seems, said St. Peter as a wireless cut in with the muffled note of some one singing (sorely out of tune), to an accompaniment of desultory poppings:
Unless you can love as the Angels love With the breadth of Heaven be
Twixt! It broke off. The record showed a name. The waiting Seraphs stiffened to attention with a click of tense quills.
As you were! said the Chief Seraph. Hes met her.
Who is she? said St. Peter.
His mother. You never get over your weakness for romance, Death answered, and a covert smile spread through the Office.
Thank Heaven, I dont. But I really ought to be going
Wait one minute. Heres trouble coming through, I think, Death interposed.
A recorder had sparked furiously in a broken run of S.O.S.s that allowed no time for inquiry.
Name! Name! an impatient young Faith panted at last. It cant be blotted out. No name came up. Only the reiterated appeal.
False alarm! said a hard-featured Toil, well used to mankind. Some fool has found out that he owns a soul. Wants work. Id cure him! . . .
Hush! said a Love in Armour, stamping his mailed foot. The office listened.
Bad case? Death demanded at last.
Rank bad, Sir. They are holding back the name, said the Chief Seraph. The S.O.S. signals grew more desperate, and then ceased with an emphatic thump. The Love in Armour winced.
Firing-party, he whispered to St. Peter. Cant mistake that noise!
What is it? St. Peter cried nervously.
Deserter; spy; murderer, was the Chief Seraphs weighed answer. Its out of my departmentnow. Nohold the line! The names up at last.
It showed for an instant, broken and faint as sparks on charred wadding, but in that instant a dozen pens had it written. St. Peter with never a word gathered his robes about him and bundled through the door, headlong for The Gate.
No hurry, said Death at his elbow. With the present rush your man wont come up for ever so long.
Never can be sure these days. Anyhow, the Lower Establishment will be after him like sharks. Hes the very type theyd want for propaganda. Desertertraitormurderer. Out of my way, please, babies!
A group of children round a red-headed man who was telling them stories, scattered laughing. The man turned to St. Peter.
Deserter, traitor, murderer, he repeated. Can I be of service?
You can! St. Peter gasped. Double on ahead to The Gate and tell them to hold up all expulsions till I come. Then, he shouted as the man sped off at a long hound-like trot, go and picket the outskirts of the Convoys. Dont let any one break away on any account. Quick!
But Death was right. They need not have hurried. The crowd at The Gate was far beyond the capacities of the Examining Board even though, as St. Peters Deputy informed him, it had been enlarged twice in his absence.
Were doing our best, the Seraph explained, but delay is inevitable, Sir. The Lower Establishment are taking advantage of it, as usual, at the tail of the Convoys. Ive doubled all pickets there, and Im sending more. Heres the extra list, SirArc J., Bradlaugh C., Bunyan J., Calvin J. Iscariot J. reported to me just now, as under your orders, and took em with him. Also Shakespeare W. and
Never mind the rest, said St. Peter. I Im going there myself. Meantime, carry on with the passesdont fiddle over emand give me a blank or two. He caught up a thick block of Free Passes, nodded to a group in khaki at a passport table, initialled their Commanding Officers personal pass as for Officer and Party, and left the numbers to be filled in by a quite competent-looking Quarter-master-Sergeant. Then, Death beside him, he breasted his way out of The Gate against the incoming multitude of all races, tongues, and creeds that stretched far across the plain.
An old lady, firmly clutching a mottle-nosed, middle-aged Major by the belt, pushed across a procession of keen-faced poilus, and blocked his path, her captive held in that terrible mother-grip no Power has yet been able to unlock.
I found him! Ive got him! Pass him ! she ordered.
St. Peters jaw fell. Death politely looked elsewhere.
There are a few formalities, the Saint began.
With Jerry in this state? Nonsense! How like a man! My boy never gave me a moments anxiety in
Dont, deardont! The Major looked almost as uncomfortable as St. Peter.
Well, nothing compared with what he would give me if he werent passed.
Didnt I hear you singing just now? Death asked, seeing that his companion needed a breathing-space.
Of course you did, the Mother intervened. He sings beautifully. And thats another reason! Youre bass, arent you now, darling?
St. Peter glanced at the agonised Major and hastily initialled him a pass. Without a word of thanks the Mother hauled him away.
Now, under what conceivable Ruling do you justify that ? said Death.
I.W.the Importunate Widow. Its scandalous! St. Peter groaned. Then his face darkened as he looked across the great plain beyond The Gate. I dont like this, he said. The Lower Establishment is out in full force to-night. I hope our pickets are strong enough
The crowd here had thinned to a disorderly queue flanked on both sides by a multitude of busy, discreet emissaries from the Lower Establishment who continually edged in to do business with them, only to be edged off again by a line of watchful pickets. Thanks to the khaki everywhere, the scene was not unlike that which one might have seen on earth any evening of the old days outside the refreshment-room by the Arch at Victoria Station, when the Army trains started. St. Peters appearance was greeted by the usual outburst of cock-crowing from the Lower Establishment.
Dirty work at the cross-roads, said Death dryly.
I deserve it! St. Peter grunted, but think what it must mean for Judas.
He shouldered into the thick of the confusion where the pickets coaxed, threatened, implored, and in extreme cases bodily shoved the wearied men and women past the voluble and insinuating spirits who strove to draw them aside.
A Shropshire Yeoman had just accepted, together with a forged pass, the assurance of a genial runner of the Lower Establishment that Heaven lay round the corner, and was being stealthily steered thither, when a large hand jerked him back, another took the runner in the chest, and some one thundered: Get out, you crimp! The situation was then vividly explained to the soldier in the language of the barrack-room.
Dont blame me, Guvnor, the man expostulated. I avent seen a woman, let alone angels, for umpteen months. Im from Joppa. Where you from?
Northampton, was the answer. Rein back and keep by me.
What? You aint ever Charley B. that my dad used to tell about? I thought you always said
I shall say a deal more soon. Your Sergeants talking to that woman in red. Fetch him inquick!
Meantime, a sunken-eyed Scots officer, utterly lost to the riot around, was being button-holed by a person of reverend aspect who explained to him that, by the logic of his own ancestral creed, not only was the Highlander irrevocably damned, but that his damnation had been predetermined before Earth was made.
Its unanswerablejust unanswerable, said the young man sorrowfully. Ill be with ye. He was moving off, when a smallish figure interposed, not without dignity.
Monsieur, it said, would it be of any comfort to you to know that I amI wasJohn Calvin? At this the reverend one cursed and swore like the lost Soul he was, while the Highlander turned to discuss with Calvin, pacing towards The Gate, some alterations in the fabric of a work of fiction called the Institutio.
Others were not so easily held. A certain Woman, with loosened hair, bare arms, flashing eyes and dancing feet, shepherded her knot of waverers, hoarse and exhausted. When the taunt broke out against her from the opposing line: Tell em what you were! Tell em if you dare! she answered unflinchingly, as did Judas, who, worming through the crowd like an Armenian carpet-vendor, peddled his shame aloud that it might give strength to others.
Yes, he would cry, I am everything they say, but if Im here it must be a moral cert for you gents. This way, please. Many mansions, gentlemen! Go-ood billets! Dont you notice these low people, Sar. Plees keep hope, gentlemen i
When there were cases that cried to him from the groundpoor souls who could not stick it but had found their way out with a rifle and a boot-lace, he would tell them of his own end, till he made them contemptuous enough to rise up and curse him. Here St. Lukes imperturbable bedside manner backed and strengthened the others almost too oriental flux of words.
In this fashion and step by step, all the days Convoy were piloted past that danger-point where the Lower Establishment are, for reasons not given us, allowed to ply their trade. The pickets dropped to the rear, relaxed, and compared notes.
What always impresses me most, said Death to St. Peter, is the sheeplike simplicity of the intellectual mind. He had been watching one of the pickets apparently overwhelmed by the arguments of an advanced atheist whoso hot in his argument that he was deaf to the offers of the Lower Establishment to make him a godhad stalked, talking hardwhile the picket always gave ground before himstraight past the Broad Road.
He was plaiting of long-tagged epigrams, the sober-faced picket smiled. Give that sort only an ear and theyll follow ye gobbling like turkeys.
And John held his peace through it all, a full fresh voice broke in. It may be so, says John. Doubtless, in your belief, it is so, says John. Your words move me mightily, says John, and gorges his own beliefs like a pike going backwards. And that young fool, so busy spinning wordswordswordsthat he trips past Hell Mouth without seeing it! . . . Whos yonder, Joan?
One of your English. Always late. Look! A young girl with short-cropped hair pointed with her sword across the plain towards a single faltering figure which made at first as though to overtake the Convoy, but then turned left towards the Lower Establishment, who were enthusiastically cheering him as a leader of enterprise.
Thats my traitor, said St. Peter. He has no business to report to the Lower Establishment before reporting to Convoy.
The figures pace slackened as he neared the applauding line. He looked over his shoulder once or twice, and then fairly turned tail and fled again towards the still Convoy.
Nobody ever gave me credit for anything I did, he began, sobbing and gesticulating. They were all against me from the first. I only wanted a little encouragement. It was a regular conspiracy, but I showed em what I could do! I showed em! Andand he halted again. Oh, God! What are you going to do with me?
No one offered any suggestion. He ranged sideways like a doubtful dog, while across the plain the Lower Establishment murmured seductively. All eyes turned to St. Peter.
At this moment, the Saint said half to himself, I cant recall any precise ruling under which
My own case? the ever-ready Judas suggested.
No-o ! Thats making too much of it. And yet
Oh, hurry up and get it over, the man wailed, and told them all that he had done, ending with the cry that none had ever recognised his merits; neither his own narrow-minded people, his inefficient employers, nor the snobbish jumped-up officers of his battalion.
You see, said St. Peter at the end. Its sheer vanity. It isnt even as if we had a woman to fall back upon.
Yet there was a woman or Im mistaken, said the picket with the pleasing voice who had praised John.
Ehwhat? When? St. Peter turned swiftly on the speaker. Who was the woman?
The wise woman of Tekoah, came the smooth answer. I remember, because that verse was the private heart of my playssome of em.
But the Saint was not listening. You have it! he cried. Samuel Two, Double Fourteen. To think that I should have forgotten! For we must needs die and are as water spilled on the ground which cannot be gathered up again. Neither Both God respect any person, yet Here, you! Listen to this!
The man stepped forward and stood to attention. Some one took his cap as Judas and the picket John closed up beside him.
Yet doth He devise means (dyou understand that?) devise means that His banished be not expelled from Him! This covers your case. I dont know what the means will be. Thats for you to find out. Theyll tell you yonder. He nodded towards the now silent Lower Establishment as he scribbled on a pass. Take this paper over to them and report for duty there. Youll have a thin time of it; but they wont keep you a day longer than Ive put down. Escort!
Doesdoes that mean theres any hope? the man stammered.
YesIll show you the way, Judas whispered. Ive lived therea very long time.
Ill bear you company a piece, said John, on his left flank. Therell be Despair to deal with. Heart up, Mr. Littlesoul!
The three wheeled off, and the Convoy watched them grow smaller and smaller across the plain.
St. Peter smiled benignantly and rubbed his hands.
And now were rested, said he, I think we might make a push for billets this evening, gentlemen, eh?
The pickets fell in, guardians no longer but friends and companions all down the line. There was a little burst of cheering and the whole Convoy strode away towards the not so distant Gate.
The Saint and Death stayed behind to rest awhile. It was a heavenly evening. They could hear the whistle of the low-flighting Cherubim, clear and sharp, under the diviner note of some released Seraphs wings, where, his errand accomplished, he plunged three or four stars deep into the cool Baths of Hercules; the steady dynamo-like hum of the nearer planets on their axes; and, as the hush deepened, the surprised little sigh of some new-born sun a universe of universes away. But their minds were with the Convoy that their eyes followed.
Said St. Peter proudly at last: If those people of mine had seen that fellow stripped of all hope in front of em, I doubt if they could have marched another yard to-night. Watch em stepping out now, though! Arent they human?
To whom do you say it? Death answered, with something of a tired smile. Im more than human. Ive got to die some time or other. But all other created Beingsafterwards . . .
I know, said St. Peter softly. And that is why I love you, O Azrael!
For now they were alone Death had, of course, returned to his true majestic shapethat only One of all created beings who is doomed to perish utterly, and knows it.
Well, thats thatfor me! Death concluded as he rose. And yet he glanced towards the empty plain where the Lower Establishment had withdrawn with their prisoner. Yet doth He devise means.
NOTHING in life has been made by man for mans using But it was shown long since to man in ages Lost as the name of the maker of it,
Who received oppression and scorn for his wages
More to be pitied than he are the wise
Heaven delivers on earth the Hour that cannot be thwarted, |
Break off, John, said the Sub-Cantor in an undertone.
Eh? Gone, have they? I never heard. Hold a minute, Clement.
The Sub-Cantor waited patiently. He had known John more than a dozen years, coming and going at St. Illods, to which monastery John, when abroad, always said he belonged. The claim was gladly allowed, for, more even than other Fitz Othos, he seemed to carry all the Arts under his hand, and most of their practical receipts under his hood.
The Sub-Cantor looked over his shoulder at the pinned-down sheet where the first words of the Magnificat were built up in gold washed with red-lac for a background to the Virgins hardly yet fired halo. She was shown, hands joined in wonder, at a lattice of infinitely intricate arabesque, round the edges of which sprays of orange-bloom seemed to load the blue hot air that carried back over the minute parched landscape in the middle distance.
Youve made her all Jewess, said the SubCantor, studying the olive-flushed cheek and the eyes charged with foreknowledge.
What else was Our Lady? John slipped out the pins. Listen, Clement. If I do not come back, this goes into my Great Luke, whoever finishes it. He slid the drawing between its guard-papers.
Then youre for Burgos againas I heard?
In two days. The new Cathedral yonderbut theyre slower than the Wrath of God, those masonsis good for the soul.
Thy soul? The Sub-Cantor seemed doubtful.
Even mine, by your permission. And down southon the edge of the Conquered CountriesGranada waytheres some Moorish diaper-work thats wholesome. It allays vain thought and draws it toward the pictureas you felt, just now, in my Annunciation.
Sheit was very beautiful. No wonder you go. But youll not forget your absolution, John?
Surely. This was a precaution John no more omitted on the eve of his travels than he did the recutting of the tonsure which he had provided himself with in his youth, somewhere near Ghent. The mark gave him privilege of clergy at a pinch, and a certain consideration on the road always.
Youll not forget, either, what we need in the Scriptorium. Theres no more true ultramarine in this world now. They mix it with that German blue. And as for vermilion
Ill do my best always.
And Brother Thomas (this was the Infirmarian in charge of the monastery hospital) he needs
Hell do his own asking. Ill go over his side now, and get me re-tonsured.
John went down the stairs to the lane that divides the hospital and cook-house from the back-cloisters. While he was being barbered, Brother Thomas (St. Illods meek but deadly persistent Infirmarian) gave him a list of drugs that he was to bring back from Spain by hook, crook, or lawful purchase. Here they were surprised by the lame, dark Abbot Stephen, in his fur-lined night-boots. Not that Stephen de Sautré was any spy; but as a young man he had shared an unlucky Crusade, which had ended, after a battle at Mansura, in two years captivity among the Saracens at Cairo where men learn to walk softly. A fair huntsman and hawker, a reasonable disciplinarian, but a man of science above all, and a Doctor of Medicine under one Ranulphus, Canon of St. Pauls, his heart was more m the monasterys hospital work than its religious. He checked their list interestedly, adding items of his own. After the Infirmarian had withdrawn, he gave John generous absolution, to cover lapses by the way; for he did not hold with chance-bought Indulgences.
And what seek you this journey? he demanded, sitting on the bench beside the mortar and scales in the little warm cell for stored drugs.
Devils, mostly, said John, grinning.
In Spain? Are not Abana and Phar-par?
John, to whom men were but matter for drawings, and well-born to boot (since he was a de Sanford on his mothers side), looked the Abbot full in the face andDid you find it so? said he.
No. They were in Cairo too. But whats your special need of em?
For my Great Luke. Hes the masterhand of all Four when it comes to devils.
No wonder. He was a physician. Youre not.
Heaven forbid! But Im weary of our Church-pattern devils. Theyre only apes and goats and poultry conjoined. Good enough for plain red-and-black Hells and Judgment Daysbut not for me.
What makes you so choice in them?
Because it stands to reason and Art that there are all musters of devils in Hells dealings. Those Seven, for example, that were haled out of the Magdalene. Theyd be she-devilsno kin at all to the beaked and horned and bearded devils-general.
The Abbot laughed.
And see again! The devil that came out of the dumb man. What use is snout or bill to him? Hed be faceless as a leper. Above allGod send I live to do it!the devils that entered the Gadarene swine. Theyd betheyd beI know not yet what theyd be, but theyd be surpassing devils. Id have em diverse as the Saints themselves. But now, theyre all one pattern, for wall, window, or picture-work.
Go on, John. Youre deeper in this mystery than I
Heaven forbid! But I say theres respect due to devils, damned tho they be.
Dangerous doctrine.
My meaning is that if the shape of anything be worth mans thought to picture to man, its worth his best thought.
Thats safer. But Im glad Ive given you Absolution.
Theres less risk for a craftsman who deals with the outside shapes of thingsfor Mother Churchs glory.
Maybe so, but, Johnthe Abbots hand almost touched Johns sleevetell me, now, isis she Moorish oror Hebrew?
Shes mine, John returned.
Is that enough?
I have found it so.
Wellah well! Its out of my jurisdiction, buthow do they look at it down yonder?
Oh, they drive nothing to a head in Spainneither Church nor King, bless them! Theres too many Moors and Jews to kill them all, and if they chased em away thered be no trade nor farming. Trust me, in the Conquered Countries, from Seville to Granada, we live lovingly enough togetherSpaniard, Moor, and Jew. Ye see, we ask no questions.
Yesyes, Stephen sighed. And always theres the hope she may be converted.
Oh yes, theres always hope.
The Abbot went on into the hospital. It was an easy age before Rome tightened the screw as to clerical connections. If the lady were not too forward, or the son too much his fathers beneficiary in ecclesiastical preferments and levies, a good deal was overlooked. But, as the Abbot had reason to recall, unions between Christian and Infidel led to sorrow. None the less, when John with mule, mails, and man, clattered off down the lane for Southampton and the sea, Stephen envied him.
He was back, twenty months later, in good hard case, and loaded down with fairings. A lump of richest lazuli, a bar of orange-hearted vermilion, and a small packet of dried beetles which make most glorious scarlet, for the SubCantor. Besides that, a few cubes of milky marble, with yet a pink flush in them, which could be slaked and ground down to incomparable background-stuff. There were quite half the drugs that the Abbot and Thomas had demanded, and there was a long deep-red cornelian necklace for the Abbots LadyAnne of Norton. She received it graciously, and asked where John had come by it.
Near Granada, he said.
You left all well there? Anne asked. (Maybe the Abbot had told her something of Johns confession.)
I left all in the hands of God.
Ah me! How long since?
Four months less eleven days.
Were youwith her?
In my arms. Childbed.
And?
The boy too. There is nothing now.
Anne of Norton caught her breath.
I think youll be glad of that, she said after a while.
Give me time, and maybe Ill compass it. But not now.
You have your handiwork and your art, andJohnremember theres no jealousy in the grave.
Ye-es! I have my Art, and Heaven knows Im jealous of none.
Thank God for that at least, said Anne of Norton, the always ailing woman who followed the Abbot with her sunk eyes. And be sure I shall treasure thisshe touched the beadsas long as I shall live.
I broughttrustedit to you for that, he replied, and took leave. When she told the Abbot how she had come by it, he said nothing, but as he and Thomas were storing the drugs that John handed over in the cell which backs on to the hospital kitchen-chimney, he observed, of a cake of dried poppy juice: This has power to cut off all pain from a mans body.
I have seen it, said John.
But for pain of the soul there is, outside Gods Grace, but one drug; and that is a mans craft, learning, or other helpful motion of his own mind.
That is coming to me, too, was the answer.
John spent the next fair May day out in the woods with the monastery swineherd and all the porkers; and returned loaded with flowers and sprays of spring, to his own carefully kept place in the north bay of the Scriptorium. There, with his travelling sketch-books under his left elbow, he sunk himself past all recollections in his Great Luke.
Brother Martin, Senior Copyist (who spoke about once a fortnight), ventured to ask, later, how the work was going.
All here! John tapped his forehead with his pencil. It has been only waiting these months toah God!be born. Are ye free of your plain-copying, Martin?
Brother Martin nodded. It was his pride that John of Burgos turned to him, in spite of his seventy years, for really good page-work.
Then see! John laid out a new vellumthin but flawless. Theres no better than this sheet from here to Paris. Yes! Smell it if you choose. Whereforegive me the compasses and I11 set it out for youif ye make one letter lighter or darker than its next, Ill stick ye like a pig.
Never, John! The old man beamed happily. But I will! Now, follow! Here and here, as I prick, and in script of just this height to the hairs-breadth, yell scribe the thirty-first and thirty-second verses of Eighth Luke.
Yes, the Gadarene Swine! And they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the abyss. And there was a herd of many swine Brother Martin naturally knew all the Gospels by heart.
Just so! Down to and he suffered them. Take your time to it. My Magdalene has to come off my heart first.
Brother Martin achieved the work so perfectly that John stole some soft sweetmeats from the Abbots kitchen for his reward. The old man ate them; then repented; then confessed and insisted on penance. At which, the Abbot, knowing there was but one way to reach the real sinner, set him a book called De Virtutibus Herbarum to fair-copy. St. Illods had borrowed it from the gloomy Cistercians, who do not hold with pretty things, and the crabbed text kept Martin busy just when John wanted him for some rather specially spaced letterings.
See now, said the Sub-Cantor improvingly. You should not do such things, John. Heres Brother Martin on penance for your sake
Nofor my Great Luke. But Ive paid the Abbots cook. Ive drawn him till his own scullions cannot keep straight-faced. Hell not tell again.
Unkindly done! And youre out of favour with the Abbot too. Hes made no sign to you since you came backnever asked you to high table.
Ive been busy. Having eyes in his head, Stephen knew it. Clement, theres no Librarian from Durham to Torre fit to clean up after you.
The Sub-Cantor stood on guard; he knew where Johns compliments generally ended.
But outside the Scriptorium
Where I never go. The Sub-Cantor had been excused even digging in the garden, lest it should mar his wonderful book-binding hands.
In all things outside the Scriptorium you are the master-fool of Christendie. Take it from me, Clement. Ive met many.
I take everything from you, Clement smiled benignly. You use me worse than a singing-boy.
They could hear one of that suffering breed in the cloister below, squalling as the Cantor pulled his hair.
God love you! So I do! But have you ever thought how I lie and steal daily on my travelsyes, and for aught you know, murderto fetch you colours and earths?
True, said just and conscience-stricken Clement. I have often thought that were I in the worldwhich God forbid!I might be a strong thief in some matters.
Even Brother Martin, bent above his loathed De Virtutibus, laughed.
But about mid-summer, Thomas the Infirmarian conveyed to John the Abbots invitation to supper in his house that night, with the request that he would bring with him anything that he had done for his Great Luke.
Whats toward? said John, who had been wholly shut up in his work.
Only one of his wisdom dinners. Youve sat at a few since you were a man.
True: and mostly good. How would Stephen have us?
Gown and hood over all. There will be a doctor from Salernoone Roger, an Italian. Wise and famous with the knife on the body. Hes been in the Infirmary some ten days, helping meeven me!
Never heard the name. But our Stephens physicus before sacerdos, always.
And his Lady has a sickness of some time. Roger came hither in chief because of her.
Did he? Now I think of it, I have not seen the Lady Anne for a while.
Yeve seen nothing for a long while. She has been housed near a monththey have to carry her abroad now.
So bad as that, then?
Roger of Salerno will not yet say what he thinks. But
God pity Stephen! . . . Who else at table, besides thee?
An Oxford friar. Roger is his name also. A learned and famous philosopher. And he holds his liquor too, valiantly.
Three doctorscounting Stephen. Ive always found that means two atheists.
Thomas looked uneasily down his nose. Thats a wicked proverb, he stammered. You should not use it.
Hoh! Never come you the monk over me, Thomas! Youve been Infirmarian at St. Illods eleven yearsand a lay-brother still. Why have you never taken orders, all this while?
II am not worthy.
Ten times worthier than that new fat swineHenry Whos-his-namethat takes the Infirmary Masses. He bullocks in with the Viaticum, under your nose, when a sick mans only faint from being bled. So the man diesof pure fear. Ye know it! Ive watched your face at such times. Take Orders, Didymus. Youll have a little more medicine and a little less Mass with your sick then; and theyll live longer.
I am unworthyunworthy, Thomas repeated pitifully.
Not youbutto your own master you stand or fall. And now that my work releases me for awhile, Ill drink with any philosopher out of any school. And, Thomas, he coaxed, a hot bath for me in the Infirmary before vespers.
When the Abbots perfectly cooked and served meal had ended, and the deep-fringed naperies were removed, and the Prior had sent in the keys with word that all was fast in the Monastery, and the keys had been duly returned with the word, Make it so till Prime, the Abbot and his guests went out to cool themselves in an upper cloister that took them, by way of the leads, to the South Choir side of the Triforium. The summer sun was still strong, for it was barely six oclock, but the Abbey Church, of course, lay in her wonted darkness. Lights were being lit for choir-practice thirty feet below.
Our Cantor gores them no rest, the Abbot whispered. Stand by this pillar and well hear what hes driving them at now.
Remember, all! the Cantors hard voice came up. This is the soul of Bernard himself, attacking our evil world. Take it quicker than yesterday, and throw all your words clean-bitten from you. In the loft there! Begin!
The organ broke out for an instant, alone and raging. Then the voices crashed together into that first fierce line of the De Contemptu Mundi.
Hora novissimatempora pessimaa dead pause till the assenting sunt broke, like a sob, out of the darkness, and one boys voice, clearer than silver trumpets, returned the long-drawn vigilemus.
Ecce minaciter, imminet Arbiter (organ and voices were leashed togethor in terror and warning, breaking away liquidly to the ille supremus). Then the tone-colours shifted for the prelude to Imminet, imminet, ut mala terminet
Stop! Again! cried the Cantor ; and gave his reasons a little more roundly than was natural at choir-practice.
Ah! Pity o mans vanity! Hes guessed we are here. Come away! said the Abbot. Anne of Norton, in her carried chair, had been listening too, further along the dark Triforium, with Roger of Salerno. John heard her sob. On the way back, he asked Thomas how her health stood. Before Thomas could reply the sharp-featured Italian doctor pushed between them. Following on our talk together, I judged it best to tell her, said he to Thomas.
What? John asked simply enough.
What she knew already. Roger of Salerno launched into a Greek quotation to the effect that every woman knows all about everything.
I have no Greek, said John stiffly. Roger of Salerno had been giving them a good deal of it, at dinner.
Then Ill come to you in Latin. Ovid hath it neatly. Utque malum late solet immedicabile cancer but doubtless you know the rest, worthy Sir.
Alas! My school-Latins but what Ive gathered by the way from fools professing to heal sick women. Hocus-pocus but doubtless you know the rest, worthy Sir.
Roger of Salerno was quite quiet till they regained the dining-room, where the fire had been comforted and the dates, raisins, ginger, figs, and cinnamon-scented sweetmeats set out, with the choicer wines, on the after-table. The Abbot seated himself, drew off his ring, dropped it, that all might hear the tinkle, into an empty silver cup, stretched his feet towards the hearth, and looked at the great gilt and carved rose in the barrel-roof. The silence that keeps from Compline to Matins had closed on their world. The bull-necked Friar watched a ray of sunlight split itself into colours on the rim of a crystal salt-cellar; Roger of Salerno had re-opened some discussion with Brother Thomas on a type of spotted fever that was baffling them both in England and abroad; John took note of the keen profile, andit might serve as a note for the Great Lukehis hand moved to his bosom. The Abbot saw, and nodded permission. John whipped out silver-point and sketch-book.
Naymodesty is good enoughbut deliver your own opinion, the Italian was urging the Infirmarian. Out of courtesy to the foreigner nearly all the talk was in table-Latin; more formal and more copious than monks patter. Thomas began with his meek stammer.
I confess myself at a loss for the cause of the fever unlessas Varro saith in his De Re Rusticacertain small animals which the eye cannot follow enter the body by the nose and mouth, and set up grave diseases. On the other hand, this is not in Scripture.
Roger of Salerno hunched head and shoulders like an angry cat. Always that! he said, and John snatched down the twist of the thin lips.
Never at rest, John. The Abbot smiled at the artist. You should break off every two hours for prayers, as we do. St. Benedict was no fool. Two hours is all that a man can carry the edge of his eye or hand.
For copyistsyes. Brother Martin is not sure after one hour. But when a mans work takes him, he must go on till it lets him go.
Yes, that is the Demon of Socrates, the Friar from Oxford rumbled above his cup.
The doctrine leans toward presumption, said the Abbot. Remember, Shall mortal man be more just than his Maker?
There is no danger of justice; the Friar spoke bitterly. But at least Man might be suffered to go forward in his Art or his thought. Yet if Mother Church sees or hears him move anyward, what says she? No! Always No.
But if the little animals of Varro be invisiblethis was Roger of Salerno to Thomashow are we any nearer to a cure?
By experimentthe Friar wheeled round on them suddenly. By reason and experiment. The one is useless without the other. But Mother Church
Ay ! Roger de Salerno dashed at the fresh bait like a pike. Listen, Sirs. Her bishopsour Princesstrew our roads in Italy with carcasses that they make for their pleasure or wrath. Beautiful corpses! Yet if Iif we doctorsso much as raise the skin of one of them to look at Gods fabric beneath, what says Mother Church? Sacrilege! Stick to your pigs and dogs, or you burn!
And not Mother Church only! the Friar chimed in. Every way we are barredbarred by the words of some man, dead a thousand years, which are held final. Who is any son of Adam that his one sayso should close a door towards truth? I would not except even Peter Peregrinus, my own great teacher.
Nor I Paul of Aegina, Roger of Salerno cried. Listen, Sirs! Here is a case to the very point. Apuleius affirmeth, if a man eat fasting of the juice of the cut-leaved buttercupsceleratus we call it, which means rascallythis with a condescending nod towards Johnhis soul will leave his body laughing. Now this is the lie more dangerous than truth, since truth of a sort is in it.
Hes away! whispered the Abbot despairingly.
For the juice of that herb, I know by experiment, burns, blisters, and wries the mouth. I know also the rictus, or pseudo-laughter, on the face of such as have perished by the strong poisons of herbs allied to this ranunculus. Certainly that spasm resembles laughter. It seems then, in my judgment, that Apuleius, having seen the body of one thus poisoned, went off at score and wrote that the man died laughing.
Neither staying to observe, nor to confirm observation by experiment, added the Friar, frowning.
Stephen the Abbot cocked an eyebrow toward John.
How think you? said he.
Im no doctor, John returned, but Id say Apuleius in all these years might have been betrayed by his copyists. They take short-cuts to save emselves trouble. Put case that Apuleius wrote the soul seems to leave the body laughing, after this poison. Theres not three copyists in five (my judgment) would not leave out the seems to. For whod question Apuleius? If it seemed so to him, so it must be. Otherwise any child knows cut-leaved buttercup.
Have you knowledge of herbs? Roger of Salerno asked curtly.
Only that, when I was a boy in convent, Ive made tetters round my mouth and on my neck with buttercup juice, to save going to prayer o cold nights.
Ah! said Roger. I profess no knowledge of tricks. He turned aside, stiffly.
No matter! Now for your own tricks, John, the tactful Abbot broke in. You shall show the doctors your Magdalene and your Gadarene Swine and the devils.
Devils? Devils? I have produced devils by means of drugs; and have abolished them by the same means. Whether devils be external to mankind or immanent, I have not yet pronounced. Roger of Salerno was still angry.
Ye dare not, snapped the Friar from Oxford. Mother Church makes Her own devils.
Not wholly! Our John has come back from Spain with brand-new ones. Abbot Stephen took the vellum handed to him, and laid it tenderly on the table. They gathered to look. The Magdalene was drawn in palest, almost transparent, grisaille, against a raging, swaying background of woman-faced devils, each broke to and by her special sin, and each, one could see, frenziedly straining against the Power that compelled her.
Ive never seen the like of this grey shadowwork, said the Abbot. How came you by it?
Non nobis! It came to me, said John, not knowing he was a generation or so ahead of his time in the use of that medium.
Why is she so pale? the Friar demanded.
Evil has all come out of hershed take any colour now.
Ay, like light through glass. I see.
Roger of Salerno was looking in silencehis nose nearer and nearer the page. It is so, he pronounced finally. Thus it is in epilepsymouth, eyes, and foreheadeven to the droop of her wrist there. Every sign of it! She will need restoratives, that woman, and, afterwards, sleep natural. No poppy juice, or she will vomit on her waking. And thereafterbut I am not in my Schools. He drew himself up. Sir, said he, you should be of Our calling. For, by the Snakes of Aesculapius, you see!
The two struck hands as equals.
And how think you of the Seven Devils? the Abbot went on.
These melted into convoluted floweror flame-like bodies, ranging in colour from phosphorescent green to the black purple of outworn iniquity, whose hearts could be traced beating through their substance. But, for sign of hope and the sane workings of life, to be regained, the deep border was of conventionalised spring flowers and birds, all crowned by a kingfisher in haste, atilt through a clump of yellow iris.
Roger of Salerno identified the herbs and spoke largely of their virtues.
And now, the Gadarene Swine, said Stephen. John laid the picture on the table.
Here were devils dishoused, in dread of being abolished to the Void, huddling and hurtling together to force lodgment by every opening into the brute bodies offered. Some of the swine fought the invasion, foaming and jerking; some were surrendering to it, sleepily, as to a luxurious back-scratching; others, wholly possessed, whirled off in bucking droves for the lake beneath. In one corner the freed man stretched out his limbs all restored to his control, and Our Lord, seated, looked at him as questioning what he would make of his deliverance.
Devils indeed! was the Friars comment. But wholly a new sort.
Some devils were mere lumps, with lobes and protuberancesa hint of a fiends face peering through jelly-like walls. And there was a family of impatient, globular devillings who had burst open the belly of their smirking parent, and were revolving desperately toward their prey. Others patterned themselves into rods, chains and ladders, single or conjoined, round the throat and jaws of a shrieking sow, from whose ear emerged the lashing, glassy tail of a devil that had made good his refuge. And there were granulated and conglomerate devils, mixed up with the foam and slaver where the attack was fiercest. Thence the eye carried on to the insanely active backs of the downward-racing swine, the swineherds aghast face, and his dogs terror.
Said Roger of Salerno, I pronounce that these were begotten of drugs. They stand outside the rational mind.
Not these, said Thomas the Infirmarian, who as a servant of the Monastery should have asked his Abbots leave to speak. Not theselook!in the bordure.
The border to the picture was a diaper of irregular but balanced compartments or cellules, where sat, swam, or weltered, devils in blank, so to saythings as yet uninspired by Evilindifferent, but lawlessly outside imagination. Their shapes resembled, again, ladders, chains, scourges, diamonds, aborted buds, or gravid phosphorescent globes-some well-nigh starlike.
Roger of Salerno compared them to the obsessions of a Churchmans mind.
Malignant? the Friar from Oxford questioned.
Count everything unknown for horrible, Roger quoted with scorn.
Not I. But they are marvellousmarvellous. I think
The Friar drew back. Thomas edged in to see better, and half opened his mouth.
Speak, said Stephen, who had been watching him. We are all in a sort doctors here.
I would say thenThomas rushed at it as one putting out his lifes belief at the stakethat these lower shapes in the bordure may not be so much hellish and malignant as models and patterns upon which John has tricked out and embellished his proper devils among the swine above there!
And that would signify? said Roger of Salerno sharply.
In my poor judgment, that he may have seen such shapeswithout help of drugs.
Now whowho, said John of Burgos, after a round and unregarded oath, has made thee so wise of a sudden, my Doubter?
I wise? God forbid! Only John, rememberone winter six years agothe snow-flakes melting on your sleeve at the cookhouse-door. You showed me them through a little crystal, that made small things larger.
Yes. The Moors call such a glass the Eye of Allah, John confirmed.
You showed me them meltingsix-sided. You called them, then, your patterns.
True. Snow-flakes melt six-sided. I have used them for diaper-work often.
Melting snow-flakes as seen through a glass? By art optical? the Friar asked.
Art optical? I have never heard! Roger of Salerno cried.
John, said the Abbot of St. Illods commandingly, was itis it so?
In some sort, John replied, Thomas has the right of it. Those shapes in the bordure were my workshop-patterns for the devils above. In my craft, Salerno, we dare not drug. It kills hand and eye. My shapes are to be seen honestly, in nature.
The Abbot drew a bowl of rose-water towards him. When I was prisoner withwith the Saracens after Mansura, he began, turning up the fold of his long sleeve, there were certain magiciansphysicianswho could show he dipped his third finger delicately in the waterall the firmament of Hell, as it were, in he shook off one drop from his polished nail on to the polished tableeven such a supernaculum as this.
But it must be foul waternot clean, said John.
Show us thenallall, said Stephen. I would make sureonce more. The Abbots voice was official.
John drew from his bosom a stamped leather box, some six or eight inches long, wherein, bedded on faded velvet, lay what looked like silver-bound compasses of old box-wood, with a screw at the head which opened or closed the legs to minute fractions. The legs terminated, not in points, but spoon-shapedly, one spatula pierced with a metal-lined hole less than a quarter of an inch across, the other with a half-inch hole. Into this latter John, after carefully wiping with a silk rag, slipped a metal cylinder that carried glass or crystal, it seemed, at each end.
Ah! Art optic! said the Friar. But what is that beneath it?
It was a small swivelling sheet of polished silver no bigger than a florin, which caught the light and concentrated it on the lesser hole. John adjusted it without the Friars proffered help.
And now to find a drop of water, said he, picking up a small brush.
Come to my upper cloister. The sun is on the leads still, said the Abbot, rising.
They followed him there. Half-way along, a drip from a gutter had made a greenish puddle in a worn stone. Very carefully, John dropped a drop of it into the smaller hole of the compassleg, and, steadying the apparatus on a coping, worked the screw m the compass joint, screwed the cylinder, and swung the swivel of the mirror till he was satisfied.
Good! He peered through the thing. My Shapes are all here. Now look, Father! If they do not meet your eye at first, turn this nicked edge here, left- or right-handed.
I have not forgotten, said the Abbot, taking his place. Yes! They are hereas they were in my timemy time past. There is no end to them, I was told . . . . There is no end!
The light will go. Oh, let me look! Suffer me to see, also! the Friar pleaded, almost shouldering Stephen from the eye-piece. The Abbot gave way. His eyes were on time past. But the Friar, instead of looking, turned the apparatus in his capable hands.
Nay, nay, John interrupted, for the man was already fiddling at the screws. Let the Doctor see.
Roger of Salerno looked, minute after minute. John saw his blue-veined cheek-bones turn white. He stepped back at last, as though stricken.
It is a new worlda new world, andOh, God Unjust!I am old!
And now Thomas, Stephen ordered.
John manipulated the tube for the Infirmarian, whose hands shook, and he too looked long. It is Life, he said presently in a breaking voice. No Hell! Life created and rejoicingthe work of the Creator. They live, even as I have dreamed. Then it was no sin for me to dream. No sinO Godno sin!
He flung himself on his knees and began hysterically the Benedicite omnia Opera.
And now I will see how it is actuated, said the Friar from Oxford, thrusting forward again.
Bring it within. The place is all eyes and ears, said Stephen.
They walked quietly back along the leads, three English counties laid out in evening sunshine around them; church upon church, monastery upon monastery, cell after cell, and the bulk of a vast cathedral moored on the edge of the banked shoals of sunset.
When they were at the after-table once more they sat down, all except the Friar, who went to the window and huddled bat-like over the thing. I see! I see! he was repeating to himself.
Hell not hurt it, said John. But the Abbot, staring in front of him, like Roger of Salerno, did not hear. The Infirmarians head was on the table between his shaking arms.
John reached for a cup of wine.
It was shown to me, the Abbot was speaking to himself, in Cairo, that man stands ever between two Infinitiesof greatness and littleness. Therefore, there is no endeither to lifeor
And I stand on the edge of the grave, snarled Roger of Salerno. Who pities me?
Hush! said Thomas the Infirmarian. The little creatures shall be sanctifiedsanctified to the service of His sick.
What need? John of Burgos wiped his lips. It shows no more than the shapes of things. It gives good pictures. I had it at Granada. It was brought from the East, they told me.
Roger of Salerno laughed with an old mans malice. What of Mother Church? Most Holy Mother Church? If it comes to Her ears that we have spied into Her Hell without Her leave, where do we stand?
At the stake, said the Abbot of St. Illods, and, raising his voice a trifle You hear that? Roger Bacon, heard you that?
The Friar turned from the window, clutching the compasses tighter.
No, no! he appealed. Not with Falcodinot with our English-hearted Foulkes made Pope. Hes wisehes learned. He reads what I have put forth. Foulkes would never suffer it.
Holy Pope is one thing, Holy Church another, Roger quoted.
But II can bear witness it is no Art Magic, the Friar went on. Nothing is it, except Art optical-wisdom after trial and experiment, mark you. I can prove it, andmy name weighs with men who dare think.
Find them! croaked Roger of Salerno. Five or six in all the world. That makes less than fifty pounds by weight of ashes at the stake. I have watched such menreduced.
I will not give this up! The Friars voice cracked in passion and despair. It would be to sin against the Light.
No, no! Let uslet us sanctify the little animals of Varro, said Thomas.
Stephen leaned forward, fished his ring out of the cup, and slipped it on his finger. My sons, said he, we have seen what we have seen.
That it is no magic but simple Art, the Friar persisted.
Avails nothing. In the eyes of Mother Church we have seen more than is permitted to man.
But it was Lifecreated and rejoicing, said Thomas.
To look into Hell as we shall be judgedas we shall be provedto have looked, is for priests only.
Or green-sick virgins on the road to sainthood who, for cause any midwife could give you
The Abbots half-lifted hand checked Roger of Salernos outpouring.
Nor may even priests see more in Hell than Church knows to be there. John, there is respect due to Church as well as to Devils.
My trades the outside of things, said John quietly. I have my patterns.
But you may need to look again for more, the Friar said.
In my craft, a thing done is done with. We go on to new shapes after that.
And if we trespass beyond bounds, even in thought, we lie open to the judgment of the Church, the Abbot continued.
But thou knowestknowest! Roger of Salerno had returned to the attack. Heres all the world in darkness concerning the causes of thingsfrom the fever across the lane to thy Ladysthroe own Ladyseating malady. Think!
I have thought upon it, Salerno! I have thought indeed.
Thomas the Infirmarian lifted his head again; and this time he did not stammer at all. As in the water, so in the blood must they rage and war with each other! I have dreamed these ten yearsI thought it was a sinbut my dreams and Varros are true! Think on it again! Heres the Light under our very hand!
Quench it! Youd no more stand to roasting thanany other. Ill give you the case as Churchas I myselfwould frame it. Our John here returns from the Moors, and shows us a hell of devils contending in the compass of one drop of water. Magic past clearance! You can hear the faggots crackle.
But thou knowest! Thou hast seen it all before! For mans poor sake! For old friendships sakeStephen ! The Friar was trying to stuff the compasses into his bosom as he appealed.
What Stephen de Sautré knows, you his friends know also. I would have you, now, obey the Abbot of St. Illods. Give to me! He held out his ringed hand.
May Imay John herenot even make a drawing of oneone screw? said the broken Friar, in spite of himself.
Nowise! Stephen took it over. Your dagger, John. Sheathed will serve.
He unscrewed the metal cylinder, laid it on the table, and with the daggers hilt smashed some crystal to sparkling dust which he swept into a scooped hand and cast behind the hearth.
It would seem, said he, the choice lies between two sins. To deny the world a Light which is under our hand, or to enlighten the world before her time. What you have seen, I saw long since among the physicians at Cairo. And I know what doctrine they drew from it. Hast thou dreamed, Thomas? I alsowith fuller knowledge. But this birth, my sons, is untimely. It will be but the mother of more death, more torture, more division, and greater darkness in this dark age. Therefore I, who know both my world and the Church, take this Choice on my conscience. Go! It is finished.
He thrust the wooden part of the compasses deep among the beech logs till all was burned.
All these details were public property, for Helen was as open as the day, and held that scandals are only increased by hushing them up. She admitted that George had always been rather a black sheep, but things might have been much worse if the mother had insisted on her right to keep the boy. Luckily, it seemed that people of that class would do almost anything for money, and, as George had always turned to her in his scrapes, she felt herself justifiedher friends agreed with herin cutting the whole non-commissioned officer connection, and giving the child every advantage. A christening, by the Rector, under the name of Michael, was the first step. So far as she knew herself, she was not, she said, a child-lover, but, for all his faults, she had been very fond of George, and she pointed out that little Michael had his fathers mouth to a line; which made something to build upon.
As a matter of fact, it was the Turrell forehead, broad, low, and well-shaped, with the widely spaced eyes beneath it, that Michael had most faithfully reproduced. His mouth was somewhat better cut than the family type. But Helen, who would concede nothing good to his mothers side, vowed he was a Turrell all over, and, there being no one to contradict, the likeness was established.
In a few years Michael took his place, as accepted as Helen had always beenfearless, philosophical, and fairly good-looking. At six, he wished to know why he could not call her Mummy, as other boys called their mothers. She explained that she was only his auntie, and that aunties were not quite the same as mummies, but that, if it gave him pleasure, he might call her Mummy at bedtime, for a pet-name between themselves.
Michael kept his secret most loyally, but Helen, as usual, explained the fact to her friends; which when Michael heard, he raged.
Why did you tell? Why did you tell? came at the end of the storm.
Because its always best to tell the truth, Helen answered, her arm round him as he shook in his cot.
All right, but when the troofs ugly I dont think its nice.
Dont you, dear!
No, I dont, andshe felt the small body stiffennow youve told, I wont call you Mummy any morenot even at bedtimes.
But isnt that rather unkind? said Helen softly.
I dont care! Youve hurted me in my insides and Il hurt you back. Ill hurt you as long as I live!
Dont, oh, dont talk like that, dear! You dont know what
I will! And when Im dead Ill hurt you worse!
Thank goodness, I shall be dead long before you, darling.
Huh! Emma says, Never know your luck. (Michael had been talking to Helens elderly flat-faced maid.) Lots of little boys die quite soon. Soll I. Then youll see!
Helen caught her breath and moved towards the door, but the wail of Mummy! Mummy! drew her back again, and the two wept together.
At ten years old, after two terms at a prep. school, something or somebody gave him the idea that his civil status was not quite regular. He attacked Helen on the subject, breaking down her stammered defences with the family directness.
Dont believe a word of it, he said, cheerily, at the end. People wouldnt have talked like they did if my people had been married. But dont you bother, Auntie. Ive found out all about my sort in English Histry and the Shakespeare bits. There was William the Conqueror to begin with, andoh, heaps more, and they all got on first-rate. Twont make any difference to you, my being thatwill it?
As if anything could she began.
All right. We wont talk about it any more if it makes you cry. He never mentioned the thing again of his own will, but when, two years later, he skilfully managed to have measles in the holidays, as his temperature went up to the appointed one hundred and four he muttered of nothing else, till Helens voice, piercing at last his delirium, reached him with assurance that nothing on earth or beyond could make any difference between them.
The terms at his public school and the wonderful Christmas, Easter, and Summer holidays followed each other, variegated and glorious as jewels on a string; and as jewels Helen treasured them. In due time Michael developed his own interests, which ran their courses and gave way to others; but his interest in Helen was constant and increasing throughout. She repaid it with all that she had of affection or could command of counsel and money; and since Michael was no fool, the War took him just before what was like to have been a most promising career.
He was to have gone up to Oxford, with a scholarship, in October. At the end of August he was on the edge of joining the first holocaust of public-school boys who threw themselves into the Line; but the captain of his OTC, where he had been sergeant for nearly a year, headed him off and steered him directly to a commission in a battalion so new that half of it still wore the old Army red, and the other half was breeding meningitis through living overcrowdedly in damp tents. Helen had been shocked at the idea of direct enlistment. But its in the family, Michael laughed.
You dont mean to tell me that you believed that old story all this time? said Helen. (Emma, her maid, had been dead now several years.) I gave you my word of honourand I give it againthatthat its all right. It is indeed.
Oh, that doesnt worry me. It never did, he replied valiantly. What I meant was, I should have got into the show earlier if Id enlistedlike my grandfather.
Dont talk like that! Are you afraid of its ending so soon, then!
No such luck. You know what K says.
Yes. But my banker told me last Monday it couldnt possibly last beyond Christmasfor financial reasons.
Hope hes right, but our Coloneland hes a Regularsays its going to be a long job.
Michaels battalion was fortunate in that, by some chance which meant several leaves, it was used for coast-defence among shallow trenches on the Norfolk coast; thence sent north to watch the mouth of a Scotch estuary, and, lastly, held for weeks on a baseless rumour of distant service. But, the very day that Michael was to have met Helen for four whole hours at a railway-junction up the line, it was hurled out, to help make good the wastage of Loos, and he had only just time to send her a wire of farewell.
In France luck again helped the battalion. It was put down near the Salient, where it led a meritorious and unexacting life, while the Somme was being manufactured; and enjoyed the peace of the Armentieres and Laventie sectors when that battle began. Finding that it had sound views on protecting its own flanks and could dig, a prudent Commander stole it out of its own Division, under pretence of helping to lay telegraphs, and used it round Ypres at large.
A month later, just after Michael had written Helen that there was nothing special doing and therefore no need to worry, a shell-splinter dropping out of a wet dawn killed him at once. The next shell uprooted and laid down over the body what had been the foundation of a barn wall, so neatly that none but an expert would have guessed that anything unpleasant had happened.
By this time the village was old in experience of war, and, English fashion, had evolved a ritual to meet it. When the postmistress handed her seven-year-old daughter the official telegram to take to Miss Turrell, she observed to the Rectors gardener: Its Miss Helens turn now. He replied, thinking of his own son: Well, hes lasted longer than some. The child herself came to the front-door weeping aloud, because Master Michael had often given her sweets. Helen, presently, found herself pulling down the house-blinds one after one with great care, and saying earnestly to each: Missing always means dead. Then she took her place in the dreary procession that was impelled to go through an inevitable series of unprofitable emotions. The Rector, of course, preached hope and prophesied word, very soon, from a prison camp. Several friends, too, told her perfectly truthful tales, but always about other women, to whom, after months and months of silence, their missing had been miraculously restored. Other people urged her to communicate with infallible Secretaries of organizations who could communicate with benevolent neutrals, who could extract accurate information from the most secretive of Hun prison commandants. Helen did and wrote and signed everything that was suggested or put before her.
Once, on one of Michaels leaves, he had taken her over munition factory, where she saw the progress of a shell from blank-iron to the all but finished article. It struck her at the time that the wretched thing was never left alone for a single second; and Im being manufactured into a bereaved next of kin, she told herself, as she prepared her documents.
In due course, when all the organizations had deeply or sincerely regretted their inability to trace, etc., something gave way within her and all sensationsave of thankfulness for the releasecame to an end in blessed passivity. Michael had died and her world had stood still and she had been one with the full shock of that arrest. Now she was standing still and the world was going forward, but it did not concern herin no way or relation did it touch her. She knew this by the ease with which she could slip Michaels name into talk and incline her head to the proper angle, at the proper murmur of sympathy.
In the blessed realization of that relief, the Armistice with all its bells broke over her and passed unheeded. At the end of another year she had overcome her physical loathing of the living and returned young, so that she could take them by the hand and almost sincerely wish them well. She had no interest in any aftermath, national or personal, of the war, but, moving at an immense distance, she sat on various relief committees and held strong viewsshe heard herself delivering themabout the site of the proposed village War Memorial.
Then there came to her, as next of kin, an official intimation, backed by a page of a letter to her in indelible pencil, a silver identity-disc, and a watch, to the effect that the body of Lieutenant Michael Turrell had been found, identified, and re-interred in Hagenzeele Third Military Cemeterythe letter of the row and the graves number in that row duly given.
So Helen found herself moved on to another process of the manufactureto a world full of exultant or broken relatives, now strong in the certainty that there was an altar upon earth where they might lay their love. These soon told her, and by means of time-tables made clear, how easy it was and how little it interfered with lifes affairs to go and see ones grave.
So different, as the Rectors wife said, if hed been killed in Mesopotamia, or even Gallipoli.
The agony of being waked up to some sort of second life drove Helen across the Channel, where, in a new world of abbreviated titles, she learnt that Hagenzeele Third could be comfortably reached by an afternoon train which fitted in with the morning boat, and that there was a comfortable little hotel not three kilometres from Hagenzeele itself, where one could spend quite a comfortable night and see ones grave next morning. All this she had from a Central Authority who lived in a board and tar-paper shed on the skirts of a razed city full of whirling lime-dust and blown papers.
By the way, said he, you know your grave, of course!
Yes, thank you, said Helen, and showed its row and number typed on Michaels own little typewriter. The officer would have checked it, out of one of his many books; but a large Lancashire woman thrust between them and bade him tell her where she might find her son, who had been corporal in the A.S.C. His proper name, she sobbed, was Anderson, but, coming of respectable folk, he had of course enlisted under the name of Smith; and had been killed at Dickiebush, in early Fifteen. She had not his number nor did she know which of his two Christian names he might have used with his alias; but her Cooks tourist ticket expired at the end of Easter week, and if by then she could not find her child she should go mad. Whereupon she fell forward on Helens breast; but the officers wife came out quickly from a little bedroom behind the office, and the three of them lifted the woman on to the cot.
They are often like this, said the officers wife, loosening the tight bonnet-strings. Yesterday she said hed been killed at Hooge. Are you sure you know your grave? It makes such a difference.
Yes, thank you, said Helen, and hurried out before the woman on the bed should begin to lament again.
Tea in a crowded mauve and blue striped wooden structure, with a false front, carried her still further into the nightmare. She paid her bill beside a stolid, plain-featured Englishwoman, who, hearing her inquire about the train to Hagenzeele, volunteered to come with her.
Im going to Hagenzeele myself, she explained .Not to Hagenzeele Third; mine is Sugar Factory, but they call it La Rosière now. Its just south of Hagenzeele Three. Have you got your room at the hotel there!
Oh yes, thank you. Ive wired.
Thats better. Sometimes the place is quite full, and at others theres hardly a soul. But theyve put bathrooms into the old Lion dOrthats the hotel on the west side of Sugar Factoryand it draws off a lot of people, luckily.
Its all new to me. This is the first time Ive been over.
Indeed! This is my ninth time since the Armistice. Not on my own account. I havent lost any one, thank Godbut, like every one else, Ive a lot of friends at home who have. Coming over as often as I do, I find it helps them to have some one just look at thethe place and tell them about it afterwards. And one can take photos for them, too. I get quite a list of commissions to execute. She laughed nervously and tapped her slung Kodak. There are two or three to see at Sugar Factory this time, and plenty of others in the cemeteries all about. My system is to save them up, and arrange them, you know. And when Ive got enough commissions for one area to make it worth while, I pop over and execute them. It does comfort people.
I suppose so, Helen answered, shivering as they entered the little train.
Of course it does. (Isnt it lucky weve got window-seats!) It must do or they wouldnt ask one to do it, would they! Ive a list of quite twelve or fifteen commissions hereshe tapped the Kodak againI must sort them out tonight. Oh, I forgot to ask you. Whats yours!
My nephew, said Helen. But I was very fond of him.
Ah, yes! I sometimes wonder whether they know after death! What do you think?
Oh, I dontI havent dared to think much about that sort of thing, said Helen, almost lifting her hands to keep her off.
Perhaps thats better, the woman answered. The sense of loss must be enough, I expect. Well, I wont worry you any more.
Helen was grateful, but when they reached the hotel Mrs Scarsworth (they had exchanged names) insisted on dining at the same table with her, and after the meal, in the little, hideous salon full of low-voiced relatives, took Helen through her commissions with biographies of the dead, where she happened to know them, and sketches of their next of kin. Helen endured till nearly half-past nine, ere she fled to her room.
Almost at once there was a knock at her door and Mrs Scarsworth entered; her hands, holding the dreadful list, clasped before her.
YesyesI know, she began. Youre sick of me, but I want to tell you something. Youyou arent married, are you? Then perhaps you wont ... But it doesnt matter. Ive got to tell some one. I cant go on any longer like this.
But please Mrs Scarsworth had backed against the shut door, and her mouth worked dryly.
In a minute, she said. Youyou know about these graves of mine I was telling you about downstairs, just now! They really are commissions. At least several of them are. Her eye wandered round the room. What extraordinary wall-papers they have in Belgium, dont you think? ...Yes. I swear they are commissions. But theres one, dyou see, andand he was more to me than anything else in the world. Do you understand?
Helen nodded.
More than any one else. And, of course, he oughtnt to have been. He ought to have been nothing to me. But he was. He is. Thats why I do the commissions, you see. Thats all.
But why do you tell me! Helen asked desperately.
Because Im so tired of lying. Tired of lyingalways lyingyear in and year out. When I dont tell lies Ive got to act em and Ive got to think em, always. You dont know what that means. He was everything to me that he oughtnt to have beenthe one real thingthe only thing that ever happened to me in all my life; and Ive had to pretend he wasnt. Ive had to watch every word I said, and think out what lie Id tell next, for years and years!
How many years? Helen asked.
Six years and four months before, and two and three-quarters after. Ive gone to him eight times, since. Tomorrowll make the ninth, andand I cantI cant go to him again with nobody in the world knowing. I want to be honest with some one before I go. Do you understand! It doesnt matter about me. I was never truthful, even as a girl. But it isnt worthy of him. So II had to tell you. I cant keep it up any longer. Oh, I cant.
She lifted her joined hands almost to the level of her mouth and brought them down sharply, still joined, to full arms length below her waist. Helen reached forward, caught them, bowed her head over them, and murmured: Oh, my dear! My Mrs Scarsworth stepped back, her face all mottled.
My God! said she. Is that how you take it!
Helen could not speak, and the woman went out; but it a long while before Helen was able to sleep.
Next morning Mrs Scarsworth left early on her round of commissions, and Helen walked alone to Hagenzeele Third. The place was still in the making, and stood some five or six feet above the metalled road, which it flanked for hundred yards. Culverts across a deep ditch served for entrances through the unfinished boundary wall. She climbed a few wooden-faced earthen steps and then met the entire crowded level of the thing in one held breath. She did not know Hagenzeele Third counted twenty-one thousand dead already. All she saw was a merciless sea of black crosses, bearing little strips of stamped tin at all angles across their faces. She could distinguish no order or arrangement in their mass; nothing but a waist-high wilderness as of weeds stricken dead, rushing at her. She went forward, moved to the left and the right hopelessly, wondering by what guidance she should ever come to her own. A great distance away there was a line of whiteness. It proved to be a block of some two or three hundred graves whose headstones had already been set, whose flowers planted out, and whose new-sown grass showed green. Here she could see clear-cut letters at the ends of the rows, referring to her slip, realized that it was not here she must look.
A man knelt behind a line of headstonesevidently a gardener, for he was firming a young plant in the soft earth. She went towards him, her paper in her hand. He rose at her approach and without prelude or salutation asked: Who are you looking for?
Lieutenant Michael Turrellmy nephew, said Helen slowly and word for word, as she had many thousands of times in her life.
The man lifted his eyes and looked at her with infinite compassion before he turned from the fresh-sown grass toward the naked black crosses.
Come with me, he said, and I will show you where your son lies.
When Helen left the Cemetery she turned for a last look. In the distance she saw the man bending over his young plants; and she went away, supposing him to be the gardener.
ONE grief on me is laid Each day of every year, Wherein no soul can aid, Whereof no soul can hear: Whereto no end is seen Except to grieve again Ah, Mary Magdalene, Where is there greater pain?
To dream on dear disgrace
To watch my steadfast fear
One grave to me was given |
;