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Title: The New Gulliver, and Other Stories

Author: Barry Pain

Release date: August 27, 2010 [eBook #33542]
                Most recently updated: March 23, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Christine Bell and Marc D'Hooghe


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW GULLIVER, AND OTHER STORIES ***

THE NEW GULLIVER AND OTHER STORIES

By

BARRY PAIN

Author of "STORIES IN GREY"

T. WERNER LAURIE, Ltd.

CLIFFORD'S INN

LONDON




CONTENTS


  THE NEW GULLIVER
  IN A LONDON GARDEN
  ZERO
  WHEN I WAS KING
  THE SATYR
  THE CHOICE
  THE PIANO-TUNER
  THE PEARLS AND THE SWINE




THE NEW GULLIVER


CHAPTER I


_(The first few pages of the account of his travels by Mr Lemuel
Gulliver, junior, have unfortunately been damaged by fire and are for
the most part illegible. They contain reference to a sea-fog and to a
shipwreck. He appears to have escaped by swimming, and his record of the
number of days he spent in the water and the distance covered verges
upon the incredible. His statement that he lived principally upon the
raw flesh of those sharks which made the mistake of attacking him will
also be accepted with reserve by those who remember the latitude in
which the Island of Thule is traditionally placed. The legible and
consecutive manuscript begins with his arrival at the island.)_

I now wrung the water from my clothes as well as I might, and spread
them on the rocks in the sun. After an hour, perhaps, I was so far
recovered from my exertions that I thought I might now see what manner
of island this was to which my ill-chance had brought me. Donning my
clothes again I climbed up the low cliff.

The land that now lay before me appeared to be for the most part flat
and bleak in character. There were long stretches of sand and coarse
grass, and here and there a group of stunted shrubs. Presently, in the
far distance, by the aid of my perspective-glass, I made out several
cultivated plots, but nowhere could I detect any building which might
serve as a human habitation. At one point, which I guessed to be about
two miles away, a column of smoke arose, as if from the interior of the
earth. This I imagined to be of volcanic origin, but it puzzled me not a
little that the land should be under cultivation and that yet I could
find not so much as a single house or cottage.

So intent was I upon my survey of the distance that I did not note the
approach of a human being until I heard the footsteps close beside me. I
speak of it as a human being, but in many respects the creature differed
from humanity as previously known to me. Particularly noticeable was its
manner of progression. It walked very slowly and laboriously on all
fours, the arms being longer and the legs shorter than in the normal
man. Its body was clothed in two garments of a thick grey woollen
material, and loose boots with tops of a similar material, but with
leather soles, were worn both on the hands and feet. The size of the
head was disproportionately large and seemed too heavy for the slender
neck. It was bald save for a fringe of scanty grey hair. Large
spectacles of high magnifying power distorted the eyes, and the
toothless mouth was absurdly small. The grotesque object was more likely
to inspire laughter than fear, for the body was small and its movements
slow and feeble, but indeed it showed not the slightest sign of
hostility.

"I see," said the creature, "that you are from the old world. Who are
you?" He spoke in a gentle voice and with an accent not unlike that
which we call American.

"My name is Lemuel Gulliver, a shipwrecked mariner, at your service.
Will you tell me what island this is on which I find myself, and to whom
I am speaking."

"The island is Thule--Ultima Thule--the one spot of earth that has
emerged from barbarism. Chance has done great things for you in bringing
you here."

He slipped one hand out of its boot, removed his big spectacles, and
blinked his weak eyes. I watched him narrowly. His face was hairless. It
might have been the face of an old woman or of an old man. A look of
cunning now crept over it.

"I think," he said, "that I grasp your difficulty. You may speak of me
as a man; but for beings of the first class, to which I belong, sex is
abolished. It was perhaps the worst of nature's evils that our
triumphant civilisation in the process of centuries overcame."

"But in that case," I said, "your race, or that class of it to which you
belong, must be rapidly dying out."

"It is undoubtedly dying out," said the strange creature with a
complacent smile, "but less rapidly than a barbarian would suppose.
Increased knowledge has brought with it increased longevity. I am myself
one hundred and ninety-two years of age. The end must come, of course,
but after all, why not?"

As I looked at him I did not from the æsthetic point of view see why
not. The creature had replaced the spectacles now, and lay at full
length on the sand, as if wearied by the standing position. He went on
speaking:

"Death in the individual is, of course, to some extent a confession of
failure. It means inability, mostly due to ignorance, to adapt oneself
to one's environment. Death of a race may be quite a different
matter--an exhaustion of utility. However that may be, it is clear that
the last of us to survive will represent the highest possible
development of human potentiality. I speculate sometimes on the question
of who the ultimate survivor will be. It may possibly be Professor
YM6403 of the Outer Office. Some think so. I believe he thinks so
himself. On the other hand, I may be the last survivor. However, there
are still some thousands of us in existence, and for the present these
disquisitions may appear to you idle."

My clothes were damp and I was chilly, hungry, and tired. His jabber
about professors and survivors had no interest for me. I ventured to
point out to him that I was at present in urgent need of rest and
refreshment.

He rose on all fours again, and did so with extreme awkwardness. "True,"
he said. "I will attend to it. We are hospitable people, though it is
seldom that a stranger visits us. I will proceed at once to conduct you
to my house."

"Your house? I fear that must be at some great distance, for there is no
house in sight."

For a moment he looked puzzled, and then light dawned again in his
short-sighted eyes.

"I see your mistake," he said. "You come from the old world, where the
old type of house is still in existence. The history of the old world is
the special study of my friend, the Professor. But of course there is
general knowledge that every educated being may be supposed to possess,
and I know the type of house you mean. I have seen pictures of it in the
museum. Now in Thule, when many centuries ago aviation became the
cheapest and most popular form of transit, it also became obviously
impossible that we should have houses above ground. Aviation is a source
of danger to such houses, and the houses themselves were dangerous to
the aviator. Our buildings are all subterranean. We avoid danger of
every kind. We dislike risk. You cannot see my house to which I am
taking you, but as a matter of fact it is less than a quarter of a mile
away."

He went so slowly that I had to abate my usual pace, lest I should
outstrip my guide. As he moved, he looked a little like a very small
tired elephant.

"Aviation," I said. "I suppose that with you that has been carried to a
great point of perfection."

"On the contrary," he said, "it is superseded. It is a back number. We
no longer use it. But we have seen no reason to change our style of
domicile, which possesses many advantages."

"And what is it?" I asked, "that has superseded aviation?"

"It is the power to dissipate and subsequently reconstruct identically
at some different point the atoms of any organism or group of
organisms."

"I don't think I understand," I said.

"It is natural that you should not. However, here we are at my house."

It looked to me rather as if we had come to an ordinary well, the
interior of which was occupied by a spiral descending incline.

"You will observe," he said, "that when I am weary of exertion and
return to my house, I descend. In the old type of house it was customary
to ascend."

I should calculate that we descended some thirty-five or forty feet
below the surface. At this point we were confronted by a perfectly
ordinary door with a brass knocker on it and an electric light above it.
On the door were painted the letters and figures MZ04. He opened the
door with a small latchkey, which he produced from one of his boots. The
keyhole and the handle were placed at such a height that it was easy for
him to reach them without assuming the erect position. We went through
into a small hall, brightly lit and containing no furniture but a
door-mat, on which my guide wiped his four boots carefully. He then
requested me to come with him into the dining-room, as indeed I was by
no means reluctant to do.

On entering this room, however, I was disappointed, for it bore no
resemblance whatever to a dining-room, and there was no look of good
cheer about it. Its walls were lined with shelves, and the shelves were
filled with numbered bottles containing what looked like small pills. In
the middle of the room, immediately under the light, was a low table, on
which were a row of small aluminium cups and a leather-bound book. There
was no other furniture of any description.

"You are looking for a chair perhaps," said my host presently. "We have
none. To stand erect on the feet is a precarious position, and to sit is
hardly less precarious. We avoid all risk. On all fours or in a
recumbent position one is safe. However, if you would like to sit on the
floor, pray do so, while I make up the prescription which you require."

I sat down on the floor, which was very hard and discouraging. I did not
greatly like that use of the word "prescription," and my inner man cried
rather for butcher's meat than for chemist's stuff. However, a man must
take his adventures as he finds them.

My guide slipped his hands out of his boots and consulted the volume on
the table. "From long use," he said meditatively, "I know most of the
numbers by heart; but I cannot recall what is taken for a chill caused
by prolonged submersion in sea-water. I have never had occasion to use
it. Ah, here we are! Number one hundred and one."

He took down the bottle which bore that number, and dropped one pill
from it into an aluminium cup. I noticed that the shelves were all
placed low on the wall. But indeed the whole of the appointments and
furniture of the house was adapted for beings who used the quadrupedal
position. I noticed, moreover, both now and afterwards, what very little
furniture there was in these houses. The hatred of superfluity was a
marked characteristic of the people of Thule.

My host took down one bottle after another from the shelves, talking as
he did so. Each bottle had an ingenious stopper, which allowed one pill,
and only one, to fall out each time that the bottle was reversed.

"I have never eaten shark, cooked or uncooked," said my host, "but I
should imagine that a diet confined to this meat would give an excess of
nitrogen. We correct that with one of number eighteen. To this I add our
ordinary repast--numbers one, two, and three--a corrective for
exhaustion from number sixty-four, and a pill of a narcotic character
from sixty-eight."

He handed me the little aluminium cup with the pills in it. "I think,"
he said, "that is all you require."

"I am extremely thirsty," I said.

"No civilised man eats and drinks at the same time." He whisked down
another bottle and dropped one more pill into my cup. "You will find,"
he said, "that little addition will remove all sensation of thirst. You
shall drink when the right time comes."

I took my pills obediently and was now conducted by him into a much
smaller room on the same level. I afterwards saw other subterranean
houses in the island. They were all alike in plan, and the rooms were
all small and so low that when I stood erect I could easily touch the
ceiling with my hand. The total absence of decoration, and the
simplicity and scarcity of the furniture, were not specially
characteristic of my host. Æsthetic pleasure was very slightly
appreciated by any of the first-class beings in Thule.

A pneumatic mattress lay at one end of the room which we had now
entered, and there were two dials on the wall, each provided with a
moving hand. There was no other furniture of any kind.

"There is your bed," said my host. "Now sleep."

"I should hardly have called it a bed," I said dubiously.

"It is not the barbarian idea of a bed. We abandoned bed-clothes of
every description long ago. They are not hygienic. All that is necessary
is to raise the temperature of the room in which the sleeper lies. This
you can easily do by altering the hand on the first of these dials,
which controls the heat. It stands at present at fifteen. When I sleep I
generally put it up to twenty. We will try it at twenty, and you can
advance it farther if you find yourself chilly. The other dial controls
the lighting and gives you five degrees of light down to absolute
darkness."

"I wonder," I said, "if I might have my clothes dried. They are still
damp, I fear."

He looked at my garments with marked distaste.

"If you will put them outside the door," he said, "I will see that they
are thrown into the refuse-destructor, and will order proper clothes to
be provided for you in their place. You will sleep for one hour, and
shortly after that I shall return. By the way, how comes it that you
speak our language?"

"I speak English," I said.

"English," he said meditatively. "English. I have heard that word
somewhere. No, don't explain. I can easily obtain the information."

He now left me. I put the hand on the heat dial at twenty-five. Although
I had no clothes of any description, I felt pleasantly warm, and in
spite of the excitement caused by the novelty of my experience, I soon
fell asleep. This may be ascribed either to the fatigues I had undergone
or to the potency of the drugs administered to me.




CHAPTER II


When I awoke, it seemed to me that I must have slept for some six or
eight hours, yet it had been but one hour only. I felt perfectly
refreshed and well. I had shut off nearly all the light before falling
asleep, and I now groped my way to the light dial and moved the hand
round until the room was brightly illuminated. The silence of the place
was remarkable; it was almost as if I had been in an uninhabited house.
I opened the door of my room a little way, and was pleased to find a
bundle of clothes awaiting me outside. I brought the bundle in and
investigated it. At first sight it looked as if some mad and malicious
tailor had made two pairs of trousers out of a material suitable for an
overcoat. The reason of course was that the suit had been made with a
view to the conformation and habits of the natives of this curious
island. They wear two garments only, and therefore require them to be of
considerable thickness, and their arms are of about the same length as
their legs. (The difference in our own case is much less than most
people imagine.) I soon put the two garments on, and found that they
fitted me well enough if I rolled back the sleeves to leave my hands
free. I was also provided with a pair of boots similar to those my host
wore. They were too large for me, but could be kept on by a buckle and
strap fastening at the ankle.

I now made some examination of the room itself. The walls and ceiling
were covered with a hard shiny substance, which I at first thought to be
paint, but afterwards decided to be of the nature of our water-glass.
The usual right-angles between floor and walls and ceiling were in every
case softened into a curve, which I recognised to be an advantage from
the point of view of cleanliness. The floor itself was covered with the
same material as the walls and ceiling, but in this case had a minute
corrugation all over it, to prevent slipping. In the middle of the floor
was a small grating, about one foot square. As I inspected this, a fan
below it began to whirl rapidly, but without the slightest sound. As I
was looking at it my host knocked and entered. I was pleased to see that
he brought with him a sealed bottle and two aluminium cups that would
have held about half a pint apiece.

"We now drink," he said briefly.

"An excellent idea," I began, but he immediately bade me to be quiet,
saying that it was not customary to talk while drinking was in progress.

He divided the contents of the bottle (not quite fairly) between the two
cups. He gave himself the advantage of the choice and finished his drink
at a draught. I followed his example and found that I was drinking
distilled water. At this I was somewhat disappointed, but the more
disposed to forgive him for the injustice of the division.

"And now, my friend," he said, "we can talk."

"Then," I replied, "you will perhaps tell me what is the reason for the
custom which prevents you from taking your drink in a sociable manner.
In the country from which I come we like to sit and chat over our
glass."

"So it was here also in the dark ages," said my host. "At that time our
drink was for the most part of an alcoholic character, and it was found
that the more one talked, the more one drank; and the more one drank,
the more one talked. It was a vicious circle of foolishness and
ill-health, and the practice was made illegal. Alcoholic drink is quite
unknown now among the first-class beings of Thule. But the custom of not
speaking when one drinks, although we now only drink water, still
remains. It is one of the many instances in which the ritual has
survived the religion."

I pointed now to the grating in the floor. "A ventilator, I suppose."

"Exactly. It is actuated once every hour for two minutes. It draws out
carbon dioxide, which being heavier than air is in the lower part of the
room, and at the same time draws in fresh air through the corresponding
grating in the ceiling, which communicates with a shaft to the open. The
great point about it is that it is absolutely noiseless. Our study of
longevity has shown us that irritation is one of its deadliest enemies.
The noise of an electric fan is irritating, especially in a bedroom. I
dare say the crude appliances you have in the old world still whir or
clatter."

"I notice that all your electric lights are fixed in the ceiling itself.
Is there any reason for this?"

"Naturally. Anything which hangs may subsequently fall. We do not court
dangers. It is curious that you should mention it, because I was
speaking of this point only last week to my friend, the Professor. He
showed me a picture of an old-world chandelier. He also told me it was
the custom in England and other uncivilised parts of the world to daub
oil-paints on a piece of canvas. This was surrounded by a heavy frame
and was suspended on walls. It was called a framed picture. You will
find nothing so reckless here. By the way, I have found out about
England. I cross-spoke to the Outer Office, and they told me it was a
piece of land at the back of Scotland."

I found later that "to cross-speak" meant in Thule to send a wireless
message.

"The mention of the Professor," my host continued, "reminds me that
to-day is his birthday and mine. On this day I generally make him a
ceremonial visit, and I shall be pleased to take you with me. As a
specimen you will interest him."

"Might I ask what you mean by the Outer Office?"

"The Central Office deals with utilitarian knowledge and is separated
into Controls. I, for instance, am at the head of the Heat and Light
Control. The Outer Office deals with academical knowledge, and our
friend is the Professor of Old-World History. The Inner Office decides
questions of justice. But there is no time just now to explain our
simple constitution to you. We should be starting for the Professor's
house."

"One more point," I said. "May I ask your name? I should have done so
before."

"We do not have names. Beings of the first class have a distinguishing
formula, and only use names for plants and the lower animals. The
second-class beings, the workers, may possibly use names among
themselves, but of that I have no knowledge. My own distinguishing
formula is MZ04, and as no two people have the same formula, much
confusion is prevented. By the way, your hair is untidy."

"Naturally," I said. "I was going to speak of it."

"And your hands are not clean. That is as it should be. You are now
ready to pay a ceremonial call. You perhaps don't understand. All our
houses are on the same pattern, and each is provided with a fitted room
for the purposes of the bath and the toilet. But when we pay a
ceremonial call, it is our invariable custom to do so in a soiled and
dishevelled condition. On arriving we make ourselves clean and tidy in
our host's toilet-room. This is done by way of compliment. It implies
that he possesses conveniences which we do not."

"It seems to me singularly foolish, if I may say so."

"From one point of view all compliments are foolish, but from the point
of view of longevity all compliments are wise. They have a slightly
emollient effect. We recognise this so much that we even employ at times
professional optimists."

"Won't you tell me about them?"

"It is a very simple matter. If a being of the first class gets worried
and depressed, he knows that this is lowering his vitality and lessening
the period of his life. This knowledge only tends to increase the worry.
He therefore sends at once to the Central Office for a professional
optimist. The optimist comes and talks. He slightly emphasises all that
is most favourable in the being's circumstances. He dwells on the strong
points in his character. He listens to his stories. He shows himself
impressed by his abilities. We have but a few of these professional
optimists, and they are extremely well paid--that is to say, their power
of ordering from the Central Office is very considerable."

"Some of this seems to me rather childish," I said. "And some of it I do
not understand."

"You, a barbarian, can hardly be expected to grasp at once the
refinements of a higher civilisation. You will do so gradually. Now,
please, I have only just time to see the Professor before I keep my
appointment at the Heat and Light Control. Come along, please."

We passed up the spiral slope, my host going very slowly and breathing
heavily. The Professor's house was scarcely a hundred yards away, and I
think we took nearly five minutes to get to it. The outward appearance
was precisely similar to that of the house we had just quitted. When we
reached the outer door my guide knocked once. The door immediately
opened, as if of itself, and we passed into an empty hall. From this a
door led us into a large room devoted to the purposes of the bath and
the toilet. I subsequently found that in all these subterranean houses
this room was the largest. I remarked to my guide that no servant had
admitted us, and there seemed to be no one to introduce us into the
presence of the Professor.

"There are no servants," said my companion. "We have the second class,
the workers, but we should not admit them to live in our houses. We have
so far simplified life that one being can very well look after one
house, his own. As a matter of fact two second-class beings are sent
from the Hygienic Control of the Central Office every morning to clean
each house, but it is a question whether this should continue. We are
discussing it. It looks just a little like luxury, and luxury is
dangerous to longevity. Why should we have a servant to announce us? If
the Professor knows the visitor, it is not necessary. If he does not
know him, the visitor can supply the information just as well as the
servant. If the Professor had not wished to receive, the outer door
would not have opened."

We did not find the Professor in the first room we entered, but in the
dining-room, where he was taking pills out of one of those small
aluminium cups. He went on taking his pills and we watched in solemn
silence until he had finished. In appearance the Professor closely
resembled my guide, but his fringe of hair was darker and more abundant,
and something in his face seemed to betoken a love of study rather than
high practical ability. I now witnessed another curious piece of
etiquette.

"I hope you are ill," said my guide genially.

"Wrong absolutely," said the Professor, "but I trust that you yourself
are suffering from some malignant disease."

"Nothing of the kind," said MZ04.

Subsequent inquiries showed me the reason for this. The principle was
that the guest should take the earliest opportunity to make his host
feel in a superior position. Therefore etiquette required the guest to
arrive unkempt, as if he did not possess the conveniences which his host
had at his disposal. It also required him to make an obviously false
statement as to his host's health, in order that his host might have the
power of correcting him. A well-bred host, such as the Professor,
immediately replied by giving his guest a similar opportunity to correct
and in consequence to feel in the superior position.

They now exchanged rather ponderous compliments on their respective
birthdays. But in spite of their politeness I somehow got the impression
that these two beings were in strong antagonism to one another, and that
however much the emotions might be discouraged in Thule, feelings of
jealously still existed.

"On this auspicious occasion," said the Professor, "it is generally my
custom to make you some slight offering. I have placed a power to read a
manuscript to your order at the Central Office."

"I thank you sincerely," said MZ04. "I had intended to do the same
thing, but I think I have found something even more to your taste." He
pointed at me with his booted hand. "Here," he said, "is rather a
curious thing that I have found. You make a study of the old world and
might be interested in it. I have no use for such curios myself and am
happy to present it to you. In many respects--notably in its foolish use
of the erect position--it resembles our second-class beings, but I
believe it to be a genuine old-world relic."

"I am of the same opinion," said the Professor, "and I am obliged to you
for your generosity. Can it talk?"

"Fluently," said MZ04, "but with a bad accent."

I now said very decisively that I was a free man, that I did not belong
to either of them, and that I absolutely declined to be handed as a
slave or a chattel from one to the other. I repeated this in varying
terms more than once. They took not the slightest notice of it, but
waited patiently till I had finished.

"I am busy to-day at the Heat and Light Control," said MZ04. "I fear
that I must now leave you."

"Going to walk?" asked the Professor.

"No. I have taken my exercise for to-day. I shall disintegrate."

Even as I looked at him, his substance became a smoky shadow, shimmering
and vibrating. It grew rapidly fainter and fainter until it had vanished
altogether.




CHAPTER III


"And now," said the Professor, "before we go any further there is one
point on which I wish to be assured. You came from the house of MZ04
just now?"

"I did."

"Did you observe in him as he came up to slope from his front-door any
tendency to puff and blow?"

"He certainly did seem slightly short of breath."

"Poor fellow! Poor fellow! It breaks my heart to hear it. I don't give
him another hundred years to live. Sad that so intelligent a being
should be snuffed out like a candle."

The Professor did not look in the least as if it had broken his heart.
So far as I was able to judge he seemed rather pleased than not.

"That being settled," he continued, "I may now devote myself to you. You
made some protests just now, based, as most protests are, on ignorance.
You are not going to be a slave. You may regard me as your host. I shall
treat you as a guest and I shall look upon you as a curiosity. Tell me
at once what I can do for you."

"I want to know where I am. I want to know the history of this
place--the meaning of first-class and second-class beings--how sex came
to be abolished--what is implied by a power of order from the Central
Office. I have been here but a few hours and I find everything puzzling
and incomprehensible."

"This," said the Professor, "is Thule. I cannot give you its exact
geographical relation to the world, for it has no geographical relation.
How do you imagine that you came here?"

I gave him some account of the shipwreck and of my fight with the
sharks, showing him in proof my large clasp-knife, which, together with
my perspective-glass and some other trifles, I had found means to
secrete in the clothing provided for me by my former host.

"I have no doubt," said the Professor, "that you speak with sincerity.
But you are wrong. That is not how you came here. Nor shall I put you in
possession of the actual facts, or you would be able to use them to
ensure your return. You are not a prisoner, but at present I wish to
detain you. And now, if you will, I will give you roughly and in as few
words as possible a sketch of our history and constitution. This being
in the nature of a lecture, I shall lie down. It is the custom in this
country for every lecture or public speech to be delivered in a
recumbent position, the greatest physical ease being consistent with the
greatest mental concentration. Come to the sleeping-room."

He led the way to a room provided with a pneumatic mattress. It was in
all respects the counterpart of the room I had seen at my former host's
house. He stretched himself on this mattress, and as there was plenty of
room I saw no reason why I should not do the same. He noticed it and
approved.

"You are wise," he said. "Your carcass will now cease to attract your
attention and you will be able to attend to me."

He lay on his back with his eyes fixed on the ceiling, and his two long
arms crossed over his protuberant stomach. Presently he began to speak
in a solemn and magisterial voice, as if he were addressing a large
class. I did from time to time interrupt him with question or remark,
but have not thought it worth while to place such interruptions on
record.

"To understand the conditions of Thule at the present day we must go
back to the great social upheaval of centuries ago. At that time the
equality of all men was claimed and the community of property.
Successful agitation backed by armed force carried the matter. Community
of property does to some extent remain to this day, although a more
civilised view of the value of property is now held by us. But within a
very few years of the social upheaval the fallacy of universal equality
declared itself. It is a rare thing for two men to be facially alike,
and no two men are ever equal in all respects. Such inequalities soon
declared themselves. We had on the one side a minority who contributed
more to the State in actual benefit than they received from it, and on
the other side a majority who received more from the State than they
contributed to it. The minority naturally became a discontented class,
and healthy discontent produces activity. The majority, getting more
than they gave, were quite satisfied with the state of affairs. They
babbled of the blessings of an assured democracy. They took no trouble
with themselves. They thought they were at the end of the social
revolution when they were only at the beginning of it.

"The formation of a secret society, including most of the minority, was
the natural result. You must not make the mistake of confusing this
minority with the old aristocracy. The old aristocracy was based on
lineage and wealth. The minority of which I speak was based on mind.
They were the people who could acquire knowledge and could use
knowledge. They included in their number some members of the old upper
classes, but many also of the old lower classes. The aim of the secret
society which they formed was not only the acquisition of knowledge,
principally of a practical character, but also the seclusion of it. The
members were sworn not to impart the secrets of the society to any of
the great but inactive majority. In this secret society we have the
origin of what are now called first-class beings. In the glutted and
lazy democracy who formed the majority we have the origin of what we
call second-class beings--beings who to-day are permitted to acquire no
other knowledge whatever than that which is necessary for the work which
they do under compulsion from us. At this moment by far the greater
number of them are unable to read or to write or to perform the simplest
operations of arithmetic.

"It is of course a commonplace of the text-books that no social
evolution follows exactly on lines laid down and planned. The secret
society, which was known as the Crypt, was formed originally for the
purposes of self-defence. The only means by which a few superior beings
could protect themselves against the aggression of the many inferior was
by the possession of secret knowledge. To take a case in point:
improvements of the first importance in the accumulation and
transmission of electricity were made by a member of the Crypt whose
formula was H401. H401 was called upon to specify and to explain what he
had done. He produced a written statement which was from the first word
to the last abject nonsense veiled in pompous scientific phraseology. It
was accepted as perfectly satisfactory and deposited in the archives.
Every electrician--every man of sufficient education to detect the
fraud--was already a member of the Crypt. With this came the first
inkling of the tremendous power which was now in the hands of
comparatively few men. By the simplest dislocation of machinery they
could deprive the great majority of light and heat, and could, if they
would, choose a severe mid-winter for the operation. Many other secrets
of knowledge came into the hands of the Crypt. I will not weary you with
a catalogue of them, but I will mention one of which our friend MZ04
gave you just now a practical demonstration. I refer to the power to
dissipate and subsequently to reconstruct identically at some different
point the atoms of any organism or group of organisms. You saw just now
how MZ04 dissipated himself as it were into smoke in order to
reconstruct himself instantaneously at the Heat and Light Control, over
which he presides. It is a secret of this kind which makes one being the
master of many armies. This was realised by the Crypt and a course of
offensive action was at last decided upon.

"At this juncture the voice of the Crypt was practically the voice of
that extraordinary and commanding personality Q666--a formula that will
be for ever remembered in our history. He was not a being of high
scientific attainments. His life was irregular. He had neither scruples
nor mercy; but he saw clearly the thing to be attained and the means
towards it. At his instigation the General National Assembly was
declared to be dissolved, and the whole of the second-class beings were
enjoined under penalty of death to yield the strictest obedience to the
orders of the Crypt as issued.

"The proclamation was received with ridicule by the second class.
Democracy had always triumphed and would triumph again. It relied much
upon the fact that the army was entirely democratic. That is to say, no
officer or man was a member of the Crypt. The army was not deficient in
courage. Its officers included even some few men who took their
profession seriously. It was confidently anticipated that after a few
days of civil war the Crypt would be compelled to submit.

"I have said that Q666 was a being without scruple. His declaration was
made in mid-winter and the whole land was ice-bound. And on the night
that followed the declaration heat and light were cut off from the
dwellings and camps of his opponents. Some thousands died that night and
many more in the course of the next few days. The water which they drank
was mysteriously tainted and produced death. Their army found no
objective for attack, so rapidly, by virtue of that power which I have
described, did the members of the Crypt come and go. On the day when the
democracy submitted and received the new constitution by which they
ranked as second-class beings, they had actually become inferior in
numbers to the beings of the first class. The rule which Q666
established remains to this day. Sentimentalists had in the old days
clamoured for the abolition of capital punishment. Q666 abolished every
other kind of punishment except this. The punishment for idleness after
three warnings was death. The punishment for any intentional
disobedience was death without any warning at all.

"I have given you quite roughly and simply with little or no detail the
story of the struggle between the Crypt and the democracy, ending in the
establishment of first-class and second-class beings.

"I have shown how from an attempt to establish universal equality and to
abolish all class distinction there came into being two classes between
which there was a distinct cleavage--a class of masters and a class of
servants. The end of the struggle was only what could have been
expected. While all the harnessed forces of wind and tide provided
radiance and warmth for the members of the Crypt, their opponents froze
in the darkness. The same water that poisoned the democracy that drank
it refreshed the masters without injuring them. The old-fashioned
disciplined stupid army was powerless against opponents whose
mobilisation, swift as lightning, rendered them practically invisible.
There is still much to relate to you, but I grow weary of talking. I
propose to take you to see my plants."

"Got a nice garden?"

"We have no gardens. I keep my plants as pets here in my house. Without
awakening any emotion which might be prejudicial to longevity, they
provide a mild interest and a salutary change from more serious
occupation. Follow me and I will show you them."

He rose from the mattress and I noticed that he did so with more ease
and agility than had characterised the movements of my poor friend MZ04.
I followed him to a room so small that it might almost have been called
a cupboard. It was intensely lit by a tinted electric light. In it were
two tall plants in tubs.

The leaves of the plants were large and of a tropical character. Each
had a stem about three feet in height, surmounted by a ball which looked
as if it were made of fine silk. The colour of the ball or flower in one
case was a peacock-blue and in the other dead black. I noticed a slight
movement of the leaves as we entered the room and assigned it to the
opening of the door.

"The plant with the blue head is Edward," said my host. "He is rather an
affectionate little thing. Observe."

He called Edward twice in a caressing voice, and immediately the stem of
the plant bent downwards and the silky blue ball rubbed itself
caressingly against my host's cheek. Almost immediately the other plant
began to agitate its leaves violently and to waggle its black ball
backwards and forwards.

"You observe?" said my guide. "Frederick is jealous."

He gave each of them a little water and we then went back to the
sleeping-room again.

"I never saw anything like that in my life before," I said. "Plants with
us cannot move of their own volition. They----"

"Surely you mistake," said the Professor. "I am no botanist, but I have
made a special study of what went on in the old world, and I think I am
correct in saying that there were creeping plants there which moved to
find their supports, and plants whose leaves shrivelled up at a touch,
and others that actually devoured the insects which formed their
sustenance. Almost anything can be done with plants and knowledge. The
old world produced many new varieties--some of them of real utility, as
for instance the thornless cactus. We have merely gone a little further.
We live in solitude and a companion of some kind is a necessity. I think
you will find that every first-class being here keeps one or two pet
plants."

"You don't keep dogs or cats?"

"We keep nothing which can be both offensive and provocative of strong
affection. Cats and dogs, common though they were in the old world,
stand condemned under both categories."




CHAPTER IV


"This," said the Professor, "is the hour at which on fine and warm days
we go out and bask in the sun. Sunlight is the enemy of disease and the
friend of longevity. You would perhaps like to come with me. We shall
find many more engaged in the same occupation."

We passed out of the house and up the spiral incline. The scene before
me reminded me somewhat of certain stretches of grass in our public
parks on a hot day. Here and there on the coarse grass or sand were
stretched the grey-clad bodies of beings of the first class. I did not
see any engaged in conversation or in reading or even in sleep. They
simply lay still in the sun. Some of them had brought rugs with them.
One who appeared to be very infirm was carried in a kind of litter by
four finely built men who walked erect.

"That," said the Professor, "is the grandson of the great Q666."

"And who are the fine-looking men who are carrying him?"

"Merely second-class beings detailed for the work. Take no notice of
them. They will not, of course, venture to remain in our presence."

The four men deposited their master gently on a bed of tufted grass and
marched away again without a word. So far as I could compute, there were
now some two hundred first-class beings stretched out motionless under
the pleasant and vivifying warmth of the sun.

"May we not," I asked as we reposed ourselves, "take this opportunity
for some continuation of your lecture? There is still much about which I
am curious."

"On what point would you wish me to speak first?"

"I am told that among beings of the first class at any rate sex is
abolished."

"Can sex be of interest to any thinking being? It is of no interest at
all to me."

"It happens," I said boldly, "to be of the very first interest to
myself."

"Very well," said the Professor. "We must withdraw to some distance, so
that our voices do not disturb the meditations of others."

I followed him to the spot that he selected. We lay on our backs on the
sand and he continued his discourse.

"The practical abolition of sex has with us been a very gradual process
extending over centuries. It began with that great social upheaval of
which I have already told you. To declare the complete equality of men
was to declare the complete equality of the sexes. It ended about one
hundred and fifty years ago when the words "men" and "women" ceased to
be used by first-class beings, and no distinction of sex was admitted.
That I think is all you want to know."

"Pardon me," I said. "You give me no explanation whatever."

"The thing explains itself. Take first the case of a male. You will find
in him so many factors mental and physical which belong to the race and
so many which belong to the individual. In the case of a male the
factors which belong to the individual are very much in excess of those
which belong to the race. In the female we find the reverse of this. The
factors which belong to the race are in her largely in excess of those
which belong to the individual. She is the martyr and trustee of
humanity. That was the state of affairs before the great social upheaval
of which I have spoken. When women began to mix in every business,
profession, and sport, a new type of woman very soon declared
itself--unusually tall, flat-chested, small in the hips, destitute of
femininity. Briefly, the male type and the female type began to
assimilate. Now sex assimilation is the death of sex attraction. All
that women spent on their individual development they stole from the
race. Marriages became rare and where they existed they were frequently
sterile. Gradually, all that made man man and all that made woman woman
became rudimentary and atrophied until, as I have told you, one hundred
and fifty years ago the distinction between man and woman was abolished.
Since that time, and indeed for some ten years previous to it, there has
been no instance of birth or marriage or love-making among beings of the
first class. The last word of civilisation has been reached. It is a
splendid consummation."

"Splendid?" I said doubtfully.

"How can you doubt it? Now that the burden of racial responsibility has
been cut off from our backs, our longevity is trebled and more than
trebled. This may be assigned in part to our increased knowledge and to
the fact that we do no laborious or dangerous work. Laborious and
dangerous work is confined to the second class. With them, of course,
sex still exists. They are a lower order. They breed up children. When
the number of workers is deficient we keep those children. When the
number tends to be excessive they are destroyed. Have you never thought
into what a quandary racial responsibility led men and women in the dark
ages? No married man lived as an unmarried man, no married woman as an
unmarried woman. Life became a string of compromises and concessions.
There were complicated households with nurseries in them. It must be
clear to you that the man who works for six people must work just six
times as hard as the man who works for himself alone. Work is dangerous.
And if work is dangerous, worry is deadly. Worry is enormously increased
where there is any emotional attachment. Look how we have simplified
things. To one being one house. The emotions never paid for their keep,
and it is civilised to get rid of them. Tears are as little known among
the first-class beings of Thule as is the gross and unhygienic kiss. The
tortures of modesty do not affect us, for where there is no sex
distinction there is no modesty. We are emancipated. We are free. Love
implies death. The loveless live long. I may tell you that it is
whispered already that we are on the edge of discoveries which may make
it possible for us to live for ever."

"Well," I said, "I am not constituted as you are. You would hardly
expect me to like what you like."

"I do not expect any man from the old world to be civilised. It would
not be reasonable. But what objection can you possibly offer to the
state of things among the first-class beings here?"

"Well, to take the first point that occurs to me, it seems to me that
you must all be most horribly bored."

"Never," said my host emphatically. "Boredom is the result of living too
fast. Those who work too hard or those who enjoy too much must in the
intervals of their work or enjoyment be bored. Here we have found by
experience the exact pace at which one should live. Every one of the
first-class beings has an occupation of some kind for which he was
originally fitted by training and is now specially fitted by long
experience. Take the Central Office alone. It is divided into many
Controls and in each Control there are many sections. The being who made
me a present of you, our friend MZ04, is at the head of the Heat and
Light Control. In that alone there are forty-two sections and each
section finds work for two first-class beings. Love never stimulates us
to an excess of work. Love never takes our minds from the thing on which
we are engaged. We do what we can do well and we do it under the best
possible conditions, and we have no entertainments of any kind. How then
can we be bored? I have said enough. Let me meditate."

"There is just one thing more I should like to ask."

"What is your name or formula?"

"My name is Lemuel Gulliver."

"Well, Gulliver, we are kindly and hospitable people. For some weeks I
shall be keeping you here and obtaining from you first-hand information
on various details of life in the old world. You will be catechised for
one hour or so a day. You may take your revenge in advance. I will
answer one more question."

"You told me that community of property still practically existed among
you."

"It does. Money is not used. In proportion to the work he does a
first-class being has the power of ordering what he requires from the
Central Office. It is an extremely rare thing for any first-class being
to order all to which he is entitled. The wisest are those who reduce
property to the barest necessities. At a man's death all that he has
reverts to the State. Here we have no appalling families. Here no man
has to make provision for prodigal sons and worthless daughters. We are
free from the insanity of love and we find it more easy to believe in
friendship when friendship must always remain unremunerated."

"And still I do not envy you," I said. "You are not free from all
emotions yet. I have already found two in existence among you, and they
are two which I do not greatly love."

"What are they?" the Professor asked.

"Fear and jealousy."

"Lie still. You disturb my meditations."

For half an hour he remained silent with his eyes closed, but not, I
think, asleep. Then rising suddenly on all fours he said that we would
return to his dwelling, take our pills and compose ourselves for the
night.

"I would make a request to you," I said. "These pills which you take are
wonderful and I have already experienced their good effects. But I do
not think I could live upon them. Evolution has brought your digestive
apparatus to a pitch of perfection that I cannot hope to possess. What
can you do for me?"

"Our workers, the beings of the second class, are accustomed to kill an
ox, cut off a piece of it, subject it to the action of heat, and then
devour it. They make also a drink which has great attractions for them.
It has even led them to disobey, and to disobey is of course to die. I
am sorry to mention such filthy diet, but I can think of nothing else.
After all it might suit an old-world barbarian."

"I think it might suit me admirably."

"Then I will have second-class rations sent you every day from the
Central Office. I will cross-speak the Central Office now in order that
they may send you a piece of dead animal before you sleep. The one
condition I make is that I shall not see you engaged in tearing it to
pieces with your teeth. You will take it in your own room."

"And which will that be?"

"Oh," he said carelessly, "I shall keep you in the cupboard with my two
other pets, the plants. You shall have a mattress to lie on."

A few minutes later one of the working class brought a covered tray,
deposited it just inside the Professor's door, and departed.

"Your food," said the Professor. "Take it to the cupboard."

I did so with pleasure. I found on the tray a plate of excellent cold
roast beef and a knife and fork of rough workmanship and some flat hard
biscuits. There was also a bottle containing about a quart of strong old
ale. With this I was very well satisfied, and stretching myself on my
mattress, for which there was barely room in the cupboard, I composed
myself to slumber.




CHAPTER V


I passed a wretched night. I cannot assign this to the small size of my
sleeping-room, for I was able to stretch myself at full length and the
admirable system of ventilation kept the air always fresh. Such sleep as
I had was haunted by dreams in which these four-legged human beings
figured largely. Early in the morning I rose and switched on the light,
hoping that by pacing my cell or the passage without for a few minutes I
might again induce sleep. I saw a strange sight. The silky heads of the
two plants swayed gently to and fro continuously. Their leaves rose and
fell. Somehow they seemed to suggest to me a caged lion.

"You poor devils," I said aloud.

When I had put out the light and stretched myself on the mattress again
I felt the silky head of one of these plants rubbing against my cheek.
It startled me at first. I touched it with my hand. It was about the
size of a man's fist. I felt its thousand fibres vibrating under my
touch.

In the morning another covered tray was brought me, precisely the same
as on the previous evening. A bad night gives one little appetite for
strong ale in the morning and I begged a drink of distilled water from
the Professor. I took that opportunity to explain to him the kind of
food that I should require in the future, and to beg for some facilities
by which I might cook myself a hot dish. This last he refused, but
agreed that my evening ration should be brought to me hot in the future.

I remained with the Professor for fifteen days. Every day for about an
hour he catechised me closely on the manner of life in my own
country--the old world, as he called it. His knowledge and his ignorance
alike amused me. For example, he made a drawing of a hansom-cab which
was really fairly accurate; but he was under the impression that
hansom-cabs were used in Rome at the time of Julius Cæsar. All his ideas
about dates were wrong and confused, and perpetually I had to correct
him. He made notes of all that I told him with an ink pencil.

"You are writing a book on this subject?" I asked him one day.

"I am. That is my duty."

"And when will it be printed and published?"

"Upon the defeat of the democracy and the establishment of first-class
and second-class beings, the extremely wise course was taken of breaking
up all printing-machines and destroying all books, except those copies,
mostly manuscript, which were especially selected for the library of the
Central Office. We neither print nor publish."

"Why do you call this a wise course? It seems to me the wildest folly.
It is to cheap printing and cheap books that the spread of education in
my own country has been largely due."

"Undoubtedly. The question of course is whether the spread of
education--or rather what you mean by education--is in any way
desirable. It seemed to us that one might as well admit children and
fools under no supervision to a menagerie of wild beasts and provide
them with the keys of the cages. We respect letters. We consider it a
dishonour to letters that books should be cheap or easily obtainable.
Here it costs a first-class being more to read one manuscript from the
library of the Central Office than it would cost you in your own country
for a year's subscription to King Mudie."

I informed him that Mudie was not a king and that I did not know how he
had got the idea. He accepted the correction as he always accepted every
correction, with considerable irritation.

"It seems to me," he continued, "that you use the word education in a
very narrow sense. I myself should say that the whole of our
second-class beings were educated. Each is trained to the work that he
has to do. We have for instance a group of them who are familiar with
the ordinary process of plant culture. They can dig, they can prune,
they can plant. They have the education for which they are fitted. They
are not versed in those extraordinary modifications which can be
produced in plants by chemical changes caused artificially in the nature
of the sap. That branch is naturally reserved for beings of the first
class. They are taught how to weave and how to make the garments which
we all wear. They are taught how to clean our houses in the quickest,
most silent and most effective manner. Briefly, they do any work which
their intelligence and judgment entitle them to do. Beyond that we do
not go. We do not give them knowledge which would be dangerous to them
and to us. When you return home, my friend, if ever you do return home,
preach to your poor benighted people the inequality of man and the
advisability of restricting all really important knowledge to the higher
grade."

One day while we were chatting about indifferent subjects he mentioned
quite casually that he had been cross-speaking the Central Office and
that he found that MZ04 had died that morning.

"I am sorry to hear it," I said. "For after all he received me
kindly--fed me and clothed me. When is the funeral?"

"Funeral?" said the Professor. "We have no funerals. The body of MZ04
went into the refuse-destructor hours ago. Death is a confession of
failure, a sure proof of a blunder somewhere, and therefore ordinary
politeness tells us that we should take as little notice of it as
possible."

"Who will take his place?" I asked.

"That has already been decided by the Inner Office."

"You had no ambitions in that direction?"

"None whatever. There is no reason why in addition to my present
appointment I should not now be holding a post--and a highly placed
post--in the Inner Office. It is merely a want of appreciation and, I am
afraid I must add, a certain meanness in the minds of some first-class
beings which keeps me a humble professor. However, merit will tell; I
can trust to that."

The boasted civilisation of Thule had at any rate not extirpated human
vanity. The vanity of the Professor was colossal. No compliment was too
gross for him to accept with avidity. His nature was indeed very curious
and difficult for a simple man like myself to comprehend. In spite of
the casual way in which he spoke of death, I was convinced that he lived
in hourly dread of it. In spite of the fact that he spoke of every known
form of religion as an idle superstition, and professed the most
absolute materialism, I think he was unable to disbelieve entirely in
the future life. His nerves were not good. Sometimes in the middle of
the night he would tap at the door of the cupboard where I slept and ask
me to come out and speak to him. There was always some excuse, and I
think the excuse was never the true one. The fact of the case is that
the extreme solitude in which most of these first-class beings lived had
its inevitable effect upon them. They had, as the Professor observed, no
entertainments. They had really no social gatherings. Occasionally one
friend would pay a brief and formal visit to another friend, but there
was nothing beyond that, When they went abroad for exercise or to bask
in the sun, they as a rule passed one another unnoticed.

I was myself the reason why for a time the number of visitors to the
Professor's house increased considerably. People came to see me, and he
produced me and lectured upon me in terms which were sufficiently
humiliating.

"Observe," he would say, "the ludicrous smallness of the head and the
short and attenuated forelegs. In this respect one might almost believe
him to be a second-class being. He is probably, however, a still lower
type. The skin is whiter from deficient pigmentation, and the size of
the body is smaller than in a second-class male. In the land from which
he comes I find that they learn nothing by experience. The child born
into the world there naturally adopts the safe quadrupedal position and
has the use of its toes. The creature that we have here can do
absolutely nothing with his toes and is uncomfortable in the quadrupedal
position. In fact, the deformity of his body prevents him from adopting
it easily."

At this point in his lecture he would change to a different language and
continue. This second language was used by first-class beings among
themselves when they wished to say anything without being understood by
those whom they considered their inferiors. In the presence of a
second-class being it was that language which the first class always
adopted. Among themselves and in my presence they spoke English, except
on the occasions when they did not wish me to understand them.

I began to rebel against the kind of life which I was leading. I
disliked to be made a curiosity and a show of. The monotony affected me.
The horrible familiarities of those two plants in my sleeping-room got
on my nerves. I began to hint to the Professor that I must have change
and more freedom or that the source of his information would possibly be
dried up.

"If you became useless to me," he said carelessly, "you would be killed,
of course. You would have failed and your body would go into the
refuse-destructor."

"Very likely," I said. "But you would not get the information which you
want. And you do want it, you know."

That was my trump card. He really did want to acquire all possible
information about what he called the old world. In return for this I was
always able to obtain concessions, and I did not fail in this case. I
told him that I wished to explore the island, to go right over to the
other side of it and see the places where the second class lived and the
work they did. At first he tried to dissuade me. He pointed out that the
distance to the other side of the island was not less than eight miles,
and refused to believe that this would not be beyond my strength. He
painted in lurid colours the dangers of the mountain which I should have
to cross and of the forests which I should find on the other side. I,
however, remained obstinate in my purposes and at last obtained his
permission to go, on condition that I returned in ten days and that I
never spoke with any second-class being whom I might encounter, lest I
should inadvertently betray important knowledge to them. This promise I
gave readily enough, but, I must confess, with no intention of keeping
it. He gave me some further instructions and a pass written with the ink
pencil, which he said would entitle me to protection and help from any
first-class being whom I might encounter.

Thus then on a fine sunny morning I started out with no more equipment
than I could easily carry on my back. The prospect of adventure lured
me. For the first time for days I felt in good temper and spirits.




CHAPTER VI


The Professor had been well within the mark in stating that the breadth
of the island was not less than eight miles. By sundown I must have
covered thirty miles at least and encamped for the night by the side of
a swift and narrow stream. I had still the low hill to cross which the
Professor had spoken of as a mountain. In a flat country such as Thule,
all hills are mountains.

The Professor's mistakes in regard to time and distance interested me a
good deal. I could understand that they rendered him professionally
unsuitable for the practical work of the Central Office and that they
probably helped to debar him from the post which he desired in the Inner
Office. It may be, perhaps, that one cannot have an over-development in
one direction without a compensating defect in another. The Professor
showed the same anxiety to conceal his want of time-sense that an
engine-driver might show to conceal his colour-blindness. After all,
instances of this want of time-appreciation are common enough among my
own people in dealing with the past. One knows the vagueness with which
the ordinary man assigns a fact to the sixteenth or seventeenth
century--a fact which in reality belongs to the eighteenth. The further
back we go the more vague we become. It is difficult for us to realise
that the difference between the tenth and eleventh centuries is a
difference of a hundred of those very years which we are now living. So
far as the present was concerned, the Professor's time-appreciation was
clear and accurate enough. He never forgot the hour at which he should
take his pills or his siesta in the sun. Watches were unknown in Thule,
but there was a clock in every room, and all clocks were wound and
synchronised electrically from the Central Office.

I had never been able to persuade the Professor to tell me where the
Central, Outer, and Inner Offices were domiciled. I guessed at first it
would be where I saw that shaft of smoke ascending when I landed at the
island, but afterwards I saw several other similar smoke columns and
assigned them to subterranean factories of some kind. But in the course
of my day's ramble I came upon many other features that interested me. I
reached a long stretch of fields in which a veritable army of the second
class was at work. Each field was numbered and seemed to have its
separate gang. Each gang was in the charge of one first-class being. As
a rule he lay in the sun with one hand removed from the boot and covered
with a rubber glove. In this hand he held a thick rod some three feet in
length which seemed to me to be made of aluminium. His quick and
watchful eyes surveyed the whole of the field, and every now and then he
called out an order to some individual labourer. The order was in every
case instantly obeyed. In every one of these fields I was challenged by
the overseer with a loud "Who are you?" I replied as the Professor had
directed me and showed my pass. I was then allowed to go on unmolested.
I may even say that I was treated with kindness. One of these beings had
water fetched for me that I might drink. Another, astounded by the
distance which I had covered on foot, offered to provide four labourers
with a litter to carry me, and seemed surprised to find that I really
preferred walking. In many of these fields there was grain ready for
harvest--of the same kinds, I think, as we have in our country, but with
the ears much larger and heavier and of a very dwarf-like habit. I found
barley and oats full grown standing scarcely six inches above the
ground.

Beyond these cultivated fields was a gently undulating plain, not unlike
common land I have seen in England. The bracken was near waist-high, and
often I had to force my way through a tangle of bramble and gorse. This
part of the country seemed to be entirely deserted, and with no one to
direct me I steered by the sun. After some miles of this I came upon a
small clump of elm trees and stretched myself in the shade for food and
rest.

As I lay asleep I felt a gentle touch upon my shoulder, and opening my
eyes I saw one of the first-class beings. I judged him to be one of the
overseers, for from one of his big loose boots an aluminium rod
projected.

"Who are you?" he said.

I showed him my credentials. He seemed satisfied.

"Go on your way at once," he said, "and bear well to the right, for here
you are in danger."

I could not tell what the danger might be, but thought it best to take
his advice. As he trotted away from me I fastened up my pack again and
slung it on my back, and almost instantly I saw what the danger was. Out
from a dip of the land which had concealed them came a herd of about
twenty wild cattle. Their size was enormous. The leader, a white bull,
scented or sighted me and charged at once towards me. There was but one
thing to do. I gripped a low bough and easily swung myself up into the
tree, even in the moment of my activity speculating how long I should be
kept there and what would happen to the overseer who had spoken to me
and was now scarcely a hundred yards distant. The bull paced round and
round the tree, pawing the earth and striking the trunk with his great
horns. From my perch I could see that the overseer now stood still. He
had slipped one hand out of the boot and now grasped that aluminium rod.
At that moment the bull sighted him and charged him. The rest of the
herd waited huddled and motionless.

When the bull was within about twenty yards of him the overseer raised
his hand and pointed that rod towards the beast. There was a flash as of
lightning, a loud crackling sound, and the bull rolled over stone dead.
The rest of the herd turned tail and galloped off in panic. Without a
word to me the overseer replaced the rod in his boot and went on his
way.

I could understand now how one of these beings could easily control a
gang of thirty or more of the second-class labourers, and could ensure
punctual and complete obedience. Yet, grateful though I was to this
overseer, I regarded the beings of his type more with wonder than with
admiration. They were a selfish and sterile race. Their mode of walking
suggested to me too vividly things that I had seen in the great
ape-house in Regent's Park. Physically they were not, according to our
notions, to be compared with the second class whom they controlled.
Those that I saw of the second class were all men of fine stature. Their
skins were darker than the European and of a reddish brown. Their faces
were handsome, gloomy, and sombre. They seemed more akin to me than did
this four-legged thing with the monstrous head and the death-dealing rod
in his boot. But as yet I had spoken to no being of the second class. As
I passed through the cultivated fields I was all the time under the eyes
of the overseers, and deemed it inadvisable to break through the
Professor's injunctions.

I saw nothing more of the wild cattle nor of any living being until I
reached the stream beside which I camped for the night. I had been told
that on the farther side of the hill I should find a forest and beyond
the forest the dwellings of the second class and the sea.

As I lay stretched on my rug I heard beneath me a curious rumbling sound
and guessed correctly what it might be. It was commonplace enough--an
underground train taking the workers back to their homes. Commonplace,
at least, in London, but strange in the environment in which I found it.
I slept well, as I ever do in the open on a warm night, and in the
morning after a refreshing swim in the stream set out to climb the hill.




CHAPTER VII


The air was clear and from the crest of the hill I obtained a fine view.
Beneath me lay a forest that covered, I should imagine, some four or
five miles. Beyond was the blue sea, and close to the shore what looked
like a small town or village of much the same character as we are
familiar with in England. These were the first buildings above ground
that I had seen in Thule, and constituted the dwellings of beings of the
second class.

The attitude of the first class towards the second was rather puzzling.
The restriction of the numbers of the workers was quite ruthless.
Children that were not wanted were destroyed as we destroy superfluous
kittens, fewer girls than boys being allowed to live. The punishment of
death was given for any act of disobedience, and even, after due
warning, for carelessness and incompetence. But the workers whom I had
seen so far--all men--were evidently well treated. They showed no signs
of over-work, or under-feeding, or disease. They were tall, stout
fellows, all of them, and evidently in fine condition. Not one of them
adopted or attempted to adopt the quadrupedal position. They walked
erect, and were obviously the physical superiors of their masters.
Doubtless utilitarian views had prevailed with the first-class beings,
and they gave such treatment to the second class as would ensure the
maximum of effective work from them.

The clothing of the workers was of the same thick woollen material as
that of their masters, but of a different colour--a reddish brown. The
men threw off their upper garment when working in the fields. It will be
remembered that on my arrival I was provided by the late MZ04 with grey
garments similar to those worn by the first class. I was thus in the
nature of an anomaly to everyone who met me. I walked erect and
therefore did not belong to the first-class beings. I wore the grey
garments, the sleeves of which had now been abbreviated to suit me, and
therefore did not belong to the second class. To tell the truth my
stature was inferior to theirs, and would by itself have distinguished
me.

Standing on the crest of the hill I made my plans. It was in my mind to
get away from this island as soon as might be. In a forest of that
extent I might easily lie hidden for weeks, and I doubted if, with all
his knowledge and cunning, the Professor would be able to find me.
Meanwhile I would establish friendly relations with some of the second
class. Living as they did upon the sea-shore, I expected that they would
have contrived boats for their own use, and thus I might make my escape.
I had the whole day before me, and began now to explore the forest,
intending to go on to the village on the shore when the workers had
returned in the evening.

I followed the course of the stream that trickled down the hill-side.
There was no wind, and except for the burble of the stream and the call
of the birds all was still in the forest. Here and there the stream
broadened out into wide shady pools, where it seemed to me there might
be the chance of tickling a trout. Presently I heard below me a loud
splashing. The trees and undergrowth were so thick that I could see but
a very little way before me. I still followed the stream in the
direction of the sound, but I went with extreme caution, taking care
that my footsteps should not be heard. I did not know what danger might
not be awaiting me below.

Presently I reached the pool from which the sound had come. Peering
through the bushes I saw, seated in a dejected attitude by the edge of
the pool, a very beautiful woman. In spite of the fact that she had been
swimming, and her long dark hair hung dankly about her brown
shoulders--wet hair is ever unbecoming to a woman--her beauty was
amazing. The brown shoulders peeped from the heavy folds of the garment
which she had thrown round her after her swim. It was of the colour
prescribed for beings of the second class. The women of that class wear
but one garment--a long piece of stuff like a plaid, that they drape
about them. As I came into view she started up and gave a scream of
terror.

"Do not be afraid," I called. "I mean you no harm. I will not hurt you."

As she looked at me further she seemed reassured. "I thought," she said,
"at first that one of the gods had come to take me."

"What gods?" I asked.

"The gods that walk on four legs and against whom no man can do
anything. Your dress is of the same colour that they wear."

"I am no god, but an ordinary man enough--a shipwrecked mariner cast up
on this island a few weeks ago, and now planning to escape from it
again."

"There is no escape," she said mournfully. "The gods know everything."

"Let me come down and speak with you."

"Come," she said. "I am not afraid any more."

"What do you do here?" I asked, as I sat beside her.

"I have fled from death. It was ordained by the gods that I should die
at sundown seven days ago. I escaped and hid myself here. But there is
no escape really. Sooner or later they will find me. They never fail. In
their coming and going they are unseen. Suddenly before you stands one
of the gods, and he points his rod at you and you are dead. It is not
possible to hide from those whom one cannot see in their approach."

"Has no one ever escaped?"

"Years ago a girl like myself fled to the forest, and for three months
in the summer she lived there. It was I myself who found her lying dead.
Her garment over her breast was scorched by the lightning of the gods,
and her heart was burned within her. It was all one; for in the winter
she would have perished of cold and starvation. I love life. I want
every day and hour that I can get. But I have no hopes."

"Tell me, what is your name?"

"To the gods I have no name. When I am at work a number is put upon me;
it may be a different number every day. Among my own people I am called
Dream."

"And why was it that seven days ago you incurred the anger of your
masters and were to die?"

"Seven days ago I had the care of a loom. By sundown so much work was to
be finished. It is easy work. Our gods never give the women hard work.
All the same, that which is appointed must be done. It was just at the
beginning of the first spell of hot weather. The forest called me. It
was stronger than I was. When I went to my midday meal I slipped into
the forest and swam in the pool, and could not go back to the loom
again. After that I dared not go back, for those who have disobeyed die
instantly. Such is the will of the gods, and we cannot alter it."

"Listen to me," I said. "Those whom you call gods are not gods. They are
descended from those who, many years ago, were men and women just as you
are. They are not all-powerful. I myself mean to escape from them.
Generations of slavery have crushed your spirit, but in the country from
which I come there are no slaves. I shall escape and I shall take you
with me."

"You are good. I will do as you say. But how can one escape?"

"In the town on the shore I hope to be able to find a boat."

She looked at me with her dark and lustrous eyes wide open in sheer
wonderment.

"What is a boat?" she asked.

Her ignorance I found was not assumed. The making of a boat had been
prohibited so long by the beings of the first class that now even the
recollection of it had passed from the workers. They regarded the sea
with terror. It was the grey liquid wall of their prison-house. To touch
it was to die. They bathed in the forest pools, and never in the sea.
The fish that they ate were fresh-water fish only. Their masters had
told them numberless strange lies about the sea.

"Dream," I said, "there is one thing which I cannot understand. You live
in daily terror of these people whom you miscall gods. You are fairly
well treated, but you are not free. You live as slaves. Why do you tell
me, then, that you want every hour and every minute of life?"

She dipped a bare foot in the water below her, passing it slowly to and
fro.

"There is always love," she said pensively.




CHAPTER VIII


"What do you know of love?" I asked.

She shrugged her pretty shoulders. "Almost nothing, except of the lesser
loves--the love of children, the squirrels in the forest."

"Of parents," I suggested.

"No," said Dream decisively. "You cannot love those whom you do not
know."

"But how does it happen that you do not know your parents?"

"How should I? Sometimes for two years, sometimes for three--as the gods
decide--the child remains with its parents. After that it is taken away
from its parents and brought up by the gods. That is the law."

"But these women who have their children taken away from them--how do
they bear it?"

"Sometimes they are so sad that they go away into the forest and eat the
nightshade and die. More often they weep for a long time and then they
forget. When a thing is the law and it cannot be altered, there are very
few who become angry or grieved about it. What would be the use? The
gods are very careful about the children, you know."

"In what way careful?"

"If a child is weak, sickly, or misshapen, it is killed instantly. If it
is unable to learn how to do any work it is killed. The strong which
remain are well treated. For some years they do little work, they are
well fed, they are healthy and happy."

I thought of the gangs of magnificently built men that I had seen at
work in the fields. I looked at the strong and beautiful girl beside me.
The drastic methods of the lords of Thule had at least brought about one
thing--the highest possible physical condition of the race.

"Tell me," I said, "do your gods interfere also in the matter of
marriage?"

She gazed at me with her sincere and wondering eyes. "What is marriage?"
she said, in much the same tone as she had inquired what a boat was.

I told her something of the marriage ceremonies existing in my own
country, and she was very much amused.

"But why?" she asked; "that is a very great to-do about very little. If
a man loves a woman and the woman also loves the man, what more is there
to say? Why write down things in books and call many people to a feast?"

"Dream," I said, "you are an immoral heathen."

"Those also are words that I do not know. You will tell me about them."

I did not tell her about them. I had already been rather struck by the
curious simplicity of her own speech. Her phrases were at times
biblical, though she knew nothing of any religion, and could not have
read a bible if she had possessed one.

"And when, as you say, a man and woman love one another, is it customary
with you for them to live together for the rest of their lives?"

Dream yawned. I was wearying her.

"It is so strange," she said, "to have to tell you the things that
everybody knows. Also what you ask is so funny. Of course people who
love live together. Is not that right?"

I hardly knew what to tell her. She had the innocence of the first
garden. After all it may be that the notions of right and wrong which
are very properly accepted in my own country are not to be imposed upon
every people in every form of civilisation. I did not wish to judge her.
I therefore changed the subject.

"This evening, Dream, I want you to take me to that town where you all
live. I am going to save you and take you away from this island. To do
that I must make a boat or a great raft. I must have men to help me."

"I will take you there if you wish, but if I do I shall die immediately.
Every day and every night the overseeing gods go up and down there. It
is well known that I left my work at the loom, and that I am to die. The
gods have said I am to die, and what they say always happens. Any one of
them who saw me in the town would point at me with his death-rod and I
should fall. Still, no one has ever escaped, and as I must die anyhow, I
will take you to the town if this gives you pleasure."

I could not of course hear of this. My first step to secure her safety
could not reasonably be a step which would ensure her death. I asked
her, however, how these overseeing gods--the police of the town, as I
figured it--would recognise her.

"By the pictures," she said. "They have pictures of every one of us. My
picture is put up throughout the town on the walls of houses."

"I see," I said. "If I go to the town at all I will go alone. Shall I be
in any danger from your people?"

"None. You wear the grey garments. True, you do not walk like a god, and
you suffer from short arms, as I do. But would you be safe from the gods
themselves?"

"Yes," I said. "I have something that was given to me to show them. It
is a sign that they are not to injure me."

"Injure?" she echoed. "The gods injure nobody. They kill when it is
necessary, but they do not injure. If one has a crooked spine, or if one
falls sick, or if one has lived too long, or if one refuses obedience,
as I have done, then of course they must die. It is the law. The gods
themselves have told us that in the old days our forefathers were beaten
or shut up in prisons or their goods were taken away from them. This was
called punishment. We are free from all that. We have food and shelter,
we have light and warmth, we have times of work and times of play. No
one punishes us. That is why it is our duty to love the gods."

"Who taught you to say that?"

"They taught it me themselves. It is one of the first things that a
child learns. But I grow weary of sitting here and telling you the
things that everybody knows. Will you come with me through the forest
and down to the shore where the caves are where I sleep?"

I assented. She rose up and draped her garment anew about her. As we
walked side by side I asked her if she was not afraid of sleeping in the
caves. Surely there first of all the gods would go to look for her.

"No," she said. "Never. No god has ever been inside those caves since
the creature came out of the sea and lived there."

"What creature?"

"How should I know? It was more than fifty years ago, and none of us
live for fifty years. But I have heard the story as it is told by my
people. The creature that came out of the sea was something like a
serpent, but larger than all serpents. Those who looked into its eyes
died of horror. Two of the gods died. It went away into the caves, and
no one has ever seen it again. I suppose it still lives there waiting
for something. But it is far away in the very heart of the caves where I
never go. If I heard it moving I should awake at once, for I sleep but
lightly, and so I should save myself. If I could remain always in the
caves I need have no fear of the gods, but one must have the sun, and
water to swim in, and food to eat. Is that not so?"

I agreed with her. "But," I said, "in the forest you are in constant
danger."

"Only on calm days. When the wind blows the gods will not go into the
forest. That is well known, but I do not know what the reason is."

I knew perfectly well. I had already learned their fear of something
falling on them. Over-civilisation had broken up their nerves and
rendered them flaccid and spiritless. They had no reason to fear the
wild cattle with the death-rod in their hands. They had no reason to
fear the docile race that they had tamed in ignorance to serve them. But
the limb of a tree might fall, or a cave might be haunted. I grew to
hate these first-class beings, as they called themselves.

She began now to ask me questions about the land from which I had come,
and all that I told her was subjected to her barbarian criticism. She
was perfectly shocked at hearing of hospitals, and regarded the whole of
the medical fraternity as impious. "If those who are weak and sickly are
patched up and made to live a little longer, is there not a danger that
they will have children who will also be weak and sickly, and so much
more trouble be made? We see that this is so with the beasts that we
rear, and the plants that we cultivate. Is it not so with men also?"

I had to admit that it was. But I pointed out to her that in my country
we regarded many other things besides physical perfection.

"So I have already observed," she said, with almost embarrassing
frankness. "Are the women of your country beautiful?"

"Some of them are very beautiful. Some, I fear, are not beautiful at
all."

"Then why do they live? It must be very unpleasant. Are any of them more
beautiful than I am?"

"I have never seen anyone, Dream, as beautiful as you are."

"Say that again," she said, "it makes a pleasing sound."

I did not say it again. I felt my responsibilities towards this
beautiful but wholly barbarous creature. It seemed to me my duty at the
very first to purge her mind of her superstitions about that deformed,
intelligent, and learned section of humanity in whose divine character
she had been taught to believe.

"If your masters are indeed gods, as you say, why did they not destroy
the creature from the sea?"

"Two of them went out to kill it, but they saw its eyes and horror
overcame them so that they died. After that they saw that this was a
very evil creature, and in their wisdom they left it alone."

"They must be poor creatures to be so easily frightened to death. In my
country we could not believe in gods that ever die. Yet the very first
of your masters that I saw when I reached this island has since died and
his body has been burned."

"His body--yes. But he himself still lives. I was taught these things by
the gods when I was a child, and it is wrong of you to try and make me
think otherwise."

I began to realise the tremendous strength of early impression. I could
call to mind that I had seen evidence enough of it before ever I came to
Thule. It seemed almost impossible for me--one man--to fight against
this crafty and complex organisation of tyranny and slavery that was
here blindly accepted. I turned to another of her terrors--her terror of
the sea.

"Do you swim well?" I asked her.

She laughed. "One swims as one walks or runs. Why not? You ask such
strange things."

"Very well then," I said, "you shall swim in the sea."

"No. The sea is the evil water. If one had only that water to drink, one
would die. Is that not so?"

"It is, but----"

"Very well then. We are rightly taught not to touch the sea. You speak
to me sometimes very much as if you were a god, and you boast of
freedom, and you have come all the way from a far-off country; but you
yourself would not dare to enter the sea."

It was my turn to laugh. "I am going to swim in it this evening," I
said.

"I implore you not to do it," said Dream.

"I shall come to no harm."

"You will most certainly die."

"You will see that I shall not."

"It would be a pity, because I myself perhaps may escape death yet for a
few days longer, and I might begin to love you."

We had now reached the entrance to the caves.




CHAPTER IX


The side of the brown sandstone cliff was perforated like a gigantic
rabbit warren. I judged the cliffs to be natural in character, but in
the labyrinth of passages and rooms upon which one first entered, much
artificial work had been done. In places columns of brick upheld the
roof, and the walls had been trimmed and levelled by a tool. I
guessed--for it was a point upon which Dream could tell me nothing--that
the lords of Thule had at one time some intention of making use of these
natural excavations, and that they had been frightened from their task
by the absurd superstition which Dream had recounted to me. I could not
believe in the marvellous amphibious monster that had come out of the
sea, and for fifty years or more had lived in the heart of these cliffs.

I told Dream of my doubts, but she was not to be shaken. The track of
the animal when it went in had been clearly visible, and no track had
been found to show that it had gone out again.

"On what then does it live?" I asked.

"Things that it finds in the water."

"But you tell me that it has never gone back to the sea again."

"Never. But far within the caves--much farther than I have ever
gone--there is a great lake. It lives there. I will take you to a place
where you can hear the roar of the water falling into the lake. Follow
me closely or you may lose yourself."

She took me through many winding passages until she reached a point
where she knelt and put her ear to the ground. She made me do the same.
I could certainly hear the sound of running water below me, but that did
not prove the existence of the lake, much less of the monster that was
supposed to inhabit the lake. I told her this, and she did not like it.

"When you found me in the forest," she said, "I was very sad because I
had spoken to no one for many days, and I was to die and there was no
escape. Then because of your companionship and because you seem to hope
and to fear nothing, I became lifted up again. It is necessary for you
to think as I think, or I shall grow sad again. Therefore you must
believe in the great serpent."

"We will not speak of him. Show me where you sleep."

She took me by a passage that rapidly grew narrower until I could hardly
force my way into the chamber beyond. It was a simple sleeping-apartment
containing a bed of dried bracken and nothing more.

"Yes," she said, "I chose this place because the passage was so narrow
and the great serpent which was in the lake was so big. Here he could
not get to me."

"And how do you manage about food?"

"I have plenty--far too much. Every night some one or other of my people
brings food and puts it at the entrance of the cave. They do not go near
to the cave because they believe in the serpent, not being so wise as
you are. I would not go into the cave myself were it not that I have to
die anyhow."

"But do your gods permit this?"

"I do not know. They do not care to come very near to the caves. I
myself think that they do know that food is brought to me and do not
wish to prevent it. They have only one punishment. They would not starve
me slowly. They would point the death-rod at me and burn my heart out in
an instant. But you remind me that I have become very hungry after my
swim. You also must think as I do and be hungry too, and we will eat
together."

She showed me another room nearer to the entrance where she kept her
supplies. They were simple enough. There was a pile of thin sweet
biscuit and another pile of dried fruit. This in colour and flavour was
like a raisin, but four times the size.

"That grows in the forest," said Dream. "In the autumn when the fresh
fruit is ripe it is very good indeed. I shall not live to pick any more
of it, and for that I am very sorry."

She was still, I think, rather offended with me for my disbelief in the
creature that came out of the sea, but on the whole we chatted amicably
enough. I can see now that I did a clumsy thing in thus suddenly and
crudely trying to upset a tradition in which she had grown up. It is not
perhaps very desirable to shake the faith of anybody in anything, unless
that faith be distinctly and immediately harmful. I am a simple seaman
and unused to missionary work, and it is small wonder that I bungled it.

After we had feasted, Dream went off to her bed of bracken and I once
more climbed the hill to watch the sea. All that afternoon I watched,
using at times my perspective-glass, but never once could I make out a
sail.

I may admit that my plans were now changed and that the change was
entirely due to the strong fascination which Dream had for me--far
stronger than I cared to let her know at present. I no longer cared to
explore the town or to find out more of the condition of the workers
than Dream herself could tell me. I had decided to throw in my lot with
her and, if it were possible, to save her from the cruel death with
which she was threatened. How I was to do this I did not know. I could
only wait and see what chance might offer itself.

I cut bracken for my bed, and laden with this I made my way back to the
cave again. There Dream awaited me and all traces of her ill-humour had
vanished. I did not insist on my swim in the sea that night, lest it
should pain her further. We sat and talked together until the stars came
out. It was the first time since I had been on the island that I had
looked up at the stars. I could find nothing that I recognised. I
wondered where in the world or out of the world I now found myself. The
problem did not disturb me greatly. It was pleasant to sit and hear
Dream's recital of her story of the squirrel that she captured and
tamed. Her voice was curiously soft and caressing.

Soon she went back to her bed and I spread my bracken in the door of the
cave and lay down. It was in the night that her people came to bring her
food, and I wished if possible to see them and to speak with them.

But this experiment turned out ill. I had slept but an hour when I was
awakened by a footfall, and looking out from the cave I saw striding
towards me a man who bore a tray on his head. But when he was within a
hundred yards of the cave he set the tray down and turned back again. I
called out that I was a friend and would speak with him, but I do not
think he understood what I said, and the sound of a strange voice filled
him with terror. He ran off at the top of his speed.

Early that morning I had my swim in the sea, but on my return I said
nothing to Dream about it. I told her, however, how the man had run away
when he heard my voice the night before.

"You did not do this very well," said Dream. "You told me that you did
not wish to go to the town any more and that you would remain with me.
But it seems that I am not enough and that you do wish to speak with
others. Very well then. This night I will watch outside the cave and I
will go to the man who brings the food and I will bring him in to you.
He is, I think, a man who loves me very much indeed."

I told her that I had changed my mind and did not wish to see the man. A
brisk wind was blowing and we spent most of the day in the forest
together. Again from time to time I scanned the horizon with my
perspective-glass, and again with no result whatever. I wondered in what
deserted sea this island might be placed. Throughout the day Dream was
silent and thoughtful, but she was in no immediate fear, knowing that on
such a day her gods would not enter the forest. Next morning I went for
my swim in the sea again, and on my return Dream told me that she knew
what I had done. She had seen me swimming far out.

"Why did you not tell me you had done this?"

"I feared to disturb your mind."

"I am not a child and am not to be treated as a child. I can think as
you think about the sea if I like. I dare do anything that you dare to
do."

I told her that I had no doubt of it. Rain fell for the greater part of
that day and we remained in the cave talking. She told me of the life
she had led and of the laws by which her people were governed.

I have said that I had begun to hate the lords of Thule--the first-class
beings as they designated themselves--the gods, as the poor ignorant
workers supposed them to be. I hate them still. I despise their sexless
emasculate nervousness. I despise their want of the warmer sins and
their subjection to the colder. I despise their selfishness even while I
admire their wisdom.

Yet, if I am to speak honestly, their despotism--not benevolent and
wholly self-interested--produced a finer race of workers than is to be
found in my own country to-day. They were better fed, better clothed,
better housed. They were healthier--disease was almost unknown--and they
were happier. I use the last word deliberately. The cruelty with which
they were treated--and to our modern minds it was abominable
cruelty--was after all not capricious cruelty. It proceeded on laws as
immutable as the laws of nature. The mother of the weakling who saw her
child destroyed at any rate knew why; and when the lightning strikes the
best and most promising of us we do not know why. Every man was
specially trained for special work, and his own inclination was always
taken into account; for the greater the inclination, the greater--as a
rule--the aptitude. The view taken of women was definitely animal, and
only in exceptional cases were women allowed to live beyond the age of
forty-five. On the other hand, no woman was worked hard; women who were
about to be mothers or had recently become mothers, were treated with a
delicate consideration far beyond anything to be found in our Factory
Acts; and no woman was influenced in her choice of a mate by vulgar
claims of a financial or social character. The children were free from
the thwarting and snubbing and the curse of competitive examination
which we are pleased to call education. Each child was taught a few
essentials very thoroughly. The training was in each case individual and
based on a clever study of the child's nature. If reading or writing or
arithmetic was unnecessary for the work which the child would ultimately
be called upon to do, then none of these things was taught. It might
almost be said that the children were spoiled. But they learned early
the immutable and inexorable nature of the laws imposed on their race.

Towards the close of this day Dream became once more sad and depressed.
Suddenly she rose and said that she was going back to her own people in
the town.

"But," I said, "you know that this means death."

"There is one thing worse than death which may happen to a woman. It is
useless for you to try to prevent me. If I cannot go to the town, then
to-morrow I shall eat the poison berries in the forest."

I had intended, if ever I could find the way, to take Dream back with me
to my own country and there to marry her. It seemed to me now that there
was no hope of this. I make no defence of what I said or did. I do not
know if under those circumstances any defence is needed. But I told
Dream that she need not seek the death-rod of her gods or the poison
berries of the forest, because the one thing which is worse than death
had not happened to her.




CHAPTER X


There followed sixteen days of such great and idyllic happiness that for
that alone it seems worth while to have lived my life. Dream lost her
terror of the sea and every morning swam out with me. Sometimes we would
catch trout in the forest pools, and these I would clean and cook in the
manner I had learned in the South Seas, on hot stones and ashes, getting
fire from the sun by means of the lens of my perspective-glass. But this
we could only hazard on days when the wind blew strongly, lest the smoke
of our fire should signal our whereabouts. I was not able to shake
Dream's belief in the creature that came out of the sea, but she seemed
no longer to have any fear of that or of anything.

"When death comes," she said, "it will come to both of us. Every day is
a gain. Yet, when one cannot possibly be happier, it is not hard to die.
One has drunk the wine of life."

I had it in my mind to attempt some further exploration of the caves. In
this I had been so far prevented by the fact that we had no means of
lighting ourselves. It was on the morning of the sixteenth day that I
found in the forest wood of a very resinous character which I guessed
would make good torches. I got me a store of this and carried it down to
the cave, telling Dream what I meant to do.

"I shall go with you," she said. Nor could I dissuade her from it.

We kept a small fire burning at the entrance to the cave that day, and
when the sun had gone down we lit our torches from the fire and started
off, taking no other equipment than my clasp-knife and a lump of chalk
with which to mark our way in the labyrinth.

We soon reached a point where but two roads were left, each so wide and
lofty that a coach and four might easily have been driven along it. One
of these roads led upwards, and I made no doubt emerged on the farther
side of the hill. The other one struck more abruptly downward, and this
was the road which we took. Here, if it existed at all, I should find
the subterranean lake. As we went on, the noise of falling water became
more and more distinct. I was excited by the adventure and eager to see
more.

Presently the road widened into a vast hall, so vast that our torches
could not illumine the farthest recesses of it. And here it was as well
that I looked carefully to each step, for I found myself suddenly on the
edge of a precipice. Lying flat on my stomach and holding out my torch,
I could see a vast stretch of black water below, into which at one end a
cataract thundered. In the middle of this lake there projected something
which looked like a smooth boulder of rock. I wondered what it might be.

"We have plenty of torches?" asked Dream.

"Plenty."

"Then we will see what it is."

She waved her torch round her head till it was all ablaze and then flung
it down. It fell on that great mass in the middle of the lake. The mass
turned slowly over, showing shaggy hair matted with slime. The smell of
burning hair came up to us and with it a deep groan that seemed to shake
the cave.

We fled in panic. I must indeed ascribe it to chance and to no courage
of my own that I kept my grip of the torch. We did not even pause to
look at the chalk marks we had made for our guidance, and in consequence
found ourselves lost for a while in the labyrinth of passages at the
entrance to the cave. At last we found the way out and made our way to
the forest. There we spent the remainder of the night, wakeful and
talking of the wonders we had seen. It was the last night that we spent
together.

The sun had scarcely risen when I saw a few feet away from us a little
smoke flickering over the powdered soil.

"What is that?" I asked.

"That is the end," said Dream. "We shall die together."

Rapidly the smoke, which did not rise and disperse, became more opaque,
vibrating until it took solid shape. Before us leered the misshapen head
and bright beady eyes of the Professor.

His right hand covered with a rubber glove slipped out of the boot and
drew forth the death-rod.

"The stranger dies first," he said, and pointed the rod at me. Dream
clung to me. I felt a sensation as of fire in my throat.


And now comes what seems to me--though it may not so seem to others--the
strangest part of my story. Passing through a kind of swoon, I found
myself gently rocked as on board a ship. Opening my eyes I saw two men
bending over me. One of them held a glass containing brandy to my lips.

"You see?" said a voice triumphantly. "The beggar's alive and I win my
bet."

I found afterwards that I was on board the steamship _Hermione_ bound
from Alexandria to Cardiff with a cargo of cotton seed. I had been found
senseless at the bottom of an open boat. I was treated with plenty of
rough kindness and brought back to my own country; but over the story
which I told them the crew shook their heads gravely.

Since then nothing of import happened to me until I was brought to this
great barrack-like place where I now live in fair comfort. There are
many doctors here and many guests. Some of the guests, I fear, have an
aberration of the intellect, for they say strange things. I am well
contented. I have lived my life. But since no one will listen to my
marvellous experiences in the island of Thule--or if they listen at all
make a jest of them--I have written them down here for the service of
another and a wiser generation.





IN A LONDON GARDEN


CHAPTER I

THE RECLAMATION OF THE CAT-WALK: AND THE STORY OF "THE POOL IN THE
DESERT"


My London garden is not really mine. I have it for a period of years on
conditions arranged between two legal gentlemen, the tenant paying the
landlord's cost. Obviously the person who owns the property can better
afford to pay those costs than the man who has to hire it. And similarly
the man who is lending money on a mortgage can better afford to pay
costs than the man who has to borrow it. But the tenant pays, and the
borrower pays. It is a principle of the law that the poor man pays. But
this reflection, into which bitterness of spirit has led me, has nothing
whatever to do with my garden.

I wasted more than a year. The thing looked quite hopeless. I left my
garden to the cats, the jobbing gardeners, the caterpillars, and the
other pests.

Of these the worst and most dangerous is perhaps the jobbing gardener.
As the law stands at present you may kill a caterpillar, but not a
jobbing gardener.

Coming on the wrong day--and he never comes on the right day if he can
avoid it--he brings with him a mixed scent of beer and lubricating oil.
If the weather is wet, he sits in the potting-shed and smokes. If it is
fine, he may possibly mow the lawn. He prefers to mow part of it and
then to get on with something else, leaving it like a man with one side
of his face shaved. He takes no sort of interest in the garden, and
candidly there is no reason why he should take any interest. He only
sees the place for a few hours every week, and he would not see it then
if he were not paid for it. He has untruthful testimonials, very dirty
and decomposed, in his coat pocket, and he is aggrieved when you sack
him. This is quite reasonable. A jobbing gardener who attends to the
gardens of A, B, and C naturally steals something from A's garden to
sell to B, something from B's garden to sell to C, and something from
C's garden to sell to A, and thereout sucks he no small advantage. When
he gets the sack there is nothing left for him but to steal your
secators. He never forgets to do that. I will not say that even in my
regenerate condition I never employ a jobbing gardener. There are days
when it seems a fine, manly, and primitive thing to do a piece of
digging or to mow the lawn. There are more days when such operations
seem rather in the light of a nuisance. One would always sooner direct
than perform. But the jobbing gardeners who come to me now are under
supervision, and are compelled to do things that they hate most in the
world--such as putting away their tools when they have finished with
them.

I am not particularly fond of the expert and regular gardener either.
Generally he has the luck to be a Scotchman and is a man of few words
and great knowledge. But his knowledge is always better than his taste,
and he debases an art into a science. His ideals would not fit a London
garden, and his feeling for colour is often wrong and poisonous.

The horticulturist-and-florist debases a science into a commerce. I have
found him useful and shall continue to do so. He saves me trouble. I
will deal with him, but I absolutely refuse to admire him.

The amateur gardener would be pleasant if you could cut out his conceit,
but it is ineradicable. He comes into my garden and points out my
principal mistakes and tells me of the much better things which he has
in his garden.

I myself am not a gardener at all. I admit it. I should imagine that
there is no man in Great Britain and her Dependencies who knows as
little about gardening as I do. But that is not the sole reason why I
write about my London garden. We can distinguish between the dog lover
and the dog fancier. In the same way we may distinguish between the
garden lover and the gardener. It is an important distinction.

The garden in London makes you love it, and it also breaks your heart.
It has therefore all the charm of woman. I am not going to believe that
any garden in the heart of the country, where everything is green and
easy, can give the same pleasure as my half-acre reclaimed among the
chimney-pots. It has its limitations, of course, but so have I. So have
all human beings. One does not ask a beautiful woman to be clever. One
does not expect a clever woman to be beautiful. One does not even hope
that an aggressively good woman will be either. Similarly one does not
ask the London garden for fruit and vegetables. All that one may really
require is shade and flowers. Even that is something, when you remember
how very few flowers will grow in shade.

Some blackguard who was allowed to use this garden before it fell to my
lot planted rhubarb in a part of it. Most of the rhubarb has now gone,
and the rest is going (as the politicians used to say), contrary, I
believe, to the terms of my lease. But my landlord is more sympathetic
than her solicitors. (The word "landlady" is not to be used. It gives
totally wrong associations.) I have also a currant bush, and this shall
remain. Its green does not displease me. It produces few currants and I
never get or try to get any of them; but birds that are kept as busy
with the slugs and caterpillars as the birds in my garden are, deserve
an occasional change of diet. I have a few old apple trees and pear
trees, but I think I regard them chiefly for their blossom, though these
last two years they have taken heart from the enrichment of the soil and
have been covered with fruit. You will find parsley and mint in a
secluded border, but these represent rather the ornament of nutrition
than nutrition itself.

As a rule parsley in London is terribly over-worked. In the
refreshment-room at a London terminus late at night I have seen a
barmaid collect the sprigs of wilted parsley from the tired sandwiches
and sad hard eggs, and put it all in a teacup with a little water. It
was heart-breaking to think that that parsley would have to go to work
again the next day. But also it presented the barmaid in a new light. It
was so foreign to her abnormal stateliness and her unnatural gaiety. It
tempted one to believe that after all she was human.

Sitting here in the shade on a hot summer day, with an Austrian brier in
full bloom within a few yards of me, I wonder why on earth I ever
neglected this garden.

In the first place it had been neglected before. I think for some two
years previously a jobbing gardener had called one day every week on
purpose to neglect it. Therefore it seemed hopeless to do anything. In
the second place it was too rectilineal. It was an exact rectangle,
surrounded by straight paths and bisected by one straight path. In the
third place I bought a book about gardening for amateurs and it
frightened me. It began just about the point where I shall leave off if
I live to be a hundred years old.

And then, neglected though it was, the garden made its appeal to me. All
round it are tall trees--elm, and chestnut, and wild cherry, and plane,
and sycamore. It offered me grateful shade on a hot afternoon, and I had
done nothing to deserve it. In the springtime there were mauve blossoms
on the lilac, and golden trails on the laburnum, that I had never
earned. Later, tall hollyhocks, lavish sunflowers, crowded Michaelmas
daisies, added their reproach. I became uneasy. I went out and bought
things, such as bast, and fertiliser, and green stakes. I began to
wander about the garden, thinking what could be done with it. By the
next summer the garden had got a fair hold of me. A man who can learn
something fresh is not old, wherefore I am not old, but it surprises me
that one of my youth should have learned so amazingly little about a
garden in the time.

I began to see encouraging factors. I had not to think about fruit and
vegetables. I had not to think about a greenhouse, because the garden
has no greenhouse. It has not even got a frame. I shall buy one next
year, or possibly the year after. London is simply crawling with
florists, and for a few shillings you can buy things all ready to put
in. The shilling that goes to the taxicab driver is gone for
ever--sacrificed to a fit of laziness. The shilling that buys six
sweet-williams provides pleasure for many weeks. The sweet-william is, I
believe, a two-year thing, or as the sacred jargon of the gardener puts
it, a biennial. You start it one year and it flowers the next. It may be
a mean and cowardly thing to do to let the florist do the first year's
work on it, and buy it when it is ready to flower that season, but I do
it, and I shall continue to do it. I shall continue to do everything
that I can think of that will save me trouble in my garden without
injuring the garden. But the Iceland poppies are from seed that I myself
sowed. I have sown blood-red wallflowers and Canterbury bells to flower
next year. One can be lazy without being wholly bad.

Things which looked hopeless at first sight proved better on further
consideration. There was the lawn, for instance. The jobbing gardener
turned up his nose at the lawn. It slopes. It slopes in several
different directions simultaneously.

"There's only one thing to be done with that," said the jobber, "and the
sooner you make up your mind to it the better. That all wants to be
taken up, levelled, and relaid. It'll cost a bit of money, but it'll
never be satisfactory till it's done."

He produced figures and they frightened me. The lawn still slopes
deviously, and every day that I see it I am thankful for it. Nobody can
possibly play lawn-tennis on it. I hate white rectilineal lines on grass
almost more than I hate underdone mutton or "The Lost Chord". Therefore
it is a perpetual joy to me that my lawn slopes.

I asked the jobbing gardener what the roses were, planted in odd corners
of the lawn.

"Roses!" he said scornfully. "They ain't roses. It's just some common
sort of brier. What anybody put it there for, I don't know. It has never
flowered for the last three years, and never will flower, and if it did,
you wouldn't like it."

Those despised briers are all covered with flower at the present moment,
and I like them very much. They are not gardeners' roses, but they are
nicer to look at than the Putney bus.

Are there any plantains in my lawn? There are. There is also more grass
than there used to be. You can do a lot of things with plantains. If you
turn guinea-pigs loose on your lawn, so one newspaper informs me, they
will eat the plantains and leave the grass. But I have not got any
guinea-pigs, and I am not going to provide a manly but barbarous sport
for the cats of the neighbourhood by buying guinea-pigs. Another method
is to cut off the head of the plantain and apply lawn-sand. I shall very
likely do that one day when there is nothing in the garden which wants
doing more, and if I happen to feel like it. A part of a summer day you
must work in a London garden, but it is equally true that for another
part of the summer day you must just sit and enjoy it. Otherwise you
sacrifice the end to the means.

"As for that old box tree," said my jobbing Jeremiah, "it never ought to
have been put there at all, right on the edge of a bed. If you take my
advice you will have it out. Of course, if it had been properly trimmed
and looked after, that might have been made into a peacock, but it would
take you years to get it into shape now. You can't grow anything under
it, and it's no good trying."

I am glad the old box tree is not a peacock. It has grown the way it
wanted to grow, and it suits it. It is perfectly true that nothing will
grow under it, and therefore I have not tried to grow anything under it.
I found me a handy man and sent him out to buy me a hundred bricks, what
time I marked out under the box tree a place where one might sit--a
place dry to the feet after the rain. I sent him for red bricks, and he
came back with white, because the red bricks were (a) too expensive, and
(b) too soft. But the white bricks have done very well with some old
bricks mixed in with them, and soon lost their aggressiveness. So
underneath my box tree is an L-shaped pavement of bricks, with room for
a seat and a table.

People look at it and sniff. It is too unusual. Then they go away and
buy bricks. It is astonishing, by the way, how very few bricks there are
in a hundred. What I mean, of course, is what a very small pavement they
make.

I made another seat under the big scarlet thorn, but this is more
ambitious. I got me broken pavement stones--not very easy to get
nowadays--and paved a semicircle. On that I put a semicircular seat with
a back to it. Irreverent people have compared it _(a)_ to a pew, and
_(b)_ to a loose-box; but it is a pleasant place to sit in in the
evening, and just catches the last of the sunlight. After that I dealt
firmly with myself, and said that I could not be always making seats.

I began to see ways by which I might make the garden a little less
rectilineal. I need hardly say that I wanted a pergola, because of
course everybody wants a pergola. The best house-agents say that a
riverside cottage lets better if it has a pergola and no dining-room
than if it has a dining-room and no pergola. My pergola is built of
rustic wood creosoted, which costs very little. It forms a big
semicircle with a short tail projecting from the middle of the curve. On
it I grow ramblers and glory-roses. I told an expert with some pride
what I had done.

"Yes," said the expert sadly and thoughtfully, "almost any rose does
well in London, except the Gloire-de-Dijon."

My glory-roses look all right at present, but he is probably correct.
When you do a work and do not know how to do it, you are handicapped.
Almost the first thing I did in the way of gardening was to put in some
gaillardias, which I had bought in a box. Three of them died. It takes a
good deal to kill a gaillardia. Things that I plant now do not die. I am
certainly getting on. I shall soon be able to say Gloire-de-Dijon when I
mean glory-rose.

Perfection is not for me. But there are some pleasant halting-places
this side of it. I consult that book for amateur gardeners at intervals,
principally because it is such a delight to be able to skip the long
chapter about sea-kale. I still struggle, and tell myself frequently
that I shall continue to struggle. But, as I have said, there are
pleasant halting-places this side of perfection, and I have a great
tendency to get out at the next station.

When that tendency comes over me I try to remember the smallness of my
garden. In a small garden you may cut the caterpillar nests off the
scarlet thorn, and burn them to ashes so that no spark of life remains.
You feel sure that not one caterpillar is left in the garden. You may
then get to work and pick caterpillars off the rose trees. You may hunt
the ubiquitous green fly. You may weed properly with a small fork,
instead of perfunctorily with a hoe, after the manner of the jobbing
gardener. In time of drought you can water everything. In a small garden
much is possible.

It is not exactly a garden yet, of course. The author of that book for
amateurs would drop dead from shock if he saw it. But it is more like a
garden than the cankered cat-walk it once was.

By the way, speaking of a garden in London, you may possibly have heard
the story of


THE POOL IN THE DESERT

There was once a desert. Now I come to think of it, there still is.

Across the desert, mounted on three camels, came the millionaire, the
artist, and the analyst. During the day their diet had consisted
principally of biscuits and sand. With this they had drunk as much dry
sherry as happened to be left in the millionaire's gold flask with the
diamond monogram on it. Therefore at first sight they were glad when
they saw the pool, and dismounted hurriedly from their camels. But
self-respect, which is a splendid quality, came to their rescue. It was
the millionaire who spoke first.

"I don't call that a pool at all. I have a lake in the park at my
country-place at least four times the size of that. It is a wretched
skimpy little business not worth our attention. Now if we had come to
the cataract of Niagara, that really would have been of some interest."

Even as he spoke, the analyst had produced from his saddle-bags test
tubes, and litmus paper, and a spirit-lamp, and all manner of mixed
chemicals, and was busily engaged on a sample of the water which he had
taken.

It was the artist who spoke next.

"Water demands green surroundings. To put a pool in a desert is to put
it in a wrong setting altogether. Here we have one stunted and miserable
palm tree, and no other vegetation. There is really nothing at all here
that I should care to paint."

The analyst was now ready with his results.

"This is precisely what I feared. There can be no doubt whatever that
this pool suffers from organic pollution. I do not say that it exists to
such an extent as to be dangerous to life, but there is a very distinct
trace. I will show you the figures in my analysis."

He did so. I have forgotten the figures. But that does not matter,
because if I told you them, you also would forget them.

And then for a while these three good men sat and looked at one another.

"I believe I am dying of thirst," said the millionaire.

"So am I," said the artist.

"There is no known form of liquid that I would not at this moment gladly
drink," said the analyst.

So after all they turned their attention to the pool.

But in the meantime the three camels--poor dumb beasts who knew no
better--had drunk up the whole of that pool, and had gone on their way
rejoicing.




CHAPTER II

OMISSIONS: AND THE STORY OF "THE GIRL WHO WENT BACK"


There are smuts in London.

There is also a tradition about the smuts in London, and it may be as
well to differentiate the facts and the tradition. According to
tradition, everywhere within a six-mile radius from Charing Cross smuts
fall heavily and continuously. Nothing will grow. No green things can
exist. A sheet of paper exposed to the open air becomes black in three
seconds, and a thick layer of carbon covers everything. There are many
people who believe this. I was told so only the other night by a
beautiful lady to whom I had inadvertently jabbered about my garden. By
the way, she was wearing a white dress. Why?

The fact is that there are as many smuts as one can reasonably want--and
perhaps a few more--in the city and in Mayfair. There are not so many as
there used to be, because there is less smoke. Electricity does not
smoke. Up in St John's Wood and Hampstead the smuts are very much
diminished. Probably if I climbed one of my trees I should find my hands
black. But I am not a boy nor a gorilla, that I should do this thing. I
read or write in the garden, and I find that no smut settles on the
white page. I dine under the tall trees, and the white cloth remains
unpolluted. I may possibly get an elm-seed in my soup, but that is
another matter. (Can anyone tell me, by the way, why the elm produces
such an amazing lot of seeds and sows them broadcast, with a preference
for places where they can never by any possibility germinate?) This is
all quite contrary to tradition, but it happens to be the truth.

There is a good time coming--the time when smoke will be eliminated. The
London garden will doubtless be an easier and cleaner matter then. But
meanwhile the London garden is not impossible. The evergreens are
distinctly shop-soiled after the winter; but with the summer comes the
fresh green, and in the summer London provides us with less smoke from
fewer fires. Beautiful white dresses must be washed or cleaned, and
after all the garden has its hose and its rain-showers.

The tradition is inept as it stands, but it has a basis of truth. There
is very much that must be omitted in the London garden. There are
flowers that never come to town. Speaking generally, bulbs will do less
work here than they will in the country. After the first year the tulips
get tired. But as a compensation for the many things which one must
omit, come the many other things which one may omit.

The liberty of the subject is too much circumscribed, but I believe that
there is no law in this country which compels a man to grow the Jacoby
geranium. This does not seem to be generally understood. Look at the
window-boxes of London, and look at the gardens. Mayfair as a rule is
ambitious and kills quite pretty things in its window-boxes; but
elsewhere all too frequently one finds the Jacoby geranium and the
edging of blue lobelia. I think that people get these things and grow
them just exactly as they pay their dog licence--not because they want
to do it but because they feel they must. There is probably an organised
conspiracy between florists and jobbing gardeners to promote Jacobys.
"You will be wanting some geraniums," says the florist decisively, and
you are hypnotised into believing it. "What could we have in that bed?"
you ask the jobbing gardener. "A few Jacobys," he says, with the air of
a man who has had a bright idea. If he does not edge them with blue
lobelia, he edges them with some yellow stuff which I think he calls
pyrethrum. One has only to smell it once never to try it again. At the
same time there are some super-cultured people who carry the hatred of
the geranium to an unreasonable extent. There is a white one which does
not make me ill, and a pink one which is not too hideous. But as it
happens, the only geranium in my garden is the one which is grown solely
for the scent of its leaves. One year where geraniums might have been I
had blue-violet verbenas, sweet-scented and just as easy to grow. I was
told to hairpin them to the ground, but out of obstinacy I grew them
upright. They did not seem to mind. I have no rage against the blue
lobelia, if it is put in a safe place where its colour can do no harm. I
do not know why the white lobelia has so much less popularity. One is
not bound to grow it as an edging. Now I come to think of it, I believe
I hate all edgings.

I am not very fond of those flowers which are distinctively villa
flowers. I do not think there is any man alive who could sell me a
yellow calceolaria or persuade me to find room for it in my garden. The
fuschia too is rather a self-conscious and ostentatious thing, though I
admit the tree-fuschia. To these I prefer musk, and mignonette, and
heliotrope. They flourish in a wet summer, and I wish I did. Lilies and
carnations of course one must have, and London permits it. London pride
is common enough, but I like it and grow it. It is a generous thing that
asks little and gives much. If only its graceful flower were expensive,
it would be greatly admired. The white and yellow marguerites are of no
dazzling rarity, but I welcome them. Hosts of the old-fashioned
perennials are desirable and possible, though there are some of them
that need to be watched. The sunflower, for instance, is distinctly
greedy and would take the whole garden if it could get it.

If a general principle of omission and selection for a London garden
could be formulated, it would probably run as follows--choose
cottage-garden things and avoid villa-garden things. In this way you
will get all that is simple and sweet-scented and easy of cultivation,
and nothing which is formal and perky. There are men who at present do
earn large salaries by making gardens perky. The pity of it!

I have myself seen a long bed covered with things of different coloured
foliage in geometrical patterns. "You may see as good Sights, many
times, in Tarts." Thank you, my Lord Verulam, for those words. Looking
at such a bed one did not see the flowers only. The eye of imagination
lingered on all that must have conduced to its preparation--all the
pegs, and string, and perspiration, and misplaced cleverness. A garden
may easily be over-educated, and that which is good in itself may suffer
from improvement.

And that reminds me. You do not, perhaps, know the story of


THE GIRL WHO WENT BACK

There was once a girl whose name was Rose, and she was rather pretty and
rather clever. She was not very pretty or very clever, but everybody
said she was very sweet. She had great advantages. Her papa was a wise
man. Her mamma--well, her mamma had the best intentions and was troubled
with ambition. But they both loved Rose.

The ambitious mamma said to the wise papa: "Rose is now seventeen years
old. She has faults which must be eradicated. She has good qualities
which must be enhanced. The last year of her education must be
peculiarly strenuous."

"As how?" said the wise papa.

"Well, I do not quite like the way she speaks. Her voice is pleasant in
quality, and you can generally understand her; but she slurs her words
and she is just a little weak on the letter 'r'. She must be made to pay
far more attention to her personal appearance. Her waist is not as small
as it might be; and her complexion--but these are not things which you
will require to understand. She must learn German thoroughly. A
smattering is no use. She must not be allowed to have her own way about
the violin. Arithmetic is a very weak point with her. Are you
attending?"

The wise papa opened his eyes, and said that he had heard every word,
and that she was quite certain to be right, and that he would leave it
to her.

Rose had no ambition and no wisdom. She liked play. She liked real
music. She liked dancing. But as she was quite good, she did what she
was told. Many tutors came about her, and she worked early and late. Her
mother confided to her those secrets which should add to her beauty.

The elocution master was quite pleased with her. She learned to
ar-tic-u-late her words and to speak dis-tinct-ly. She pronounced every
"r" as if it had been a coffee-mill. It was a treat to listen to her.

Her proficiency in foreign languages was really remarkable.

Her music teacher said that she had improved enormously in technique and
in taste. Her playing on the violin was a mixture of gymnastics and
conjuring tricks. She learned to speak slightingly of melody. She
understood advanced orchestration, and pronounced Tschaikowsky
correctly. She occasionally annoyed people by giving Chopin the Russian
pronunciation.

Her waist became smaller. You might have thought that her long hours of
study would have made her pale, but there was always a delicate blush on
either cheek-bone, except when she had just washed her face. Her hair
became a work of art. It was marvellously arranged.

The college of domestic-training found Rose its most apt pupil. She
could cook. She could housekeep. Her arithmetic was unfailing. She could
detect at once the mistake in the tradesman's account, and she could get
the right note of asperity into her voice in speaking to him about it.
"Is it not rather an extraordinary coincidence that these frequent
errors are always in your own favour?" This was obviously the kind of
woman that a sensible man would be glad to marry. She was a highly
developed helpmeet.

The ambitious mamma saw that Rose had improved out of all knowledge. She
became proud of her. She now waited for Rose to make an exceptionally
brilliant match. She continued to wait, for something had changed in
Rose. People said she was very accomplished and very beautiful, but
nobody said she was rather sweet. The boys who had played with her and
danced with her did not seem to require her any more; they shivered with
fear in her splendid presence.

We should all improve ourselves, and try to do our best--this is the
accepted view and there is no need to dispute it--but concentration on
one's own self, even with the highest possible motive, is poison. And
Rose had drunk of that poison.

And then the ambitious mamma died; and there were some people who
thought that she was better dead. But Rose was overcome with grief. It
was not until six weeks later that, standing before the cheval-glass,
she noticed how very well she looked in black. She worked harder than
ever at the task of self-improvement, until her health broke down. Then
two things happened simultaneously. She was ordered into the country,
and her papa went to take up an important post in Paris.

Rose lived now in a cottage up on a hill with a refined and elderly
lady-companion. Beyond the garden of the cottage was common-land. Here
the bracken grew waist-high, and you might see as many foxgloves in ten
minutes as you would find in London in ten years. Sheep roamed among the
bracken. The difference between the face of the lady-companion and the
face of one of those sheep was hardly noticeable; they also had
similarities in disposition.

When the lady-companion slept--and she was a perfectly grand
sleeper--Rose wandered all the afternoon about the common. She was not
improving herself any longer, because that was held to be bad for her
health. She worried because she felt that she had lost the love of
people. The longer she lived in the country, the more she wanted to be
loved. She even put tentative questions to the lady-companion, to find
out how it was that she was not loved. But these tentative questions
were of no use, because the lady-companion maintained that Rose was
loved very much indeed, being under the impression that this was the
kind of thing that she was paid to say. She was a conscientious woman.

And then one night Rose had a dream. In her dream she heard a loud
knocking at the cottage door, and she herself went to see who was there.

There stood a very ugly old pedlar with a leer on his face, and a pack
on his back. He swung his pack round and took off the piece of American
cloth from the top of it.

"And what can I sell you to-day, my pretty lady?" he asked.

"Nothing, thank you," said Rose.

"Don't say that," said the pedlar. "You have dealt with me before, you
know."

"Never," said Rose. "You are mistaken."

"Yes, you did," said the ugly old man stoutly. "You bought a packet of
Amoricide, and those that deal with me once must deal with me again."

"What is Amoricide?" asked Rose, who began to have a feeling that after
all she did recognise the pedlar's face.

"Well, well," said the pedlar, "that's telling. I don't mind owning that
there is a lot of the Air of Superiority in it, and there are other
things. You have no complaint to make about it, have you? It does its
work all right. I guarantee that it will exterminate love absolutely. It
is death to love. Have you not found it so?"

"I have found," said Rose, "that it has destroyed the love of others for
me, but not the love of me for others."

The old man chuckled. "That's it. That's right. That's why the people
who deal with me once must deal with me again. You must have one more
little packet."

"This time I want to know what is in it."

The pedlar began to look uneasy. "Don't ask too many questions. We call
it Taedium Vitae. It is a splendid thing."

Rose was highly educated, and she told him that Taedium Vitae meant
life-weariness, and that she would like to know how it acted.

"You go down the hill," said the old man absent-mindedly, as if he were
speaking to himself, "and then, of course, you come to the pine wood."

Rose nodded. "Yes, I know it. Through the wood is the short cut if you
are going to the station. The stile is rather awkward to climb over."

"You can manage it all right. You have done it before. And you know the
dark pool under the trees?"

Rose nodded. This time she did not speak.

"That's another short cut," said the old man with a chuckle. "It's soon
over. The sensation of drowning is said to be quite pleasant. Then there
is no more trouble--no more worrying because you have lost love, and
because life has lost its savour."

Rose was rather frightened. "When do I pay you?" she asked in a husky
whisper.

"That's all right," said the old man ingratiatingly. "You don't pay me
till afterwards. We give credit."

"Afterwards?"

"After the pool. Come, you will take this packet."

"I will not," said Rose with sudden determination, and shut the door in
the old man's ugly face. He kept on knocking.

Then she knew that it was only the knocking of the maid who brought her
one cup of China tea, one piece of thin bread-and-butter, one large can
of hot water, and the news that it was a fine morning.

After that there was a change in Rose. Some of the change was very
subtle. Some of it was quite obvious. Even a lady-companion with the
mind of a sheep can detect a change in personal appearance. She did
detect it, and she spoke about it with discretion.

Rose answered: "Yes, two inches bigger. I don't wear them at all now.
Suppose I shall have to when I go back to town. And I find I simply
cannot stand the other stuff. If I've got brown, that is because God's
sun meant me to be brown."

"The merest touch would----"

Rose was good-humoured, but obstinate.

And in time she went back to town. She had lost the habit of thinking
about herself or of asking why people did not love her. She gave them
the music that they wanted, and not the music that she knew they ought
to have wanted. She became very simple and friendly. The tone of her
voice softened, and the "r" sound no longer buzzed properly. She had
gone back. And when she was not thinking about it at all, people began
to love her.

One man particularly. And this was fortunate for Rose.

Papa, who was a director of Kekshose & Cie--they make such big
motor-cars that nobody ever dares to let them do as much as they will,
and hardly anybody can afford to buy them--came back for the wedding.

I was just going to say, when that foolish story interrupted me, that
Cardinal Newman wrote a book called "Apologia pro vita sua." I mention
it not as a discovery but as a reminder. I believe that almost every
imaginative author writes an _Apologia pro vita sua_, though under a
different title and in a different guise. I could name one author (and
so, of course, could you) who has written several such apologiæ. If I
have never done it myself, it is because I am not of the heroic type
which undertakes lost causes. But I am not quite sure that I am not
writing an _Apologia pro horto meo_. There is a serpent in every Eden,
and its name is Pride. If my half-acre of cat-walk can claim to be a
remote descendant of Eden, the serpent exists there too. I point out the
good things in the garden. I cover up the defects, or--which is even
worse--I make elaborate explanations to prove that they are not defects
at all. I cannot expect anybody to like my garden as much as I do, but I
want them to respect it. Jokes about it always seem to me to be in bad
taste. A very good amateur gardener once came into my garden and
mentioned just a few of the things that he noticed. He did it in the
kindliest way. He taught me quite a good deal, and I hope he will never
know how near I came to beating him on the head with the business end of
a large rake.

I think that what I have said about omission is true. Everybody who
loves art loves omission. I should like, for instance, if I could, to
write in the fewest words that lucidity requires. It has given me
pleasure to omit certain things from my garden.

But all the same--and I may as well confess it--fewer things would be
omitted from my garden if it were larger and in the heart of the
country, and if I had somebody to help me, and if by chance I happened
to know something about it.




CHAPTER III

ROSES: AND THE STORY OF "THE BLESSED ARTIST"


The terminology of the botanist is a standard joke, but as a matter of
fact, the botanist blunders into a good thing sometimes. It was rather a
fine idea to have in plants an order of those that bear the
cross--cruciferæ. The turnip and sea-kale are among those whose petals
make the sign, but it need not shock us. Is there not loveliness in the
flower of the potato, and poetry in the foliage of the asparagus? On the
whole, I think the botanist makes me less angry than the horticulturist.

Why, for instance, are so many roses named after abominable
horticulturists or their wearisome female relatives? How can you call a
rose Frau Karl Druschki? I always call that great white rose Mabel,
because it reminds me of a large, lymphatic, handsome girl, who was
entirely without charm. Scent in a flower is charm in a woman. Frau Karl
Druschki has no scent. Hugh Dickson has nothing wrong with it but its
name. Fancy calling a beautiful apricot-tinted rose William Allen
Richardson! Its godfathers and godmothers in its baptism showed a small
sense of humour. Besides, its name is quite obviously Doris. It is
permissible to call a pink rambler Dorothy, but why add the unspeakable
surname Perkins? Why should a red rose be named after a duke? It is
insufferable, snobbish, and inept. No rose should be named after any
man, and should never bear more than the first name of a woman. Niphetos
is a possible name; it is the most sentimental of the white roses. But
almost all roses have their counterparts in women. There is, for
instance, in my garden a pink, useful, knobbly dumpling of a rose. I
have not the faintest idea what the horticulturist would call it, but no
one can see it without knowing that its real name is Kate.

I think the roses that I love best are those of the deepest and darkest
crimson. They have velvety skins and the most perfect fragrance. It is
part of the perversity of the thing that they should be so difficult to
manage. You feed them and tend them, and they give you scanty and
imperfect bloom, or they die, and the intelligent inquest results in an
open verdict. When that happens, the only consolation is to find
somebody else who has had the same trouble with the same rose. I have
not ventured to ask one of them to put up with a London garden as yet,
but I fancy one is coming to stay with me next year. Perversity haunts
the garden, and the dock always grows as near as possible to some plant
that you value. "Now then," says the dock, "if you dig me up, you'll
have to pay for it." But especially does perversity attach itself to
roses. What have I done for the perennial lupins? Nothing. And they have
given me numberless spikes of incomparable loveliness. What have I done
for the Canterbury bells? Nothing. And they also seem to like it. But I
did a good deal for that particular rose which I call Mabel, and then
there was a late spring frost. It was no fault of mine. I was not even
there when it was done. I was in bed at the time. But it annoyed Mabel.
She seemed unable to forget it. Why must those loathsome and
parthenogenetic green flies devour the tender roses? There is still a
certain amount of rhubarb in the garden, and they are welcome to it. I
would very much rather they ate it than that I should eat it myself. But
the green flies will not look at it. They cling to the rose and suck its
life out. Then, out of sheer devilry, they grow wings and migrate to
some other rose tree.

The queen demands homage, and the rose has received it to the extent of
countless volumes written by wise gardeners who have studied her
specially. Their learning appals. They almost deter the poor blunderer
in London from ever trying to grow a rose or to talk about one. A little
knowledge may be a dangerous thing, but the expert runs his risks also.
I was taken through a most beautiful rose-garden once, and I dared to
admire one particular bed. "Yes," said the owner of the garden almost
apologetically, "it's quite one of the old sorts." And then I was taken
to other beds in which was the very last word in roses--kinds that had
only been produced within the last year or so--and here the owner showed
more enthusiasm. Has it come to this then--that fashion is to stray from
the milliner's shop and find a place in the garden?

From motives of humanity I refrain from bringing out once more certain
over-worked quotations from Herrick and Omar; but in truth the poets,
like the scientific gardeners, have not spared writing materials where
roses were in question. They are ecstatic about the colour and
fragrance, and generally sentimental about the thorns, and never by any
chance allude to the culture. There is something feminine about poets.
They like the result, but they ignore the process, just as a woman eats
a lamb cutlet, but does not want you to talk about the slaughter-house.
Perhaps it is not to be expected that poets should mention the food of
the roses, and yet I hate a shirker of facts. I am not sure that there
is not something of poetry in the plain truth that in nature's impartial
chemistry there is only one step from muck to glory.

And now, if you are tired of uninformative talk about roses, I will tell
you the story of


THE BLESSED ARTIST

There was once an artist who lived in a great town. He was painting a
picture, and he took a great deal of trouble to make it as difficult for
himself as possible. He tried for effects of lighting that needed
miracles. In his work he sought and worshipped difficulties. In the
garden beyond the studio he found plenty of difficulty without seeking
for it. But this was difficulty of a kind that maddened him. He wanted a
garden, but he did not want to make a garden. So he employed a man one
day a week, and was profoundly dissatisfied.

One afternoon he had a dream. He dreamed that an angel came into his
room--a beautiful angel of the accepted Doré Gallery type. The angel had
a pleasant voice and said pleasant things to him.

"You have lived well," said the angel, "and you have worked well. You
have earned for yourself the blessedness that belonged to the Garden of
Eden. That blessedness shall fall upon your garden. Go and look at it."

So the artist went out on to his lawn and was quite surprised. It was of
one beautiful tint of fresh green all over, with never a brown spot.
There had been many daisies on that lawn, but they had all gone now. It
had suffered from moss, but the moss had vanished. It had been
superficially irregular, but it was now level. The perfect grass was
just three-quarters of an inch in height, and no tall bents stuck up
anywhere. He went to look at his roses. He remembered them as they had
formerly been--spindly bushes which he had forgotten to prune, and that
bore leaves only at the extreme end of their branches. They had changed
to compact bushes that were green all over and flowered like an
illustration in a seedsman's catalogue. Caterpillars had played havoc
with them aforetime, but now he could find no caterpillar and no trace
of the caterpillar's work. He went on to his two apple trees. They had
borne no blossom that year that he could remember, and the white tufts
of American blight had bedecked their trunks. The American blight was
all gone now. The blossom had set, and the fruit was swelling, and each
tree would bear exactly the right number of apples, neither more nor
less. The carnations were very large, numerous, and fragrant. The
madonna lilies promised well. There was no weed to be seen anywhere, and
the paths had been newly gravelled with the red gravel which he had
always wanted, and never been able to get. The very quality of the soil
had changed, and was now dark and rich. It was worth while to work in
such a garden as this; he took his coat off and went into the
potting-shed to get his tools.

And then he realised his blessedness. There was absolutely nothing for
him to do in the garden. It was all quite good. The drought had not
brought down the leaves nor cracked the surface. The strong winds had
not dishevelled and laid low the sunflowers. He noticed, moreover, that
things were tied up now with green bast to green sticks. He had always
wanted green bast and green sticks, but had used the other kind because
it was the only kind that the man round the corner sold.

He put on his coat and stretched himself on a deck-chair on the lawn in
the evening sunlight in a great state of contentment. When it grew dusk,
from the shrubbery at the end of the garden came beyond mistake the
voice of the nightingale. He had always wanted nightingales, but so far
he had put up with imitative blackbirds. Blessedness had come to him
indeed.

He lit a cigarette and reflected how he would show his garden to Smith,
and how much Smith would be annoyed about it. Smith had a garden of his
own, and was a toilsome amateur with a certain amount of knowledge.
Smith would undoubtedly be green with jealousy. He would ask Smith to
luncheon, and afterwards they would have coffee in the garden. He would
carefully abstain from calling Smith's attention to anything; but he
would watch him, as he slowly drank it all in and meditated suicide.

On the day that Smith was to come to luncheon, the blessed artist rose
early in order that he might mow the lawn before breakfast. But when he
went out, he found that it did not require to be mown. The grass grew to
just the right height and then stopped. At luncheon Smith was inflated
with pride, and talked freely about begonias. He mentioned other things
which he had in his garden--things that that artist ought to come and
see. The artist sat quite meekly, and was very polite until luncheon was
over. Then he said: "I think we might have coffee in the garden, Smith,
if you call that backyard of mine a garden."

"Ah," said Smith, "you should give a little more time and attention to
it."

Then they passed out into the garden, and Smith was struck dumb. At last
he said: "How do you manage to get those fine dark wallflowers in full
bloom at the end of June?"

"Takes a bit of management," said the blessed artist complacently.

Smith began to walk round the garden. He admired exceedingly. The
confession that he had got nothing like that escaped him frequently; and
when he had seen it all, he pulled from one pocket an old envelope and
from another a short stubb of a pencil.

"Look here," he said, "you might just give me the name of the chap who
does your garden for you."

"The angels do my garden for me," said the blessed artist.

"Oh, all right," said Smith, "if you don't want to tell me, you
needn't."

And he put back the old envelope and the pencil in their respective
pockets, and he went away in a very bad temper. But this incident
reminded the blessed artist to countermand the jobbing gardener--a man
of intemperate habits and quite unfit to collaborate with angels.

The next day the artist went into his garden and enjoyed it extremely.

The day after he enjoyed it less.

The day after that he began to be dissatisfied. Dissatisfaction began to
settle like a cloud upon him. He wondered why. It came to him slowly
that he felt like a man who had stolen the Victoria Cross and was
wearing it ostentatiously. He was exhibiting a perfection for which he
had never worked; and there was no savour in it.

"Better," he cried, "imperfection towards which one has contributed
something. Better even the sickly wilderness that this garden once was."

The sound of his own voice woke him.

He found that he was sitting in a deck-chair on the lawn. It was a
decayed chair, having been left out in many rains. The lawn was just as
bad as ever it had been. He could almost hear the caterpillars crunching
up the surrounding vegetation. One glance showed him that his rose trees
were still a shame and a reproach. And down the steps from the house
came his old friend Smith, smiling and rubicund.

"Been asleep in this rotten old garden of yours?" he said. "It looks to
me as if you would have done better if you had been working in it."

"I am inclined to think so," said the artist.


As a rule it is easier to do much work than little. The man who is
underworked rarely does the little that he has to do thoroughly and
punctually. The more leisure one has, the more one desires.

I feel confident that if I had a thousand rose trees, I should be up
bright and early in the morning to do for them all that they required. I
should study the literature on the subject and become expert. Possibly I
should not go so far as some experts, who provide a kind of conical tin
hat for each rose bloom to shelter it from the rain. But it would not be
slackness which would stay my hand; it would be because I cannot think
that the conical tin hat adds greatly to the beauty of the garden.

But I have not got a thousand rose trees. It is none the less essential
that I should cut off all the dead blooms. This labour, carried out with
no unseemly haste, might possibly occupy me for five minutes.

And how many times have I shirked those five minutes of labour? I am
shirking them now. Let me see, where are the scissors?




CHAPTER IV

THE FOUNTAIN: AND THE STORY OF "THE LITTLE DEATH"


I will admit that I very nearly erected a sun-dial in my garden. There
was a kind of snobbery about it. So many artistic people have erected
sun-dials in their gardens, that I supposed that I should be artistic if
I erected a sun-dial in mine. But all the time, somewhere at the back of
my head, was the conviction that the thing was rotten. I knew it was
rotten some time before I knew the reason why.

Sun-dials are not used nowadays for the purpose of telling the time. It
is therefore insincere and affected to put a sun-dial in a modern
garden. It is not conscientious. It is like the artificial creation of
worm-holes in the spurious-antique furniture. Where the sun-dial already
exists in an old garden one may be glad of it, but one may not
deliberately put a sun-dial into a new garden.

So I put in a fountain.

The simplest and most satisfactory way to get a fountain in one's garden
is to buy one from the fountain shop, make arrangements with the Water
Company, and get a real plumber to fix it. This did not appeal to me.
There was no adventure about it, it would cost too much, and I knew that
I should hate shop-fountains. I therefore designed and made my own
fountain, and will now instruct others how they may make one which will
be nearly as bad and delightful.

The first step is to find among your acquaintances a family where the
baby is grown up. Talk about babies. Ask if the baby had a tin bath with
a lid to it, the kind that its things are packed in when it goes to the
seaside in the summer. Ask further if that bath is still in existence.
If it is, then make the family give you the bath. It is to serve as the
reservoir for your fountain and is essential.

You proceed to the second step. In deciding where you would put your
fountain, you will remember of course that fountains always look best
among big trees with a green background. You now fix the disused bath
firmly in the tree twenty feet or so from the ground, in such a position
that it is secluded by foliage from the gaze of the curious and
impertinent. The chestnut tree seems to have been specially designed by
nature for this purpose.

Your third step would be to dig out the basin of the fountain. I chose a
spot under the trees mid ferns and laurels. I bought from a stone-yard a
cartload of material, half of it broken flat paving-stone and half of it
chunks, and I may add incidentally that I paid too much for it. I paved
the bottom of the basin with flat stone and concrete, leaving a space
for the jet of the fountain to come up in the middle. I used the flat
stone also for the border round the margin of the basin. At the back of
the fountain I built up the chunks to the height of six feet or so,
putting in plenty of earth with them. I have golden and silver ivies
climbing over the stones, and I have planted there anything which I
thought would grow.

The reservoir being in its place and the basin constructed, the next
step is to connect them. This is done by a compo pipe with a
surreptitious tap in it.

And after that you fill the bath with the garden hose and turn the tap.
As a rule nothing happens the first time, because there is air in the
pipe; but you can put the garden syringe to the fine nozzle in which the
compo pipe terminates, and draw out the air. My own fountain will play
for six hours continuously; and then when no one is looking one must
fill up the bath reservoir again.

It is really extraordinary how gardening turns decent, God-fearing men
into braggarts. I have said that I did this myself. I did design it. I
did direct the work, and to some extent assist in it; but can I fix
compo pipes on to holes in baths, or fine nozzles on to compo pipes? Can
I fit taps? Can I manipulate stone and concrete? Certainly not.

It is very useful to know a man who can do everything, especially when
one gets ambitious in a London garden. The same man who did the plumbing
work of the fountain also did the stone work. He built the palace--it
were an affectation of modesty to call it a kennel--in which the
Pekinese puppy lives when it is not eating the Iceland poppies. He
painted the garden seats. He is an expert in the removal of the American
blight. He has diagnosed that my wild cherry is bark-bound, and wishes
me to let him cut a slit in it, but I dare not. He is wonderful and he
is inexpensive.

The public fountain is always placed in an open space. There is a
tendency even among quite decent private people to use the fountain as a
lawn decoration. I like it better among trees myself; it is more
classical. It recalls more lines of Horace. The fountain must never be
allowed to play on a dull or cold day. And if you yourself are doing
something strenuous in the garden, it is irksome to have the fountain
playing while you are working. The fountain belongs to sunlight and
repose, and the garden that is not a place of rest is no garden. The
purr of the lawn-mower and the tinkle of falling water are the two most
soporific sounds in existence. They should be used by the medical
profession in the cure of insomnia. I do not know why, but people
generally seem to be a little proud of insomnia. They like to tell you
how many times in the night they heard the clock strike. One will do
almost anything to be interesting, undeterred by failure in it. This, I
suppose, it is which drives some to story-writing.

You may have chanced to hear the story of


THE LITTLE DEATH

There was once (but it must have happened a long time ago and in some
very distant island) a race of people who never slept. Occasionally they
became tired and lay down, but they never closed their eyes and never
lost consciousness. They had never heard of sleep. They had never
learned it. And in consequence they did a great deal of work, but they
died very young. They were quite happy about it of course, because one
never misses what one has never had. There may be something quite as
sweet as sleep which we ourselves do not miss, only because we do not
know about it.

One day a shipwrecked man was cast up on the shore. These were
hospitable people, and they took him up to the King's palace and
entertained him. And when night came, after he had feasted and drunk,
the King said: "And now what pleasure can we offer you? Would you like
to hear music, or to see the dancing-girls, or to ride out in the
moonlight?"

The man laughed. "None of these things, sir," he said. "The day has been
long, and a feeling of weariness overcomes me. I should now like to
sleep."

"That is some new game?" asked the King, intelligently.

"Sleep?" said the Princess Melissa. "We do not know that. What is this
sleep?"

The man explained it as best he could, and his account was received with
the greatest interest. Many questions were put to him.

"I perceive," said the King at last, "that this sleep is really a little
death. For the time being you are dead. Take my advice, therefore, O
stranger, and give it up. It is an awful risk, thus voluntarily to enter
into the place of death. Suppose that one day you find something there
that keeps you, and you cannot come back again."

The stranger explained that, so far was this from being the case, that
every time when he went to sleep he was more afraid that something would
wake him, than that he would never wake at all.

"I fear," said the King, "that this shows that you have not thought
about the matter profoundly."

"Possibly not," said the stranger. "But I am as I am constructed. I
sleep because I must sleep. Had I but a couch to lie upon, I could be
asleep now in five minutes."

"How exciting," said the Princess Melissa.

"May we all see it? May we watch you when you are dead of the little
death?"

"Most certainly," said the stranger politely. "I am so tired that I am
likely to sleep very soundly, but all the same noise or bright light
would wake me again, and that would make me very angry. I must beg,
therefore, that when you come to look upon me in my sleep, the light may
be subdued and no sound may be made."

And to this condition they agreed.

A room was prepared for the stranger in the palace. It was thickly
carpeted, so that no footfall could sound. It had a curtained entrance,
that the stranger might not be disturbed by the sound of the door
opening and shutting when people entered to see the show. The room was
dimly lit by the flame of a small lamp. In five minutes the stranger was
asleep.

One by one they entered the room--the King, the Princess, and all the
people of the court--to see this new and awful phenomenon of a man who
was dead of his own volition and would yet come to life again. Three
ladies of the court fainted on leaving the apartment. The King became
terribly anxious. "This is a dangerous game," he said, "and must be
stopped at once. We do not wish to have the death of this stranger on
our conscience. Bring, therefore, bright lights and make a loud
noise----"

But here the Princess Melissa intervened. "No," she said; "he is not
really dead, for he still breathes. I watched him most carefully and am
sure of it. It is an experiment which he has often made. He tells me
that he has had this sleep every night of his life."

"Doubtless," said the King, "he wished to make an impression; we are not
bound to believe that."

But the King was bound to admit, though he did so grudgingly, that a man
who breathed was not a dead man.

All the night through they watched outside the sleeping-chamber, and
about the middle of the night they heard a terrific sound.

"That," said the King, "is the cry of his death agony. I know it. I am
sure of it. We have done wrong."

As a matter of fact, the sound was the first snore which had ever been
heard in that island. It made even the Princess Melissa nervous. But she
investigated the phenomenon and reported that no interference seemed to
be required. The man was not only breathing, he was breathing more
strenuously than he did when he was awake.

Nevertheless a great weight was taken from the King's mind when his
guest came back to life again in the morning. It was noted that the man
was none the worse for his strange experience. He seemed even better for
it. He was more active and alert. His eye was brighter. He was instantly
ready to undertake the fatigue of swimming for a long distance in the
sea.

That morning, as he conversed with the Princess Melissa, he tried to
explain to her something even more strange than sleep--the dreams that
come to one in sleep. The two walked alone through the forest together.

"Tell me," said the Princess, "do you think that I also could sleep and
have a dream? I know it is bizarre and morbid, but I long passionately
and above all things to have this strange experience."

"So far as I can judge," said her companion, "you are constructed
precisely as the women of the rest of the world, where sleep is a
nightly event. I may be wrong, but I should imagine that if the initial
impulse could be given to you, you also would sleep."

The Princess clasped her hands in ecstasy. "How perfectly splendid!" she
said. "But then how am I to get the initial impulse?"

"What," asked the man, "is that glow of red amid the yellow in the field
yonder?"

"That is where poppies grow among ripening corn. But what have they to
do with the initial impulse?"

"They are it," said the stranger; "by means of those poppies I could
prepare for you the secret of sleep. But there would be a risk."

"You told me just now that in a dream it seemed to you that you were
sitting in a boat with an elephant, drinking tea, and the elephant had
on a small white coat with a rose in its buttonhole. That seemed as real
to you in the dream as it seems now that you are walking with me on the
edge of the forest?"

"Quite as real, absolutely real."

"Then for such a miraculous experience as that, who would not run any
risk? Come, we will go and gather poppies."

For the next few days the stranger was shut up in his apartments in the
palace, making the sleep-producing drug of which he knew. He had to test
it many times, that he might be assured that the Princess ran no risk.
And during these days the Princess Melissa gathered dry bracken and
carried it to the ruined temple that stood in the heart of the forest.
For it was there that she meant to yield to her great adventure.

The man continued to sleep at nights, always before a good audience. For
the wonderful story had been bruited abroad, and all the people in the
land were eager to see. One night he slept for a charity in which the
King was interested. Money was turned away at the doors, and the thing
was a great financial success. But one newspaper of the island
complained of the morbid character of the exhibition. "We cannot," wrote
the editor, "approve that this poor sufferer should be made to earn
money by what is doubtless his disease."

The time came at last on a hot afternoon in July. The Princess drank the
potion that was given her and lay down on the bed of bracken. The
stranger watched by her side.

"It is going to fail. I am not asleep," said the Princess; "I do not see
elephants or boats or anything but what is really here."

"Close your eyes," said the stranger; "relax your muscles, breathe
regularly, and count every breath you take up to ten. Then begin to
count again."

"It is no use," said the Princess wearily.

But in a few minutes she was fast asleep.

The Princess was young. Two years before she had fallen in love with a
man whom she could not marry, and the man had fallen in love with her.
There had been no scandal, such was the discretion that they used, but
there had been material for a scandal. The matter was all over now, for
the man in his wisdom had gone away.

When the Princess awoke, she sighed deeply.

"You have slept?" said the man.

"I have."

"You have dreamed?"

"I have."

"Tell me your dream."

"I cannot tell you my dream, but I have been to Paradise."

"Les yeux gris vont au Paradis," quoted the man.

"Now give me more of the poppy juice," said the Princess.

"No," said the man, "I have given you as much as you may take safely in
one day."

So the Princess pretended to be meek and obedient, and said it was very
well and she would think no more about it, and perhaps now sleep would
come to her at nights even if she did not drink the poppy juice. That
had broken down the barrier of the garden of sleep, and now she would be
able to enter the garden freely when she would.

"Perhaps," said the man.

But when for many nights she tried and could not sleep, she grew
rebellious, and going secretly to his apartments she procured the poppy
juice he had prepared. With this treasure in her hand, she went back to
the temple and stretched herself again on the bed of bracken. She drank
the whole of the poppy juice.

"For," she said aloud, "if the little death be so sweet, then--then----"

And here she fell asleep.


For ten successive days I had forgotten to buy the weed-killer;
therefore on the tenth day, which was a Wednesday, I went out to weed
the gravel paths with my own hands. It is not a pleasant operation. It
is, I believe, the thing in gardening that I loathe most.

The faint burble of water led me towards my fountain. It was playing
joyously, and some careless person had left beside it a garden-chair and
the current issue of _Punch_.

Any man with a sense of duty and a reasonable amount of will-power would
have turned off the fountain and got to work.

The sun was shining brightly. The day was warm. I had not seen that
number of _Punch_. And I did not turn off the fountain, I turned off the
work.

But the next day I remembered to buy weed-killer. The commonest saying
of the Spaniard is not duly appreciated in this country, and is
especially useful in the summer-time.




CHAPTER V

THE STRUGGLE: AND THE STORY OF "ALFRED SIMPSON"


The garden is peaceful, and this is the more extraordinary because it is
really the perpetual scene of the bloodiest warfare, and this warfare is
the more acute in a London garden because in London there are more
enemies. One has the fight of the gardener against natural conditions,
his fight against the enemies of his plants, and the fight of the plants
among themselves.

One season there was a prolonged drought and the leaves of the trees
fell prematurely. "That's due to the drought," said the experts. The
following year the season was very wet, and once more my trees shed
their leaves before the time. "What else can you expect after all the
rain we've had?" said the experts. And in both seasons the dairymen, who
seem to have a touch of the expert about them, raised the price of milk.
Perhaps one year I shall find the kind of season which exactly suits my
London garden.

To fight the drought I got me a great length of hose, and made the usual
arrangements with the Water Board. But once the question of a garden is
raised, the Water Board also seems to be infected with the military
spirit. I had a printed document from them, which was severe to the
point of truculence. They reserve themselves rights. They do not
guarantee. They are not responsible. They strictly forbid. With these
and similar phrases they teach the man who dares to use a hose what a
poor worm he is. They tell me that the hose must not be left unattended.
What am I to do with it then? Am I to sit up all night with it and hold
its nozzle? A wet season brings home to me the awful injustice of Water
Boards. Nobody who can get rain for his garden will use the hard, less
satisfactory, but highly valuable products of the Water Board. But in
the wet season, as in the dry, the consumer must pay. In strict justice,
the amount one pays for the water supply for the hose should in any
season be in inverse proportion to the rainfall during that season.

When the drought was here I watered my lawn profusely (and the Water
Board need not rage and swell, for I never left the hose unattended for
one moment). A little later I walked over the lawn to collect its
gratitude, as it were, and I saw hosts of strange and horrid things.
They were white, and yellow, and yellowish brown. They had come out of
the crevices, and they had crawled. When I thought that for weeks past,
this, my garden, had been providing them with sustenance, I was moved to
fury. But I did not lose my head. There is a right way and a wrong way
of doing everything. There is even a right way of killing slugs.

I have read in books that the gardener takes the slug and crushes it
under his heel on the gravel path; a jobbing gardener might possibly do
that--jobbing gardeners will do anything. Any man who does that is not
fit to have a garden. He is only fit to collect house refuse in an open
cart during hot weather.

My own method is simple and refined. I have a large jar filled with a
strong solution of salt and water. I have, moreover, a large pair of
surgical forceps serrated on the inner edge, price one shilling at the
shop in the Strand. With the forceps I lift up the slug and I place him
in the salt water; he dies incontinently and very neatly. My best time
so far is a hundred and one in a quarter of an hour. I have found out
the thing which the green fly absolutely cannot stand, and I give the
green fly plenty of that thing with the syringe. I destroy earwigs. I
destroy caterpillars. I have not yet reached the fine Tennysonian
sensibility of the gentleman "whose eyes were tender over drowning
flies." I kill some things that other things may live. They cannot all
have it their own way in my garden, and I must settle which side is to
prevail. All the same, I do sometimes try to look at it from the slug's
point of view. What does the slug think about it? Let us hope and
believe that the slug does not think about it.

With what brutality, too, does the gardener fight against the prolific
impulses of nature. The dead flowers must be picked off from the sweet
peas; otherwise they give up work early. If you cut down the lupine
spikes as soon as the beans have formed, you will get more spikes. (I am
told that this will not weaken the plant if it is well fed, but I never
do it myself.) And what does it all mean, when one comes to think of it?
These poor beautiful things live and struggle only for the perpetuation
of their kind. When that is done, their warfare is accomplished. We make
lovely gardens by thwarting and baffling this natural instinct.

Even among the plants that I tend there is civil war. My garden is
surrounded by tall trees, so that at any hour of the day I can get
shade. I would not have it otherwise. I would not lose one of the trees.
But they are all unprincipled robbers. Their roots spread far underneath
the ground. The fight goes on, and they steal the sustenance that one
has given to the roses.

I knew a man who admired in his neighbour's garden the golden stars of
the stone-crop. He put a little piece in an envelope and planted it in
his own garden. A few years later he turned out of his garden three
cartloads of stone-crop; that, I admit, was in the country. Australian
bamboo is determined and rapacious. It is easy to get it into the
garden. It is next to impossible to get it out. The smallest fragment of
root seems to be enough, and up it comes again. The perennial sunflower
is terrifically aggressive. It has a disregard of limits and wants the
world. If its masses of yellow flowers were not so exhilarating, I would
turn it out of my garden altogether. One would like to be able to argue
with these things. I should like to say to those sunflowers: "Try to
take example by the bergamot. It has the same perennial advantages as
yourself, and it is quite beautiful. In addition, the scent of its
leaves pressed in the fingers reminds one of Egypt. You do not find the
bergamot shoving itself forward wherever it has a chance. Contemplate it
and learn modesty." But argument does not avail with the perennial
sunflower. The knife and the spade are the things that it understands.

I fight the weeds of course, but I have vague ideas as to what a weed
is. I am quite merciless towards the bindweed, it is a murderer and a
garrotter; but with the materials at my disposal I could not make
anything quite so beautiful as its flowers. I found two low-growing
things in a flower-bed, which seemed to be of the clover kind. One had
small crimson-brown leaves with a flush of green on them; the other had
a much larger green leaf with a delicate design in grey on it. The
jobbing gardener said they were weeds, he would have turned them out. I
saved their lives, and the one with the reddish-brown leaf rewarded me
with any number of little yellow flowers. Were I a sentimentalist, I
should say that this showed its gratitude. Next year some more of the
same clovery thing came up in the middle of a gravel path, where it was
not wanted; was that gratitude?

When one comes into my garden at the close of a fine summer day, one
does really seem to come into a peaceful place apart, where the fight
for life no longer exists. But the fight for life exists everywhere, and
one can never get away.

Don't go, let me tell you the story of


ALFRED SIMPSON

Alfred Simpson was a nice-looking young man who had independent means
and other attractions. People liked him, but when they spoke of him it
was with a smile. "He is so easily influenced," said some. "He is so
frightfully obstinate," said others. "He has such funny ideas," said
both.

Simpson could be easily influenced by anything he saw in print. From
views which he had formed in this way he could not be driven by spoken
words of mature and skilled experience. He had the very unusual habit of
acting upon his convictions, and the unusual is frequently funny. So
possibly in what they said about Alfred Simpson people had reason.

"I have definitely made up my mind," said Alfred Simpson one day. "I
will take no part whatever in the struggle. To struggle is vulgar. It
happens that I have just enough to live upon; but if I had not, I should
decline to earn anything. One cannot earn without beginning the
struggle. Just as I set no value on property, so do I set none on my own
rights. I would never resist anything."

Nobody minded. In spite of previous experience, nobody expected that
Alfred Simpson would be as good as his word.

Hector Brown was quite a different type of man. His friends said that
Hector was a rough diamond. His enemies said more briefly that he was a
rough. Hector Brown went to a dance, danced with Mary, took her into the
conservatory, and then and there kissed her--_contra pacem_ and to the
scandal of the Government.

Mary was very angry. She had promised to marry Alfred Simpson, and it
was to him that she complained.

"Now, what you've got to do," said Alfred's friends, "is to punch Hector
Brown's head."

"Why?" said Simpson.

"What will you ask next? For infringing your copyright, of course."

"That," said Simpson coldly, "would be quite contrary to the views which
I have already expressed to you."

So he did not punch Hector Brown's head, and Mary told Alfred Simpson
that he could go away and play by himself. Mary's decision was warmly
applauded by her parents, who had heard without enthusiasm of the noble
resolve on the part of their prospective son-in-law never to earn
anything. Three months later Mary married Hector Brown.

Now Alfred Simpson was not a coward. He was not quite so big and heavy
as Hector Brown, but he was quicker, harder, and in better training. He
had been boxing while Hector had been boozing. The instructor was of
opinion that Alfred could punch Hector when he liked, where he liked,
and as often as he liked. Of this Alfred's friends were well aware, and
it made them the more angry with him. They despaired. What could they
say to a man who banged the door on the primeval instincts and declared
that struggle, resistance, and retaliation were repugnant to him.

Alfred's subsequent refusal to secure a highly valuable post by the
medium of a competitive examination alienated his family, as he had
already alienated his friends. It is probable that his friends would
have refused to have anything whatever to do with him, but for one
fact--it was possible to borrow money from Alfred Simpson. They all did
it, except one man, but differed in the amount and the frequency of
their borrowings, according as their self-respect hindered or their
necessities encouraged them. The one man who would not do it was the
most confirmed borrower of them all. To the professional money-lender he
was well known. "But," he said, "I cannot borrow from Alfred Simpson; it
is altogether too easy--it is inartistic and gives me no satisfaction."

Without working Alfred Simpson could very well have lived on his income.
But his income depended on capital, and his capital rapidly dwindled to
nothing under the inroads made upon it. When his last hundred had been
lent to a young gentleman who wished to test practically his solution of
certain mathematical problems in the neighbourhood of Nice, Alfred
Simpson went with empty pockets to those to whom he had lent money, and
inquired if the repayment of the whole or part would be convenient. He
returned from this inquiry with one pound six shillings, and the happy
consciousness that he had not been vulgar. He had never insisted, he had
never urged.

His next step was to sell the furniture of his well-appointed flat in
order to pay the rent for it. After that he lived on a fairly extensive
wardrobe and a few small articles of jewellery that he possessed. He
retained only the gold watch and chain which had been presented to him
by his mother on his twenty-first birthday.

There came a day when he had lunched lightly on his last six
collars--or, to speak with pedantic accuracy, on the meal which had been
provided with the money which had been acquired by the sale of those six
collars. In spite of this banquet, by eight o'clock in the evening he
felt hungry again, and our sentiments yield to our necessities. He
therefore went out to dispose of his watch and chain. He went through
Regent's Park and was stopped by a man whose appearance was against him.
He looked in so many directions at once that anybody else would have
mistrusted him.

"Could you tell us the time, Gov'nor?" said the man.

Alfred produced his watch. The man snatched it and the chain therewith,
and ran. He did not run remarkably well. It would have been perfectly
easy for Alfred Simpson to have overtaken him and to have given him into
custody. But such an act would have been inconsistent with the rest of
his career. So he gave up the idea of dinner and sat on the Embankment.

On the following day he remained in the parks until closing time and
then sat on the Embankment again.

And the next night he dreamed that he died on the Embankment.

And after death Alfred Simpson opened his eyes and saw that he was in a
large and very plainly furnished room. He sat on a hard bench, not
unlike that which had been his bed on the Embankment, and many others,
mostly of villainous appearance, sat there also.

"I say," said Alfred Simpson to the grey-haired reprobate next to him.
"This isn't Heaven, is it?"

The reprobate chuckled. "Not exactly," he said.

"Then what is it?"

"It's the waiting-room for lost souls before they take their trial."

"But I'm not a lost soul," said Alfred Simpson indignantly. "I ought not
to be here. I must have taken the wrong turning. I have never done
anything very wrong in my life, and I have done heaps of good. I gave up
the only girl I ever loved."

"I know," said the old man; "and in consequence she married a man she
did not love out of pique. He's a brute, he ill-treats her, and she will
die. You murdered her."

"This is terrible," said Alfred Simpson. "I had no idea of it. But I
have done lots of other good things. I refused to go in for a
competitive examination and take up a valuable post, in order that some
other man might enjoy it."

"I know," said the old man again. "The other man got it; he had not your
mental equipment and he was not equal to it. He bungled badly and
disgraced himself. That's him over there, the man with the bullet-hole
in his temples. It was his hand that held the revolver, but it was you
who shot him, Alfred Simpson."

"This is most distressing," said Alfred. "If I could have foreseen this
kind of thing, I should certainly have revised my ideas. I should have
drawn out another scheme for my life altogether. But as it is, I must
have done some good. I lent large sums of money without interest."

"I know," said the old man once more. "And by so doing you have turned
various people who might have had self-respect and industry into
worthless wastrels. The souls of some of them are waiting now to give
evidence against you."

"It is very sad," said Alfred, "that things do not turn out as one
intends. One of my last acts on earth was to allow a man to steal my
watch and chain. I suppose it is useless to plead that this was a good
action."

"Quite. How can you suppose it to be a good action to put such a premium
on dishonesty?"

Then the door of the waiting-room opened and there stood there a most
gigantic policeman.

"Alfred Simpson," he called, in a fruity and resonant voice.

"Here I am," said Alfred meekly. "Could you tell me what I am charged
with?"

"You know perfectly well," said the policeman. "You are charged with
starting the millennium before it was ready."

The shock awoke him. He rose and walked to his father's house. His dire
necessities and abject condition broke down the alienation which had
existed between him and his family, and he was welcomed as the returned
prodigal. On the following morning, decently attired, with a bundle of
IOU's in his pocket, he started across Regent's Park to call upon his
solicitor. On his way he met a shabby man who looked in all directions
at once. The shabby man saw him and ran. Alfred ran also. He caught the
shabby man in an unfrequented part of the park, took from him fourpence
in bronze, which was all that he possessed, and administered to him an
extremely thorough hiding.

He handed the bundle of IOU's to his solicitor. Those who could pay in
full were to pay in full. Those who could pay in part were to pay in
part. Those who could not pay were to be left alone. Nobody was to be
ruined, but Alfred Simpson was to have some of his money back.

And later, some two years later, he married the widow of Hector Brown.
He is on his way to take up an important post in India, and she
accompanies him. They say that she looks quite young and pretty again.
She is certainly quite happy with her husband, though there are some who
think him a little too selfish and dictatorial.




CHAPTER VI

NIGHT IN THE GARDEN: AND THE STORY OF "THE GHOSTLY MUSIC"


There are many things that may bring a man, normally sociable, into that
state of mind when it is not desirable that he shall dine out. Too many
wrong numbers on the telephone, too many visitors, too much
talk--anything in fact that jangles the nerves may be the cause. In my
case the cause was unimportant and uninteresting, but I was undoubtedly
in that state of mind. I had to dine out, and I had not the feeling of
gratitude which would have better become me. The idea of dining out
filled me with rage and despair--disproportionate, ludicrous, but quite
real. I recalled the words of a woman who had been through many seasons.
"I want," she said to me earnestly, "to be asked to everything and to go
to nothing."

And then the blessed sentence of reprieve came over the telephone. Never
before had I known what a lovely word chicken-pox is. Postponed is
another beautiful word; the long "o" sounds are like the coo of a dove.
My more important nerves that had been revolving rapidly like large hot
corkscrews began to shrink, to slow, and to cool.

Later, when it was dark, I went out into the garden. Lighted windows
patterned themselves on the lawn, and half-way across it a warm wave of
perfume met me from the white stars of the tobacco plants. The scents of
flowers please me. Lavender and rosemary, lemon verbena and musk, rose
and carnation--I have them all. But for scents in bottles or sachets,
the chemist's products, I have only hatred and contempt. The bottled
perfume is like mechanical music; the freshness and life have departed
from it.

Even in the daytime but little sound of traffic reaches my garden, and
at night there are such long stretches of precious silence that one
seems to be far from London. As one grows older one values silence
more--maybe a gentle providence, that in the end the great silence may
not be unwelcome. The years change in so many things our sense of value.
Property loses much of its attraction when one begins to think for how
short a time one may hold it. This is consolatory if one be poor. I
cannot own this scrap of London garden, but what matter? I may use it as
if it were my own in return for--well, for so many stories a year. The
transaction seems more estimable when the medium of exchange is not
mentioned.

I sat and smoked, and drank the silence "like some sharp, strengthening
wine". The great trees before me, motionless in the still air, were a
flat dark grey against a sky a little paler. Below, where in the
sunlight would be a riot of colour, were masses of velvety black out of
which only the white flowers spoke. The tall white hollyhock would be a
patient sentinel all night while its dark sister slept invisible. There
is peace in the gardens of the country--gardens far richer and more
beautiful than mine--but here the peace seemed deeper because of the
near contrast. Not far away the useful deadly motor-bus would be busy
for hours yet. Theatres would be full, and Fleet Street would be
strenuous, and (in houses which the chicken-pox had not yet reached)
people would be dining out. Perhaps, without being too artistic and
diseased, one who has sometimes liked crowds may sometimes like to
escape them. Dusk and sweet scents, silence and solitude--the London
garden has pleasant gifts for folks who are temporarily tired of things.

Across the lighted squares or mirrored windows on the lawn, slow yet
alert, crept a cat with a heart full of sinful purposes. It flickered
over the wall, poised clear against the sky for one moment, on its way
to blood and passion in some valerian-scented hell. The nocturnal cat is
supposed to be comic, but (in spite of many opportunities) I have never
managed to see the joke. There is something terrific in those lower
animals--there are several of them--that in certain moments produces the
sound of the human voice. Strange too is that electric repugnance that a
cat may set up. Unseen and unheard, her presence is yet felt and
loathed. She is a creature of the night, mysterious and satanic. Watch
her as she starts for the black sabbath--a voluptuous sprawl with claws
extended, steps of tense and measured stealth, and then a mad scurry.
Presently, you shall hear her cry like a woman, even as the wounded hare
sobs out her sisterhood. To-night it was as though for a few moments a
taint of monstrousness had passed through the peace of the garden.

Through an open window not far away came the sound of music--somebody
was playing the piano. Music heard from another house is supposed to be
a torture, and so (like the cat) has its place among the accepted jokes.
But, because to-night I was to have the luck--who invented
chicken-pox?--it was not distressing and funny. It was fine music played
by an artist on a good instrument. It had the quality of the night,
wistful and desiderious. Long ago and in a far country there was a king
who suffered from a restless melancholy, or a bad temper, or something
of that kind, and somebody made music for him. "So Saul was refreshed,
and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him." Surely, that
nocturne was meant to be heard as I heard it--in a garden at night.
Alas, these concerts, with their awful too-muchness, and professional
smirks, and roars of ugly applause! I do not like to have music thus
administered. But for the music that visited my garden that night I had
the most grateful welcome.

When the chance things are charming they far surpass the calculated, and
love itself may be no more than a delightful accident. It was just by
chance that somebody in a lighted room, without a thought of audience,
went to the piano and remembered that music. Chance makes things grow on
old stone walls; and in the rich man's rock-garden, wealth, skill, and
calculation try to imitate the charm. The music ceased, and my gratitude
must remain unspoken--unless, by a chance that were wellnigh miraculous,
this page may carry it. But artists--be they makers of music or
pictures, poems or stories--must not think too much of gratitude; for
they will not always get it, and they will not always deserve it. That
king of old once flung a javelin at the musician who played before him.
Some lazy souls can never do their uttermost unless they are thrashed up
to it. A moderate amount of javelin--avoiding vital parts--is not always
bad for the artist.

My garden, they tell me, was once the garden of an old priory. Under one
corner of the lawn is the well that provided the religious with water.
It has been covered in with stone, and just over the stone the grass
refuses to grow. It is like a tonsure. But though I have been in my
garden I think at every hour of the night and of the early morning, I
have met no shadowy figures counting their beads or reading their little
illuminated books. These good people sleep long and quietly.

Let me tell you the story of


THE GHOSTLY MUSIC

There was once a master of music, who, from the charity of his heart and
from his love of excellence, took as his pupil without reward a young
boy that was greatly gifted. And in time it came to pass that the pupil
reached his zenith and the powers of the master had begun to decline, so
that it was said by some that the pupil now surpassed the master. And
the hints of this that came to the master's ears were to him bitter as
wormwood.

Now it happened one day that, as the pupil walked in a wood, music came
to him; and he hastened back to his house in order that he might sit
down at the piano and play it. For although, being a musician, he knew
quite well how the music would sound, he yet wished to hear it. And as
he was on his way, though it was a calm day, the great limb of a
treacherous elm fell upon him and crushed him so that he died. And in
his music-room his piano waited in vain.

Upon his death all bitterness passed away from the heart of his master.
Rivalry died with the rival. There came back to him old recollections of
the boy and of the esteem and affection in which he had then held him.
There was now no one who spoke of the dead musician with more generous
praise than his master. In his own music-room the master placed the
piano on which his pupil had been used to play. It had been specially
bequeathed to him. It was the dead man's gift.

But now the old man became himself conscious that he was not as he had
been. The fountains were dried up. Melody had ceased to come. He was
arid and unproductive. His fear that his power was leaving him tended
the more to diminish it. There were many long days and nights when he
could do nothing; and at such seasons he would not enter his music-room
upstairs, but sat in the room below it, trying sometimes to divert his
mind by reading, and at other times cursing the wretchedness into which
the course of nature had brought him.

After a long while it happened that one night when he sat late alone,
his wretchedness seemed to him more than he could bear. In a few weeks
he was to play before the King and there would be many great musicians
in the audience. On such occasions it had always been his custom to
produce some new work. Now he had nothing to give them. He would have to
fall back on the compositions of his younger days. He could picture in
his mind the meaning looks which the musicians would interchange. He
could hear their polite applause, and it was like a torture. The King,
himself no mean musician, might ask some question. He could not go into
that company and thus fail. It was not possible. It could not be asked
of him thus to debase himself. And there seemed to him but one
alternative--a little more than usual of that laudanum in which he had
lately sought inspiration.

But as he raised the glass to his lips he heard something so unexpected
that the glass crashed to the floor. In the music-room overhead someone
was playing the piano. Who could it be? No servant of his had that
skill, and besides, hours before his servants had gone to sleep. It was
divine music, entrancing, uplifting.

For a moment he hesitated, and then the desire to know overcame his
fears. He went up the stairs, and in the passage outside the music-room
he noted that a light showed under the door. Someone had switched the
light on then. Was it the carelessness of a servant? "Quite possibly,"
he said to himself. "Quite possibly."

He opened the door and entered, and his eyes flew to the piano. No one
was seated there, but the notes moved and the touch was human. He shrank
back from the piano and stood in the farthest corner of the room,
listening intently. When at last the music ceased, he had a great desire
to say something, and yet could choose no words. And, as he hesitated,
there was a sudden click and the lights were switched off. He fled from
the darkness down the stairs to the brightly lit room below. For a while
he was too overcome to be able to do anything; and then, for he had a
musician's memory, he took paper and wrote down the music that he had
heard.

A few days later it chanced that a great lady asked him what new music
he would play before the King.

"I have decided," said the master, "to play a composition of mine
that--if one must give these things names--I shall call 'The Sylvan
Sonata'."

"Sylvan? How delightful. It represents scenes in the wood then."

The master shook his head. "Music represents nothing," he said. "Music
is music. It is not an imitation of a sylvan scene, or church bells
heard in the distance, or any other rubbish. I call this music 'The
Sylvan Sonata' merely because it has in it different phases of woodland
feeling. You understand me? It is the kind of music that might occur to
the mind of a musician when he was walking through a wood."

"But how that reminds one," said the great lady. "It was in the wood
that your favourite pupil died."

"I prefer," said the master sternly, "not to speak of that."

He preferred also not to think of it. The piano which had been
bequeathed to him was kept closed and locked now, and it was on another
instrument in another room that he prepared himself for the great
occasion. He was a fine executant, as not every composer is. He tried to
cheat himself. He said again and again to himself that what he had seen
and heard in the music-room that night was illusion. The notes had not
really moved. His brain had been over-wrought with worry and anxiety.
The music was really his own. But the attempt to cheat himself was idle,
for he knew too much of the characteristics of a promising young
composer who was now dead. No one else but him could have written that.

The evening came and the occasion found him equal to it. His playing of
"The Sylvan Sonata" was as near perfection as a man may attain. When he
had finished there were a few seconds of silence before the audience
could get back to the world again and begin their applause. And when
that had died away, many came up to congratulate him, and a critic of
music spoke.

"I am ashamed of myself," said the critic. "I confess that I had
thought, in company with many others, that you declined in power,
_maestro_. You have given us to-night something more superb than we have
ever heard from you before. You are at your very highest at this
minute."

The master did not seem to hear, did not seem to see the hands which
were stretched out to him. He sat looking intently before him, as at
some presence not visible to the others. And when he was summoned to
speak to the King, he rose stiffly and moved mechanically, looking now
and again over his shoulder, as at someone who followed him.

And when the King had finished his compliments, he drew a deep breath,
as of one who makes an effort. He swung round and pointed with a wave of
his hand.

"Alas, sir," he said, "I am not he who made 'The Sylvan Sonata'. But the
composer is here. See him. He stands behind me. The face was somewhat
crushed by the fall of the tree, but it is made well again. It is as it
always was. It is his music, not mine, that I have played to you."

He stepped backward from the royal presence. The shiver of sensation
went through the great assembly. This was clearly aberration. Someone
should see to the old man. The trial had been too great for him, and his
reason had been overcome. A doctor should be summoned.

But before anything could be done, the old man had slipped out of the
assembly and left the palace and gone back to his own house. Once more
he poured the laudanum, and this time his hand did not fail him. When he
had drunk, he went up to the music-room again and unlocked the piano
that had once been his pupil's. He opened it and began to play.

It was there they found him in the morning.


It was late at night and I had gone out to see the September moon. It
was one of those nights which people like to say are as light as day. It
was not in the least as light as day. It was light grey and silver. It
was even black in places. I heard a faint crackle and could smell the
acrid smoke which mounted thin and straight in the still air from the
fire which had been made in the morning. There burned things which had
done their work and had been beautiful, but were now over.

The fire had been lit that morning and the lawn had been swept that
morning; but there was a rustle of fallen leaves about my feet. The air
was shrewd and chill. Next morning I should still see flowers in my
garden, but none the less the sentence had been pronounced. Summer was
dead.

I suppose it is a question of temperament. Youth can enjoy the moment.
Age must look forward. There is plenty of work to do in this garden in
the autumn, and not a little in the winter. And all the time one is
looking forward to the spring--to the coming of the new leaves and the
fresh green.

But then, throughout the summer, one is haunted with fear and hatred of
the coming winter. Even as one plants or sows, one seems to see the
September weed fire.

It is better not to be wearisome, sentimental, and self-pitying on the
subject, for one might get into that state of mind when, throughout the
winter, one would no longer dare to look forward to the summer, because
one would know the summer would be haunted with the hatred of the next
winter. From which refinement and desolation may I be delivered.




ZERO


CHAPTER I


James Smith was a trainer and exhibitor of performing dogs. His age was
forty-five, but on the stage he looked less, moving always with an
alertness suggestive of youth. His face was dominant, but not cruel. He
never petted a dog. On the other hand, he never thrashed a dog, unless
he considered that the dog had deserved it. He had small eyes and a
strong jaw. He was somewhat undersized, and his body was lean and hard.
This afternoon, clad in a well-cut flannel suit, and wearing a straw
hat, he sat on the steps of a bathing-machine on the beach at Helmstone.
He was waiting for the man inside the machine to come out. Meanwhile he
made himself a cigarette, rolling it on his leg with one hand, and
securing the paper by a small miracle instead of by gum.

As he lit the cigarette the door of the bathing-machine opened, and a
tall young man of athletic build came out. He was no better dressed than
James Smith. At the same time, it was just as obvious that he was a
gentleman as that Smith was not.

"Hallo!" said the young man. "You're all right again, I see. What was
it--touch of cramp?"

"No, sir," said Smith. "I'm not a strong swimmer, and I've done no sea
bathing before. I never meant to get out of my depth, but the current
took me. What I want now is to do something to show my gratitude."

"Gratitude be blowed!" said the young man cheerfully. "It was no trouble
to me, and I happened to be there."

"Well, sir," said Smith, "will you let me give you a dog? I've got some
very good dogs. I should take it as a favour if you would."

He took from a Russia leather case a clean professional card, and
presented it to the young man.

"That, of course, is not my real name. That's just the French name
they've put on the programmes. I'm James Smith, and I have a two weeks'
engagement at the Hippodrome here. I've got my dogs in a stable not far
from there."

The young man glanced at his watch.

"Well," he said, "I've got nothing to do this morning, I'll go and have
a look at the dogs, at any rate. They're a pretty clever lot, I
suppose."

"They can do what they've been taught," said Smith; "all except one of
them, and he can do what no man can teach him."

There was a great noise when they entered the stables. Twenty dogs, most
of them black poodles, all tried to talk at once. Smith said something
decisively, but quietly, and the dogs became silent again. Smith made a
sign to one of the poodles and held out his walking-stick. It looked
quite impossible, but the dog went over it.

"My word, but that's a wonderful jump!" said the young man.

"It is," said Smith. "You won't find another dog of that breed in this
country that can do the same. He's yours, if you like to take him."

"No; hang it all! I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to take a dog
which you can use professionally. What about the beggar that you said
you could not teach?"

Smith pointed to a huge brindled bulldog, who lay in one corner of the
stable absolutely motionless, watching them intently.

"That's the one," lie said. "He's never been on the stage at all. He
couldn't even be taught to fetch and carry."

"And you just keep him because you're fond of him?"

"Fond of him? No, I'm not fond of dogs. They're my livelihood, and I
don't do so badly out of it. But I'm not fond of 'em--know too much
about 'em."

"Then what do you keep him for?"

"You may call it a sense of justice, or you may call it curiosity. He's
a rum 'un, that dog is, and no mistake."

"In what way rum?"

"I'll tell you. He's a dog that sees dangers ahead. He knows when things
are going to happen. I had him as a puppy, and when I found I could
teach him nothing, I made up my mind to get quit of him. I was going off
by train that day to a village fifteen miles away, and I knew a man
there who I thought might take a fancy to Zero."

"Zero, you call him?"

"Yes; that was a bit of my fun. As a performing dog he was just
absolutely last--number naught, see? Well, as I was saying, there was I
on the platform with the dog at my heel and the ticket in my hand. Just
as I was going to get into the train, he made a jump for that ticket,
caught it in his mouth and bolted with it, nipping in among a lot of
milk-cans. I called him, and he wouldn't come out. Then I went in after
him, and he bolted again. By the time I did get him I had missed my
train, and I didn't give him half a jolly good hiding for it, I don't
think! If I'd gone by that train I shouldn't have been talking to you
now. Collision three miles from the station. Well, you don't apologise
to a dog. All I could do was to keep him. But that wasn't the only
instance. The beggar knows things."

"Apparently he didn't know that you were going to drown yourself this
morning."

"If he knew anything about it, he knew that I wasn't."

"Good-tempered dog?"

"Oh, all bulldogs are safe! You want to look after him with collies. He
doesn't like 'em. If he gets hold of one, it's bad for the collie.
Otherwise a baby could handle him."

Zero had crossed over to them, and the young man stooped down and patted
him. The dog expressed delight.

"I can send him round to your hotel," said Smith; "or, for that matter,
he'd follow you. He's taken a fancy to you, he has."

"Look here," said the young man, "let me buy him. I'm not a millionaire,
but I can afford to buy a dog. I'd like to have this one, and there's no
reason on earth why you should give him to me."

"You'd like to have him, and I can afford to give him to you, and I want
to give him to you. You must let a man indulge his sense of gratitude.
It's only fair."

"Very well, if you say so. Many thanks. I'll step over to the Hippodrome
and see your show to-night."

"Do. You'll be surprised."

The two men talked for a few moments longer, and then Zero's new owner
said that he must be getting back to lunch.

"You really think the dog will follow me?" he said. "I don't want to
take a lead?"

"I know he'll follow you. I tell you I know dogs. They take fancies
sometimes. You can take that dog out, and if I call him back myself he
wouldn't come."

"I bet you a sovereign he would."

"I'll take that," said Smith. "You go on with him, and I'll wait here."

The young man walked a few yards away with the dog at his heels, and
then Smith called the dog back, loudly and insistently. The dog did not
give the slightest sign that he had heard anything at all. When his
master stood still, he remained standing patiently at his heel, and
never once looked back.

The young man laughed as he took out his sovereign-case.

"Queer chap, Zero. Well, you've won, Mr Smith. Catch!"

Mr Smith caught the sovereign adroitly, and went back into the stable.

"Yes," he said to the cleverest of the black poodles, "I don't know that
I wouldn't sooner he'd taken you."

It was seldom that Smith addressed any of his dogs, except to give an
order. The poodle did not know what to make of it. He whined faintly.

Richard Staines went back to his hotel, with Zero at his heels. He had
his own sitting-room opening into his bedroom at the hotel, and he
intended to keep the dog there at night. This was against the laws of
the hotel; therefore Staines had to pause a few moments in the hall to
get the laws altered. One of the arguments he used was that he would
only be there two days longer, and it would not matter for so short a
time. The other argument was bribery and corruption. After which he and
Zero went up in the lift together.




CHAPTER II


Staines was a partner in succession to his father in an old-established
firm of stockbrokers with a good connection. He had a small flat in St
James's Place, and thither he brought Zero. Zero accepted metropolitan
life philosophically. There was a dingy cat in the basement of St
James's Place, and he was quite willing to make friends with her. He
looked mildly puzzled at her definite assurance that she would kill him
if he came a step nearer. It never occurred to him to attempt to injure
her. But for one slight lapse--he had killed a collie, and cost Staines
compensation--his behaviour was admirable. He was fortunate in having a
master who was fond of outdoor life, and not at all fond of London.
Every week-end, and occasionally on a fine afternoon, if business was
slack, he got away into the country. He never quite seemed to understand
the terror which his appearance inspired in some young or foolish
people. When children rushed from him shrieking, he would look up at his
master as much as to say, "Can you understand this?" And he was careful
not to increase their terror by running after them.

One day in the Park a muddy-faced little girl of six, who feared nothing
at all, came up and patted him, examined his teeth with curious
interest, and finally sat on him. These attentions Zero received with
great joy. Weeks passed, and he had not given the slightest sign of the
curious instinct with which his former master had credited him.

Staines liked him, principally because he so obviously liked Staines.
Staines thought him a faithful and affectionate beast, with nothing to
distinguish him from the normal. When he recalled Smith's story of the
snatched railway ticket, he explained it all as a chance. These flukes
did happen sometimes.

And then one afternoon he went to call upon the Murrays--a practice that
was becoming rather common with him--and as Jane was particularly fond
of Zero, Zero accompanied him. When they reached the square, Zero sat
down on the pavement. Staines called him, and the dog wagged his tail,
but did not move. Staines went on without him, but presently had to
stop, for Zero had now changed his tactics, and was running round and
round Staines' legs. The incident of the railway ticket flashed across
his mind. He was a business man, and not superstitious; however, it did
not matter to him in the least which two sides of the square he took,
and he determined to turn back and take the other two sides, and see
what would happen. As soon as he turned back, Zero followed at heel in
his usual quiet and unobtrusive manner.

A loud crash caused him to look round. A heavy stone coping had fallen
from a roof, and if the dog had not brought him back it would have
fallen upon him. Here was a nice little story with a mildly sensational
interest for Staines to tell over the teacups.

Mr Murray was matter-of-fact.

"Your story is true, of course," he said. "Your dog did make you take
the other two sides of the square, and the fact that you turned back
probably saved your life. But, all the same, the dog didn't know. By
what means could the brain of a dog recognise the imminent dissolution
of part of the roof of a house?"

"Zero did know," said Jane. She was Mr Murray's only daughter, and
without being wildly beautiful, was an extremely pleasing and friendly
young woman to look at. At present she was feeding Zero with thin
bread-and-butter. Zero had been told, even by Jane herself, that this
form of diet was bad for his figure, but he accepted it with
resignation--rather an enthusiastic kind of resignation.

"What makes you say that Zero knew?" her father asked, with indulgent
superiority.

"Because I know he knew," said Jane firmly and finally.

"And then," said Mr Murray, "women tell us they ought to have the vote."

"Miss Murray," said Richard firmly, "that dog is not to be fed any more,
please."

"Last piece," said Jane. "And he's promised to do Swedish exercises."

Richard was inclined to agree with Mr Murray. The coincidence was again
remarkable; it might even be called very extraordinary. And, given a
choice of two things, Richard preferred to believe the easier. Why, fond
though he was of Zero, he had to admit that the dog was not even clever.

He had tried to teach Zero to find a hidden biscuit, but though he had
hidden the biscuit in all manner of places he had never yet selected a
place that Zero had been able to discover. He was just a dear old fool
of a bulldog, and it was absurd to suppose that he was a miracle.

But Jane Murray remained firm in her belief, and even condescended to be
serious about it.

"Look here," she said, "if you put your horse at a jump, and you're
feeling a bit shy of it yourself, do you mean to say the horse doesn't
know?"

"Of course he knows. But he only knows it by the way you ride him."

"Well, I've had it happen to me. All I can say is that I wasn't
conscious of riding any differently. It was my first season in Ireland,
and I wasn't used to the walls. I said to myself, 'It's got to be.' I
did really mean to get over. But the horse knew the funk in my head and
refused. However, I'll give you another point. How do you explain the
homing instinct of animals?"

"I've never thought about it. I suppose when a pigeon gets up high it
can see no end of a distance."

"That won't do. Dogs and cats have the same instinct--especially cats.
For that matter, crabs have been taken from the sea and returned to it
again at a point eighty miles away, and have found their way back. It's
not done by sight, scent, or hearing. It must be done by some special
sense which they have got and we have not."

"It sounds plausible."

"It's the only possible explanation. And when once we've admitted that
animals have a special sense which we have not, I don't quite see how we
are to say what the limitations of that sense are. It is not really a
bit more wonderful that Zero should have the sense of impending danger
than that a crab, eighty miles from home, should be able to find its way
back."

"Well, you may be right. I wish now that I'd asked that chap Smith a bit
more about the dog."

A few days later one of the partners in Richard's business announced his
intention of getting married. He was a junior partner, two years younger
than Richard.

"Well, Bill," said Richard, after he had offered his congratulations,
"what shall I give you for a wedding-present?"

"Give us that dog of yours."

"Never. Try again."

"Oh, I was only rotting. But, seriously, I'd as soon have a dog as
anything. Not a bulldog--they're too ugly."

"It's a good, honest kind of ugliness. What breed then?"

"Gwen's keen on black poodles."

That settled it. Richard hunted up Smith's card. He had always meant to
do some business with the man if he got an opportunity, and here was the
opportunity. On the following day he journeyed to Wandsworth and found
Smith. Smith looked less spruce and prosperous than before. He did not
actually declare that the performing dog had had his day, but he
admitted that business was not what it had been.

"Too many of us in it. And, I tell you, I'm afraid to bring out a new
idea--it's pinched before you've had a week's use of it. Public's a bit
off it, too. I'm doing practically nothing with the 'alls. I train for
others, and I'm trying to build up a business as a dealer. Only
first-class dogs, mind."

"That's what I want. I came here to buy a dog."

"Let's see. Bulldogs were your fancy. Well, I've got one of the Stone
breed that's won the only time it was shown and will win again."

"This is not for myself. It's a present. Black poodle."

"I see. Well, you've come to the right market. How far were you prepared
to go?"

"Show me a really valuable dog and I will pay the real value. I'm not
buying for the show-bench; but I want the best breed, good health, good
temper, cleverness and training--two years old for choice."

"Ask enough," said Smith, smiling. "Well, if you don't mind stepping
into the yard I can fit you. I'm asking twenty guineas, and he's worth
every penny of it--he'd bring that money back, to anybody who cared to
take it, before a year was out."

The dog was shown--an aristocrat with qualities of temper and
intelligence not always to be found in the aristocrat. Richard Staines
thought he would be paying quite enough, but decided to pay it. He
returned to the house to write his cheque.

"There you are, Mr Smith. By the way, do you remember Zero, the dog you
gave me? He's sitting in my taxi outside."

"I remember him. He'd never win prizes for anybody--not like that poodle
you've just bought. You couldn't teach him anything either. But he could
see ahead, that dog could."

Smith heard how Richard Staines had been saved from the falling roof,
and evinced no surprise at it at all. "Yes," he said, "that dog always
knew. Did I tell you about the milk?"

"No. What was that?"

"Me and Cowbit next door got our milk from the same man. I went out one
morning to take the can in, when Zero came bullocking past me and
knocked the can over. He never tried to drink the milk that was spilled,
but just stood there, wagging his old tail. Mind you, sir, that was
after he had saved me from the train smash. 'Well,' I said to him, 'I
suppose you know'; and I went in to Cowbits' to tell them not to touch
that milk. Cowbit laughed at the story, and took milk in his tea. But
his missus wouldn't have any, and wouldn't let the baby have none
either. Cowbit was ill for days and pretty near died. Mineral poison it
was, from one of the milk-pans going wrong."

"How do you suppose the dog knew?"

"Me suppose? Why, I never asked myself the question. He did know--that
was all about it. Still, if I had to explain it, I should say it was
some kind of an instinct."

And Richard mercifully forebore to ask Mr Smith how he would explain
that particular kind of instinct.




CHAPTER III


Richard was best-man at his partner's wedding. He afterwards attended a
crowded reception. It was too crowded; and there were far too many
people there who wanted to talk to Jane Murray. She was popular, and
there was a group round her all the time. Not for five minutes could
Richard get her to himself. It was this selfishness on the part of
others which depressed him, not the reception champagne, which was no
worse than is usual on such occasions.

The crowds bored him and when he got back to his flat the solitude bored
him. Not even Zero was there. Richard's valet had taken the dog out for
exercise; this had been done in obedience to Richard's own orders, but
it now seemed to him in the light of a grievance. The grievance became
more acute when his servant returned without the dog.

"Very sorry, sir; I wouldn't have had it happen for anything. I was
walking in Regent's Park, with the dog at my heels, and all of a sudden
he made a bolt for it. I whistled and called, but he went straight on.
And when I started running after him, he made a dash into a big
shrubbery. That was how he foxed me, sir. While I was hunting him on one
side, he must have bolted out on the other. Never known the dog act like
that before. It was just as if something had come over him. Speaking in
a general way--"

"Well, what did you do?" asked Richard sharply.

"I spoke to the park-keepers, and to a couple of policemen outside, and
then I went on to Scotland Yard. The address is on the collar, sir. I
should think there's no doubt you'll--"

"That'll do!" snapped Richard. "I thought you could be trusted to take a
dog out, at any rate. Well, my mistake."

With a further expression of contrition, the man withdrew, and almost
instantly the telephone-bell on Richard's desk rang sharply.

He went slowly to the telephone, and managed to put the concentration of
weariness and disgust into the word "Hallo!"

The voice that answered him was the voice of Mr Murray.

"That you, Staines? ... Right--yes, quite well, thanks.... I wanted to
say when Jane got back this evening she found Zero waiting for her
outside our front door.... He's here now, and seems quite cheerful about
it.... Thought you might like to know."

Richard rapidly changed his tone of dejection for that of social
enthusiasm. He thanked profusely. He would send for the dog at once.

"Well, look here," said Mr Murray, "Jane and I have got a night
off--dining alone. If by any chance you're free, I wish you'd join us.
Then you can take the intelligent hound back with you."

Richard said that he was free, which was a lie; and that he would be
delighted to come, which was perfectly true.

He subsequently rang up a man at his club, cancelled an engagement on
the score of ill-health, and went to dress. Such was his elation that he
even condescended to tell his servant that the dog had been found and
was all right.

Zero had done wrong. He must have known that he had done wrong; but he
welcomed his master with gambols in the manner of an ecstatic bullock,
and showed no sign of penitence at all. It was the habit of Richard to
punish a dog that had done wrong, but he did not punish Zero. He called
him a silly old idiot, and asked him what he thought he had been doing,
but Zero recognised that this was badinage and exercised his tail
furiously.

At dinner, Mr Murray said that Zero was an interesting problem. The dog
was apparently a fine judge at sight of the stability of structures, but
could not find his way home.

"That's not proved," said Richard, laughing. "He knew his way home all
right, but he was trying to better himself. He's not fed at tea-time in
St James's Place."

"He's had nothing here," said Jane.

"Really, Jane," said her father.

"Practically nothing. A few biscuits and the least little bit of
wedding-cake for luck."

"Pity I didn't take him to the reception; then he could have had a
vanilla ice as well."

"Wrong," said Jane. "They hadn't got vanilla--only the esoteric sorts. I
know, because I tried. Never you mind, Zero. When the election comes on,
you shall wear papa's colours round your strengthy neck and kill all the
collies of the opposition."

"By the way," said Richard, "how's old Benham?"

"Poor old chap, he's still dying," said Mr Murray. "It makes me feel a
bit like a vulture, waiting for his death like this. Still, I suppose it
can't be helped."

Benham was the sitting member for Sidlington, and Mr Murray had been
predestined to succeed him. Murray had fought two forlorn hopes for his
party, and had pulled down majorities. He had fairly earned
Sidlington--an absolutely safe seat. He had moderate means and no
occupation. He had taken up with politics ten years before--shortly
after the death of his wife--and had found politics a game that
precisely suited him.

The discussion for the remainder of dinner was mostly political, and
Jane--as was generally the case when she chose to be serious--showed
herself to be a remarkably well-informed and intelligent young woman.

"I've no chance; she's too good for me," said Richard to himself--by no
means for the first time--as he looked at her and listened to her with
admiration.

Jane had just left the two men to their cigars when a servant entered
with a card for Mr Murray.

"Where have you put him?" he asked the man.

"The gentleman is in the library, sir."

"Good! Say I'll be with him directly. Awfully sorry, Staines; this is a
chap from Sidlington, and rather an important old cock down there."

"Go to him, of course. That's all right."

"I'm afraid I must. But here's the port and here's the cigars. When you
get tired of solitude, you'll find Jane in the drawing-room. Smoking's
allowed there, you know."

Staines got tired of solitude very soon. In the drawing-room, the
conversation between Jane and himself took a new note of earnestness and
intimacy. Zero slept placidly through it all.

An hour later Mr Murray came back to the drawing-room with the news of
Benham's death. He in return received, with goodwill and no surprise,
the news that a marriage bad been arranged, and would shortly take
place, between his daughter and Richard Staines.




CHAPTER IV


During the engagement, which was brief, Zero found that two people--of
whom his master was one--had very little time to talk to him; but he was
not absolutely forgotten.

"What are we to do with Zero while we're away?" asked Richard.

"Could we take him with us?" asked Miss Murray.

"I don't think so," said Richard. "There would be bother at these
foreign hotels; and there's the quarantine to think about."

"Suppose I said that if Zero didn't go, I wouldn't go either?"

"Quite simple. In that case, I should go alone."

And then they both laughed, being somewhat easily pleased at that time.
Zero was offered to Mr Murray temporarily as an election mascot, but Mr
Murray was not taking any risks--one of his principal supporters had a
favourite collie. Finally, it was decided that Zero should pay a visit
to his former master, Smith, until his master returned. He made one
brief appearance at the wedding reception, where his supreme but honest
ugliness conquered the heart of every nice woman present. He refused
champagne, foie-gras sandwiches, and vanilla ices offered to him by the
enthusiastic and indiscreet. However, he managed to find Jane, and Jane
found bread-and-butter until word was brought that a person of the name
of Smith had called for the dog.

"Bit fat, you are," said Smith, as he ripped the white rosette off the
dog's collar. "Been doing yourself too well. Ah, now you're going to
live healthy!"

Smith was as good as his word. Zero was sufficiently and properly fed,
and given plenty of exercise. He mixed with some very aristocratic
canine society, where the sweetness of his temper was much commended and
imposed upon. After two months his master called for him, and Zero once
more behaved like an ecstatic bullock.

"Yes," said Smith, "he's in good condition, as you say. Otherwise, he's
not much changed. He's as big a fool as ever he was. If a toy Pom growls
at him, he runs away; and if a collie tries to get past him alive--well,
it can't. He'd tear the throat out of any man as struck you, and if the
cat next door spits at him he goes and hides in the rhubarb."

"Seen any more of that wonderful instinct of his?"

"No, sir, I have not. But I should have done if there had been any
occasion for it. It's a fact that I never feel so safe as I do when I've
got that dog here. Don't you believe in it yourself, sir?"

"Sometimes I do--Mrs Staines does absolutely. If there's nothing in it,
then there has been the most extraordinary lot of coincidences I ever
came across."

Richard Staines and his wife had agreed that they would live principally
in the country, and one day during their engagement Jane took Richard
down to Selsdon Bois to show him the house of her dreams, known to the
Post Office as Midway. Then, when he came to select, he would know the
kind of thing to look for. Jane had known Midway in her childhood, and
had loved its wide and gentle staircases, its fine Jacobean panelling,
its stone roof, and its old garden with the paved walks between yew
hedges.

"Well," said Richard, "if you are so keen on the place, why shouldn't we
wait for a chance to get it, instead of looking for something more or
less like it?"

"Because you can't," said Jane. "We're general public, and general
public is never allowed to buy a place like Midway. People live in it
till they die, and then leave it to the person they love best, and that
person lives in it till he dies. And so on again. It never comes into
the market. Things that are really valuable hardly ever do."

The conversation took place in the train which was conveying them to
Selsdon Bois.

"Ah, well," said Richard, "what is there? It needn't be very big to be
too big for us."

"Not a big house at all. I never counted, but I should think about
twenty rooms." She made guesses as to acreage of garden, orchard, and
grass-land. She admitted that they were merely guesses.

"The only thing that I really remember is that it was thirty-six acres
in all. Could we do it?"

"Yes," said Richard; "we ought to be able to do that."

"Still, it doesn't matter," said Jane despondently, "because, of course,
places like that are never to be got."

Then they stepped out on to the platform of Selsdon Bois Station, where
a man was busily pasting up a bill. It announced the sale by auction,
unless previously disposed of, of Midway.

"Miracle!" said Jane, subsiding gracefully on to a milk-can. "It's
ours!"

And a fortnight later it was really theirs. The house was as delightful
as Jane had said, but it was an old house, and during the last ten years
had not been well kept up. There was a good deal to be done to make it
quite comfortable and satisfactory. The work was to have been finished
by the time Richard and his wife returned from the honeymoon.

"It's been simply funny the way we've been kept back," said the builder
cheerfully. "But you might be able to get in, say, in another week or
so."

They remained for a month in town, and this gave Jane time to discover
that it was not possible to teach Zero to do trust-and-paid-for, and to
look up a really admirable train by which Richard might travel from
Selsdon Bois to the city every weekday morning.

"Yes," said Richard, a little doubtfully, "it's quite a good train,
but--"

"But what?"

"Oh, nothing. I shall probably take it whenever I go up, though it's a
bit earlier than is absolutely necessary. You see, I don't regard my
presence at the office as so essential as I once did. My partners are
most able and trustworthy men, and they like the work. Of course, I
shall keep an eye on things."

"Then how many days a week will you go up?"

"Well, just at first I shall go up--er--from time to time."

"Come here, Zero," said Jane. "See that man? He's idle. Kill him!"

"Idle? Why, I shall have any amount of things to do down at Midway!
Gardeners and grooms want a deal of looking after at first, until they
pick up the way you want things done. Then there's that car your father
gave us. I've got to learn how to drive it; I've got to know all about
its blessed works right up to the very last word. The man who don't is
open to be robbed and fooled by his chauffeur. That won't be done in a
week. Then I've had an idea that we might lay out a golf-course--quite a
small affair, just for practice."

"Richard, you're a genius! (You needn't bite him after all, Zero.) That
will be the very thing for guests on Sunday afternoons--not to mention
us ourselves."

"I was thinking principally of us ourselves."

"Where is that big-scale plan of the land? We'll pin it down flat on the
table, and start arranging it now. We shall probably have to alter it
all afterwards, but that don't matter."




CHAPTER V


Six years had passed; and Zero had got a new master, a somewhat
dictatorial gentleman, but with genuine goodness of heart, aged five,
bearing the same name as his father, Richard Staines, but never by any
chance addressed by it. His father called him Dick. His mother called
him by various fond and foolish appellations. He was known to the
servants of the household as the Emperor. He had two sisters, whom he
always spoke of collectively as "the children." He always spoke of Zero
as "my dog."

Zero was rather an old dog now, but hale and hearty. In his own circle
he was highly valued, but his formidable appearance still struck terror
among strangers, willing though he was to make friends with them. The
tradespeople, who had at first approached very delicately, had now grown
used to him; but the tramp or hawker who entered the garden at Midway,
and found Zero looking at him pensively, as a rule retired quickly to
see if the road was still there. No further instance had occurred of
Zero's mysterious powers, and in consequence they tended to become
legendary. Richard Staines had now definitely adopted the theory of
coincidence.

"Zero's a good old friend of mine, and I love him," he said; "but we
must give up pretending he's a miracle." Jane's faith, however, remained
unshaken.

And then, one summer evening, Dick came into the drawing-room with
determination in his face.

"Mother," he said, "I want a stick or whip, please."

"Well, now," said Jane, "what for?"

"To beat my dog with. He's got to be punished."

"That's a pity, Dickywick. What's he been doing?"

"He won't let me go out into the road. Every time he caught hold of my
coat and pulled me back. He's most frightfully strong, and he pulled me
over once. He wants a lamming."

"I wonder if he would let me go out," said Jane. "Let's go and see,
shall we?"

"Right-oh," said Dick, perfectly satisfied.

In the garden they found Zero cheerful and quite unrepentant. As a rule,
he rushed to the gate in the hopes of being taken out for a run. But
this evening, as Jane neared the gate, he became disquieted. He caught
hold of her dress and tried to drag her back. He ran round and round
her, whimpering. He flung himself in front of her feet.

"Now, you see," said Dick triumphantly.

"Yes, I see."

"Well, I shall go and fetch a stick."

"Oh, no. Zero does not want us to go out because he believes there's
some danger on the road."

"O-o-oh! Do you really mean it?"

"Honest Injun."

"Then he's not a bad dog at all, and I told him he was. Come here,
Zero." He patted the dog's head. "You're a good dog really. My mistake.
Sorry. What are you laughing at, mother? That's what Tom always says.
Now let's go and see the danger on the road."

"Well, it wouldn't be quite fair to Zero, after all the trouble he's
taken. Besides, I want to see the rabbits at their games. They ought to
be out just now."

"All right," said Dick. "You follow me, and I'll show you them. But you
mustn't make the least sound. You must be very Red-Indian."

Dick's mother followed him obediently, and was very Red-Indian. The
rabbits lived in a high bank just beyond the far end of the garden, and
what the gardener had said about them before the wire-netting came could
not be printed. Jane watched the rabbits, and conversed about them in
the hoarse whisper enjoined by her son, but she was thinking principally
about Zero.

Then Dick went to bed, and his father came back from the city. He went
up at least one day a week, and came back full of aggressive virtue and
likely to refer to himself as a man who earned his own living, thank
Heaven.

At dinner Richard said: "By the way, I'd been meaning to speak of
it--what's the matter with Zero?"

"Why?"

"He won't leave the gate. He was there when I drove in. I called him in,
but he went back almost directly. I saw him through the window as I was
dressing, and he was still there--lying quite still, with his eyes glued
on the road."

And then Jane recounted the experience of Dick and herself.

"You may laugh, Richard, but something is going to happen, and Zero
knows what it will be."

"Well," said Richard, "if anybody is proposing to burglarise us
to-night, I don't envy him the preliminaries with Zero. But, of course,
it may be nothing. All the same I've always said there ought to be a
lodge at that gate."

But to this Jane was most firmly opposed. A new semi-artistic red-brick
lodge would be out of keeping with Midway altogether. "And what are you
going to do about Zero?"

"Oh, anything you like. What do you propose?"

"I don't know what to say. Whatever is going to happen, apparently Zero
thinks he can tackle it by himself. Still, you might have your revolver
somewhere handy to-night."

"I will," said Richard.

Zero remained at his post until the dawn, and then came a black speck on
the white road. Zero stood up and growled. The skin on his back moved.

Down the road came the lean, black retriever, snapping aimlessly, foam
dropping from his jaws. Zero sprang at him and was thrown down and
bitten. At his second spring he got hold and kept it. The two dogs
rolled off the road, and into the ditch.

At breakfast, next morning, Richard was innocuously humorous on the
subject of revolvers, burglars, and clairvoyant bulldogs. He was
interrupted by a servant, who announced that Mr Hammond wished to speak
to him for a moment.

"Right," said Richard. "Where is he?"

"He is just outside, sir," said the man. "Mr Hammond would not come in."

Hammond was a neighbour of Richard's, a robust and heavily built man. As
a rule he was a cheerful sportsman, but this morning his countenance was
troubled. His clothes were covered with dust, and he looked generally
dishevelled.

"Hallo, Jim," said Richard cheerily. "How goes it? You look as if you'd
been out all night."

"I have," said Hammond grimly. "So have several other men."

"Why? What's up?"

"Outbreak of rabies at Barker's farm. He shot one of the dogs, but the
other got away. There must have been some damned mismanagement. A lot of
us have been out trying to find the brute all night."

"But, by Jove, this is most awfully serious. Can't I help? I'm ready to
start now if you like."

"Thanks, but I found the dog five minutes ago--dead in a ditch not
twenty yards from your gate. He's there still."

"Who shot him?"

"Nobody. That's the trouble. He had been killed by another dog, as
you'll see when you look at his windpipe. The chances are the other dog
got bitten or scratched, and he'll carry on the infection. It's the
other dog we've got to hunt."

"Could it be--" Richard paused.

"I'm afraid so," said Hammond. "Not many dogs would tackle a mad
retriever, but your bulldog would. And it was close to your gate that
the retriever was killed."

"If you'll wait half a minute, I'll see where Zero is."

But the dog was not to be found. Nobody had seen him that morning. In
truth, Richard had not expected to find him. He left word that if the
dog came back he was to be shut up in an empty stable. And then he and
Hammond went out together.

"You've got a revolver, I suppose," said Richard.

"I don't hunt mad dogs without one. This is most awfully hard lines on
you, Richard. He was a ripping good dog, Zero was."

"He was. It's Dick I'm thinking about. The dog was a great pal of his."

They found young Barker watching by the dead retriever. He explained
gloomily that he had sent a boy for a cart. The body would be taken back
and buried in lime. "And even then, sir, we've not got the dog that
killed him."

"We're just going to get him," said Richard quietly.

They walked on in silence for a mile and then at a turn of the road they
saw Zero, apparently asleep in the sunlight in the white dust.

"I ought to do this," said Richard, "but I wish you would."

"Right, old chap. It'll be over in a moment, and he'll be dead before he
knows he's hurt. Look the other way."

"Richard turned round and waited, as it seemed to him, for a long time,
waiting for the shot. Suddenly he heard Hammond's voice behind him.

"No need to shoot. The poor beggar's dead--been run over by a motor-car,
I should say. It's a lucky accident."

"I wonder," said Richard.

"Wonder what?"

"Wonder if it was really an accident."




WHEN I WAS KING


I was in a part of the country where it is a good deal safer to kill a
child than to take a pheasant. There are more people to look after the
pheasants. I have always felt as if a man who could get his bird without
a gun and cook it without a kitchen had a kind of right to the bird. An
empty stomach is an argument too. Well, I got my bird, and then Bates
got me. He is a big man and can use his hands. But all the same I am
ready for him, man to man, at any time. He had three to help him that
time, and that was why I had to stand up and look penitent while old
White-whiskers talked nonsense before he sent me to prison.

I can talk the common talk, and I can talk like a gentleman by birth and
education, which is what I happen to be. To Bates I gave the common
talk--and very common some of it was. Just for a whim, to amuse myself,
I gave the magistrate the other kind, knowing very well the sort of
thing it would make him say.

"It is deplorable," said old White-whiskers, "that an evidently
well-educated man like yourself, possessed of some abilities, and in a
position to get your living by honest work, should take to this crime of
poaching. The fact that you used violence towards the keeper makes the
case all the worse. Men like you are a curse to the country."

Well, I have tried honest work. I have been a classical tutor. I have
been an actor. I have been a bookmaker's clerk. But I like to go my own
way at my own time. And that does not conduce to regular employment. My
great-grandmother, I was always told, was a gipsy woman, and it may be
that I have thrown back to her. I cannot say. I do know that I must go
my own way at my own time, and that my own way is mostly out in the
open, and that I do not love bricks and mortar.

It is not often that I stay for long in one place, and I had stayed too
long in that village. There was a reason, of course, and if you guess
that the reason was a woman, you need not trouble to guess again. I had
a room at Mrs Crewe's cottage and paid my rent for it regularly. I had
done very well with plovers' eggs earlier in the season, and had not
spent all my money yet. It was a mistake to stop so long, because the
keepers began to study me a little. They began to watch where I went and
to ask themselves why. I had been marked by them long before I met Bates
in the wood that night. They put me in prison, and it did not do me any
good. It made me angry. I was a nice, well-conducted prisoner though,
for the people who had to look after me had no responsibility in the
matter. They did not make the laws, they were merely getting a living. I
was principally angry with myself, because I had allowed another man to
beat me. I made up my mind as soon as I got out of prison to take to the
road again. I thought it would be better for my health if I could smell
the air of a different county. It is a solemn fact that prison is not
good for your health or strength. When I came out I was not the man that
I had been.

And then I found out something which changed my mind. While I was in
prison, Bates went after my girl and made love to her. That settled it.
I had got to finish with Bates before I could go on.

I went to Mrs Crewe's cottage by night. When a man who has been in
prison walks about in a small village in the daytime, remarks are likely
to be made. If remarks were made, I was likely to take notice of them,
and I did not want to get into trouble again. I made up my mind that
Bates should be my next trouble. So, as I say, I went to Mrs Crewe by
night, to do the fair thing by her. I told her that I must find a
different room, if I had a room at all; for if old White-whiskers found
that she was keeping the convicted poacher on, she would lose her
cottage. "So, Mrs Crewe," I said, "I have come to say good-bye to you
and Elsie."

Elsie is Mrs Crewe's little girl--a pretty kid of ten, but with bad
health. It was not a good cottage for a sick child, and the food was not
good enough for her, and the doctor was not good enough. He charged Mrs
Crewe nothing--I'll say that for him--but it was as much as he was
worth. Mrs Crewe's other daughter, Lizzie, was eight years older and in
service in London.

Mrs Crewe heard all I had to say, but it made no effect upon her. She
said that she had always paid her rent and conducted herself
respectably, and that old White-whiskers dared not put her out, and that
if he did put her out she would get somebody to write to the London
newspapers about it. She had a great belief in the London newspapers.
She said, moreover, that she took people as she found them, and that I
had always treated her and Elsie well. That was true enough. If Elsie
did not get that last pheasant, she had had others.

Mrs Crewe wanted, too, the money she would get from me for the room, and
said so. She would take no money that she had not earned. She was that
kind. She worked pretty hard too--sold the vegetables out of her bit of
garden, did charing work whenever she could get it, and made a little
out of her fowls. She said, too, that Elsie had not been so well, and
had asked for me.

"Very well, Mrs Crewe," I said. "But there is one thing I have to tell
you. I have been in prison, as you know, and something is going to
happen which will put me back there again, and this time I shall not
come out alive."

She said that she knew what I meant. Bates had not done the fair
thing--that was acknowledged in the village. Still, I could do no good
by getting violent again, and it was just as well that I should stop
with her and let her talk me into a better frame of mind. I laughed. She
was a good woman, but no amount of talk would have stopped me. And then
I said I would sleep that night at her cottage.

I did, and nearly all night I heard that kid crying.

"What is the matter with Elsie?" I said.

Mrs Crewe told me. Lizzie had got permission to have Elsie up to London
in the following week to see the King go past. Now the doctor had
forbidden it. He was right too. She seemed to me to be pretty bad, and
in the evening she was light-headed. I asked Mrs Crewe what she had
done.

"Told her that as she can't go to London to see the King, I have written
to Buckingham Palace to ask the King to come and see her. Anything to
keep her quiet. Funny the way her mind is set on seeing the King."

"And why don't you write?" I asked. "If he knew, and if he could come, I
believe he would."

"Aye," she said, "and so do I. But he might never see the letter, and
kings have a deal to do, they tell me."

That day I tramped into Helmston to buy something that I wanted for Mr
Bates, and as I walked into Helmston I could not get the thoughts of
that kid out of my mind. Then a funny sort of idea struck me. I had been
an actor, as I have already said, and I am pretty good at make-up. I
bought a few other things in Helmston besides the revolver.

When I got back I told Mrs Crewe my idea, and at first she was opposed
to it. She said that Elsie would be certain to recognise my face and
voice, in spite of my disguise, and that if she found out she had been
deceived, she would never forgive her.

"No," I said, "she will not recognise me. You yourself will not
recognise me. I may not look very much like the King, but I shall not
look in the least like myself. However, you yourself shall see first. If
you think it is all right, as soon as it is dusk you shall go and tell
her that the King has come."

I went to my room and spent about half an hour on that make-up. I think
the result was pretty good, seeing that I had not got all the materials
that I wanted to work with. I called Mrs Crewe up and she was astounded.
She said now that it was perfectly safe, that nobody on earth could have
recognised me.

"Very well," I said. "You must wait until ten minutes after the
down-train is in. Elsie knows the trains and can hear them from where
she is lying. You must tell her that the King does not wear his crown
and his gorgeous robes when he is travelling, but only a black coat,
just like the doctor."

When I was an actor I was never afflicted with nervousness; but as I
heard Mrs Crewe in the next room tell Elsie exactly what I had told her
to say, I shivered with fear. Suppose, after all, the child should find
me out!

Elsie slept in a small bed in her mother's room. As I entered she tried
to raise herself a little, and said in her best voice--the one that she
used in church on Sunday--"I am so sorry that I cannot get up to make a
curtsy to you. And ought I to call you 'Your Majesty' or just 'King'?"

"The correct etiquette," I said, "is for children to call me 'King'. I
am very glad to have been able to come down to see you, Elsie. It was
only by the merest chance that I could get away."

I gave her my whitened hand with the flash rings on it. She put her lips
to it. "That will be something to tell the other girls," she said.

His Majesty inquired who the other girls were. He was told that Elsie
had not been seeing much of them lately, because she had been ill; but
she would be well and strong again very soon now--her mother had told
her so. The other girls were very nice girls. Sarah Miggs had made a
daisy-chain and sent it to her, and it was twice as long as the bed.

All this time Mrs Crewe had, by my direction, remained standing. She
adopted a most respectful attitude, and curtsied whenever I looked at
her. I now heard from her an ominous sniffling. If the silly woman began
to blubber, there was a chance that the thing would be given away.

"Mrs Crewe," I said, with dignity, "you have our permission to retire."

She backed out of the room, and presently we heard her very busy in the
kitchen, making an almost unnecessary noise with pots and pans. But
perhaps that was intended to cover other sounds.

Elsie now demanded information about the interior of Buckingham Palace.
I invented splendours, and she listened with rapture; she said it
sounded more like Heaven than anything else. She put a plain question to
me as to the value of the enormous diamond on my finger. She found that
it had cost even more than she supposed, and she was interested in
hearing the history of it. The diamond had once been the eye of an idol
in India.

Presently she said, with distress: "Oh dear me, King, I do wish you
could stop. There is such a lot more I want to ask you. But you will
only just have time to catch the nine-thirteen, and that's the last
up-train to-night."

"It is of no consequence," I said. "I had arranged to return to-night by
motor-car."

"Shall I see it?"

"No," I said, "because by that time you will be asleep. It would not be
a good thing for you to keep awake much longer. And if I tell you to go
to sleep, then of course you must do it, because I am the King."

"Of course," she echoed. "Because you are the King."

But I could tell her all about the motor. It was really more like a
house than a car. It had three rooms in it, and all the walls and
ceilings were covered with a pattern of lilies made in silver and gold.
The stalks and the leaves were silver and the flowers were gold. One of
the rooms in the car was like a bedroom, and in one of the other rooms
there was a cupboard which was entirely filled with glass jars of
sweets. Elsie named several kinds; they were all there.

She held my hand as she talked, and she was still holding it as she fell
asleep. The room was almost dark now, though outside it was a light
night. Then quite suddenly she sat up in bed and flung wide her arms.

"God save the King!" she cried.

In a moment she was asleep again, and I slipped from the room. I was a
king no longer. She slept well that night.

Old White-whiskers had his points after all. He took it into his head to
have a look into his cottages himself, and in consequence a highly
respectable firm lost a highly lucrative job. When Elsie and her mother
get back from the seaside--White-whiskers is paying for them--they will
find their cottage in decent repair.

And this morning I take the road again, never to return. Of course Mrs
Crewe thinks that it is her wise counsel which has kept me out of the
hands of the hangman; but that is not so.

I have not seen Bates again, and I have planned not to see him again,
lest at the sight of him I should forget a decision to which I came when
that kid of Mrs Crewe's sat up in bed and called upon God to save the
King.




THE SATYR


Myra Larose was a good governess, capable, and highly certificated.

At Salston Hill School they rewarded her services with forty pounds per
annum, and board and lodging during term-time. She had often been
fortunate enough to secure private pupils for the holidays, and she knew
a stationer who bought hand-painted Christmas cards. At the end of four
years' work she had thirty-five pounds saved and in the Post Office. And
then Aunt Jane, the last of her relatives, died, and left her a fine two
hundred and fifty. This meant another ten pounds per annum.

Things were not so bad, but they did not, of course, justify the very
mad idea that came into her pretty head--a head that, so far, had proved
itself sane and practical.

The girls of the school considered that Miss Larose was strict but just,
and that she had nice eyes. The principal, Mrs Dewlop, when prostrate
from the horrible Davenant scandal, had declared that she would never
think highly of any human being again; but she did think highly of Myra,
even to the extent of considering the possibility of an increase of
salary. Myra's fellow-teachers thought her sensible, and chaffed her
mildly at times about her economies and her accumulation of wealth. No
one would have supposed her capable of anything wild and extravagant.

Possibly a book that she had been reading put the idea into her head.
Then there was the accident that nearly all her clothes were new
simultaneously. Her eyes fell on the advertisement which showed her the
advantages of hiring a petrol landaulet by the day in London. Thoughts
of the theatre swam into her head. She loved the theatre, and had not
been in one for years. She might lunch at the Ritz. She might deny
herself nothing--for one day. Grey routine and miserable economies
suddenly found her insurgent. Yes, she would have one great day--one day
during which she would live at the rate of two thousand a year.

So, on one splendid morning, at the station of her northern suburb, she
had occasion to be severe with the booking-clerk. ("I said _first_
return--not third. You should pay more attention.") She bought a
sixpenny periodical to read on the way up, and when she reached King's
Cross she deliberately left the valuable magazine in the carriage behind
her. That struck the high, reckless note. How often had she nursed a
halfpenny paper through the whole of a traffic-distracted day that she
might read the feuilleton at night!

"Taxi, miss?" suggested the porter when he had ascertained that she had
no luggage.

"I think not," said Myra. "I believe my car's waiting for me." She felt
that she had said it perfectly--without obvious pleasure, and without
that air of intense languor that is always accepted on the stage as
indicative of aristocracy, and never seen elsewhere.

She could tell the porter how to recognise the car--information supplied
to her by the company from whom she had hired it--and the porter brought
it up for her. Her first thought was that it looked splendid. Her second
thought was that beyond a doubt she had recognised the face of the
liveried driver.

She gave the porter a shilling, and sent him away. (Her usual tips for
porters had varied from nothing to twopence, with a preference for the
former.) Then she turned to the driver, a young man, with a handsome,
clean-shaven face and dark, rebellious eyes.

"I know you," she said. "You are Mr Davenant."

"Quite true, Miss Larose. But that need make no difference. You have
bought my services for the day, you know. You will find me just as
attentive and respectful as any other servant. Where to, miss?"

"No, no. I want to talk to you. I must. Oh, it's too awful that you
should have come down to this. Mrs Dewlop must have been vindictive
indeed."

"She was certainly angry." He smiled reminiscently--he had a charming
smile. "She had every right to be."

"Look here," she said impulsively, "what is to prevent you from lunching
with me?"

"Your plans for the day--this car--and, for the matter of that, my
clothes."

"I have no appointments, and no fixed plans. I was going to amuse myself
just anyhow. I shall like this far better. Oh, can't you arrange it for
me?"

"I should like it, too, and I can arrange it all very easily if you
don't mind waiting half an hour."

"Of course I'll wait--wait here, if you like."

"You would find the National Gallery more interesting, and I can take
you there in a few minutes."

"Yes, that's better. Thanks awfully. This is splendid."

At the National Gallery she looked at certain pictures with appreciative
intelligence. Then she sat down and half-closed her eyes, and saw a
picture from the gallery of her memory.

It was the big classroom at Salston Hill School. At one end of the room
Myra Larose took the elementary class in drawing. At the other end, much
older girls took the lesson in advanced drawing from a master who was,
as the prospectus stated, an exhibitor at the Royal Academy. His name
was Hilary Davenant, and in the bills he was charged extra. The older
girls were ten in number, and were provided with easels, charcoal, and
stumps. They formed the circumference of a circle of which the centre
was a life-size cast with a blackboard adjacent.

Myra watched as she saw Davenant going from one drawing-board to
another, and noted the waning of patience and the growth of irritation.
He went to the blackboard and addressed the entire class on the anatomy
of the hand, illustrating his remarks by rapid drawings on the
blackboard. They were admirable drawings in their way--swift, right,
certain, slick. And suddenly he flung the chalk to the floor and spake
with his tongue. He also used gesture--a foreign and reprehensible
practice.

"You poor, silly idiots! Not one of you will ever do it, except perhaps
Miss Stenson. And if you did, it wouldn't be the real thing." He checked
himself, and went on in a nice, suave schoolmaster's voice. "I was
joking, of course. As I said, this cast presents considerable
difficulties to some of you. But you must face your difficulties and
overcome them. You must not let yourselves be discouraged." And so on.

Dora Stenson, aged sixteen, blushed and put her hand over her eyes. The
other pupils smiled in a weak, wan way. They had been told that it was a
joke, and they believed everything they were told, and did their best.
At the other end of the room Myra Larose developed a good deal of
interest in Hilary Davenant.

An incident which occurred two days later formed another picture in the
memory-gallery. Myra, with other assistants, had been summoned with
every circumstance of solemnity to the principal's private study.

"I have to inform you, ladies," said Mrs Dewlop, "that owing to
circumstances which have come to my knowledge, I have been compelled to
dismiss Mr H. Davenant at a moment's notice." She readjusted her
pince-nez, and her refined face squirmed. "Mr Davenant is not a man: he
is a satyr. I have sufficiently indicated the nature of his offence,
which he admitted; and I do not care to dwell upon the subject further.
This has been a great shock to me. One can only hope in time to live it
down. That," she added tragically, "is all."

It had happened six months before, and at the time had filled Myra with
curiosity and also with a touch of horror. Was it wise of her to make
appointments with a man who had been so described? Had not her feeling
of compassion for an old colleague--one, moreover, whom she had found
sympathetic--carried her too far? This was not at all the kind of thing
she had come out to do. But--well, she had done it. And if the satyr
added punctuality to his other vices, he would be waiting outside for
her.

He was there. He had changed his car as well as his clothes. He did not
look poor. He looked as if he owned that car and a good deal of the rest
of the earth.

"I hope you don't mind," he said. "I thought this open car might be
useful. If you would be kind enough to take the seat beside me we could
talk as we go. I thought, as it was such a ripping morning, you might
like to drive into the country somewhere for lunch. But that must be
just as you like, of course."

"It is exactly what I like. Let's see. We've got lots of time before
lunch. You shall choose where we go."

"If you don't mind lunching a little late, we might do Brighton."

"Yes, we lunch at Brighton," she said decisively. The spirit of
adventure was hot within her. She had meant the day to be rather
exciting. It was more than fulfilling expectations.

As they crawled through the traffic she asked him how he had persuaded
his firm to let her have the open car instead of the other. She was told
that it was the policy of his people to oblige a customer in every
possible way, and that they had made no trouble. Then she spoke of
things she had seen at the National Gallery, and found him just as
enthusiastic about art as she had done once in the old days at the
school, when chance gave them a few minutes' talk together. But it was
not till they sat at lunch in a good little hotel overlooking the sea
that they became confidential.

"I gather," he said, "that you knew that Mrs Dewlop sacked me."

"She told all of us."

"Did she say why?"

"Not exactly. She said that you were a satyr. I--I didn't believe that."

"Well, I'll tell you exactly what I did. I kissed Dora Stenson."

This was a blow. "I don't think I want to hear about it," said Myra
coldly.

"It's all very well," said Davenant mournfully, "but I'd had very little
experience as a teacher. What do you do yourself when a girl begins to
cry?"

"If she's quite a child, I try to comfort her. If it's one of the older
girls, I tell her that I dislike hysteria, and that she had better go
away until she has recovered. But it rarely happens with the older
girls. What made Dora Stenson cry?"

"All my own fault--the whole thing. You know the beauties I had to
teach. Dora was the only one that had any gift. As for the rest, you
might as well have tried to teach blind pigs to draw. What was the
consequence? I gave Dora most of the teaching, and I was harder on her
than I was on the others. I judged her by a different standard, and I
drove her as hard as I could. Well, one day, at the end of the hour, she
brought me up some bad work. She'd taken no trouble. It was rotten. All
the same, if any of the others had shown me anything nearly as good, I
should have been more than satisfied. As it was Dora, I lost my wool and
told her what I thought. Classes were dismissed. You went out. I was
left alone in the room. Back came Dora to pick up some truck she'd left
behind, and she was crying--crying like anything. Well, I couldn't stand
it. I'd never meant to be a brute, and there was that girl--very pretty
she is, too--crying like anything. I began to talk to her, and, before I
knew where I was, I had kissed her. I'm making a clean breast of the
whole thing--I kissed her two or three times."

Miss Myra Larose, who had not wanted to hear about it, had listened with
breathless interest, and now put in a shrewd question.

"And did Dora kiss you?"

"As I was saying, where I was wrong was in--"

"All right, I know. If she had not kissed you, you would have said so.
But, seeing that she did kiss you, why on earth did she complain to Mrs
Dewlop?"

"She never did. She wrote a letter to a girl friend of hers, and left it
lying about. Mrs Dewlop read it. Now, what do you think?"

Myra considered a moment. "I think," she said deliberately, "that Dora
was a braggart, and that Mrs Dewlop was a sneak, and--er--not very wise,
and that you----"

"Do you also think me a satyr?"

"Of course not. You were all wrong, but you were just a baby."

He gave a sigh of relief.

"It makes me angry," said Myra impulsively. "What right had that woman
to ruin you, and turn you into a cab-driver?"

"I must explain further. It is true that she refused me any kind of a
character, and that my teaching career was closed. But I am not exactly
a cab-driver. When I was turned out I had to give up the idea of making
a living by art. I could no longer teach, and modern pictures sell
seldom and badly. But I had another string to my bow. I understand
motors, and I had had plenty of driving experience. An uncle of mine is
in the motor business to some considerable extent. Amongst other things,
he is a director and principal share-holder in the company from which
you hired your car. He has often asked me to join him, and now I did so.
He is a thorough sort of man, and he insisted that I should go through
every side. I've washed cars; for three months I was an ordinary
mechanic; I've been in the office; the last few weeks I've been driving
these privately let cars, and picking up some interesting information as
to the amount of tips that the drivers get. Next week I shall be a
manager. Well, now, I saw your order when it came in. I remembered you
very well--very well, indeed. I determined to drive you myself--to be
your good servant, if that was all that was possible, but to be as much
more as you would let me be."


As the car purred smoothly through the dusk in the direction of the
northern suburb where Myra had her inexpensive lodging, Davenant said:
"Then you will give notice that you leave at the end of next term,
darling?"

And she said: "Yes, dearest."




THE CHOICE


Mrs Halward, a good and earnest lady, was angry with her married
brother, Harry Elton, and took an early opportunity of telling him so.
Elton was a big man, and so quiet as to be almost gloomy.

"What are you angry for?" he asked.

"You know perfectly well. It's shameful. It's scandalous. I can't think
how you can do it. You've only been married six years, and Grace is such
a dear."

"Yes," said Elton, "I'm very fond of Grace."

"I was under the impression," said his sister, "that you were very fond
of Rosamond Fayre. It has been sufficiently obvious lately."

"Yes," said Elton slowly, "I'm extremely fond of Rosamond."

"Don't talk like a fool. A man can't be in love with two women at the
same time."

"If he can't, why accuse me of it? Has Grace complained to you?"

"Of course not. Have you been married to her for six years without
discovering that she has a certain amount of pride?"

"Because, you see, if she has not complained to you, I don't see how it
becomes your business at all. I am sure it is not a thing you would
understand. You mean well, of course; but interference is futile. A man
neither loves nor ceases to love because he is told it is expected of
him, and that the conventions require it. You women who try to direct
the love-affairs of others always remind me of a certain king who
forbade the tide to come in."

"I have done my duty," said his sister stoutly. "You are going to bring
disgrace on the family. I shall certainly speak to Grace about it."

"Do, if you wish. I warn you that Grace is not so patient as I am. If
you succeed you will make mischief. You will precipitate things. That's
curious, you know--the third party who interferes with the relations
between a man and a woman can never do any good, but is able to do a
deal of harm."

Mrs Halward was not convinced. If her sister-in-law had been at home at
the time she would probably have spoken to her then. She could only
repeat that she had done her duty, and leave with dignity.


Mrs Fayre was extremely poor. Her husband held a position in China,
vaguely understood to be mercantile, and sent her one hundred pounds a
year. In addition to this she had a private income of seven hundred; but
eight hundred a year is extreme poverty when most of your friends and
acquaintances approximate to eight thousand a year. She lived in a small
flat in South Kensington, and made a business of pathos. At one time,
Mrs Halward had been enchanted with her, and it was at her house that
Rosamond and Harry Elton first met.

Harry Elton walked up and down the library, and tried to think things
out. He thought Rosamond beautiful. He liked the tone of her voice. He
liked her to be with him. Once or twice he had nearly kissed her, but he
never had kissed her, and he had never told her he loved her. There were
times when he had been on the verge of it, but had been checked by the
thought that he could not do Grace any wrong--not only because it would
hurt her, but because it would hurt himself. What was the use of laying
down stupid rules, that a man could not love two women at once? But the
rule had been laid down, and it was almost universally accepted. If a
man did love two women, it was certain that each of the women would feel
herself wronged.

He had never wanted to face the situation at all. He had been quite
willing to let things drift. His wife was not jealous. He saw Rosamond
Fayre frequently, and without any secrecy. He had interested himself in
her painting--which was abominable--and had tried to get her work.
Sometimes they lunched or dined at a restaurant alone together.
Sometimes he took her to the theatre. But he had never realised that he
had given the thing away, and that the cats--among whom he included his
sister--had marked him down. Now that he did face the situation, he did
not in the least know what to do. He thought of leaving Grace and of
running away with Rosamond, and the thought was intolerable. He thought
of giving up Rosamond by degrees, seeing less and less of her, and that
thought was equally intolerable. He planned to let things remain as they
were, and recognised that _that_ was impossible. No love-affair remains
at a fixed point half-way. It goes on and on.

He stepped over to the telephone at his desk and contemplated it for a
few seconds, as if he were seeking counsel from it. Then he took down
the receiver and asked for a number.

"That is you, Rosamond?"

"Quite."

"I've been thinking about you."

"I've been thinking about you, too."

"I want you to tell me something. Do you think that I love you?"

"Oh, yes, of course." The tone of the voice was mocking.

"I am serious," said Elton.

There were a few seconds of silence. What had happened?

"Are you there?" he asked.

"It is very dangerous to be serious. Good-bye."


"You have not been sleeping well lately, have you?" Grace asked her
husband.

"Oh yes," he lied. "What makes you think that?"

"Well, you look horribly tired, anyhow. I don't believe you're well. I
do wish you'd see a doctor."

Harry reassured her. He was, he said, as fit as could be.

"Well, what are you and Rosamond Fayre going to do after dinner?"

"Don't know exactly. It depends upon what she wants. A theatre, I
suppose. Is there anything going on not too absolutely rotten?"

"Nothing that I have seen lately. If you can get out of it, don't take
her to the theatre. Get home early and go to bed. You really look as if
you wanted a rest."

Grace was going to hear Kubelik that evening, dining first with the
Halwards. Her husband did not hear Kubeliks cheerfully, and it had been
Grace's suggestion that he should take poor Rosamond to dine somewhere.
Everyone felt they must do something for poor Rosamond to get a little
colour and brightness into her days. Eight hundred a year and a husband
in China! What a life!

Harry Elton had accepted the suggestion without enthusiasm. He said he
supposed he might as well do that as anything else.

It was part of the tragedy of Rosamond's poverty that she could not
afford as many taxicabs as she needed. She went about a good deal, and
she found it necessary to go about economically. Left to herself, she
would have taken the tube to Dover Street and then stepped across the
road. But Elton's expensive motor-car, after taking Grace to the
Halwards', went on to South Kensington to fetch Rosamond.

She was grateful, as she always was. "I often wonder," she said
plaintively, "why everybody is so good to me--you especially."

"I am by no means certain that I am good to you. I spoke to you on the
telephone this afternoon."

"Not now, no," said Rosamond firmly.

She was quite right. You cannot discuss the sweet and secret sinfulness
of your heart when the waiter is handing you the entrée. Possibly Elton
also recognised this. But his next remark was rather brutal.

"You have never told me about the man in China. Tell me now."

Rosamond answered in French. There were no waiters near at the moment to
overhear her. If there had been, they all understood French perfectly.
But to Rosamond, French had always given a feeling of security. Her
story was brief and simple. She had married at eighteen. It had been a
girl's infatuation, and it had lasted just two years. No, there had
never been any actual break between them. He had to take up this post in
China. They were too poor for him to refuse it. It brought him five
hundred a year.

"Out of which," said Elton, "he sends you a measly hundred."

"He knows I have some means of my own. Oh no, we have never quarrelled.
It is just that the thing died. I should be sorry for his death, as I
should be for the death of any old companion--nothing more than that. He
would regard my death in the same way. There is no longer any love
between us. He sends me four rather formal letters every year, and I
send him four replies, telling him about London theatres and so on. It's
funny, isn't it? But, my God!" (It did not sound so strong in French.)

"I do not think," said Elton slowly, "that you were meant to spend your
years without love."

"No? How do you know?"

Elton smiled. "Do you know the eyes of women who do without love and do
not need it? They are the eyes of a business-like fish. Your eyes are
not like that."

She leant a little forward over the small table. "Look into them," she
said, "and tell me what you read there."

"Don't do that. Do you want to drive me mad?"

"Yes--sometimes."

"Well, I dare not tell you what I read in your eyes."

She laughed nervously. "Is it so bad as that?" she said, and began to
speak of other matters.

She was intending to send a picture to the Academy, and felt quite
hopeful about it. She described it to him, and he made appropriate
replies; but though he watched her intently all the time he was hardly
conscious of what she was saying. He tried to pull himself together.

"What are we to do this evening? A theatre?"

"I don't think so. I'm tired of theatres. I'm tired of everything. We
will talk for a little in the lounge, and then I will take my train back
again and go through the farce of trying to go to sleep."

"You, too, have not been sleeping well then? Of course, you won't go
back in the train. I shall drive you back."

"It is frightfully good of you, but I don't really deserve so much
kindness to-night. I have the feeling all the time that I am behaving
badly, and talking like an idiot."

"Come on into the lounge. We will both talk like idiots."

They found a secluded corner, and a waiter brought them coffee. Elton
watched the man's back as he went away. Then he turned to Rosamond.

"Now then," he said, "about our conversation on the telephone."

She paused before replying, breathing quickly, and then she spoke very
rapidly and in a low voice.

"Yes, you love me. I have known that for a long time. I wanted you to
love me. You know the rest, don't you? I adore you. There's no one but
you in the world. Now I've said it. It was bound to happen sooner or
later. It's over, and we can never speak to one another again."

He rose from his place. "Come," he said, "I am going to take you home. I
had the car waiting here in case we wanted to go to the theatre."

He signed to a waiter.

"Go and find my car, Mr Elton's car," he said to the man, "and tell the
driver he won't be wanted to-night. He is to go home."

Rosamond looked at him wonderingly. "I--I think I see."

"Of course. Get your cloak quickly, dear."

He put her into the taxi and gave the address, not of the little flat
where she lived, but of her studio.


"Things are better," said Mrs Halward to her husband. "I was afraid at
one time that there was going to be serious trouble between Harry and
his wife about that wretched Fayre. I gave him a word of warning at the
time, and I am convinced it did good."

"What makes you think so?" said her husband, not greatly interested.

"Didn't you notice yourself at dinner last night? He hardly said five
words to Rosamond. He seemed to take no notice of her."

Mrs Halward had observed correctly, but had made wrong deductions. Harry
and Rosamond were meeting more frequently than ever, but nearly always
in secrecy. If his wife suggested that Rosamond should be asked to one
of her dinner-parties, Harry shrugged his shoulders and made some
excuse. He lunched frequently at his club now, so his wife said, and she
said what he had told her. As a matter of fact, he never lunched there
at all. He took Rosamond to out-of-the-way restaurants where he would be
unlikely to meet anybody he knew. Sometimes they improvised a lunch in
the studio together. No day passed that he did not see her, or, at any
rate, hear from her. And there was no happiness for either of them.
Elton hated lies and hated secrecy. Grace had never been jealous of
Rosamond, but Rosamond was furiously jealous of Grace.

"I can see the end of this," said Rosamond one night when he had come
late to the studio. "We cannot possibly go on like this. It is killing
me. I cannot share you with another woman."

"I know, dear," said Elton. "The position is hateful. And it is all my
fault. And what is to be the end of it?"

"Quite simple," said Rosamond. "I take something for my insomnia, you
know. There will be an accident."

"You are not to say that, and you are not even to think about it. That
will not be the end. I am going to take you away. We must face it. A
little scandal, a change of name, and, in a year, it is all over. I
shall be willing enough to live abroad. We will go to your beloved
Sicily."

"Yes, to Taormina. Oh! but that would be too much happiness. That could
never be."

But, there and then, they made their plans how it should be.

Even now, if there was a prospect of happiness for Rosamond, there
seemed to Elton to be none for himself. He would have to leave Grace. It
was against accepted ideas and against rules, but, none the less, he
loved Grace. He could not have said which woman he loved more--Grace or
Rosamond. They were so absolutely different--Grace with her suavity and
Rosamond with her temperament--that no comparison was possible. Both
seemed absolutely necessary to him, and he could not have both.


Grace and her husband had to fulfil an engagement to spend a week-end
with some friends who lived in Oxfordshire. One morning she went out
alone and found the cottage of her dreams--the country cottage she had
always meant to have. She came back in the spirits of a child who has a
new toy. Harry was to go and look at it at once.

"And what do you think I have done? I have telegraphed to that poor
Rosamond Fayre to come down here on Monday morning. I am going to give
her a commission--to paint my cottage garden. She is rather good at
gardens--I mean she is better at gardens."

It was useless to raise any objection, and Harry felt convinced Rosamond
would not come. So he said it was rather a good idea, and discussed
gravely the improvements his wife meant to make at the cottage.

"You see," she said, "I must make it comfortable."

A little later the telegram arrived from Rosamond: "Very many thanks.
Will come by the train you suggest."

Harry met that train at his wife's suggestion.

"Why did you come?" he asked Rosamond anxiously.

"Didn't you want to see me?"

"I always want to see you, but the position is too horrible."

"I know it is difficult, but in three days now it will all be over, and
we shall be at peace together. Meanwhile, if I refuse to meet Grace, she
will think--oh, she may think anything. Come on. Take me to the
cottage."

Harry made an excuse to leave the two women alone there together. He
would be back in an hour. And in a little more than an hour he was
walking back to the station with Rosamond and his wife. There was only
just time to catch Rosamond's train. But it was all right, so Grace
said; there was a short cut across the line. They would be there in
time. And then Grace made a terrible discovery. She had left the key of
the cottage in the door. Harry must run back and fetch it, or the people
who were letting her the cottage would consider she was not a
responsible person.

Harry tried the door of the cottage to see that it was locked, put the
key in his pocket, and ran after them. They had reached the crossing
now, but were standing still. He could not at first make out what it was
they were doing. Rosamond then bent down to her shoe, and Harry realised
what had happened. The shoe had got wedged in the points, and she would
have to take her foot out of it to get free.

And then he heard the scream of the whistle, and dashed forward.

He managed to save one of the two women. It was Grace.

The moment had revealed him to himself. He had made his choice.




THE PIANO-TUNER


CHAPTER I


Miss Caterham was forty-five, and said so, and looked it. She wore black
cashmere in the afternoon, and black silk in the evening. She was
methodical, and professed a hatred of all nonsense. She liked to take
care of everything and to avoid using it. Also, though fundamentally
kind-hearted, she was firm even to the point of obstinacy. Her ideas
were old-fashioned, and she had only hatred and contempt for any other
ideas. She kept fowls and understood them completely. She also kept her
orphan niece, Ruth Caterham, and understood her less completely.
Indisputably she loved the fowls much less than she loved her niece, but
the fowls had comparatively the greater liberty. She maintained a
decent, upper-middle-class state in a Georgian house, on the confines of
a little town that thoroughly respected her. It was not a suburb. It was
too far from London for that. The best trains took forty minutes. Miss
Caterham was rather acidulated about suburban people.

There, from time to time, she entertained the brother of Ruth's deceased
mother. She loved him, and abhorred his opinions. So far as might be,
she kept him in order. His name was George Maniways, and he was in
Parliament, and his politics were of the wrong colour. "You and the
other enemies of England," Miss Caterham would say, in addressing him.
She would probably have quarrelled with him, frequently, but for the
fact that it takes two to make a quarrel, and Mr Maniways was too lazy
to play up properly. His temper was so good as to be almost
pusillanimous. He was almost the only male who ever entered her house,
except in a menial capacity. She had been compelled to allow Ruth to
accept the Sotherings' dance and Lady Rochisen's. But when young Bruce
Sothering wrote to ask if he might call, she replied that they were just
going away, but that she would write on her return. She did not write on
her return. And she cannot have forgotten it, for Ruth reminded her
twice. Rather a difficult woman, Miss Caterham.

The day being hot, George had arrayed his long and meagre body in white
flannel. The conformation of his large grey moustache and his apologetic
blue eyes gave him the appearance of rather a meek kind of walrus--one
that would feed from the hand and do trust-and-paid-for. He reposed
himself after luncheon in a large deck-chair on the veranda. He held
between his teeth an amber tube with a cigarette in it. He had a box of
matches in one hand, and intended to light the cigarette when he felt
more rested. In the meantime he nursed a straw hat, and watched Miss
Caterham's wise and just restraint of a climbing geranium. Miss
Caterham, in the intervals of her work, watched George, with a glance
which indicated rapidly increasing displeasure. The fire kindled, and at
last she spake with her tongue.

"I am extremely sorry, George, but I simply cannot stand it any longer.
Will you kindly either light that cigarette or throw it away."

"I was just about to light it, Jane. This weather, especially after
luncheon, invests one's actions with a certain amount of deliberation."

"If you showed as much deliberation about your words, George, as you do
about your actions, it would be better for everybody."

George's astonishment was such that he let out the match which he had
just lit. "Oh, really, Jane, I wasn't conscious of having said anything
particular."

"It's not what you said now, it's what you said at luncheon. If you
don't strike another match and light that cigarette, I shall have to
go."

George followed his instructions obediently. "At luncheon?" he said
meditatively. "Don't seem to remember having said anything particular at
luncheon either. While I'm here, I'm always careful to avoid politics."

"So long as you follow blindly the foes of your own country, that is
just as well. The treacherous and unpatriotic duffers, with whom you
have chosen to ally yourself----"

"Yes," said George. "You're perfectly right. It's much better to avoid
politics. But what did I say at luncheon?"

"Ruth was there."

"She was. Very charming she looked. I'm proud to be her uncle."

"I have the charge of her education, and the formation of her moral
character, and I considered what you said to be most unwise. Praise is
nearly always bad, and it is specially injudicious to praise a child's
beauty to her face."

"Oh, that's it, is it? Well, Ruth ain't exactly a child, you know. She's
eighteen."

"Only just eighteen, and I'm not sure that that does not make it worse.
I've always been careful to guard against anything of the kind. I do not
wish my niece to grow up vain and self-conscious."

"Oh, she's all right," said George feebly.

"Far from it. She is wilful, and there is nothing I hate so much as
wilfulness. I must have my own way, and I cannot be opposed in my views
by you or by Ruth. Also, it is quite untrue that she is beautiful. She
is nice-looking enough, but her mouth is certainly a little too large,
and she has permitted the sun to ruin her complexion--in spite of my
advice. I must request you, George, to abstain from saying anything of
the kind again."

George refused an invitation to inspect a new fowl-run, and said that he
preferred to sit and think over things. Amongst other thoughts, it
occurred to him that his niece did not in all probability have much of a
time. Where he sat, he could hear faintly the sound of the piano in the
drawing-room. It was obviously something of Grieg's, and appallingly
difficult. He was glad that he had not got to play it, and was merely an
audience. He had chosen the better part. After all, Ruth had her music
to occupy her, and she played tennis with the Vicarage girls, and what
else could she want? He was just dropping off to sleep when the
cessation of the music roused him again. A moment later his niece stood
before him.

She was a tall girl, and carried herself well. Most people would have
agreed with her uncle's estimation of her looks. She wore no hat, and
her face was certainly slightly tanned.

"Uncle George," she said, "I want you to do something."

"Not tennis," said George sleepily. "Nothing violent. After tea,
perhaps, when it's cooler."

"That's not it at all. Now listen. When you're at the House, you have
tea on the Terrace sometimes, don't you?"

"Sometimes. Whisky-and-soda sometimes. What do you want?"

"You can ask people to come and have tea on the Terrace, can't you?
Well, you've got to ask me. Next Tuesday, please. And you've got to
persuade Aunt Jane to let me go, too."

"I'm not so sure about that," said George. "I've just been getting into
a row about you. I'm not at all sure that I'm not a bad influence, and
that any proposal of mine would not be vetoed."

"You can do it all right," said the girl decisively, "if you go the
right way about it. Say that it's historical. I mean that your silly old
House of Commons is historical. It would have a great educational value
for me. You could show me where Chatham stood when he made his last
grand speech, and fell down in the middle of it."

"That happened to be in another place, to wit, the House of Lords."

"It's all the same. And rub it in a bit about Burke--she's keen on
Burke. Keep up a good strong educational line, and Aunt Jane will be
glad to let me go."

"Very well. I'll do what I can. Next Tuesday at four o'clock. Tell me
what time your train gets to Euston, and I'll meet it."

Ruth looked away from him, and appeared to be addressing one of the
pillars of the veranda. "I don't think you need meet it. In fact, I'd
rather you didn't. I know my way about London very well. You just wait
at the House of Commons. And if I'm not there by a quarter past four,
don't worry. It will only mean that I've changed my mind and gone
somewhere else."

George whistled. "Well I never," he said. "And what might you be up to?"

"I'd much rather you didn't ask about it."

"Well, at any rate, who is he?"

George did not in the least suppose that there was any "he" in the case,
and was rather surprised that Ruth blushed.

"There," said Ruth, "I told you not to ask. Now I suppose you won't do
it."

"Reverting to the original question, who is he?"

"Well, you've always said that all men are equal, haven't you?"

"In one sense, yes. All men are not equally desirable as companions for
my niece."

"He is the man who came to tune the piano last week. You always said
class distinctions were all rot. We are going to see some pictures
together, and then he's going to give me tea--at least, he was. But now
I suppose you won't let us, though he's quite nice really. But at any
rate you'll have to promise not to sneak about it to Aunt Jane."

"Promise for promise. Will you promise not to marry a piano-tuner?"

Ruth burst out laughing. "Rather," she said. "Absolutely."




CHAPTER II


Like most lazy and good-tempered men, George could show a good deal of
energy and decision, when the occasion arose. He began work that night,
after Ruth had gone up to bed.

"You're not such a careful housekeeper as you used to be, Jane."

This was quite untrue, and he knew it to be untrue. He also knew that it
would make Jane angry.

"Perhaps," she said, "you will tell me, George, what prompts you to make
such a perfectly senseless remark. One of the glasses on the
dinner-table to-night was not properly polished. I have already spoken
about it. But I'm quite positive you never noticed it."

"No," said George. "I noticed that your piano was out of tune. Why don't
you have it done regularly?"

"Everything in this house is done regularly. The piano is tuned once
every three months. In this case you're more particularly in the wrong,
because it had an extra tuning last week. Ruth thought it wanted it, and
wrote to Brinswoods to send a man."

"That man ought to get the sack," said George with confidence. "What was
his name?"

"My dear George, how on earth should I know? Piano-tuners don't have
names. They have sherry and a biscuit. They are just the piano-tuner. It
was Ruth who showed him what was required--I never even saw him. And she
was quite satisfied with what he had done. I think you must own that
Ruth is a better judge in musical questions than yourself."

"Very likely," said George, and changed the subject. The newspaper
provided him with a topic. A young lady had just eloped with her
father's chauffeur. A young lady, moreover, who had been most strictly
brought up. He remembered other instances. Miss Caterham seemed uneasy.

"But Ruth is not in the least like that," she said.

"Of course not. Who's thinking about Ruth? Besides, she's not brought up
in that silly way. She sees plenty of society, plenty of young men of
her own class, and is not likely to make a mistake."

"Ruth has been brought up with the greatest care, and I hope with
wisdom. Where you go so wrong about Ruth, George, is in regarding her as
a mere child. She is eighteen. You are inclined to forget that."

George took the rebuke meekly. Miss Caterham continued: "I have always
been intending to make some slight changes in view of her age. She has
already been to two dances."

"You don't want to overdo it," said the subtile George. "You needn't be
in the least nervous about Ruth."

Before returning to London next day, George had a few moments of serious
conversation with Ruth. At least, George was perfectly serious. Ruth
rather presented the appearance of an amused person with a secret. Her
Uncle George gave her six invitations, and she accepted all of them.

"But will Aunt Jane stand it?" she asked.

"I think," said George, "that your aunt will make no difficulties."

Ruth went to tea on the Terrace. Ruth went to theatres and concerts. On
three occasions she met Mr Bruce Sothering.

And when, a few days later, she announced her engagement to Mr Bruce
Sothering, she met with the heartiest congratulations from her uncle,
and with no serious opposition from her aunt. And in the ordinary course
of events, Mr Bruce Sothering came to see Miss Caterham.


Miss Caterham would have been interested if she could have heard what
they said about it in the kitchen.

"I'm making no mistake at all," said the parlour-maid. "I don't care how
rich he is or how well connected. That Mr Bruce Sothering is the young
man who came to tune the piano last time. It's not a question of a
likeness."

"But why?" said the cook.

"Hintrigue," said the butler darkly.




THE PEARLS AND THE SWINE


CHAPTER I


Miss Markham in certain respects was a fortunate lady. She had a flat in
town and had recently acquired a little bungalow for week-end purposes
on a cliff that overlooked the sea. There are one or two other little
bungalows in the vicinity, and the people who own them do not give away
the name of the place; they fear the penalties of popularity.

Miss Markham had sufficient means and no worries; she was good-looking
enough for all practical purposes. She was forty-five years of age, had
never been engaged, had never even come within a mile of being engaged.

In her London flat Miss Markham was quite conventional, and kept the
usual servants; in the sacred privacy of her bungalow by the sea, she
kept no regular servants at all. An old woman who lived in the village
was paid to keep an eye on the place while Miss Markham was away, though
no one could have said precisely what good it had done the place to have
an eye kept there. The same old woman, when Miss Markham grew tired of
town and came down for the week-end, spent the day at the bungalow,
and--to use her own expression, which is not to be taken literally--"did
for her".

July in London was very hot that year. Miss Byles said that she would
only be too delighted to go down to the bungalow, at the place which may
not be mentioned, in company with Miss Markham. At the last moment Miss
Byles was compelled, by health, to break her engagement. She did
everything at the wrong time; she got hay fever at the wrong time;
therefore Miss Markham went down alone, and the old woman made some
perfunctory preparations for her, cooked an alleged dinner for her, and
made no secret of the fact that she regarded it as a grievance that she
should have to do anything whatever in return for the money which she
received.

Having done as little as possible, she returned, so to speak, to her
nest, and Miss Markham was left absolutely alone in the bungalow.

At ten o'clock that night Miss Markham, who was almost excessively
refined, had just put down her copy of Walter Pater's "Imaginary
Portraits", and was thinking of crossing the passage to go to bed. At
that moment, her attention was attracted by a gentle tap on her front
door: it was not the urgent, sharp, business tap of the Post Office; it
was the rippling, social tap. Miss Markham was not nervous; she looked
out of the window before deciding to open the door. Even with the moon
to help her she could see nothing very distinctly, but it was obviously
a man who was standing there, and he appeared to be a well-dressed man.
She at once decided that he was a guest on his way to one of the other
bungalows, and that he had called on her by mistake. Having come to this
totally erroneous conclusion, she opened the door.

The visitor stood in the light now, and there was nothing about him to
cause her perturbation. He was a tall man, about thirty years of age,
with a short yellow beard and trustful, melancholy blue eyes. He wore a
grey lounge suit and patent leather shoes, and he carried in his hand a
very small brown bag.

"Miss Markham?" he said, raising his hat.

"I am Miss Markham."

"I really must apologise for disturbing you at this time of night. The
fact of the case is that you live in a lonely spot; I wish to inquire if
you are insured against burglary."

Miss Markham was rather amused by the impertinence of him. It was all
very well for an insurance-office tout to call upon her to get her to
take out a policy, but it did seem a little bit too much that he should
call at so late an hour. If Miss Markham had not liked the man's
appearance, she would have been even more severe than she was.

"I am afraid," she said, "that you have troubled yourself, and
incidentally have troubled me, to no purpose. I am already insured
against burglary, fire, employers' liabilities, and all the rest of it,
and I am not proposing to take out any further policy."

"I am so glad," said the stranger, and in a flash stepped into the hall,
and shut the door behind him.

"What are you doing?" said Miss Markham. "You must not come in here like
that. Go away at once!"

"I know, my dear lady, it is quite unconventional and wrong, and I can
only assure you if you had not been insured against burglary I should
never have come in. You may believe me that in the exercise of my
profession, I have always done my best to consult the feelings of
others."

"Your profession! What profession?"

"We won't give it a name. 'What's in a name?' Some of my confrères are
rough and violent; I am nothing of the kind. Naturally if you began to
make a noise, I should have to take some steps to prevent it. The police
in this neighbourhood are few in number and quite inefficient, and I
think there is no other bungalow within a quarter of a mile."

Miss Markham was now alive to the state of the case.

"I think," she said, "that a police-whistle can be heard at that
distance."

She raised her police-whistle just as he raised his revolver; the two
hands went up together.

"Really, Miss Markham, you ought not to force me into such a totally
false position. My feelings towards you are those of a chivalrous
gentleman; it absolutely repels me to do anything whatever which would
appear in the nature of a threat. You have put the police-whistle down?
That's right. Now then we can talk about this necklace. It would be
pleasanter if we sat down; we will go into the dining-room, shall we? I
say the dining-room rather than the drawing-room, because I think you
might possibly like to ask me to take a whisky-and-soda, and the
decanters are there."

Miss Markham followed him into the dining-room; she did not ask him to
take a whisky-and-soda. Notwithstanding this, he took it.

"Tell me one thing," she said, "how did you know about this necklace?"

"That is just it; servants will talk. They are an eternal nuisance,
aren't they? If their employer has anything which is believed to be
valuable, they like to brag about it a little. You know, one can
understand it; they enjoy reflected glory. It is exactly twelve months
ago since I learned in casual conversation with a lady of inferior
station to myself--your housemaid, I believe--that you not only
possessed a pearl necklace valued at £500, but that you always wore it."

"The jeweller told me that pearls should always be worn; they keep their
colour better that way."

"Yes," said the stranger, "they do give that advice; very useful advice
it is too."

"If there is nothing else that you want to take," said Miss Markham,
"perhaps you would not mind going."

"Certainly, my dear lady. I understand your point of view exactly. Here
we have an abominable intrusion at a late hour; my sex makes the
intrusion all the worse. When you are about to summon assistance, I
raise my revolver, and if you had not put the police-whistle down, I
should have been reluctantly compelled to shoot you dead. I then take
away from you, as I shall do presently, a pearl necklace, which you
value at £500, though I shall be quite satisfied if I get £120 for it
myself. Well, when you come to think of it, you must admit that you have
suffered nothing but a little inconvenience. The insurance company will
give you £500 to buy another necklace, and the one which I am about to
take away with me has no sentimental associations for you."

"How do you know that?"

"You bought the silly thing yourself; correct me if I am wrong."

She did not correct him. She said, "I don't see how you know."

"Ah!" said the burglar, "there we come to another point--my point of
view; we have had yours, but you have not had mine. I wonder if it would
interest you to hear it? It might possibly, simply on the score of
novelty. One hears a very great deal about the feelings of the
householder towards the burglar, but precious little of the feelings of
the burglar towards the householder; and I am not even a common burglar,
as I hope you have recognised. It might interest you to talk the thing
over for a few minutes, and it would be a great privilege and pleasure
to myself. It might not, and in that case I will leave you at once."

Miss Markham hesitated. Then she took a chair by the table and sat down.

"Well," she said, "I will hear what you have to say."

"I have never seen you before to-night. I opened the door and you stood
in the light. In the background were the white walls of the bungalow and
on them good mezzotints after the eighteenth-century masters, and on a
small rosewood table was your bedroom candlestick--Sheffield, and I
should say a very good piece; good Sheffield, as you know, fetches more
than silver nowadays. But it was upon you principally that my attention
was centred. The rest all came in a flash; your grey quaker dress, the
green serge curtains, the copper knocker, everything told the same story
of simplicity and taste. But in your face I read very much more, so much
that was not simple, so much that still perplexes me."

Miss Markham was slightly embarrassed. It was not usual for her to hear
herself discussed. One part of her said this was monumental
impertinence, and she must check it. The other part said that she rather
liked it. It was the other part of her that won. If he had not been an
unusually handsome man, with melancholy blue eyes and a beautiful
respectful manner, perhaps the other part would have won.

She laughed. "I do not see what there is to puzzle you."

"I saw the face of a saint. You have lived absolutely apart from the
world; in a walled-in garden as it were. Now I personally have all the
vices." He took from his pocket a gold cigarette case with another man's
monogram on it, took out a cigarette and lit it. "As I was saying, I
have all the vices, but that does not mean that I am without a very keen
appreciation of the other thing; perhaps the keener, because I have not
got it. I have seen faces like yours before, but they have always
belonged to someone who wore the garb of a nun. The nuns shut out the
world from them; you, on the contrary, have lived in the world, and have
still kept apart from it. I cannot make out how you have done it. I
cannot make out how you have been allowed to do it. Tell me, has no man
ever kissed you?"

"Never," she said fervently.

"I believe you," said the burglar. "I think I have never met another
woman in whom I would have believed a similar declaration. You will
observe that I did not offer you a cigarette, because I knew for a fact
that you have never smoked."

"Never," she said.

"I knew it; just as I knew that you had bought this pearl necklace
yourself; just as I knew that you had never been kissed; just as I knew
that you were good enough to compel even the abject reverence of as bad
a man as myself."

Her hand, toying nervously with things on the table, happened to strike
the decanter. "But won't you have some more of this?" she said.

He glanced at a gold watch, on the back of which another man's armorial
bearings were engraved. "I have only two minutes," he said, "but I must
drink your health at parting. Do you know that it is absolutely right
for you to wear pearls? Coloured stones would be quite wrong; diamonds
are too hard; pearls give just the right note of purity and softness. I
suppose you have realised that with the exception of one ring, you wear
no other gems. I noticed that ring as I came in. Those large table-cut
emeralds, when they are of that fine quality, fetch a good deal of
money. I should sell it if I were you. It is not in keeping. Perhaps it
seems to you a trifle not worth mentioning, but you remember what Walter
Pater says about some trifling and pretty graces being insignia of the
nobler world of aspiration and idea."

Miss Markham clasped her hands. "How strange," she said. "I was reading
that just as you came in. How strange that you should have known it!"

"My dear lady, you must not imagine that I am a romantic man, for I am
not, nor am I a good man. I am not highly connected, and I have not got
a better self; the only self I have got is the one before you. But I do
claim to be able to appreciate. I have appreciated this evening
immensely. Walter Pater is not the last word just now, but I have always
appreciated beautiful prose. Far more than beautiful prose I appreciate
the pure poetry of your own temperament." He raised his glass. "To your
good health, Miss Markham, and good night."

As he neared the door, she called him back. "You have forgotten the
pearls," she said.

"No, but I wanted you to remind me."

She unclasped them, and handed them to him. He held them in his hand for
a moment. "They are warm," he said, "from your soft, round neck." He
raised them to his lips for a moment and then dropped them into a
prosaic inside pocket of his coat.

"Yes," he said, "from time immemorial women have been fond of casting
their pearls before swine, haven't they? But you have kept the real
pearls." He bowed low to her, and in a moment was gone.


In a letter which Miss Markham wrote to Miss Ryles appeared the
following passage:

"It was such a pity, dear, that you could not come down to the bungalow
the other week-end, it was so quiet and peaceful; incidentally, by mere
chance, I met quite the most charming man I have ever seen in my life.
No more news, except that I got tired of my old pearl necklace and am
getting another.

"Oh, and I was quite forgetting; you said that if ever I wanted to part
with my emerald ring, I was to give you the first refusal of it. My
dear, you can have it. I have decided that pearls are the only things I
can wear."

Naturally Miss Markham had to give notice to the police of the fact that
she had lost her pearl necklace.

She had heard something moving in her bedroom, and on entering it a man
had jumped out through the window. All she could say for certain was
that he was clean-shaven, and had close-cropped black hair.



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