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<pre>
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Drolls From Shadowland, by J. H. Pearce
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Drolls From Shadowland
Author: J. H. Pearce
Release Date: May 2, 2008 [EBook #25307]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DROLLS FROM SHADOWLAND ***
Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Emmy and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
</pre>
<div class='center'>
<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Front page">
<tr><td align='center'><img src="images/frontis.jpg" width="351" height="600" alt="The Man who could talk with the Birds" title="The Man who could talk with the Birds" />
</td><td align='center'><h1>DROLLS<br />
FROM SHADOWLAND</h1>
<h3>BY</h3>
<h2>J. H. PEARCE</h2>
<i>Author of "Esther Pentreath," "Inconsequent Lives,"<br />
"Jaco Treloar," &c.</i><br />
<br /><br /><br /><br />
NEW YORK<br />
MACMILLAN AND CO.<br />
1893.<br />
<i><small>All rights reserved.</small></i><br />
</td></tr>
</table></div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
<div class='center'>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents">
<tr><td align='left'> </td><td align='center'><small>PAGE</small></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Man who Coined his Blood into Gold</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">An Unexpected Journey</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Man who could Talk with the Birds</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Pursuit</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Pleasant Entertainment</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_49">49</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Man who Desired to be a Tree</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_61">61</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Man who Had Seen</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_73">73</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Unchristened Child</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Man who Met Hate</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_95">95</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Haunted House</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Gifts and Awards</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Friend or Foe?</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_133">133</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Fields of Amaranth</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_145">145</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Comedy of a Soul</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_155">155</a></td></tr>
</table></div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>
</p>
<h2>THE MAN WHO COINED HIS<br />
BLOOD INTO GOLD.</h2>
<div class='unindent'><span class="smcap">The</span> yoke of Poverty galled him exceedingly,
and he hated his taskmistress with a
most rancorous hatred.</div>
<p>As he climbed up or down the dripping
ladders, descending from sollar to sollar
towards the level where he worked, he
would set his teeth grimly that he might
not curse aloud—an oath underground
being an invitation to the Evil One—but
in his heart the muffled curses were
audible enough. And when he was at
work in the dreary level, with the darkness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>
lying on his shoulder like a hand, and the
candles shining unsteadily through the
gloom, like little evil winking eyes, he
brooded so moodily over his bondage to
Poverty, that he desired to break from it
at any cost.</p>
<p>"I'd risk a lem for its weight in gowld:
darned ef I wedn'!" he muttered savagely,
as he dug at the stubborn rock with his
pick.</p>
<p>He could hear the sounds of blasting in
other levels—the explosions travelling to
him in a muffled boom—and above him,
for he was working beneath the bed of
the ocean, he could faintly distinguish the
grinding of the sea as the huge waves
wallowed and roared across the beach.</p>
<p>"I'm sick to death o' this here life," he
grumbled; "I'd give a haand or a' eye
for a pot o' suvrins. Iss, I'd risk more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>
than that," he added darkly: letting the
words ooze out as if under his breath.</p>
<p>At that moment his pick detached a
piece of rock which came crashing down
on the floor of the level, splintering
into great jagged fragments as it fell.</p>
<p>He started back with an exclamation of
uncontrollable surprise. The falling rock
had disclosed the interior of a cavern
whose outlines were lost in impenetrable
gloom, but which here and there in a
vague fashion, as it caught the light of the
candle flickering in his hat, seemed to
sparkle as if its walls were crusted with
silver.</p>
<p>"Lor' Jimmeny, this es bra' an' queer!"
he gasped.</p>
<p>As he leaned on his pick, peering into
the cavern with covetous eyes, but with a
wildly-leaping heart, he was aware of an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
odd movement among the shadows which
were elusively outlined by the light of his
dip.</p>
<p>It was almost as though some of them
had an independent individuality, and
could have detached themselves from
their roots if they wished.</p>
<p>It was certain a squat, hump-backed
blotch, that was sprawling blackly beside a
misshapen block, was either wriggling on
the floor as if trying to stand upright . . . or
else there was something wrong with
his eyes.</p>
<p>He stared at the wavering gloom in the
cavern, with its quaint, angular splashes of
glister, where heads of quartz and patches
of mundic caught the light from the
unsteady flame of the candle, and
presently he was <i>certain</i> that the shadows
were alive.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p>
<p>Most of all he was sure that the little
hump-backed oddity had risen to its feet
and was a veritable creature: an actual
uncouth, shambling grotesque, instead of
a mere flat blotch of shadow.</p>
<p>Up waddled the little hump-back to the
hole in the wall where Joel stood staring,
leaning on his pick.</p>
<p>"What can I do for'ee, friend?" he
asked huskily: his voice sounding faint,
hoarse, and muffled, as if it were coming
from an immense distance, or as if the
squat little frame had merely borrowed it
for the nonce.</p>
<p>Joel stared at the speaker, with his
lower jaw dropping.</p>
<p>"What can I do for'ee, friend?" asked
the hump-back; peering at the grimy,
half-naked miner, with his little ferrety
eyes glowing luminously.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span></p>
<p>Joel moistened his lips with his tongue
before he answered. "Nawthin', plaise,
sir," he gasped out, quakingly.</p>
<p>"Nonsense, my man!" said the hump-back
pleasantly, rubbing his hands cheerfully
together as he spoke. And Joel
noticed that the fingers, though long and
skinny—almost wrinkled and lean enough,
in fact, to pass for claws—were adorned
with several sparkling rings. "Nonsense,
my man! I'm your friend—if you'll let me
be. O never mind my hump, if it's that
that's frightening you, I got that through
a fall a long while ago," and the lean brown
face puckered into a smile. "Come! In
what way can I oblige'ee, friend? I can
grant you any wish you like. Say the
word—and it's done! Just think what you
could do if you had heaps of money, now—piles
of suvrins in that owld chest in your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>
bedroom, instead o' they paltry two-an'-twenty
suvrins which you now got heeded
away in the skibbet."</p>
<p>Joel stared at the speaker with distended
eyes: the great beads of perspiration
gathering on his forehead.</p>
<p>"How ded'ee come to knaw they was
there?" he asked.</p>
<p>"I knaw more than that," said the
hump-back, laughing. "I could tell'ee a
thing or two, b'leeve, if I wanted to. I
knaw tin,<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> cumraade, as well as the next."
And with that he began to chuckle to
himself.</p>
<p>"Wedn'ee like they two-an'-twenty
suvrins in the skibbet made a hunderd-an'-twenty?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
asked the hump-back insinuatingly.</p>
<p>"Iss, by Gosh, I should!" said Joel.</p>
<p>"Then gi'me your haand on it, cumraade;
an' you shall have 'em!"</p>
<p>"Here goes, then!" said Joel, thrusting
out his hand.</p>
<p>The hump-back seized the proffered
hand in an instant, covering the grimy
fingers with his own lean claws.</p>
<p>"Oh, le'go! <i>le'go!</i>" shouted Joel.</p>
<p>The hump-back grinned; his black eyes
glittering.</p>
<p>"I waan't be niggardly to'ee, cumraade,"
said he. "Every drop o' blood you
choose to shed for the purpose shall turn
into a golden suvrin for'ee—there!"</p>
<p>"Darn'ee! thee ben an' run thy nails
in me—see!"</p>
<p>And Joel shewed a drop of blood
oozing from his wrist.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p>
<p>"Try the charm, man! Wish! Hold
un out, an' say, <i>Wan!</i>"</p>
<p>Joel held out his punctured wrist
mechanically.</p>
<p>"Wan!"</p>
<p>There was a sudden gleam—and down
dropped a sovereign: a bright gold coin
that rang sharply as it fell.</p>
<p>"Try agen!" said the hump-back,
grinning delightedly.</p>
<p>Joel stooped first to pick up the coin,
and bit it eagerly.</p>
<p>"Ay, good Gosh! 'tes gowld, sure
'nuff!"</p>
<p>"Try agen!" said the hump-back
"Make up a pile!"</p>
<p>Joel held out his wrist and repeated the
formula.</p>
<p>"Wan!"</p>
<p>And another coin clinked at his feet.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span></p>
<p>"I needn' wait no longer, s'pose?" said
the hump-back.</p>
<p>"Wan!" cried Joel. And a third coin
dropped.</p>
<p>He leaned on his pick and kept coining
his blood eagerly, till presently there
was quite a little pile at his feet.</p>
<p>The hump-back watched him intently
for a time: but Joel appeared to be
oblivious of his presence; and the squat
little figure stealthily disappeared.</p>
<p>The falling coins kept chiming melodiously,
till presently the great stalwart
miner had to lean against the wall of the
level to support himself. So tired as he
was, he had never felt before. But give
over his task he either could not, or would
not. The chink of the gold-pieces he must
hear if he died for it. He looked down at
them greedily. "Wan! . . . Wan! . . .
Wan! . . ."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span></p>
<p>Presently he tottered, and fell over on
his heap.</p>
<p>At that same moment the halting little
hump-back stole out from the shadows
immediately behind him, and leaned over
Joel, rubbing his hands gleefully.</p>
<p>"I must catch his soul," said the little
black man.</p>
<p>And with that he turned Joel's head
round sharply, and held his hand to the
dying man's mouth.</p>
<p>Just then there fluttered up to Joel's
lips a tiny yellow flame, which, for some
reason or other, seemed as agitated as if
it had a human consciousness. One might
almost have imagined it perceived the
little hump-back, and knew full well who
and what he was.</p>
<p>But there on Joel's lips the flame hung
quivering. And now a deeper shadow fell
upon his face.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span></p>
<p>Surely the tiny thing shuddered with
horror as the hump-back's black paws
closed upon it!</p>
<p>But, in any case, it now was safely
prisoned. And the little black man
laughed long and loudly.</p>
<p>"Not so bad a bargain after all!"
chuckled he.</p>
<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> To "<i>knaw tin</i>" is among the miners of Cornwall
a sign of, and a colloquial euphemism for, <i>cleverness</i>.</p></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p>
<h2>AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY.</h2>
<div class='unindent'><span class="smcap">The</span> performance was over: the curtain
had descended and the spectators had
dispersed.</div>
<p>There had been a slight crush at the
doors of the theatre, and what with the
abrupt change from the pleasant warmth
and light of the interior to the sharp chill
of the night outside, Preston shivered,
and a sudden weakness smote him at the
joints.</p>
<p>The crowd on the pavement in front of
the theatre melted away with unexampled
rapidity, in fact, seemed almost to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>
waver and disappear as if the <i>mise en scène</i>
had changed in some inexplicable way.</p>
<p>A hansom drove up, and Preston
stepped into it heavily, glancing
drowsily askance at the driver as he did
so.</p>
<p>Seated up there, barely visible in the
gloom, the driver had an almost grisly
aspect, humped with waterproof capes,
and with such a lean, white face. Preston,
as he glanced at him, shivered again.</p>
<p>The trap-door above him opened softly,
and the colourless face peered down at
him curiously.</p>
<p>"Where to, sir?" asked the hollow
voice.</p>
<p>Preston leaned back wearily. "Home,"
he replied.</p>
<p>It did not strike him as anything
strange or unusual, that the driver asked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
no questions but drove off without a word.
He was very weary, and he wanted to
rest.</p>
<p>The sleepless hum of the city was abidingly
in his ears, and the lamps that dotted
the misty pavements stared at him blinkingly
all along the route. The tall black
buildings rose up grimly into the night;
the faces that flitted to and fro along the
pavements, kept ever sliding past him,
melting into the darkness; and the cabs
and 'buses, still astir in the streets, had
a ghostly air as they vanished in the
gloom.</p>
<p>Preston lay back, weary in every joint,
a drowsy numbness settling on his pulse.
He had faith in his driver: he would
bring him safely home.</p>
<p>Presently they were at one of the
wharves beside the river: Preston could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
hear the gurgle of the water around the
piles.</p>
<p>Not this way had he ever before gone
homeward. He looked out musingly on
the swift, black stream.</p>
<p>"Just in time: we can go down with
the tide," said a voice.</p>
<p>Preston would have uttered some protest,
but this sluggishness overpowered
him: it was as if he could neither lift
hand nor foot. The inertia of indifference
had penetrated into his bones.</p>
<p>Presently he was aware that he had
entered a barge that lay close against the
wharf, heaving on the tide. And, as if it
were all a piece of the play, the lean old
driver, with his dead-white face, had the
oars in his hands and stood quietly facing
him, guiding the dark craft down the
stream.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span></p>
<p>The panorama of the river-bank kept
changing and shifting in the most inexplicable
manner, and Preston was aware of a
crowd of pictures ever coming and going
before his eyes: as if some subtle magician,
standing behind his shoulder, were projecting
for him, on the huge black screen of
night, the most marvellous display of
memories he had ever contemplated. For
they were all memories, or blends of
memories, that now rose here on the
horizon of his consciousness. There was
nothing new in essentials presented to him:
but the grouping was occasionally novel to
a fault.</p>
<p>The dear old home—the dear old folks!
Green hills, with the little white-washed
cottage in a dimple of them, and in the
foreground the wind-fretted plain of the
sea. The boyish games—marbles and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
hoop-trundling—and the coming home at
dusk to the red-lighted kitchen, where the
mother had the tea ready on the table and
the sisters sat at their knitting by the fire.</p>
<p>The dear, dear mother! how his pulse
yearned towards her! there were tears in
his eyes as he thought of her now. Yet,
all the same, the quiet of his pulse was
profound.</p>
<p>And there was the familiar scenery of
his daily life: the ink-stained desks, the
brass rails for the books, the ledgers and
bank-books, and the files against the walls;
and the faces of his fellow-clerks (even the
office boy) depicted here before him to
the very life.</p>
<p>The wind across the waters blew chilly
in his face: he shivered, a numbness
settling in his limbs.</p>
<p>His sweet young wife, so loving and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
gentle—how shamefully he had neglected
her, seeking his own pleasure selfishly—there
she sat in the familiar chair by the
fireside with dear little Daisy dancing on
her knee. What a quiet, restful interior it
was! He wondered: would they miss him
much if he were dead? . . . Above all,
would little Daisy understand what it
meant when some one whispered to her
"<i>favee is dead</i>"?</p>
<p>The wavering shadows seemed to
thicken around the boat. And the figure
at the oars—how lean and white it was:
and yet it seemed a good kind of fellow,
too, he thought. Preston watched it
musingly as the stream bore them onward:
the rushing of the water almost lulling him
to sleep.</p>
<p>Were they sweeping outward, then, to
the unknown sea?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p>
<p>It was an unexpected journey. . . .
And he had asked to be taken <i>home!</i></p>
<p>Presently the air grew full of shapes:
shadowy shapes with mournful faces;
shapes that hinted secrets, with threatenings
in their eyes.</p>
<p>If a man's sins, now, should take to
themselves bodies, would it not be in some
such guise as this they would front and
affright him at dead of night?</p>
<p>Preston shivered, sitting there like a
mere numb lump.</p>
<p>How much of his wrong-doing is forgiven
to a man—and how much remembered
against him in the reckoning?</p>
<p>How awful this gruesome isolation was
becoming!</p>
<p>Was it thus a man went drifting up to
God?</p>
<p>The figure at the oars was crooning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
softly. It was like the lullaby his mother
used to sing to him when he was a
child.</p>
<p>There was a breath of freer air—humanity
lay behind them—they were alone with
Nature on the vast, dim sea.</p>
<p>The numbness crept to the roots of his
being. He had no hands to lift; he had
no feet to move. His heart grew sluggish:
there was a numbness in his brain.</p>
<p>Death stood upright now in the bow
before him: and in the east he was aware
of a widening breadth of grey.</p>
<p>Would the blackness freshen into perfect
day for him . . . or would the night lie
hopelessly on him for ever? . . .</p>
<p>The figure drew near—and laid its hand
across his eyes. . . .</p>
<hr style='width: 45%;' />
<p>"Thrown out of the hansom, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
wheels went over him, sir. He was
dead in less than five minutes, I should
think."</p>
<p>"Cover his face . . . and break it
gently to his wife."</p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></p>
<h2>THE MAN WHO COULD TALK<br />
WITH THE BIRDS.</h2>
<h3>A TALE TOLD BY THE FIRESIDE.</h3>
<div class='unindent'><span class="smcap">Wance</span> upon a time there was a youngster
in Zennor who was all'ys geekin'<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> into
matters that warn't no use in the world.
Some do say 'a was cliver, too, weth it all,
an' cut out that there mermaid in the
church<a name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a> what the folks do come from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
miles round to see. Anyway, 'a warn't
like 'es brawthers an' sesters, an' 'es folks
dedn' knaw what to maake of un, like.</div>
<p>Well, wan day when 'a was wand'rin'
about, down to Nancledrea or some such
plaace, 'a got 'mong lots o' trees an' bushes
an' heerd the cuckoos callin' to ayche
awther, an' awther kinds o' birds what was
singin' or talkin,' an' all as knawin' as
humans, like. So no rest now cud 'a git,
poor chuckle-head! for wantin' to larn to
spayke weth they.</p>
<p>Well, it warn't long arter that 'a was
geekin' as usual round some owld ruined
crellas<a name="FNanchor_D_4" id="FNanchor_D_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_D_4" class="fnanchor">[D]</a> up to Choon, when 'a seed
a man weth a long white beard settin'
on wan o' the burrows<a name="FNanchor_E_5" id="FNanchor_E_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_E_5" class="fnanchor">[E]</a> on the hill<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>
that are 'longside that owld Quoit<a name="FNanchor_F_6" id="FNanchor_F_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_F_6" class="fnanchor">[F]</a> up
there.</p>
<p>'A was a bowldish piece o' goods, was
the youngster, simmin'ly, for 'a dedn' mind
the stranyer a dinyun,<a name="FNanchor_G_7" id="FNanchor_G_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_G_7" class="fnanchor">[G]</a> though 'a <i>was</i> like
an owld black witch,<a name="FNanchor_H_8" id="FNanchor_H_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_H_8" class="fnanchor">[H]</a> they do say. Anyhow,
the two beginned jawin' together,
soon got thick as Todgy an' Tom. An'
by-an'-by the stranyer wormed out of un
how 'a was all'ys troubled in 'es mind
'cause 'a cudn' onderstaand what the birds
was sayin'.</p>
<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>"I'd give anything in the world," says
the bucca-davy,<a name="FNanchor_I_9" id="FNanchor_I_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_I_9" class="fnanchor">[I]</a> "ef I cud onnly larn to
spayke weth they."</p>
<p>"Aw, es it so, me dear," said the
stranyer: "well, I'll tayche'ee to talk to
they, sure 'nuff, ef thee'll come up to that
owld Quoit weth me."</p>
<p>"What must I pay'ee?" axed the
youngster, bowld-like. For he'd heerd o'
cureyus bargains o' this kind, an' 'a dedn'
want to risk 'es sawl.</p>
<p>"Nawthin'! Nawthin', me dear!" said
the stranyer. "I shall git paid for't in a
way o' me awn."</p>
<p>Well, the end of it was, accordin' to
the story, that the youngster 'greed to go
'long weth un: so up the two of 'em went
to the Quoit.</p>
<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p>
<p>When they come up to un the stones
seemed to oppen, an' they went inside an'
found un like a house. But that was
hunderds o' years ago. The owld Quoit
now es more like a crellas, though 'a still
got a bra' gayte rock for a roof.</p>
<p>Anyhow, they went in, 'cordin' to the
story; an' there they lived for a number o'
years.</p>
<p>But, somehow, when they was wance got
in, the youngster cudn' git out agen
nohow. 'A cud geek through the cracks,
an' see the country an' the people, but the
stones wedn' oppen, an' 'a cudn' git out.</p>
<p>But the owld black witch keeped 'es
promise to un, an' tayched un all that 'a
wanted to knaw.</p>
<p>The craws that croaked on the Quoit in
the sunshine, an' the sparrers an' wagtails
an' awther kinds o' birds that come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
flittin' round an' cheepin' to ayche awther,
the owld witch tayched un ('cordin' to the
story) to onderstaand everything any of
'em said.</p>
<p>Well, at laast 'a got so cliver, ded the
youngster, that there warn't no bird but
what 'a cud talk to; from the owld black
raven, wha's all'ys cryin' "<i>corpse!</i>" to the
putty li'l robins what wedn' hurt a worm.</p>
<p>But aw! lor' Jimmeny! warn't 'a
disappointed when 'a found what 'a'd ben
so hankerin' arter warn't wuth givin' a
snail's shill to knaw.</p>
<p>He'd ben thinkin', 'fore 'a cud onderstaand
them, that what they'd be talkin'
about to ayche awther wed be somethin'
cureyus an' mighty cliver, all sorts o'
strange owld saycrets, s'pose. But 'a
found, when 'a come to spayke their
language, that instead o' tellin' 'bout<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
haypes o' treasures, an' hunted housen,
an' owld queer ways, they was all the time
talkin' 'bout their mait or their nestes, an'
awther silly jabber like that.</p>
<p>So 'a was mighty disappointed, an' got
very law-sperrited, though 'a dedn' like to
confess it to the witch.</p>
<p>An' now, thinks the youngster, he'd
like to go home agen: an' shaw off 'fore
the nayburs, s'pose.</p>
<p>"Well, thee cust go," says the owld
witch, grinnin'.</p>
<p>"An' what must I pay'ee for taychin'
me?" says the youngster.</p>
<p>"Nawthin', sonny! Nawthin' at all!"
says the witch. "I shall git me reward in
a way o' me awn."</p>
<p>An' weth that 'a bust out laughin'
agen.</p>
<p>Well, anyway, the lad, accordin' to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
story, wished un "<i>good-bye</i>," an' trudged off
home.</p>
<p>But aw! poor dear! when 'a got to
Zennor 'a nigh 'pon brok 'es heart weth
grief.</p>
<p>He'd ben livin' all alone weth the owld
black witch, an' 'a hadn' took no note of
what was passin', an' 'a thought 'a was
still a youngster, simmin'ly: 'stead o'
which 'a was graw'd to an owld, owld man,
weth no more pith in 'es bones than a
piskey; an' 'a cud hardly manage to
crawl to Zennor, 'a was so owld an'
palchy<a name="FNanchor_J_10" id="FNanchor_J_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_J_10" class="fnanchor">[J]</a>, an' nigh 'pon blind.</p>
<p>An', wust of all, when 'a got to Zennor
everywan who knaw'd un was dead an'
gone! 'Es faather an' mawther was up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
in the churchyard, an' 'a hadn' got a
single friend in the world!</p>
<p>So because 'a was so owld an' terrible
palchy, an' hadn' got nowan to taake no
int'rest in un, through never havin' took
no int'rest in nowan, they was obliged to
put un up to Maddern Union; an' there
'a lingered, owld an' toatlish,<a name="FNanchor_K_11" id="FNanchor_K_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_K_11" class="fnanchor">[K]</a> 'tell 'a died
at laast a lone owld man.</p>
<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> Prying.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> The mermaid, with glass and comb and with
the tail of a fish, which is carved on a bench-end
in Zennor church.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_D_4" id="Footnote_D_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_D_4"><span class="label">[D]</span></a> Ancient hut-dwellings.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_E_5" id="Footnote_E_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_E_5"><span class="label">[E]</span></a> Barrows.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_F_6" id="Footnote_F_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_F_6"><span class="label">[F]</span></a> Cromlech. The term is derived from the
legendary belief that these rude megalithic monuments
were used by the giants when playing
quoits.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_G_7" id="Footnote_G_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_G_7"><span class="label">[G]</span></a> A little bit, in the least.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_H_8" id="Footnote_H_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_H_8"><span class="label">[H]</span></a> In Cornwall <i>witch</i> is both masculine and
feminine. The <i>black</i> witch exercises the most
potent magic; the <i>white</i> witch being vastly
inferior in power.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_I_9" id="Footnote_I_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_I_9"><span class="label">[I]</span></a> Fool.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_J_10" id="Footnote_J_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_J_10"><span class="label">[J]</span></a> Weak.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_K_11" id="Footnote_K_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_K_11"><span class="label">[K]</span></a> Silly.</p></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span><br />
<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p>
<h2>THE PURSUIT.</h2>
<div class='unindent'><span class="smcap">It</span> began when I was a lad at the country
day-school, struggling to hold my own
among the scholars in my class.</div>
<p>If I could only always be perfect in my
lessons, and among the foremost (if not
the first) in the examinations; then, at
least, I thought, I should see Her face to
face.</p>
<p>But these good things befell me—possibly
undeservedly—and though I swelled
beneath my coat with inward satisfaction,
<i>She</i> was still far off: a phantom on the
hills.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p>
<p>Then it struck me that if I went to dear
Mother Nature she would tell me of this
daughter of hers—so enchanting, yet so
shy—and I might even one day surprise
Her on the hill-slopes, or meet Her as She
wandered among the green, winding lanes.</p>
<p>So I presently became a haunter of the
tree-clad valleys, of the prattling brooks
with the meadowsweet drooping over
them, and of the lone, bleak hills where
the great wind growled.</p>
<p>Many mornings did I steal out long before
the sunrise in order to watch the stars die
out in the dawning and the red bars glow in
the palpitating east. And when, standing
among the firs in the windy plantation, I
saw the huge sun rear its head and flood
the world with splendour, and heard the
birds sing jubilantly, almost breathless with
delight, I have fancied I felt the breath of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>
the Beloved One on my cheek and Her
heart beating wildly and tremulously
against my own. But it was only fancy.
Presently the singing dwindled and became
fainter: the air grew hot beneath the
aromatic fir-boughs: and when, in the
distance, the flood of dazzling sunlight
dashed redly on the window-panes of the
village cottages, I knew I must descend
from the haunted hill-top and return to the
more prosaic details of life. If She had
flown past me, brushing me with Her
garments in passing, I had not yet discovered
Her as a possession that I could
grasp.</p>
<p>Then I said to myself, I shall find Her
among my girl-friends: among their
rustling garments I shall hear <i>Her</i> garments
rustle; and from among the
laughing eyes with which they bewilder<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
me, I shall no doubt be able to single
out <i>Hers</i>.</p>
<p>I chose the pleasantest of the maidens
who fluttered through my world; and I
knew her beautiful, and I believed her to
be true. But that old clown Circumstance
was piping in the market-place, shewing
his cheap-jack wares to catch the fancies
of the maidens, and my sweetheart, caught
in the excitement of the moment,
presently paid down for one of his flashy
baubles no less a price than her own
young heart.</p>
<p>Then I said, I will look abroad in the
market-place myself. Through the clatter
of feet and the babble of many voices, I
may perhaps catch a whisper, a hint of Her
presence. Possibly She may love the
eager haunts of men even more than She
loves the silent haunt of the wood-dove<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>
and the great wide moors where the kite
circles slowly. I will move among my
fellows and will search for Her there.</p>
<p>But the market-place with its thud, thud,
thud of many feet, and its clatter of
vehicles, and its buzz of many voices,
was a busy spot, and the pleasures
were very cheap ones: and not here
could I manage to get a glimpse of Her
face.</p>
<p>I looked in the shops, and I stood
beside the hawkers, and I listened to the
sellers and gossiped with those who bought;
but the noise, and the heat, and the dust
that rose so thickly, were more than I had
bargained for, and I felt lonely and disillusioned:
so I very lamely turned my
back on it all, and went away feeling that
I should never find Her there.</p>
<p>Then I built for myself a study into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>
which I gathered covetously the most
perfect vintage of the human intellect—the
ripest fruit our wise race has garnered
during all the years it has been harvesting
from time. And here I sat me down
waiting for my Belovèd. She will
surely show Her face to me here,
said I.</p>
<p>The wind rattled the casement; the
lamp-flame shook tremulously; and the
fire burned cheerfully in the grotesque-tiled
grate. I could hear the rain viciously
swishing against the window-panes and
gurgling unmelodiously through the gutters
and from the pipes, but She whom I
desired came not to keep me company.</p>
<p>For all the feast I have gathered for us,
and for all the comfort I have secured for
<ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'her'">Her</ins>, She holds aloof, and I have never seen
Her yet.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p>
<p>And sometimes now I fancy that possibly
I may never see Her: but that one day,
when I am lying in my coffin, She will
press Her lips to mine—and I shall never
know.</p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span></p>
<h2>A PLEASANT ENTERTAINMENT.</h2>
<div class='unindent'>"<span class="smcap">I have</span> here," said the Showman, "the
most interesting entertainment to be
witnessed on earth! Walk up! walk up,
and judge for yourselves!" And with
that he beat the drum and blew shrilly on
the pipes.</div>
<p>The music travelled to the ears of his
audience with a difference: or so it seemed
to them, as they stood before the booth.
Some heard in it, through the discordant
hubbub of the fair, the rattle of vehicles
and the tramp of feet in the busy thoroughfares
of a great city; for others, it was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>
whistling of birds in the hedgerows; and
to some, like the restless pulsations
of the sea. To each, according to his
memories and his mood. But the music
of the Showman was a single tune for all.</p>
<p>"Walk up! walk up!" bawled the grey-coated
Showman, blowing at the pipes and
pounding on the drum.</p>
<p>"Darned if I wouldn't go in, if I had
the brass!" quoth a lean, unshaven,
shabby-looking man, who stood in front of
the booth with his hands in his pockets.</p>
<p>"I'll stand treat, if you like!" cried a
sunken-eyed young woman, whose cheap
and much-bedraggled finery matched aptly
enough with her wan and haggard countenance.
It was the impulse of a moment,
but she was the puppet of impulse and
danced on the wires at the slightest touch
of chance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p>
<p>"Right you are!" cried the man.</p>
<p>And they mounted the steps together.</p>
<p>"It's like going up to the altar, isn't
it?" giggled the woman to her companion.</p>
<p>"More like going up to the gallows,"
growled the man.</p>
<p>The Showman rattled the coins as he
pocketed them, and flinging aside the
canvas admitted them to the booth.</p>
<p>The interior was enveloped in a dim
obscurity; hardly deep enough to be
counted as darkness, but oppressive enough
to slow the pulses of both. There was,
however, at one end of the booth a large
disc projected on the obscurity: a pale,
empty, weirdly-lighted circle, which they
stared at dumbly, with wonder in their
eyes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></p>
<p>"Is this some darned fool's joke?"
growled the man.</p>
<p>"Hush!" said the woman, "the entertainment
has commenced."</p>
<p>And, true enough, the disc at which they
had been staring had already a stirring, as
of life, across its surface.</p>
<p>They were aware of a couple of enthralling
faces fronting them side by side on the
disc.</p>
<p>One was a woman's face, exquisitely
beautiful, with soft blue eyes, full of the
most charming gaiety, and with lips as
sweetly winsome as a child's: the other
was a man's face, proud and handsome,
the mouth set firmly, the eyes full of
thought.</p>
<p>"Such a face I had dreamed of as my
own," sighed the woman.</p>
<p>"So I had imagined I might have been,"
mused the man.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span></p>
<p>And then the scenes on the disc began
to wax and dwindle rapidly; like the
momentary clinging, and as rapid vanishing,
of breath across a mirror of polished
steel.</p>
<p>There was a vague fluttering and interchange
of images; an elusive, intangible
influx of suggestions, and an equally
dreamy efflux of the same.</p>
<p>A young girl growing into beautiful
womanhood, well-dressed, shapely, sought
eagerly in marriage, admired by the opposite
sex, and envied by her own. Then a woman
in the prime of her powers of enjoyment—with
her charms undiminished and her
wishes ripened—wedded, and successfully
shaping her life: a woman blessed
greatly, and very happy.</p>
<p>And side by side with these dream-fancies,
or imaginings, went those of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
young man facing the world gallantly;
surmounting every obstacle easily, and
conquering hearts as if by a spell. There
was success for him in every scene on
which he entered: he was proud and
admired, and very haughty, and very
rich.</p>
<p>Presently, as if through some dexterous
sleight of hand, the pictures of his wooing
blended waveringly and dimly with the
pictures which emerged for the bedraggled
woman who stood beside the loafer in
front of the disc.</p>
<p>In the church, when the wedding-march
was being played, and in the vignettes of
domestic happiness that ensued, the faces
and scenes mysteriously coalesced.</p>
<p>For the two spectators, who watched the
shifting pictures breathlessly, there were
no longer four figures in the scene, but only
two.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p>
<p>"Some such future I had imagined for
myself," the man muttered.</p>
<p>And the woman mused amazedly:
"These were day-dreams of my own."</p>
<p>The disc became obscured, as if their
eyes were blurred mistily.</p>
<p>The woman gulped down something:
and the man clenched his teeth.</p>
<p>There was a sudden exquisite clarity in
the pictures. They were looking at a
cluster of white-washed cottages, with tall
thatched roofs and with great stone chimneys:
a lonely little hamlet drowsing in
the sun. White-winged ducks were
quacking in the roadway, a grey-coated
donkey was grazing beside a hedge, and
the threadlets of smoke, that mounted
lazily above the roofs, rose up into a sky
of the most exquisite purity, spacious, high,
and cloudlessly blue. And again there
was only one scene for them both.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p>
<p>"My God, that is where I was born!"
groaned the man.</p>
<p>"That's my mother's cottage!" sobbed
the woman, and wept aloud.</p>
<p>Then came rural scenes of almost every
character, with a lad and a girl moving
flittingly through them—laughing and
kissing in the lanes among the brambles,
drifting together everywhere, sweethearting
through it all.</p>
<p>"Are you Nelly King, then?" asked
the man, hoarsely.</p>
<p>"And you . . . you are Stephen Laity,
are you not?"</p>
<p>"If we could both die here and now!"
cried the man.</p>
<p>Then the pictures for a while grew
blurred and confused, till presently they
shewed the gas-lighted streets of
London. . . .<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p>
<p>"My God, I will see no more!" cried
the girl. And she shudderingly held her
hand before her eyes.</p>
<p>"Nor I, either!" cried the man, with
an oath.</p>
<p>"However much you close your eyes,"
said the Showman, "you will cancel
nothing of the pictures on the screen."</p>
<p>But they had turned and fled even
while he was speaking.</p>
<p>"Even in the fair the pictures will
pursue you!" said the stern-visaged Showman,
following them with his eyes.</p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span></p>
<h2>THE MAN WHO DESIRED TO BE<br />
A TREE.</h2>
<div class='unindent'><span class="smcap">The</span> sunshine streamed across the lush-grassed
meadows, and beat fiercely down
on the huge-limbed elms whose myriad
leaves kept fluttering ceaselessly. In the
dense green covert, formed by the multitude
of interlacing branches, several wee
brown songsters had built their nests, and
they kept flitting to and fro and trilling
joyously as the light breeze stirred the
innumerable leaves.</div>
<p>The air was warm, and soft, and
pleasant. The deep green arcades were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>
cool and moist, full of the drowsy flutter
that rippled through the branches, and full
also of the deliciously delicate fragrance
from the budding sprays and fresh green
foliage. May was in the woodlands, shy
and winsome; she had not yet shaken
herself free from her day-dreams, and the
wonder of her young hopes lingered about
her still.</p>
<p>At the foot of a tree, reclining against
its roots, lay a lean-visaged student, very
shabbily dressed and with patches of thin
grey hair around his temples. A volume
of the <i>Faery Queen</i> lay open beside him,
but he had for some time ceased to pore
over its pages, being engaged instead in
chasing Fancy as she flitted hither and
thither through the vast green woodland,
dallying with the shadows and gossiping
with the wind.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p>
<p>His mind's eye revelled in the picturesque
suggestions that seemed to him,
as he lay here with half-closed lids, to be
fleetingly visible, as if in a dream. He
was aware of beautiful damsels in gauzy
draperies pantingly hurrying through the
dusky avenues with steel-clad knights in
hot pursuit; of grey old monks, cowled
and sandalled, moving hither and thither
in a world of utter peace; and of dryads
and fairies, fauns and satyrs, filling the
woodland with dreamy poetry, as the wind
filled its giant rafters with music, and the
brooks purled babblingly through the
crevices of its floor.</p>
<p>How delightful it would be to be a
denizen of the forest—to be this elm in
whose shadow he was lying! he thought.</p>
<p>The huge tent-like shadow of the elm-tree
deepened and widened with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
dropping sun, and the shadows of other
trees in the vicinity—dainty saplings and
gnarled old foresters—fell across the
nearer margin of the grass-land in fantastic,
almost semi-human outlines: at least, so
it seemed to the dreamy student, as he
lay here watching the breeze ripple across
the grass-blades and listened to the murmur
of the forest at his back.</p>
<p>"I should like to be a tree," he sighed
lazily and half aloud.</p>
<p>"Would you?" asked a voice from
somewhere close to him.</p>
<p>It was a low, caressing, insinuating
voice, with a strange seductiveness in its
silvery intonation. And instead of feeling
startled he felt a sudden wave of happiness,
as if a beautiful female had breathed upon
his cheek.</p>
<p>"Would you?" asked the voice,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
deliciously flattering him, "<i>would</i> you
like to be one of us indeed?"</p>
<p>A tree has a life void of trouble, he
ruminated. The birds sing to it, and the
wind caresses it, and it feels the sunshine,
and greatens where it grows. Yes, I
should like to be a tree indeed!</p>
<p>"Shall I grant your wish?" asked the
voice whisperingly—how exquisitely sweet
and soothing it was!—"shall I grant it
here, and now?" it asked.</p>
<p>The student closed his eyes to leisurely
consider; and then, half dreamily, answered,
"Yes!"</p>
<p>To be a tree is to be in touch with Nature
nakedly; to be stripped of the disguises
that have gathered about the man, and to
be thrown back blankly into the narrowest
groove of life. The student felt the wind
and the sun on his branches, and the birds<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>
sang joyously, nestling among his leaves;
his feet were rooted in the fresh and wholesome
earth, and the sap moved sluggishly
in his rough-barked trunk.</p>
<p>It was a calm and deeply drowsy existence;
but the restlessness of humanity
was not yet eliminated from him, and he
investigated his novel tenement wonderingly,
and not without a touch of squeamish
disgust.</p>
<p>But when the quiet night descended on
him, and the cooling dews slid into his
pores, the exquisite soothe of the darkness
enveloped him, and to the rustling of his
leaves he fell healthily asleep.</p>
<p>He was awakened presently by the
gracious dawn, by the sweet and wholesome
breath of morning, and the flash of the
sunrise and the singing of birds. And
had it not been for the dew-crumpled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>
volume that now lay blotched and
smirched at his feet, he would have forgotten
his manhood and the unquiet life
of cities and would have looked for his
brothers only among the trees.</p>
<p>But so long as the volume lay there
forlornly, so long he remembered, and
had something to regret.</p>
<p>But the days passed—he could now
keep no count of them—and human
speech and human passions dropped away
from his memory as quietly and painlessly
as his own ripe leaves began presently to
drop. And the tree's life narrowed to its
narrow round of needs.</p>
<p>It sheltered the birds, and it took the
wind's kisses gladly, and it caught the
snows in the wrinkles and twists of its
boughs; and the squirrel nested in
it, and the wood-mouse nibbled at it;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>
and its life sufficed it, answering its
desires.</p>
<hr style='width: 45%;' />
<p>One day there swept a mighty storm
across the forest: the thunder crashed and
the lightning flashed continuously; and
the whole land held its breath, listening to
the uproar.</p>
<p>The Lord of the Forest was moving
among his children: and some of them he
passed without injuring or despoiling
them; but others he smote wrathfully, so
that he rent them and they died.</p>
<p>And when he came to the tree that had
one-time been the student, he remembered,
and desired to bestow on it a boon.</p>
<p>And he said to the elm, now gnarled
and wrinkled, "You shall be a man again,
if you earnestly desire it—a man again
until you die."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p>
<p>The tree heard the great wind roaring
among its brethren, and it was aware of
the wee birds cowering among its boughs;
and it remembered, as in a flash, the
weary life of humanity, with hopes to
befool it and despair for its reward: and it
rustled its myriad leaves whispering mournfully,
"Let me, O Master, remain as I
am!"</p>
<p>And the Lord of the Forest was content,
and passed on.</p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p>
<h2>THE MAN WHO HAD SEEN.</h2>
<div class='unindent'><span class="smcap">On</span> the third day he recovered from the
"trance" and regained consciousness, and
took up the burden of his life as before.</div>
<p>But the revelation which had been
vouchsafed to him had influenced him
profoundly. He had now a new estimate
of values and results. The centre of his
mental life was permanently shifted, and a
new bias had been given to his thoughts.</p>
<p>He went to the King, where he sat
sunning himself in his palace.</p>
<p>"You are very rich," said the man to
the King.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span></p>
<p>"God has so willed it, and I am grateful,"
said the King.</p>
<p>"You hope one day to see God face to
face?"</p>
<p>"I <i>do</i> hope so, fervently!" said the
King, with unction.</p>
<p>"And if He questions you of your
wealth you will express your gratitude and
bow to Him, and God will accept the compliment
and be content?"</p>
<p>The King was silent.</p>
<p>"You think He will ask no questions?"
said the man. "He will not trouble to
refer to His starving children, with whom
you might reasonably have shared your
superfluities; to the sick whom you might
have succoured; or to the sorrowing
whom you might have cheered? You had
wealth, and were grateful for it: and you
used it on yourself. And presently, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>
you are dead?" asked the man, more
quietly. "If you sit beside the beggar
who perished at your gates, what will you
say to him if he should refer to matters
such as these?"</p>
<p>"Sit beside a beggar!" cried the King,
in high disdain.</p>
<p>"You forget it will be in heaven," said
the man, gently.</p>
<p>"In heaven, of course, I shall be a
king as I am here!"</p>
<p>"Oh, will you?" said the man: "I was
not aware of that. I saw kings there performing
the lowliest of services. And I
saw many in hell: the majority of them
were there." And therewith the man
sighed heavily, as he mused.</p>
<p>The King turned his back on him: and
they thrust him out at the gates.</p>
<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p><hr style='width: 45%;' />
<p>The Archbishop was reading a novel by
the fire.</p>
<p>"Your work, then, is ended, is it?"
asked the man.</p>
<p>"Oh no! not by any means ended, I
hope. I attended a drawing-room meeting
at Lady Clack's yesterday," said the
Archbishop, smiling benignantly on his
questioner, "and this morning I have
sanctioned proceedings against a vicar
who for some time has been wavering
heretically in his opinions. I think we
can effectually silence him at last. Oh
yes, I am extremely busy, I can assure
you."</p>
<p>"There are no souls, then, to be saved?"
said the man. "No lives to be reformed:
and no mourners to be comforted? This
side of your duties you have completed
and closed?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p>
<p>The Archbishop looked at him with
extreme hauteur. "My dear sir, I leave
these matters to my subordinates. I am
here as an administrator, not as a
minister."</p>
<p>"And you always choose the men best
fitted to be ministers?"</p>
<p>"Of course. At any rate, I hope so,"
quoth the Archbishop.</p>
<p>"That young curate who has so
successfully played the evangelist in
Gorseshire—he will have one of your
earliest nominations, then, no doubt?"</p>
<p>"Indeed, he will not! He has offended
me deeply. Would you believe it? he
wrote an article on me in one of the
reviews, and he actually had the audacity,
sir, to criticize me unfavourably! I will
see that the man remains exactly where he
is!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span></p>
<p>"And when you by-and-by make your
report to your Master, will you explain to
Him your methods and your aims in this
way? If so, do you think He will be satisfied
with you? Your methods and His are
at variance, surely? In heaven there are
neither archbishops nor bishops, as such.
If they pass the gates at all, it is merely
as men who have done their duty. Do
you think you will pass the gates on that
score, your Grace?"</p>
<p>The Archbishop rang the bell sharply
and abruptly.</p>
<p>"Please show this gentleman out!"
said His Grace.</p>
<hr style='width: 45%;' />
<p>"So you persist in disowning your
daughter?" asked the man, looking hard
at the portly, pleasant-faced matron who
was dandling her thirteenth infant on her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>
knees. "You will show her no mercy,
now she asks it at your hands?"</p>
<p>"She has disgraced me—I will never
forgive her!" said the woman. "Let her
starve with her brat. It will be well when
they are dead."</p>
<p>"She has disgraced you, you say? But
has she disgraced Nature? I thought it
was Nature who was responsible for her
sex and its instincts. She has obeyed the
one and fulfilled the other. And they
have been paramount considerations with
you also, I perceive."</p>
<p>"Did she owe no duty, then, to her
parents? Was I to count in her life
merely as the soil to the plant?"</p>
<p>"In the scales of justice, as I saw them
adjusted in heaven, the claim against the
parents weighed the heaviest," said the
man. "You suckled her at your breasts;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>
but you brought her there to suckle. In
your bringing her there, lies the onus of
her claim."</p>
<p>"I tell you, she has disgraced me, and
I will never forgive her!"</p>
<p>"<i>'Never'</i> is a long day for a mortal.
You will be judged yourself before you
reach the end of it," said the man.</p>
<hr style='width: 45%;' />
<p>"Three months' imprisonment with hard
labour," said the magistrate.</p>
<p>"For taking a loaf of bread when he
was starving!" cried the man.</p>
<p>"Even so," said the magistrate, with his
hands on his paunch.</p>
<p>"But surely this is a monstrous perversion
of justice. Or, rather, let me call it a
monstrous <i>in</i>justice!"</p>
<p>"The laws of the community must be
respected," said the magistrate.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p>
<p>"Here is a man—alive by no fault of
his own, and poor, even to starvation,
through absolute want of work: and yet
you begrudge him the necessaries of life!
If he tries to commit suicide, you pillory
and chastise him, and if he tries to keep
life in him out of the superfluities of
others, you pass on him this monstrous
sentence!" cried the man. "Surely here
is some fault in the structure of your
society."</p>
<p>"It is the law of the community!" said
the magistrate, pompously.</p>
<p>"And in what way is the law of the
community so very sacred, that it should
be counted of higher price than the life
and welfare of a man? The law of the
community may be a very pretty idol to
play before, but in heaven it counts for
nothing," said the quiet old man.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span></p>
<p>"This man is a pestilent fellow," said
the community. "He troubles us overmuch
with this vision that he has knowledge
of. Come, let us kill him!"</p>
<p>And they smote him, and he died.</p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span></p>
<h2>THE UNCHRISTENED CHILD.</h2>
<div class='unindent'>"<i>Thee</i> shaan't christen un, ef he's never
christened!" said the father. "I've no
faith in'ee: not a dinyun.<a name="FNanchor_L_12" id="FNanchor_L_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_L_12" class="fnanchor">[L]</a> Go to
Halifax to shoot gaanders: tha's all thee'rt
fit for!"</div>
<p>"He'll suffer for it, both here and hereafter,"
said the parson.</p>
<p>"Doan't believe it!" said the man.</p>
<p>"Wherever he dies, whether on land or
on water, he will become a creature of
that element instead of going to his rest,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>
said the parson, with an angry light in his
eyes.</p>
<p>"Doan't believe it!" said the man:
"an' thee doan't nayther."</p>
<p>The parson marched off, disdaining to
reply.</p>
<p>The infant grew into a bright little lad,
but there was always a certain oddity
about him, and he saw and understood
more than he ought.</p>
<p>One day he was out fishing with a
companion, in a tiny punt they had borrowed
for the purpose, when he leaned
overboard too far and fell into the sea.</p>
<p>His little companion was so paralysed
with terror that he could do nothing but
set up a shrill screaming, clinging to the
boat with both his hands.</p>
<p>Silas rose once—and twice—with wildly-pleading
eyes: his mouth full of water:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>
his hair plastered against his head: then
sank; and a third time emerged just above
the surface; so close to the boat that his
companion, leaning over, could see him
sinking down slowly into the crystalline
depths, with his hands stretched up and
the hair on his head tapering to a point
like the flame of a candle.</p>
<p>"Silas! Silas!" the little lad shrieked.</p>
<p>But Silas sank down; and ever down:
lower and lower beneath the translucent
waters, the vast flood deepening its tint
above him, till at last he was hopelessly
buried out of sight.</p>
<p>When John Penberthy heard the terrible
news he took the blow as a man might
take a sentence of death—in grim silence,
and with a sullen despair which nothing
might henceforth banish or relieve. The
roof-tree of his hopes was broken<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
irretrievably, and he gazed down blankly
at the ruin around his feet.</p>
<p>About three days after Silas was
drowned, John was one afternoon out
fishing for bait, and happened to be keeping
rather close to the cliff-line, when he
perceived a little seal emerge from a zawn<a name="FNanchor_M_13" id="FNanchor_M_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_M_13" class="fnanchor">[M]</a>
and come swimming, as with a settled
purpose, towards the boat.</p>
<p>There was something so melancholy
and so pathetically human in the soft,
liquid eyes of the animal, that John felt
his heart touched unaccountably.</p>
<p>Forgetting the line, which he was just
about to draw in, he sat staring at the seal
with a fixed intensity, as if he were looking
in the familiar eyes of some one with whom
he had a world of memories to interchange.</p>
<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span></p>
<p>And, meanwhile, the seal swam straight
up to him, till it was so close to the boat
that he could touch it with his hand.</p>
<p>John leaned over and looked straight at
the animal: fixing his eyes hungrily on the
eyes of the seal.</p>
<p>"Why dedn'ee ha' me christened,
faather?" asked the little seal, piteously.</p>
<p>"My God! are'ee Silas?" cried John,
trembling violently.</p>
<p>"Iss, I'm Silas," said the little seal.</p>
<p>John stared aghast at the smooth brown
head and the innocent eyes that watched
him so pathetically.</p>
<p>"Why, I thought thee wert drownded,
Silas!" he ejaculated.</p>
<p>"I caan't go to rest 'tell I'm christened,"
said the seal.</p>
<p>"How can us do it now?" asked the
father, anxiously.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span></p>
<p>"Ef anywan who's christened wed
change sauls weth me," said the seal,
"then I cud go to rest right away."</p>
<p>"Thee shall ha' <i>my</i> saul, Silas," said the
father, tenderly.</p>
<p>"Wil'ee put thy mouth to mine an'
braythe it into me, faather?"</p>
<p>"Iss, me dear, that I will!" said the
father. "Rest thee shust have ef I can
give it to'ee, Silas. Put thy haands
or paws around me neck, wil'ee,
soas?"</p>
<p>And John leaned over the side of the
boat till his face touched that of the
piteous little seal.</p>
<p>At that moment the boat—which for
the last few minutes had been allowed
to drift at the mercy of the tide, owing to
John's pre-occupation—was caught among
the irregular currents near a skerry, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
John was suddenly jerked, or tilted, overboard,
plunging into the waters with a
sullen splash.</p>
<p>When he rose to the surface, with a
deadly chill in him—the chill of his drear
and imminent doom, even more than the
grueing chill of the water—his first thought,
even in that perilous moment, was of dear
little Silas and the promise he had given to
him, or, at least, the promise he had given
to the seal.</p>
<p>The quaint little creature was, however,
nowhere visible; and John, with a sudden
influx of strength—an alarmed awakening
and resurgence of his will—made up his
mind to save his life if it were possible,
and quietly leave the settlement of the
other affair to God.</p>
<p>But grey old Fate was stronger than he
was. And the waves were here her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
obedient servants; doing her will blindly,
without pity or remorse.</p>
<p>In a little while John was tossing among
the seaweed—into a bed of which his
body had descended—and what further
dreams (if any) he dreamed there beneath
the waters, must remain untold till the
Judgment Day.</p>
<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_L_12" id="Footnote_L_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_L_12"><span class="label">[L]</span></a> Little bit.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_M_13" id="Footnote_M_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_M_13"><span class="label">[M]</span></a> A cave.</p></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p>
<h2>THE MAN WHO MET HATE.</h2>
<div class='unindent'><span class="smcap">It</span> was drawing on towards midnight, and
the world seemed very lonely.</div>
<p>There was a huge, round harvest moon
in the sky, and the hills were bathed in a
kind of spectral splendour—a faint and
filmy shimmer of silver that left the outlines
of objects blurred and elusive, though
the scene as a whole emerged clearly for
the eye. The wind was sighing drowsily
across the moors, while high on the rugged
cairns on the hill-tops it was wuthering
mournfully beneath the wan grey sky.</p>
<p>And 'Lijah, staring sleeplessly through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>
his blindless bedroom-window, felt a growing
unrest in the very marrow of his
bones.</p>
<p>He could see down below, in the little
lonesome cove, the cottage where Dorcas
had now made her nest with that "darned
gayte long-legged 'Miah" for her husband,
and in the sudden heat and bitterness of
his wrath his heart became like a live coal
within him. "I'll have my revenge on un,
ef I haang for it!" growled he.</p>
<p>And then he remembered that up on
yonder moors—whose ferns and granite
boulders he could see plainly in the moonlight—there
was a "gashly owld fogou,"<a name="FNanchor_N_14" id="FNanchor_N_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_N_14" class="fnanchor">[N]</a>
where, if a man went at midnight prepared
to boldly summon Hate and to "turn a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>
stone"<a name="FNanchor_O_15" id="FNanchor_O_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_O_15" class="fnanchor">[O]</a> in her honour, his hatred would
be accomplished for him "as sure as
death."</p>
<p>"An' I'll go there, ef I die for it!" said
he grimly to himself.</p>
<p>The village was asleep, and all its
cottages were smokeless. There was no
one stirring anywhere in the cove. But
far out in the moonlit bay he could see the
fishing-boats dotting the vast grey plain,
and he knew that in one of them 'Miah
Laity was fishing, and was no doubt thinking
of Dorcas as he fished.</p>
<p>"I'll spoil 'es thinkin' for un 'fore long,"
said 'Lijah, "ayven ef I have to sill me
saul to do the job!"</p>
<p>And with that he slipped on his coat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>
and boots—for he had been standing at
the window half undressed—and clapping
on his cap as he passed through the
kitchen, strode heavily and gloomily out
of the house.</p>
<p>On the moor he had only the breeze for
company, and its long, vague wail, as it
rustled across the ferns, merely deepened
the moody irritation in his mind. He felt
as sour as a fanatic and as gloomy as a
thief.</p>
<p>To find the fogou, among the bewildering
growth of ferns, was by no means the easiest
task in the world: for the rude cave-dwelling
was literally buried in the hill-side;
its entrance being hidden by the
rank vegetation that here reached almost
to Elijah's arm-pits.</p>
<p>As he ploughed his way through the
trackless tangle, giving vent the while to a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>
superfluity of oaths, he presently stumbled
on the entrance to the fogou, almost precipitating
himself into its darkness, so
suddenly had he stumbled on it, wading
through the ferns.</p>
<p>The low and narrow tunnel in the hill-side,
with its walls and roof lined with slabs
of rock, was as uncanny a spot as a man
could set foot in, and Elijah shook
like one with the ague, as he thrust aside
the ferns and peered into the blackness.</p>
<p>He turned round, half inclined to
retreat; but, as he turned, his eyes chanced
to travel to the sea, where he could still
discern the fishing-boats riding at their
nets; and the idea of 'Miah out there
thinking of Dorcas made him clench his
teeth grimly, as if he had received a blow.</p>
<p>He swung round on his heels sharply
and determinedly, savagely trampling the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
ferns beneath his feet, and strode forward
into the pitch-black mirk.</p>
<p>Groping his way in, with hands
extended, he presently found the block of
granite called the altar, and "turning the
stone" in the hollow on its surface, he
shaped the while in his heart his rancorous
prayer to Hate.</p>
<p>Suddenly he was aware of a face staring
at him: a mere face vaguely limned on the
darkness, as if a bodiless head were held
before him by the hair.</p>
<p>And in that same instant, without a word
being uttered, he felt that he had looked
in the face of Hate.</p>
<p>He reeled out of the fogou like a
drunken man.</p>
<p>The vision was one it would be
impossible to forget. He must bear with
him this memory, as a man who has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
committed a murder must bear with him
the memory of his victim's ghastly face.</p>
<p>"I'll wait an' see what comes of it,"
said 'Lijah to himself, as he ran and
stumbled down the hill-side in the moonlight,
the thick hair stiffening under his
cap.</p>
<hr style='width: 45%;' />
<p>The months slipped by, and the years
dragged on sluggishly, and 'Miah and
Dorcas were as happy as ever. They had
a couple of bairns to toddle about their
cottage, and 'Miah had been fairly
fortunate on the fishery, so that their lives
were generally sunny and enviable to an
extent that made Elijah's blood turn
to gall.</p>
<p>"Thee'st forgotten me, thou darned
owld liar that thou art!" said he, shaking
his fist savagely at the fern-clad hill<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>-side,
where Hate presumably was watching
from her lair.</p>
<p>On which he heard a chilling whisper
at his elbow: "You shall have your wish,
as sure as death!"</p>
<p>Elijah heard the loud thump, thump of
his heart. But an instant after, his pulse
danced buoyantly, and he went about his
work chuckling grimly to himself.</p>
<p>But while 'Miah's life was harvesting
happiness, as his nets gathered abundantly
the harvest of the sea, Elijah's life on his
farm on the hill-side appeared to be
stifling among the stones and thistles, and
a sour and acid leanness seemed eating up
his heart.</p>
<p>It was as if Hate had shot her arrows
blindly, and they had struck and rankled
in the wrong breast.</p>
<p>With Elijah Trevorrow nothing seemed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>
to prosper. He might rise early and go
to bed late, he might pinch and pare as
relentlessly as he pleased, every year of his
life he grew leaner and poorer, till the
scowl on his features deepened permanently
among its lines, and in the end
transformed his features as completely as
a mask.</p>
<p>He was no more like the clear-eyed,
whistling young farmer who had gone
a-wooing Dorcas among the rustling wheat-fields,
than the wrinkled tree, with its
heart rotted out of it, is like the green
young sapling in the bravery of its spring.</p>
<p>Ever watching hungrily to see Misfortune
seize his rival and set her teeth
thirstily in the very pulse of his life, Elijah
held aloof from commerce with his neighbours,
sour and discontented, and wishing
each day to end, in the hope that on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
the morrow he might see the evil he
desired.</p>
<p>Presently there went a whisper through
the tiny hamlet that Elijah Trevorrow was
a bit touched <i>here</i>—the villagers tapping
their brows significantly as they spoke.</p>
<p>"He do talk as ef Hate es a woman,
an' he've seed her. Up in that owld
fogou he've mit her, he do say. An' he's
all'ys sayin' she ha'nt keeped her word to
un. Whatever do 'a mayne, weth 'es
gashly owld tales?"</p>
<p>'Miah, whose name had got mixed up
in the tale, one day called at the lonely
farmhouse, in order to see Elijah and
reason with him if he could.</p>
<p>But Elijah, as 'Miah approached, set
the dogs on him savagely, and the fisherman
was obliged precipitately to beat a
retreat.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span></p>
<p>At last, one day in the depth of winter,
when the hills were white with whirling
snowdrifts, Elijah Trevorrow disappeared.</p>
<p>They searched everywhere for him, but
could find no trace of him, and the search
was finally abandoned in despair.</p>
<p>Elijah had made his way to the fogou,
determined to front Hate and to compel her
to keep faith with him, even if he squeezed
her life out through her throat.</p>
<hr style='width: 45%;' />
<p>Some eight months after—in the time
of blackberries—some youngsters, questing
among the ferns on the hillside,
stumbled across the fogou and crept in
to explore it.</p>
<p>They rushed down the hillside screaming
with terror; and, when safe among the
cottages, began to babble incoherently
that there was a ghost up yonder in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>
"owld hunted fogou," they had seen its
face—and it was white—so white!</p>
<p>The villagers began to have an inkling
of the truth, and went toiling up through
the ferns in a body.</p>
<p>"As like as not 'tes <i>he</i>, poor saul,"
they whispered awesomely as they
clambered up the windy ridges of the hill.</p>
<p>True enough, it was Elijah, dead in the
fogou. But whether or not he had again
met Hate there, is one of the questions
the gossips have still to solve.</p>
<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_N_14" id="Footnote_N_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_N_14"><span class="label">[N]</span></a> A subterranean storehouse or place of shelter.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_O_15" id="Footnote_O_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_O_15"><span class="label">[O]</span></a> A portion of the rites practised in connection
with "cursing stones."</p></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span></p>
<h2>THE HAUNTED HOUSE.</h2>
<div class='unindent'><span class="smcap">It</span> was only an old deserted house,
perched half-way up the hillside and overlooking
the village. But it was none the
less the village theatre: the peep-hole
through which the villagers obtained a
glimpse of many mysteries, and the stage
and drop-scene of half the legends of the
thorp.</div>
<p>It was an old stone building which
evidently had once been a dwelling of
importance, but for quite a century it had
been tenantless and almost entirely dismantled:
the home of the owl and the
lizard, of the spectre and the bat.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span></p>
<p>When the sunrise splashed across the
fragmentary panes of glass that here and
there remained in their frames, the farmer
would stand still at his ploughing on the
hill-slope and glance up at the great Argus-eyed
building—that had now, however,
more sockets than eyes—and a world of
memories, of legends and superstitions,
would buzz, with strange bewilderment,
through his brain.</p>
<p>The old house reminded him of his
mother and of his grandfather, and of those
who had been the village historians for his
childhood, and a musing gravity seemed
to deepen in his mind. He was aware of
the brevity of life, and of the lapse of the
personality; of the tragedies of passion,
with their gravity and poignancy, and of
the mystery that broods at the back of all
our thoughts. But most of all he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>
aware that the building standing fronting
him was the very kernel of his individuality
projected into visibility: the one knot into
which all his memories were tied.</p>
<p>He would hold his children spell-bound
by the hour as he told them the ordinary
folk-tales of the hamlet, with that ruin on
the hillside as the stage for the majority of
them; till his daughter Ruth, who was
young and sentimental, though with a
streak of passion running through her
nature, learned to contemplate the ruin
with an awe akin to his, and stared up
wonderingly at it, so long and so often, that
at last it had become for her a necessary
part of life.</p>
<p>While Ruth was still a child, the haunted
ruin chiefly attracted her thoughts as the
scene and locality of uncanny occurrences
that were fanciful and unusual rather than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>
sombre or suggestive. It was the great
haunted cheese in which the piskies
burrowed, and out of which they hopped
with amusing unexpectedness: it was the
building to pass which you must always
turn your stocking, if you wished to escape
being <i>pisky-ledden</i>, or misguided: it was
the place to which the "Little Folks"<a name="FNanchor_P_16" id="FNanchor_P_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_P_16" class="fnanchor">[P]</a>
conveyed stolen children: above all, it was
the place of dark and cobwebbed corners,
where naughty children were put to live
with snails and spiders and with great big
goggle-eyed buccaboos!</p>
<p>As she stood on her doorstep with her
bit of knitting in her hand—a tiny doll's
stocking, or a garter for herself—little Ruth
would stare up at the great black building,
with the scarlet splendour of the sunset at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>
its back, until she almost fancied she could
see the little winking piskies grinning
through the window-holes and clambering
across the roofs.</p>
<p>And by-and-by, when the rich yellow
sky began to darken and the flocks of
rooks flew cawing overhead, Ruth would
shiver with a delicious sense of security as
she stood beneath the porch in the gathering
twilight and heard the wind begin to
moan and sigh mysteriously, as if it
trembled at the thought of spending the
night on the hillside with no other company
than that "whisht<a name="FNanchor_Q_17" id="FNanchor_Q_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_Q_17" class="fnanchor">[Q]</a> owld house."</p>
<p>As she grew older and became aware of
the drift of her wishes, feeling stirrings and
promptings at the roots of her life, her
imagination seized now on the passionate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>
human tragedies which, according to the
legends, had been enacted in the building.
She had a sweetheart of her own, and she
could understand lovers; and something
of the glamour and mystery of a great
heady passion she believed she could
interpret out of her own ripened life.</p>
<p>But Rastus Dabb, her sweetheart, was
as cloddish and unimaginative as the
heavy-uddered cows, with their great fleshy
dewlaps, of which he was prouder than he
was of anything else in his world. It was
quite impossible to get his feet off the solid
earth: and apparently his mind was
anchored firmly to his feet. But Ruth had
the attractiveness of all young things—she
was fresh and cheerful, with a heart as
light as a feather—and, by the law of contrast,
she suited him to a nicety, more
especially as she was an excellent little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>
housewife to boot. So the courting prospered
sunnily; and he let her "romance"
as she pleased.</p>
<p>When she was a wife and mother, Ruth
presently became acquainted with that
grim Shadow who knows the secret of our
tears—their source and the bitter in them—and
knows, too, the secret of everlasting
peace. And thereafter, when at intervals
his wings darkened the world for her, her
thoughts went out, with a strange yearning,
towards the dead who had once inhabited
the ruin and could now roam through it
only as ghosts.</p>
<p>"Shall I one day have only such a foothold
as theirs in this dear green world of
ours?" she would ask herself, shiveringly.
And the Sunday-evening's sermon could
soothe her not a whit.</p>
<p>At last, in the waning afternoon of life,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>
when her smooth brown hair was as yet
unstreaked with grey and her cheeks had
still a splash of colour in them, she fell ill
of some mysterious malady—mysterious,
at least, to the sympathetic villagers—and
one dreary day in the blustering autumn
she was aware in her heart that the Shadow
was in the room.</p>
<p>"Draw back the curtains as far as you
can," said she to Rastus, who stood helpless
by the bedside.</p>
<p>And when they were drawn, and she
could see the great gaunt ruin frowning
blackly above the slopes of the shadow-checkered
hillside, she cried out suddenly,
"I'm going there among them, Rastus!
Oh, dear, hold me!" And with that she
passed.</p>
<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_P_16" id="Footnote_P_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_P_16"><span class="label">[P]</span></a> Fairies.</p></div>
<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_Q_17" id="Footnote_Q_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_Q_17"><span class="label">[Q]</span></a> Melancholy, forlorn.</p></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span></p>
<h2>GIFTS AND AWARDS.</h2>
<div class='unindent'>"<span class="smcap">Two</span> bonnier babes," said the grey old
midwife, bending thoughtfully over them,
"I never before assisted into the world."</div>
<p>The mother, lying wan in her bed,
smiled happily.</p>
<p>"So bonny are they," said the wrinkled
beldame, "that I will give to each of them
one of my choicest gifts: something they
will still keep hugged to their hearts when
they are as close to the gates as you or I."</p>
<p>"And how close is that?" asked the
mother, growing whiter.</p>
<p>The wise old midwife turned from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>
bedside and bent above the infants,
mumbling to herself.</p>
<p>Presently the mother started up from a
doze. There was no one in the room but
her married sister. "I dreamed Death
was in the room with me just now," said
she. "And he had an old woman with
him whom he called his Sister. She
seemed to me to be giving my babies
something: but what it was I don't know.
At first I thought it was a plaything; but
now I think it was a sorrow. At
least. . . ."</p>
<p>"<i>Dear!</i> <span class="smcap">dear!</span>" cried her sister, in
alarm, as if she saw the spirit drifting
beyond her ken.</p>
<p>"My babies!" whispered the mother.</p>
<p>And presently she was "at rest."</p>
<hr style='width: 45%;' />
<p>Rick and Dick grew up somehow.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>
Though motherless and fatherless they
were not quite friendless, and in the
struggle for existence they held their own
and kept alive.</p>
<p>A more agreeable and cheerful
fellow than Dick it would have been
impossible to find, according to his companions.
He seemed dowered with a
disposition so equable and contented that
it was a pleasure to be with him: and he
radiated cheerfulness like a fire. Moreover,
he was in thorough harmony with
his surroundings. He found fault with
nothing in the structure of society, and
desired no change either in laws or
institutions: everything was ordered
wisely, and was ordered for the best. In
fact, he was the spirit of Content personified:
and much patting on the back did
he get for his reward.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span></p>
<p>"We must give him a helping hand,
must push him forward, you know," said
the Community, beaming on its cheerful
young champion.</p>
<p>And Dick took the "pushing forward"
with admirable self-composure, and certainly
seemed to deserve all he got.</p>
<p>As for Rick, the Community would
have nothing to do with him. He was
not quite an out-and-out pessimist, it was
true; but he seemed to look on the
Community as a most clumsily-articulated
creature—a thing of shreds and patches,
and the Cheap Jack of shams. He was
always putting his finger on this spot or
that; hinting that here there was a weakness,
and there . . . something worse.
Every advanced thinker, and the majority
of theorists, could count on finding a
sympathetic listener in him: and not infrequently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>
they found in him an advocate
also; such an arrant anti-optimist was the
pestilent fellow. As if Civilization, after
thousands of years of travail, had produced
nothing better than a clumsy abortion
with the claws of an animal and the tastes
of Jack-an-ape! Why, the man must be
mad, to have such irregular fancies! It
was a pity laws against opinions were not
oftener put in force: then—a click of the
guillotine, and the world would have
peace!</p>
<p>Rick listened grimly, and made a note
of the imagery. "You will remember it
better in black and white," said he.</p>
<hr style='width: 45%;' />
<p>In the course of years Dick became a
churchwarden and a philanthropist (he
took the infection very mildly and in its
most agreeable form), and a highly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>
respected gambler on, or rather member
of, the Stock Exchange. He was also
joined "in the bands of holy matrimony"
to a buxom young widow who was left-handedly
connected with The Aristocracy
Itself! The lady brought him a most
desirable fortune to start with, and after
some years made him a present of twins:
so that Dick was now a notable man among
his acquaintances, and had the ambition to
become a bigger man still, by-and-by: a
Common Councilman certainly, and an
Alderman <i>perhaps!</i></p>
<p>Meanwhile Rick had developed into a
musty <i>savant:</i> a fellow whose tastes, if you
might call them such, were of the most
<i>outré</i> order—in advance of everything that
was sober, respectable, and conventional;
and in aggressive alliance with everything
that was disturbing, and that was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
maliciously and wickedly critical (said the
saints).</p>
<p>"The kernel of his life is unhealthy,"
said his brother: "it has a deadly fungus
growing in it, I am afraid."</p>
<p>"The fungus of discontent, dear
friend," said the clergyman.</p>
<p>"I am afraid so," said Dick, with a
prodigious great sigh. "Still, we must
none the less pray for him unceasingly:
for prayer availeth much, as we know."</p>
<p>The clergyman dramatically clasped his
white hands together, looking up as one
who speechlessly admires.</p>
<hr style='width: 45%;' />
<p>Rick sat musing in his gloomy study:
thinking of the ladder he had climbed, and
of the scenery of his life that now stretched
out like a map before him.</p>
<p>Presently the study door opened softly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>
and a Figure came in and took a chair at
his side.</p>
<p>"You have come, then!" said Rick.
"I thought your coming must be near."</p>
<p>"Shall we start?" asked the Figure.</p>
<p>"I am ready," answered Rick.</p>
<p>And they passed out together into the
deep black night.</p>
<p>"Come, take my arm: we will call
together for your brother."</p>
<p>"He has so much to make him happy!
There are the little ones and his wife!
Could you not delay a little?"</p>
<p>"He must come with us to-night."</p>
<p>Dick was attending a banquet which
was being given in his honour to celebrate
his recent election as a Common Councilman,
and the lust of life was in his every
vein. But in the act of responding to the
toast of the evening he was suddenly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>
attacked by a fit of apoplexy. He
staggered, and fell back—and they perceived
that he was dead.</p>
<hr style='width: 45%;' />
<p>It was a bleak and a very depressing
journey to pass nakedly and alone from
the warm, well-lighted, and flattering
banquet, and, most of all, from the comfortable
and familiar earth, up to the
Doom's-man and the Bar beside the Gates.
If he could only have had a friend or two
at his side!</p>
<p>On the way up, just as he was nearing
the gates, Dick overtook Rick, who was a
little way ahead of him.</p>
<p>"Come, let us go up together," said
Rick.</p>
<p>At the gates, however, Dick began to
grow uneasy. His brother's reputation on
earth among "the godly" was a curiously<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>
unwelcome memory to Dick now the Bar
was so near and the Doom's-man was in
sight.</p>
<p>"You go first," said Dick to his brother;
falling behind as if to dissociate himself
from him.</p>
<p>Rick passed the gate and stood
silently at the Bar.</p>
<p>"Place the brothers side by side," said
the Doom's-man sternly.</p>
<p>"If you please," began Dick, stumbling
in his speech, so afraid was he of being
confounded in the judgment of his
brother; "If you please. . . ."</p>
<p>Said the Doom's-man: "Let the
Advocates state the case."</p>
<p>The Black-robed Advocate claimed
Rick boldly. The verdict of Rick's fellow-citizens,
he asserted, was emphatic on the
point that Rick was legitimately his.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>
And he went with the majority, and
claimed a verdict accordingly.</p>
<p>The White-robed Advocate advanced,
more hesitatingly, that Dick presumably
should go with <i>him</i>. The Community, he
averred, had long ago decided that only
in this way would justice have its due.</p>
<p>The Doom's-man's verdict was simplicity
itself.</p>
<p>A nature so contented, and so little
given to fault-finding, would be the typical
one for the Black Advocate's household,
said the Doom's-man, humorously contemplating
Dick. "Take him away with
you," said he to the Black Advocate:
"the man will give you no trouble, <i>as you
know</i>.</p>
<p>"But that restless, fault-finding fellow
there," and he indicated Rick with a
movement of his forefinger, "it would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
need a faultless abode like <i>yours</i> to satisfy
him," and he signed to the silent White
Advocate at his side. "Take him, he is
yours," said the Doom's-man solemnly.</p>
<p>And with that the Advocates departed
with their awards.</p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span></p>
<h2>FRIEND OR FOE?</h2>
<h3><br />I.</h3>
<div class='unindent'><span class="smcap">Sir Edward</span> lay back lazily in his chair,
with a letter in a woman's handwriting
crumpled at his feet.</div>
<p>"She must make the best of it now,"
said he, gazing at the fire. "She is not
worse off than others, come to that." And
he lolled among the cushions, gazing into
the fire, with a hard and cruel look on his
countenance, on which the stamp of
sensuality was unmistakably impressed.</p>
<p>It was a large and luxuriously-furnished
apartment, with everything so arranged as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
to minister to the senses and afford them
the fullest gratification which suggestions
could impart.</p>
<p>But Sir Edward, lolling by the fire this
evening, experienced little satisfaction in
his luxurious surroundings: the eroding
tooth of thought they could no way quiet;
and it was the irritation of this that he
most desired to have allayed.</p>
<p>He lighted a cigar, and began to smoke
vigorously, leaning back the while and
contemplating the smoke-clouds that
drifted round in swirling folds and spirals,
an occasional ring mounting airily over
all.</p>
<p>Smoking away steadily, cigar after cigar—for
he was an insatiable smoker as he was
insatiable in everything—Sir Edward
seemed presently to be almost hidden
among the smoke-wreaths, which had now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
thickened in the room with unexampled
rapidity.</p>
<p>At first he felt inclined to ring for a
servant and have the windows opened to
let in a breath of air, but there was a
certain amount of interest in watching the
floating veils of smoke; and, besides, in the
mere act of idly watching these he could
let certain vivid tableaux, with which
Memory was amusing him, drift beyond
the range of his attention, he hoped. So
he lay back, letting the smoke thicken in
the atmosphere, while he followed the
fantastic wreaths lazily with his eyes.</p>
<p>It was almost as if he were dozing as he
lay there; for he could have sworn that
in the chair on the opposite side of the
fireplace he perceived a grey old fogey
reclining among the cushions, yet with deep-sunken
eyes fixed watchfully on his face.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span></p>
<p>It was really absurd to have an utter
stranger intrude his company on him in
this unceremonious manner, and Sir
Edward felt inclined to question him
sharply, and, if need be, have him turned
out neck and crop.</p>
<p>But instead of taking up the intended
<i>rôle</i> of inquisitor, he found himself
reduced ignominiously to the <i>rôle</i> of the
questioned one.</p>
<p>"Where were you thinking of going to-night?"
asked the Visitor. "To the
theatre, or the opera, or to that 'private
club' we know of?" And the Visitor
looked at him with a glance of quiet
intelligence which Sir Edward somehow
felt powerless to resent.</p>
<p>"I was thinking. . . ."</p>
<p>"Of going with me? Quite right!"
replied the Visitor. "With me you shall<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
go: unless we can come to terms together.
In which case, possibly, I may leave you
behind <i>for a time</i>."</p>
<p>Sir Edward ceased to smoke: and his
hands trembled on his knees.</p>
<p>But he made no movement, and uttered
no protest. Before the glance of his
visitor he quailed and was dumb.</p>
<p>"Ruth Medwin, I presume, must bear
her disgrace as best she can? You will
neither recognize her, nor make her an
allowance, I understand."</p>
<p>"I think I have changed my mind. . . ."</p>
<p>"Too late," said the Visitor. "After
having seen <i>me</i> you can change your mind
no more."</p>
<p>Sir Edward lay motionless among the
cushions of his chair.</p>
<p>"I should like . . . if you will allow
me. . . ." he began feebly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span></p>
<p>"I can allow you only one choice: and
that a peremptory one. Will you go with
me instantly—I think you know me—or
shall I call for you again <i>on any terms I
care to fix?</i>"</p>
<p>"Will your terms be as pitiless. . . ."</p>
<p>"You shall hear them, if you please."</p>
<p>Sir Edward sank deeper among the
soft cushions: his whole life concentrated
in the watchful stare with which he fixed
his eyes on his visitor's face.</p>
<p>"Shall I take you with me now to
undergo your punishment—and, I need
scarcely tell you, it will not be a light one—or
would you prefer a delay before you
accompany me: a period of expiation, in
some form I may decide on, with a hope
of a reduction in your punishment at the
end?"</p>
<p>"A delay—a period of expiation, for
God's sake!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p>
<p>"You are certain you prefer it?"</p>
<p>"I implore it! I entreat it! For God's
sake, grant me a respite!"</p>
<p>"Be it so."</p>
<h3><br />II.</h3>
<p>The soul that had been Sir Edward's
sickened with disgust.</p>
<p>It was located in the body of a miserable
cab-horse; one of the sorriest hacks
in the East End of London, and practically
fit only for the knacker, one would have
said.</p>
<p>It was a life the human soul found
inexpressibly hateful. If this were
expiation, it was in a purgatory indeed.
But in a purgatory of filth and of disgusting
sensations, instead of in a torturing
purgatory of fire.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span></p>
<p>To be lashed with the whip, and galled
excruciatingly with the harness; to have
the bit between the teeth, or tugging at the
jaws unmercifully; and to have the blinkers
ever blotting out the vision of the world:
to strain every sinew, and have the service
accepted thanklessly; to be tortured with
discomfort, and to work absolutely without
reward—it was a life devoid of even the
meanest compensations: loathsome, and
in every way abhorrent to thought.</p>
<p>The horses, and other animals he met
in the streets, he might have communicated
with in some way or other, but his driver—a
drunken, quarrelsome fellow—was
always tugging at the bit or brandishing
the whip; and if the poor animal even tried
to turn his head, he was belaboured as
brutally as if he had swerved or fallen
asleep.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span></p>
<p>There was no chance even of rubbing
noses at the drinking-troughs, or of laying
his head on the neck of a companion at
the stand. And whatever might be taking
place in the streets through which he
was passing, he was debarred from bestowing
on it even the most casual attention.</p>
<p>His mental activity was ignored, or
trampled on, with an indifference that was
never once relaxed or relieved.</p>
<p>His life was a horror unexampled in its
profundity. The cruel debasement and
defilement of it penetrated so deeply that
he repented bitterly of the choice into
which he had been betrayed. He would
infinitely have preferred suffering among
his equals in hell.</p>
<p>A year of this life was as much as he
could endure. One day he stumbled
across a tram-line, and, falling, broke his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>
leg—hopelessly snapping the tendon, and
otherwise injuring himself—and he was
carted off to the knackers to receive his
<i>coup de grâce</i>.</p>
<p>A moment or two before he was killed,
the eyes of the animal lighted up with a
strangely human expression—which was
succeeded by a look of the most unappeasable
despair.</p>
<p>Evidently he had again seen the grey
old man.</p>
<p>But the Visitor's communication to him
remained unrevealed, and it was probably
torturing him still when he . . . died?</p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span></p>
<h2>THE FIELDS OF AMARANTH.</h2>
<div class='unindent'>"<span class="smcap">I shall</span> seek the fields of amaranth,"
said the young man defiantly. "And I
shall find them," added he, turning
tenderly to his mother. "And when I
have found them I will comeback for <i>you</i>,
dear mother, and I will take you with me
that we may dwell there in peace."</div>
<p>"What do you know of peace, and why
should you desire it?" asked the father,
with a certain cold contempt in his tone.
"You have not yet lived; and you have
certainly not laboured. Rest is for those
who have laboured and grown weary. In<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>
that rest that you desire you would
have an empty mind for showman, and of
its meagre entertainment you would tire as
speedily as a child. Live first, and watch
the puppets of memory play afterwards.
The fields of amaranth will wait for you
however long you live."</p>
<p>But the young man insisted: "I want
to find them <i>now</i>. And when I have
found them I will come for <i>you</i>, mother,
dear; and we will return to them together
and be happy and at peace."</p>
<p>But the mother's eyes were troubled with
an inexplicable expression. "It were
better that you should wait till I come to
<i>you</i>," she answered gently. "As come to
you I surely shall—one day. But come
not to fetch me . . . if once you find the
fields."</p>
<p>"I surely <i>shall</i> come for you," cried the
youth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span></p>
<p>"No, no!" implored the mother.</p>
<p>But he smiled on her, and was gone.</p>
<p>It was a long journey, and a toilsome
one, and the end of it the youth could
neither learn of nor anticipate.</p>
<p>The fields of amaranth? Yes: all had
heard of them. But no one knew any one
who had ever found them. And, for
themselves, they were content to know
these waited for them somewhere. They
had ties—they had businesses—they were
content to live and wait.</p>
<p>"When I return from them, shall I give
you tidings of them?" asked the young
man, earnestly.</p>
<p>"No, no!" They were vehement in
their dissuasions that he should not: finally
even fleeing from him in terror at the
thought.</p>
<p>And the young man mused perplexedly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>
as he walked on. "Are there <i>really</i> fields
of amaranth for those who can find them?"
he asked of a wrinkled, white-haired wayfarer.
"Or is it merely a bait, a delusion,
and a lie?"</p>
<p>"Yes, surely, my son, these fields await
us all: else life, at best, were a sorry game
for most of us. It is there we shall rest
and reap our reward."</p>
<p>"But no one seems eager to set out for
them and discover them."</p>
<p>"No one?" quoth the old man, looking
at him strangely: "there are many ways of
getting there: you have chosen only one.
There are other roads, and crowded ones:
though you know nothing of them yet."</p>
<p>The young man brushed past him hot
with disdain. He was merely an old
dotard: empty-minded like the rest.</p>
<p>The lures of the highway were many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>
and formidable; but the young man turned
aside from them impatiently. "I am
bound for the fields of amaranth," cried
he haughtily: "when I return I will taste
these good things you offer."</p>
<p>"Will he ever return?" whispered a girl
to her mother.</p>
<p>She had looked with eyes of love on the
daring young wayfarer; and a vague regret
shivered through her as he passed on.</p>
<p>"God only knows. But I doubt it,"
said the mother.</p>
<p>The girl hid her face in her apron and
wept.</p>
<p>But the young man had not overheard
the whisper, and with head held high he
pushed on along the road.</p>
<p>And here were the fields of amaranth at
last! He could see them smiling faintly
on the other side of the valley. But they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>
had a strangely vague and unsubstantial
look. One might almost have fancied he
were looking at a mirage.</p>
<p>And between the young wayfarer and
the fields of amaranth the rugged hillside
sloped abruptly: its foot being shrouded
in a dense white mist. He could hear a
river murmuring sullenly somewhere in the
depths, but the mist hid the waters and he
could only hear their moan.</p>
<p>How far he had left the busy highway
behind him! He would like to take just
one farewell glance at it. The fields
beyond him seemed to waver deceptively
in his eyes. One glance at the highway,
with its booths and its faces, and his vigour,
strangely waning, would surely be
renewed.</p>
<p>But as he turned and saw the dear
familiar highway, along which he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>
trudged so many weary miles, his heart
went out in a yearning towards it, and
he stretched out his arms to it, hungering
for its life.</p>
<p>So mighty was the fascination it now
exercised over him, that he began to rush
headlong down the hill towards it, eager
to be once more mingling in its throng,
and to once more feel its hum in his
ears.</p>
<p>At the foot of the hill he met the fair
young girl whose eyes had erstwhile
followed him so wistfully, and he flung
himself into her arms sobbing violently.</p>
<p>"The life here—you—I cannot part
with them!" he cried passionately. And
he shuddered: "If the wish had come
too late!"</p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span><br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span></p>
<h2>THE COMEDY OF A SOUL.</h2>
<div class='unindent'>"<span class="smcap">You</span> are quite sure you will never change?
will never desert me, or be untrue to me?"</div>
<p>"I am absolutely sure of it, my darling!"
he answered resolutely. "Any pledge my
sweet one desires I will give her freely,"
added he, as he again kissed her passionately
on the mouth.</p>
<p>"Would you leave me your soul in
pawn?" asked the maiden, smiling at him
bewitchingly with her deliciously red lips;
her cheeks dimpling and her brown eyes
sparkling, and her heaving breasts but
thinly hidden from his gaze.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span></p>
<p>"Willingly! And be glad to leave it
in my darling's custody!" And his lips
hovered caressingly around her just-disclosed
shoulder.</p>
<p>"Very well, I will accept the pledge,"
said she.</p>
<p>He was beginning again to kiss her
fondlingly.</p>
<p>"You are a man of honour, are you
not?" asked she; showing her even white
teeth, and dimpling her rose-leaf cheeks
temptingly.</p>
<p>"Certainly. I hope so."</p>
<p>"Then let me have your soul."</p>
<p>"But that would mean death for me!
Do you desire me to die, my love?" And
a look of questioning wonder crept into
his eyes.</p>
<p>"By no means! I have not been
reared by a philosopher for nothing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
This crystal ball"—and she held out to
him a tiny globe of crystal—"put your
lips to it and pawn your soul to its keeping.
I will warrant you, it will hold it as safely
as I could."</p>
<p>He glanced at the tiny globe distrustfully.</p>
<p>"Are you afraid? Do you wish to withdraw
from your word?"</p>
<p>"By no means."</p>
<p>"Then breathe against it, my love."
And she held the crystal ball temptingly
towards him. "You can imagine it is my
lips you are touching," added she, with a
light, coquettish laugh, leaning provocatively
close to him.</p>
<p>He took the crystal reluctantly, and
breathed against it as she wished.</p>
<p>"Oh!" cried he suddenly, drawing back
his lips.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></p>
<p>She took the crystal globe from him and
peered into it anxiously. Then cried, in
a tone of triumph, "Look! there it is."</p>
<p>He was aware of something cloudy—vague
and light as smoke—floating, as it
were, in the core of the crystal. And suddenly
he felt a sense of want within himself.</p>
<p>She put the crystal in her bosom, and
let it lie between her breasts.</p>
<p>"It is warm and pleasant there: you
will never let it grow cold, will you?"</p>
<p>"Never!" And she laughed; dimpling
rosily in her mirth. "Now you can
set off on your journey," said the maiden.</p>
<p>"I have no wish now to leave your side,"
he whispered meekly.</p>
<p>"This rose, that I have been wearing,
you were wishing for just now. See! I
toss it yonder! Fetch and keep it!"
cried the maiden.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></p>
<p>He ran after it; groping for it where it
had fallen in the grass.</p>
<p>"Cuckoo! cuckoo!" sounded all around
him. It was as if the wood had suddenly
grown vocal with cuckoos.</p>
<p>He turned his head quickly. The
maiden had disappeared.</p>
<p>"Why did I trust my soul to her
keeping?" he wailed drearily. "If she
should lose it; or mislay it; or should
even let it grow cold! My love! my love!
my love!" he began calling.</p>
<p>"Cuckoo! cuckoo!" kept sounding
across the grass.</p>
<p>He ran hither and hither: he followed
the woodland paths feverishly.</p>
<p>At times he fancied he caught a glimpse
of her vanishing garments; of the sunlight
glinting on her long gold tresses. Now he
imagined he could hear her laughter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>
echoing among the tree-trunks: and anon
he even fancied he could hear her singing.
But he pursued her down the long green
vistas in vain.</p>
<p>He sat down beneath a tree and clasped
his hands drearily. "What a fool I was
to trust my soul to her!" he wailed.</p>
<p>And at that moment he was aware of a
ragged pedlar coming along the forest
glades, and whistling as he came.</p>
<p>"Ho! young man! you look
melancholy," quoth the pedlar. "What
d'ye lack? A philtre to make your sweetheart
love you? Ribbons for a lady? A
collar for your hound?"</p>
<p>"I want a soul," said the young man,
glancing at him hungrily.</p>
<p>"A common want!" quoth the pedlar,
grinning broadly. "But here in my pack
I have souls in plenty. Dip in your hand
and take one boldly!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p>
<p>"I should like to choose. . . ."</p>
<p>"It is take it, or leave it. I allow no
choice. I am offering you a gift."</p>
<p>The pedlar laid his half-open pack on
the grass.</p>
<p>"Dip in your hand and take one, if you
will."</p>
<p>The young man dipped in his hand at a
venture, and drew out one—the soul of an
ape.</p>
<p>"Not that! I will not have that!" cried
he.</p>
<p>"Then you will have none," said the
pedlar, dropping the soul in his pack
again. "If the great Soul Maker, who
manufactures them by the million, allows
neither picking nor choosing, beyond the
casual dip of chance, do you think that a
mere pedlar in souls, like myself, can do
business on a basis which <i>he</i> has found<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>
unprofitable? Pooh, man, get back your
soul <i>if you can</i>, or else you may do without
one, as far as I am concerned." And off
strolled the pedlar, whistling as he went.</p>
<p>The young man leaned his head
dejectedly on his hand.</p>
<p>"How can I get back my soul?" he
moaned.</p>
<p>"Why not live without one?" croaked
a voice above his shoulder.</p>
<p>He looked up, and saw a sooty old
raven peering down at him.</p>
<p>"Live without a soul! You'll never
miss it," croaked the raven.</p>
<p>"Can I?" cried the young man:
amazed, yet hopeful.</p>
<p>"<i>Can I?</i>" croaked the raven, mockingly
echoing him. "<i>Can I?</i> Of course
you can, young fool!"</p>
<p>"Then I will!" exclaimed the young
man, starting to his feet.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span></p>
<p>"That's right," croaked the raven.
"You're the right sort—<i>you</i> are!"</p>
<p>"A capital idea that!" quoth the young
man, cheerfully.</p>
<p>He looked up, but the raven had
hopped away among the branches.</p>
<p>"Well, at any rate, his hint was well
meant, and I'll follow it!" quoth the
young man, striding out boldly towards the
houses which he could just see glimmering
beyond the edge of the wood.</p>
<hr style='width: 45%;' />
<p>"Ugh! How ugly and dirty it has
become!" quoth the maiden, gazing in
the crystal at the soul which she had
coveted and stolen. "I will throw it
away, it no longer amuses me!"</p>
<p>And she threw it from her into the
mire of the city: and the wheels and the
feet rapidly buried it in the mud.</p>
<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span></p><hr style='width: 45%;' />
<p>The grey-haired Bishop looked "so
beautiful" in his coffin, that the deaconesses
and the dear good sisters longed to kiss
him.</p>
<p>"None of 'em ever found out that you
wanted a soul," croaked the raven, who
sat perched on the window-sill, blinking in
the sunshine.</p>
<p>But there was no response to this: for
how can a dead man talk?</p>
<h2>THE END.</h2>
<div class='center'><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><i><small>Henderson & Spalding, Ltd., Marylebone Lane, London, W.</small></i></div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes:</h3>
<p>Obvious punctuation errors repaired.</p>
<p>Both hillside and hill-side were used in this book and were retained.</p>
<p>Text uses both Belovèd and Beloved once.</p>
<p>In the original text, each story began with the title on a page alone, then a blank page, then the
title was repeated at the start of the story itself. These repeated titles were removed to avoid
redundancy.</p>
<p>The remaining correction made is indicated by a dotted line under the correction. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'apprear'">appear</ins>.</p></div>
<pre>
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